Skylake vs Kaby Lake laptop

[Tribble]

I'm looking for a new laptop, and right now there are quite a few good deals out there for Skylake-based laptops. However, Kaby-Lake laptops ae going to be rolling out over the next few months. From what I can tell so far the key differences between the two seem to be:

Native support for UDB 3.1 / Thunderbolt 3, which should mean that many more laptops have a USB-C port (which still isn't common atm)
Much better support for 4K videos, with significantly reduced power consumption while viewing them when compared to Skylake
Support for HDMI 2.0
Moderate improvements in overall graphics / battery life / cpu speed etc.

Would it be better to wait and pay a bit extra for a Kaby-Lake laptop, or should I buy a Skylake laptop right now while it's on sale?

For comparison, my current laptop is an Ivy Bridge i5 with an Intel HD4000, and it's starting to show its age (especially given the dead battery). Would the differences between Skylake and Kaby Lake be noticeable to me?

[General Zod]

If you can afford it I'd say go for the Kaby Lake.

[Mr Bean]

Since only Zod's replied so far I'll add my bit.
Waiting for Kraby Lake will reward you with a tiny amount of more power and far longer battery life when viewing video content. There's lots of fringe benefits but again even a Sandylake cpu (Now five years old) of a high enough frequency can match a brand new Kraby Lake cpu. There's still no solid reason to upgrade except for the fringe benefits from having new architecture. That may change on the desktop side but on the moble side a three year old laptop will be held back more by it's gpu or a failing battery than it's cpu.

[Tribble]

Thanks for the replies. Is the battery life improvements applicable to all resolutions, or 4k video in particular? I'm considering buying a 1080p non-touch screen seeing as they they are cheaper and generally consume less energy. Would I notice the difference with a 1080P screen? Or is it that Kaby Lake makes 4K viewing efficient enough that there is no practical difference between a 4K screen and a 1080P screen when it comes to battery life?

Also, is it worth getting a laptop with USB-C support for future-proofing?

[General Zod]

Thanks for the replies. Is the battery life improvements applicable to all resolutions, or 4k video in particular? I'm considering buying a 1080p non-touch screen seeing as they they are cheaper and generally consume less energy. Would I notice the difference with a 1080P screen? Or is it that Kaby Lake makes 4K viewing efficient enough that there is no practical difference between a 4K screen and a 1080P screen when it comes to battery life?

Also, is it worth getting a laptop with USB-C support for future-proofing?

On a laptop I'd say the difference between 1080p and 720 is pretty massive enough to justify an upgrade. I'm currently on a 1080p Acer Aspire R14 (with solid state drive), and the thought of having to use a lower resolution makes me cringe.

[Mr Bean]

Thanks for the replies. Is the battery life improvements applicable to all resolutions, or 4k video in particular? I'm considering buying a 1080p non-touch screen seeing as they they are cheaper and generally consume less energy. Would I notice the difference with a 1080P screen? Or is it that Kaby Lake makes 4K viewing efficient enough that there is no practical difference between a 4K screen and a 1080P screen when it comes to battery life?

Put it in prospective, pre Kraby lake a 4k movie might eat your entire battery, now you can watch an entire movie and have 30%-35% of you battery left over (Depending on laptop battery size) but in everything else it will be the traditional 3%-6% better battery. We've not had that massive an overall battery life jump since Sandylake (Which literally had laptops go from two or three hours to seven to nine depending on usage). Remember always battery size matters so an old laptop which has twice the physical battery will go farther than a low speed kraby lake cpu.

Also, is it worth getting a laptop with USB-C support for future-proofing?

Maybe, it's supposed to be the next USB thing but converts still exist, so in a year I'd say yes, now I say maybe because a year from now me will know for sure if the industry moves over to usb-c 100%