Why don't laptops have proper low power states

Actually, they do, it's called the "S0" low power state, and it's part of the ACPI standard. Microsoft calls this "Modern Standby" in Windows (and "suspend to idle" in Linux) , and it's pitched to do exactly what you've described.

The only problem is, the implementation sucks. Most users actually hate the S0 state because it consumes so much power - on some laptops, even the fans may continue to run on S0, and your laptop may overheat if you've closed the lid and chucked it in a bag, and it's in the S0 state.

Also, because Microsoft and Intel have been pushing this so much, the "standby" mode now defaults to S0 instead of S3 (which is full suspend-to-RAM). So many users actually actively seek to disable S0 and go back to proper S3 standby, via registry hacks etc.

So why is S0 so bad? Part of this is due to the limitations, long history and the variable nature of the x86 platform. All the power-saving stuff was implemented as an after-thought - both at the hardware and software levels. Whereas ARM, at least the modern ARM ecosystem, was developed with mobile usage and power saving from ground up. An x86 PC is also made up of components from disjointed manufacturers, and we need all those components to implement the same standards so that it all works well as expected. So for instance, if a particular component isn't capable of entering a low-power or active standby state, then it won't - and you can't do much about that, unless you're Apple and have a tight control over the ecosystem.

The second half of the problem comes with the software. All applications must be modern standby / S0 aware, if not, one of two things will happen: that app will keep the system awake, or the app will get suspended by the Desktop Activity Moderator (DAM). Either way, the app must be capable of running in the DRIPS phase (deepest idle runtime platform state), which rules out most Win32 apps (basically almost every app that's not on the Microsoft Store).

Finally, the reality is that most PC users don't care about modern standby regardless - and why should they, when they've all got smartphones, which handles notifications well? Also, hardly anyone does large file downloads these days, and the people who do still download, wouldn't care about doing it while on battery (and if they do, they can take manual actions to lower the power consumption, such as switching to a power saving plan and turning off the display etc).

Ultimately, most people would expect a laptop to go into a fully suspended state when the lid so closed and they're on battery, because if they're on battery the #1 concern for them would be the battery life. So most people actively seek to disable S0 and see it as a hindrance.

Why don't laptops have proper low power states where useful stuff like downloads can run during sleep/with the lid closed?

Wow, this is the exact opposite of what I want. If I tell it to sleep, it's supposed to sleep, not run, download and install anything. If you want it to do that, you can set it to not go to sleep when you close the lid. What are you worried about exactly? Electricity bill because of a laptop?

For more info on Apple’s implementation:

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/what-is-power-nap-mh40773/mac

I suspect doing it well requires a tighter level of hardware/software integration than PCs can offer.

What you're describing exists, just not for what you're trying to do with it.

(sO) modern standby has your box sit there in low power mode waking up occasionally to check for updates.

I've attached one of my mesh central power logs from a laptop that's allowed to run s0.

But you can't use it for torrent downloads and user apps. Even if it allowed you to try it wouldn't work, s0 doesn't save any power while the updates are installing They still need all the power to do the install and handle the crypto. They just shut back down when they're done which isn't how torrent clients work

That's interesting, I never thought this would be a feature that someone would want.

For desktops, standby totally makes sense. But for a laptop that's meant to be carried around and runs on battery, I'm willing to bet in majority of use-cases, sleeping when closing the lid makes sense for the following reasons:

1. Closing the lid usually means the user is packing it up and moving the laptop - in which case things like downloads won't be reliable if you're constantly moving out of wifi networks

2. Again, if the user is moving the laptop, preserving battery life is important.

3. Some laptops are designed so their airflow works best when open, so heat may be an issue. Not to mention you runt he risk of users putting it in their bag and then the laptop overheating.

Of course its possible to detect when the laptop is plugged in vs not plugged in, but ultimately it just seems like your use-case is in the minority, so there isn't much support for it - anyone who's determined enough will find a way to disable sleep when the lid is closed like you did.

one workaround is to perhaps set the screen to turn off after 5 minutes, and you can keep the laptop plugged in without closing the lid? The screen probably draws the most energy when idle - when you're plugged in I'm willing to bet the energy consumption of a laptop with its screen turned off is pretty minimal.

ARM vs x86 is part of the equation; ARM uses significantly less power than x86, but has a simplified instruction. x86 consumes more power but is more robust and has higher computing capabilities and higher workload efficiency

The other half of the equation is OS level software that can restrict what is allowed to process during said low power sleep.

In theory nothing stops x86 hardware from having something comparable, but it would probably use a lot more power than you'd expect.

There are ways to make windows and Linux wake at certain times for actions via wake timers which isn't quite the same, though

You've answered your own question. It's a PC laptop with a full fat processor and GPU. Certain x86 chips which have super low power states still don't make use of it because of the billion softwares there may be installed which keep the processor from entering that state. Then there's the motherboard issue. Not all of them support such states. Here's a video from Wolfgang, it's for PCs but the same applies for laptops.

I thought most Linux distros support this out of the box?

They do have these states.

Wait that's not the standard?

You are a crazy edge case and very few people want that option.