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Dear Apple, there’s nothing ‘really sad’ about using a 5-year-old PC

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Re: Dear Apple, there’s nothing ‘really sad’ about using a 5-year-old PC

#51

Post by PaulHoule »

The main problem I see is Intel and Microsoft have given up on power users and it is all Apple envy and phone envy, no wonder people don't buy new PCs.

Back in the 0s I had a policy of never rehabilitating an old PC because a new PC was better in every way.

The other day a friend brought a Macbook from 2007 to me with a busted HDD and I put an ssd I had laying around in and we got Win10 running on it with no drama and no Apple malware (iTunes, boot camp, etc.) It feel faster than a skylake machine with one of those useless hybrid hard drives and after puffing some hcfc gas through the fan it is great.

Any and or pre core 2 machine would go to the trash, I would not even donate it to the poor, but frankly broadwell and skylake are just an excuse to reduce the io slots to put manufacturers of gfx cards.

They say customers get better battery life but software screws that up if they really tried it and the most you can get is spend a lot of money on a thin and light machine that the doorman can slide under the hotel or get a 2 in 1 machine just because you need a trackpad on a touchpad machine and have a fight over if and where you stow it with the stewardess just to have another reason to get arrested at your destination.

I mean, even IBM sells 360 chips that clock over 5 that use water cooling. It is not that hard.

Re: Dear Apple, there’s nothing ‘really sad’ about using a 5-year-old PC

#52

Post by oldmanjay »

I'm not a fan of moralistic handwringing, particularly when it's brought about by uncharitable interpretations of what is clearly just marketing. This and the related articles are such poor quality that it makes me sad to see them get so much traction here. It's the sort of thing I'd expect at dailytech or slashdot.

Re: Dear Apple, there’s nothing ‘really sad’ about using a 5-year-old PC

#53

Post by yoodenvranx »

johansch wrote: post #8

I built a desktop PC almost exactly five years ago. - Intel Core i5 2500K, 3.3 GHz, quad-core (200 USD) - 8B (2x4GB) DDR3 1600MHz C9 (100 USD) - 120GB 2.5" SSD Intel X25-M G2 (200 USD) - GeForce GTX 460 1GB (200 USD) It's sad that a full five years later, CPU performance/USD has barely moved at all. RAM is half the cost now, SSDs a quarter the cost. Not sure about how GPUs have developed? (Edit: The GTX 960 which tod…

I have an even shittier PC than you (Celeron 2.6 GHz for 40 USD, no dedicated GPU) and it is still absolutely fine for everything I do (web development, image processing in python, typing papers in TeX, editing images in Gimp, ...).

If I had to upgrade one component it would be my 22" monitor which is 6 or 7 years old but even for this there is no need.

And replacing my PC with an iPad Pro? lol, wtf? No TeX, no Python/matplotlib, no SublimeText/vim/emacs, no real filesystem, ...

btw, I think you can drop a SSD into almost any shitty PC/Laptop and make it usable again. Before SSDs I had to update my PC quite often because it always felt slow, but SSD have been an absolute game changer for me. I even revived my old trusty T61s by adding a SSD and now it is good again.

Re: Dear Apple, there’s nothing ‘really sad’ about using a 5-year-old PC

#54

Post by Mikeb85 »

mikehearn wrote: post #36

I interpreted that comment as a jab at the PC industry. The implication being that in the last 5+ years the PC industry has failed to offer 600 million users a compelling reason to upgrade. Isn't that the correct interpretation, considering the whole point of bringing that up is because they're positioning a new device intended to replace the PC? I seriously doubt it's intended to mean (to quote the article) "LOL poo…

> The implication being that in the last 5+ years the PC industry has failed to offer 600 million users a compelling reason to upgrade

Or maybe the PC world did so well 5 years ago that Apple hasn't provided them a compelling reason to switch to an iPad?

Re: Dear Apple, there’s nothing ‘really sad’ about using a 5-year-old PC

#55

Post by atomical »

Is there anything sad about using a 5 year old mac? I'm hoping that eventually my mac book pro will last 5-10 years. With multi-core systems, SSDs, and 16 gigs of ram in MBP's do we really need to be upgrading so much? Also, clock speed advances have stalled.

Re: Dear Apple, there’s nothing ‘really sad’ about using a 5-year-old PC

#56

Post by ams6110 »

zepto wrote: post #47
colund wrote: post #24

In times of climate change debate I think Apple is doing the wrong thing here, encouraging buy and throw away mentality increasing waste.

You clearly didn't watch the keynote, since a significant part of it was about unprecedented programs to reuse and recycle their hardware.

Recycling can be a net environmental negative, plus you still have the environmental impact of creating the replacement unit.

Not replacing something that still works is way better than replacing it even if you recycle the old unit.

Re: Dear Apple, there’s nothing ‘really sad’ about using a 5-year-old PC

#59

Post by bitJericho »

aetherson wrote: post #40
mikehearn wrote: post #36

I interpreted that comment as a jab at the PC industry. The implication being that in the last 5+ years the PC industry has failed to offer 600 million users a compelling reason to upgrade. Isn't that the correct interpretation, considering the whole point of bringing that up is because they're positioning a new device intended to replace the PC? I seriously doubt it's intended to mean (to quote the article) "LOL poo…

I don't think that it means "LOL poor people" either. But I do think that it's bullshit marketing talk. Apple is perfectly happy to be proud (rightly, I think) of the enduring utility of older pieces of Apple hardware -- but if some other company's hardware continues to be perfectly serviceable for 5 years, that's sad? Also, if you have a 5 year old PC that's genuinely not serving your needs any more, sure, you could…

Bought a dual CPU workstation with 12gb ram and two quad core 12 mb cache xeons for under 400 bucks. It's about 5 year old tech and its awesome!

Re: Dear Apple, there’s nothing ‘really sad’ about using a 5-year-old PC

#60

Post by gnud »

mikehearn wrote: post #36

I interpreted that comment as a jab at the PC industry. The implication being that in the last 5+ years the PC industry has failed to offer 600 million users a compelling reason to upgrade. Isn't that the correct interpretation, considering the whole point of bringing that up is because they're positioning a new device intended to replace the PC? I seriously doubt it's intended to mean (to quote the article) "LOL poo…

Well, I've had my desktop computer for nearly 5 years. Upgraded the ram once, and added a new hard drive. It still does everything I need it to do.

I understand this is sad for Apple, but I don't see how it's sad for me?

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