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Thin yet Repairable Devices: HP Proves They Exist

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Re: Thin yet Repairable Devices: HP Proves They Exist

#41

Post by pmontra »

dijit wrote: post #40
dagw wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HP makes both great and terrible laptops. Their higher end professional laptops (like the Z series laptops) have always been solid, well built and easy to update. Their more consumer focused laptops have always been complete garbage.

I have a Z-series laptop and an elite book (same generation, Haswell CPUs) The zbook is just garbage. Hot garbage. We had all of them fail due to woefully inadequate cooling. Only 2 are still working (out of 10) The elitebook 820g2 is better. I have the only surviving one there though.

My ZBook from 2014 is still working and it's 30C in summer here, until I switch on the air conditioner. Which model did you buy and from which year? I'm asking to know if I should steer clear from newer models.

Re: Thin yet Repairable Devices: HP Proves They Exist

#42

Post by TeMPOraL »

godelski wrote: post #13

I hope this gets a lot of praise. Being able to repair isn't just a hobby. It saves people a lot of money and is really beneficial to the environment. It is something we should strive for. Computers have gotten fast enough where most consumers don't need all the latest and greatest hardware. Frankly most people just surf the internet and watch netflix. We should encourage repair-ability

And with somewhat standardized components, even the broken devices can get cannibalized for parts and used to upgrade or fix different devices.

(As long as companies don't try to solder it, you can always swap at least RAM and storage. Around friends and family, I had plenty of times where somebody fried their computer (e.g. water damage), and the drive and RAM from it found second or third life in someone else's laptop. My last laptop was a broken one I fixed and upgraded with components from two others. And even if you're not into this level of computer necromancy, you can always sell the parts to those who are.)

Re: Thin yet Repairable Devices: HP Proves They Exist

#43

Post by dagw »

dijit wrote: post #40
dagw wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HP makes both great and terrible laptops. Their higher end professional laptops (like the Z series laptops) have always been solid, well built and easy to update. Their more consumer focused laptops have always been complete garbage.

I have a Z-series laptop and an elite book (same generation, Haswell CPUs) The zbook is just garbage. Hot garbage. We had all of them fail due to woefully inadequate cooling. Only 2 are still working (out of 10) The elitebook 820g2 is better. I have the only surviving one there though.

Weird, the company I used to work at had probably 100+ Z-series laptops of various generations 2013-2018 and, with very few exceptions, they all performed great.

Re: Thin yet Repairable Devices: HP Proves They Exist

#44

Post by scottlocklin »

flukus wrote: post #14
sliken wrote: post #3

But should they? I suspect a majority of the market would take a few extra mm of thickness for a durable laptop with a durable battery that would last a few more years. But instead manufacturers of laptops, phones, and tablets are putting in substandard batteries to help ensure you come back in a few years for a new one. Especially evil is when there's no screws and they epoxy the battery.

I'd take a lot of extra thickness. I had a cleanout of old tech recently and found an 10" HP laptop I hadn't used for a few years and fighting the nostalgia to get rid of that one was hard. It was such a solid, thick and chunky little thing that I could put through hell and would just keep on working. It was just perfect for it's job of mostly coding during commute time. I don't feel remotely the same way about the t…

Wrote my thesis on an Omnibook 800 (with 16 megs of ram, lol) running twm. Miss the form factor, the ruggedness and the amazeballs integrated mouse. Still can't understand why people haven't copied the mouse design. Then again, I still can't understand why manufacturers are incapable of producing a nice keyboard like the Omnibook 800 had.

http://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=233

HP of today ... it's just a brand. The engineers that designed sturdy and usable stuff like the Omnibook 800 have been all put out to pasture or went to Agilent.

Re: Thin yet Repairable Devices: HP Proves They Exist

#45

Post by paranoidrobot »

robocat wrote: post #38
paranoidrobot wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it depends entirely on the surface finish given to the device. Brushed or patterned aluminium can be very 'grippy' (eg the lid on my old Asus Zenbook), even more than the Thinkpads with the matte plastic. I'd rather a sandblasted/high gloss metal case over the awful soft-touch plastic of Dell's XPS line.

> awful soft-touch plastic of Dell's XPS line Which XPS line are you referencing? I have last year's XPS 15: metal lid and metal frame. "Color Choice: Silver machined aluminum", "Cut with precision from a single block of aluminum for a sturdy, durable chassis in a beautiful design", "The palm rest is made from carbon fiber". From: https://www.dell.com/en-au/work/shop/business-laptops-ultrab...

Unless they've changed things in the last year or so, their XPS 15 and 13 have a soft-touch plastic that's probably got carbon fiber in it, or at least patterned that way - but it's got some sort of coating that is a rubber/polymer of some kind that's soft and almost sticky.

It's sort of like the buttons on some TV remotes.

Re: Thin yet Repairable Devices: HP Proves They Exist

#47

Post by stallmanite »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #22
el_benhameen wrote: post #17

Anyone use one of these for work and care to share their opinion? I got burned real bad (figuratively, though it did get very hot) by a garbage HP laptop in like 2006, so I’m curious if the build and general quality have improved.

It would be a bit sad if they made them repairable because they fail so often. Being more serious I’m not sure this is considered in the debate about repairability. If Apple soldering memory to the motherboard is more reliable than using a socket is that better or worse for the life of the product.

Except then upgrades are impossible so when software moves on the device is useless anyway. Why defend this practice?

Re: Thin yet Repairable Devices: HP Proves They Exist

#48

Post by stallmanite »

eropple wrote: post #8
bsder wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is whether they are still complete garbage. I'm not the only one who absolutely refuses to buy anything branded HP.

The Spectre laptops are pretty dang nice and are Linux-friendly. The dark-and-copper one looks fantastic, too. I'd be using one right now, instead of a Thinkpad T480, if they didn't put Ctrl and Fn in the wrong places. (My hands just can't re-learn that one.)

I suffer from a similarly idiotic keyboard. I think the name of the “Fn” key is quite appropriate. (As in this F ing key is where CTRL should be!)

Re: Thin yet Repairable Devices: HP Proves They Exist

#50

Post by abdullahkhalids »

_emacsomancer_ wrote: post #36
fyfy18 wrote: post #32

Thinkpads are in the same boat. I have a T470s, which at it's thickest point is 1.8cm when closed (it tapers down to 1.6cm) and weighs 1.3kg. The other day I upgraded the NVMe drive, which involved unscrewing 5 screws on the back cover (they don't remove completely, so you can't lose them), pulling it off, then removing the screw securing the drive in place, pulling out the drive, then doing the same in reverse to pu…

The newer ThinkPads seem much less user-servicable than the older models though. I hope Lenovo returns to a user-servicability>thinness approach at some point.

I don't know how much more servicable the older models were, but the newer models come with an instruction manual that explains how to replace most of the parts. Unfortunately, the screen is not included in this list. But Youtube has you covered there. My only complaint after repairing my own thinkpad is that the body material is a bit flimpsy and the clips will break after being opened several times.
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