21–30 of 288 posts
It’s unfortunate that the author has disavowed Apple for its charger practices from the 20th century. While still far from perfect, Apple has progressed on its chargers, and with USB-C now, a durable charger is no longer a necessity (I charge my laptop by plugging it in my display).
I don't toss my old devices out, they get another 5-10 years use in someone else's hands so much of the environmental impact arguments are more-or less irrelevant.
The 11" Macbook Air solved the laptop form factor. Thin, light, very portable, USB ports on each side , headphone jack and an external monitor port (in this case, thunderbolt). Could there be some refinements to my 2015 MBA ? Certainly - the two type-A USB ports could remain type A but be upgraded to USB3 ... you could add a USB-C port on each side in place of the magsafe and lightning ports and gain the ability to c…
Welcome to ~2004 in IBM ThinkPad X-series land, IBM "solved the laptop form factor" ~4 years prior to Apple's Air.
And even before that Sony's PCG-Z505 delivered most of this in a robust and lightweight magnesium package.
As someone coming from the other direction of this "hack", I agree with the author's point to match needs to hardware. Since being introduced to Linux in high school in the early 2000s, I have had a penchant for bringing old computers back from the dead. As a result, every laptop I have ever owned has been one that a friend or partner throws away when Windows gets slow. Every 3-5 year old laptop I have found can be b…
Have you considered a desktop? They are much faster than laptops, who are constrained by thermal issues. It’s hard to dissipate 500W+ of heat from a laptop-sized thing, they simply don’t have enough available surface for air intakes and exhausts. If you want a smaller one to be occasionally portable, there’s Mini-ITX. I currently use a PC I built in this case: https://www.fractal-design.com/products/cases/node/node-2…
If portability isn't a consideration, them I still recommend desktops when buying a computer. My home desktop is 8 years old (bought in 2012) and running fine and fast. Of course, it has been upgraded e.g. it has more memory and a second hard drive.
Desktops give you the space to upgrade without having to wastefully throw away perfectly working components. Can one say the same about laptops?
It’s unfortunate that the author has disavowed Apple for its charger practices from the 20th century. While still far from perfect, Apple has progressed on its chargers, and with USB-C now, a durable charger is no longer a necessity (I charge my laptop by plugging it in my display).
The way I understand the author is that he would also be someone who would not be willing to buy another (pricey) adapter, because apple decided to drop support for port x.
Right now I'd say the third party power options are better than OEM, even for Apple.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The way I understand the author is that he would also be someone who would not be willing to buy another (pricey) adapter, because apple decided to drop support for port x.
This is a weird perspective when all newer Apple laptops use a standardized port which is reasonably well supported by third parties and will be for another 10-20 years. Right now I'd say the third party power options are better than OEM, even for Apple.
I’m a software engineer doing mostly iOS work these days. I recently purchased a 2015 MacBook Pro for $750 on eBay. It’s fine . I’m in Xcode, the browser, or a terminal most of the day. I’m sure a newer computer would seem faster, but I couldn’t imagine spending 3x for a newer version of this thing that’s working just fine for my needs. Some people reading this probably have processor-intensive tasks they routinely p…
> Some people reading this probably have processor-intensive tasks they routinely perform. But most of us don’t, even developers.
I stick to newer systems. For me, sluggish IDEs and slow builds are disruptive to my workflow. I can usually either resell or gift my older still useful systems.
I seem to have standardized on Dell laptops, mostly because I have drawers full of their interchangeable accessories, like power adapters and docking stations. I've been happy with their Precision line, or the higher-end models of their Latitude line. [Edited: to make the relationship between Precision and Latitude more clear.] The sweet spot in age seems to be 2-4 years old, probably when corporate users are refreshed, and the old ones are wiped and sold.
Off-topic: Does anyone else have a hard time reading the article due to its blue/orange background? I find it visually painful to read a paragraph when it is split into 2 colors. I have to scroll the paragraph to one color or the other.
All because it can take freaking weeks in my experience, and they can mess up and not fix it at all...
Of course, I only buy used/refurb, so they're really cheap - cheaper than one new one.
There is a big difference in performance though, you can't buy something too old if you want to do anything intensive. Fortunately for me (and unfortunately for the environment), companies throw away perfectly fine workstation-class laptops every year it seems.
I'd like to get some Ryzen machines next, the performance for the money is unmatched.
I've also been thinking a small form factor desktop coupled with any laptop as a display could be a better choice - new laptops come with soldered CPUs, GPUs, even RAM, which is a shame. A desktop would be upgradeable for a good while. And I see you could build them really small, like XBox small, they'd fit in luggage rather easily.
Also, pardon me, but wtf is this about:
> tiny and messy IT shop run by a Chinese in Antwerp, Belgium. The Chinese may not have a reputation for building quality products, but they sure know how to fix things.
Really man? -_-