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How and why I stopped buying new laptops

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Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#61

Post by jansc »

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #19

I also stopped buying new laptops. The full biological cost is hard to fully imagine, just incredible in size. If you think about it, hundreds and thousands of plant, bacterial, animal, mammal, bird, and other lives are laid down for each of these amazing powerful artefacts. If there are previously used alternatives available, I cannot in good conscience vote for the creation of another one. So I started with a coupl…

I did the same thing. Bought a refurbished Thinkpad X250 and installed FreeBSD on it. Now it use it as my main development machine. I haven't look back since.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#62

Post by Igelau »

mlacks wrote: post #6

> If you do graphical or audiovisual work, it’s more complicated, because in that case, you’re probably an Apple user and unwilling to listen. Well that’s too bad. Sounds like the author just didn’t have the experience or energy to give advice to windows/ Linux users like myself that do audio/ graphical work. I was really interested in seeing what he had to offer. I personally use an NEC Lavie Hybrid Zero to make my…

Ah, thanks. That spares me from attempting to read past that awful "power level as backdrop" trick. Maybe it looks okay on desktop, but on low-tier mobile it's unbearable.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#63

Post by alliao »

pengaru wrote: post #23
rsync wrote: post #9

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…

> Thin, light, very portable, USB ports on each side, headphone jack and an external monitor port (in this case, thunderbolt). 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.

you've reminded me of my lovely Panasonic Let's Note W series, thank you

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#64

Post by mancerayder »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #13
rsync wrote: post #9

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…

That word is: lack of market research. I recently finished up shopping for a Windows laptop. It took awhile, as I balanced price with features. You'd be shock how many otherwise decently config'ed offerings lacked a key and basic feature (e.g., backlit KB), or was deficient in some key way (e.g., mid-priced models with only 8 GB RAM soldered, no ability to upgrade). I agree. Some might not need backlit or more than 8…

> (e.g., mid-priced models with only 8 GB RAM soldered, no ability to upgrade).

Aw, man, that's been a sticking point for years, that magic 8G. I don't know how they do it, but 8G of RAM has been the ever-soldered / or mid-range / you-need-to-pay-more-for-the-next-model-up thing for at least 5-6 years now. Even a web browser can eat up that 8G if it's hungry enough.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#65

Post by Retric »

pengaru wrote: post #23
rsync wrote: post #9

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…

> Thin, light, very portable, USB ports on each side, headphone jack and an external monitor port (in this case, thunderbolt). 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.

I liked the ~2004 Thinkpad’s, but sadly they had crap battery life by today’s standards. You could install larger batteries and swap them out if they started to degrade, but most people just treated them as needing to be plugged in 24/7.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#67

Post by xyst »

fakedang wrote: post #57

Who tf be spending 1600 Euros on a laptop? Bruh... And who substitutes that with a 2006 version laptop? face-palm Like another comment down below mentions, companies toss away perfectly good laptops after a year or two, which can be bought in the ballpark of 150-300 quid/euros/USD. They'll last 2-3 years on average, and even longer if you aren't into intensive activities. Just go to some IT guy in a multinational - I…

doesn't even have to be a "multinational" company, any entity that buys computers in bulk can be a candidate (local schools or a small business).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EATdYG7h9IQ

apparently a private school is Aussie land was going to throw 100 of these MacBooks into the dumpster/landfill. They were intercepted by someone else and this person received 15 of those MacBooks (I guess he just paid for shipping and handling?). After repairing them, he had 11 functioning computers at the end of the video. The other 4 were salvaged for parts or something like that.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#68

Post by amelius »

rsync wrote: post #9

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…

> We need to actually coin a word to describe "company solved their use-case wonderfully and can't resist fiddling around with it for reasons that don't align with their user-base.

Apple can only serve so many people well.

Apparently, you are not the "average" customer.

I'm in this exact situation every time I go shopping for shoes and find out I'm not within 1-sigma from the mean.

It sucks, but it's how mass production and mass integration works. Choice becomes very limited, and no company will rise to address a specific shortcoming for a specific group.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#69

Post by timvisee »

rsync wrote: post #9

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…

What about the performance though? I believe these older models can be unbearably slow, just to browse the web with. For some of my friends this is a problem just because of the limited RAM, but you won't be able to upgrade it because it's soldered on.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#70

Post by ThePhysicist »

IMHO, the Thinkpad T430 was one of the worst T-series laptops Lenovo ever produced. Mine barely lasted 3 years and had to be serviced multiple times as the screen hinges broke and the fan became super loud, among other things.

The T460p which I use now is much better. I'm currently testing a T490 as a replacement, which seems quite nice as well but has some annoying features (glossy display, integrated smaller battery) that might convince me to stay on the T460p for a while longer. Also, CPU performance hasn't really increased in the last 4 years, the T460p has almost the same Geekbench score as the T490. The display is arguably better (nicer color rendition and higher brightness) and the laptop is 35 % lighter as well as signifantly thinner, on the other hand the battery is 30 % smaller and power usage hasn't gone down compared to the T460p, so it maxes out at around 4 hours of usage.

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