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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

#81

Post by watermelon59 »

timvisee wrote: post #69
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.

Things are slow because of garbage bloated software. If devs stopped piling on ever more crap on existing systems and switched to optimizing their code, things would at least stay at the same performance or even gasp run faster.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#82

Post by rowanG077 »

nuker wrote: post #72
dmichulke wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In German you have verschlimmbessern - making something worse in an attempt to improve it

Germans are cheating a bit, they just concatenate existing words and "hey, we have a word!"

That's not true. You can find "verschlimmbessern" in any dictionary [1][2].

[1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/verschlimmbessern

[2] https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/verschlimmbessern

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#83

Post by timvisee »

watermelon59 wrote: post #81
timvisee wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Things are slow because of garbage bloated software. If devs stopped piling on ever more crap on existing systems and switched to optimizing their code, things would at least stay at the same performance or even gasp run faster.

Totally agree. Especially with al the Electron crap and such. But, I'm afraid you won't be able to change that, and that it'll only be getting worse.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#84

Post by r00fus »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #73
amelius wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 product…

>Apparently, you are not the "average" customer. So supposedly the average customer needs USB ports, but only on one side of the computer?

The average person is agnostic to which side they’re on. The desire for any given feature is balanced by other features and overall design/usability.

I’m not crying a river about my new M1 MacBook having ports only on one side. Very much offset by amazing battery life.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#85

Post by ClumsyPilot »

nuker wrote: post #74
mancerayder wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (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.

For some CPUs 8G is the maximum amount, makes sense soldering it. J4105 for example on my SBC.

That CPU is like embedded or Netbook/rock bottomn class computer, thats bot the limitatin most computers are saddled with

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#86

Post by na85 »

Talanes wrote: post #38
prvc wrote: post #16

There are only so many 2006-2012 vintage Thinkpads in existence, as he mentions in the last section. This certainly relevant to his "this is a hack" point, however, one should note that prices for these items used has been going up lately, a very unusual trend for used PCs. I hope manufacturers notice this latent value in the PC market.

I remember some years ago when I still lurked 4chan that /t/ was all about buying old thinkpads, installing Arch on them, and showing off your i3 set-up. Prices were rising then too.

You mean /g/? /t/ is Torrents.

There was a good thing going there for a while but 4chan seems to have really declined in quality of late.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#87

Post by jamesrcole »

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…

> The 11" Macbook Air solved the laptop form factor.

That's weirdly-specific. Some people would prefer a larger screen size, for example.

> Could there be some refinements to my 2015 MBA ?

I upgraded from a 2015 (I think) MBA to a 2018 model (both 13" ones), and two actual improvements that I like are: larger trackpad size, and smaller overall dimensions (so there's a smaller bezel around the screen, for example).

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#88

Post by nuker »

rowanG077 wrote: post #82
nuker wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germans are cheating a bit, they just concatenate existing words and "hey, we have a word!"

That's not true. You can find "verschlimmbessern" in any dictionary [1][2]. [1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/verschlimmbessern [2] https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/verschlimmbessern

Blend of verschlimmern (“to make worse”) +‎ verbessern (“to improve”)

From your link ...

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#89

Post by FemmeAndroid »

d1amonds wrote: post #75

I just imagined a completely silent typewriter that can write to usb sticks and perhaps print previously typed documents. I'm not at all sure about this printing. Perhaps all it should do is allow me to write - and nothing else.

It’s not exactly what you’re after but I love my Alphasmart neo 2. I can type on it, and I can spit it’s contents into a computer to print. It’s an excellent portable writing machine that’s been around for a while, and is quite inexpensive to pick up on eBay.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#90

Post by _carbyau_ »

open-source-ux wrote: post #25

What about desktop computers? They are arguably more long-lasting, adaptable (upgradable), more powerful and cheaper than laptops. But of course, their prinicpal disadvantage is their lack of portability. 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 mo…

Decisions in portable vs not may be a side effect of stability in lifestyle space.

Desktop implies desk. And well, a chair I guess. :-)

People living in various group houses, moving all the time etc see a laptop as making that all easy. Let alone those living from their car etc etc.

Anecdotally, I am fortunate enough to be amazed at friends who want a "gaming laptop" but then have a "nest" on the couch hunched over the coffee table.

I keep wondering why they don't set aside a space for themselves when computing. And if you do that, a desktop naturally follows...

For me, a desktop, tablet and phone covers it all. And the tablet may not get replaced when it's time is up.

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