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How and why I stopped buying new laptops

solar.lowtechmagazine.com

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Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#121

Post by aksss »

dayofthedaleks wrote: post #117
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…

“Gilding the lily.”

An idiom rather than a word, but that’s exactly it. “Lilly-gilding”, then, might be the “word” that meets the requirements.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#122

Post by sfgweilr4f »

agumonkey wrote: post #58
karaterobot wrote: post #12

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*. Can't help coin a new word, but Ralph Caplan described this phenomenon really well. I'm a (software) designer, and I think about this all the time: > When cuffs disappeared from men’s trousers, fashion designers gave interviews explaining…

It's indeed the differential nature of markets. People have a finite memory capacity.. once they forgot that trousers used to have cuffs.. you can reintroduce it as novelty. -- Marcus Aurelius

What was old is new again. -- someone else

(rephrased Aurelius? Probably)

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#124

Post by mook »

amelius wrote: post #68
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 product…

It's important to note that your "average" customer is self—selected; the "average" Apple customer probably doesn't play AAA games (because anybody who does would have needed to buy a Windows machine with higher-end graphics). That is not the same as the "average" laptop buyer would not want to play them, though.

That doesn't mean Apple necessarily needs to go after those people, though, if they believe their current balance can get them customers they want.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#125

Post by aksss »

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…

I think 16 is getting to the end of its usefulness in a laptop these days, but finding ultrabooks with 32 is still rather difficult (surface, XPS, ...?).

Truth is the OEMs are just trying to move product, their mission isn’t to be the rising tide that improves compute capability for society. High competition, low margin business in the PC world and most consumers don’t know enough about computers to understand what they’re buying - just look at how many people buy “gaming” computers at Walmart or Costco.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#126

Post by Ar-Curunir »

bserge wrote: post #30

I too, try to get 2 identical laptops - if one goes down, the other can take over, if both break, I can most likely use parts from both to make a functional one, while waiting for parts to arrive or for the service shop to fix the broken machine. 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 t…

Yeah the entire bit about Chinese folks in the article makes me really skeptical about the rest of the author’s “advice”

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#127

Post by waiseristy »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #70

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 batter…

Interesting you had such a bad experience with your T430. Mine served me faithfully for almost 8 years without a single issue. Even took quite a few hits that would have destroyed most other laptops. Upgraded to a t490 and also have had 0 issues with that, though it does seem to be a bit more fragile

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#128

Post by manicdee »

scrooched_moose wrote: post #114
raunakdag wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has anyone else noticed that when conversations about “we need x word for y concept” arise, the German language nearly always seems to be the one that has something similar or already present?

It's because the German language is highly compound. Take any descriptive phrase, remove the spaces, and you have a new word. In English, it'd be the equivalent of taking "make worse by improving" and turning it into "makeworsebyimproving". When I was learning German, we were taught the language has far fewer core nouns than English (4000 vs 20,000 is stuck in my head, but this is going back years), but then they bas…

German is the perfect language for engineers and KSP players.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#129

Post by edsonmedina »

For a low-tech solar powered website, it does require a lot of loading (>500Kb for the homepage, >350kb just for this article).

You should optimize your images. This would probably drastically reduce your electricity use per unique visitor.

Nice article by the way. I love the frugality.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#130

Post by runawaybottle »

HPsquared wrote: post #45
karaterobot wrote: post #12

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*. Can't help coin a new word, but Ralph Caplan described this phenomenon really well. I'm a (software) designer, and I think about this all the time: > When cuffs disappeared from men’s trousers, fashion designers gave interviews explaining…

In fashion, "newness" is a function.

And further, reverting is a form of newness in fashion.
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