How and why I stopped buying new laptops • Hacker News Board

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#141

Post by mattmanser » Mon, Dec 21, 2020, 1:45 AM UTC

aksss wrote: post #125

chiefalchemist wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

Really? I got a 16gb laptop in Feb 2015 and I' doubt I'd get more than that if I bought a new one today. I've never seen it get even close to max memory.

Work-wise, at least. If it was a gaming machine I'd probably buy 32gb.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#142

Post by fy20 » Mon, Dec 21, 2020, 1:46 AM UTC

Tade0 wrote: post #100

I get the point the author is trying to make, but I think the environmental savings on not buying a laptop are miniscule comparing to all the other components of his carbon footprint. That flight from Belgium to Spain alone, which he likely took, was around 1,000 megajoules.

For those who don't work in megajoules, that's around 277kWh, which an average EV would drive around 1000 miles on.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#143

Post by jodrellblank » Mon, Dec 21, 2020, 1:52 AM UTC

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!"

Is that so different from "downsizing", "television", "textbook", "wallpaper", "motorbike", "grapefruit", "agoraphobia", "airport", "manslaughter", "candlestick", et al?

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#144

Post by mumblemumble » Mon, Dec 21, 2020, 2:00 AM UTC

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.

Software's not so different. Particularly, but not only, when it has a GUI.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#145

Post by bane » Mon, Dec 21, 2020, 2:07 AM UTC

I'm seriously considering switching over to a Shadow PC and downsizing my home computing needs. Reasons:

- It's relatively cheap, starts under $200/yr. It would take years to equal the cost of an equivalent system.

- Like most cloud services they'll upgrade the hardware over time.

- I can log into my exact same workstation from anywhere, on any device and even pick up from where I last left off.

- I can upgrade to more powerful GPUs if I need, up to absolutely state of the art 30xx level. The base level has a 1080 equivalent.

- It has USB passthrough so I can use whatever I/O devices I want.

- The virtual desktop has gigabit internet connectivity.

Some downsides:

- RAM as only 12GB

- Disk starts at 256GB (but you can add more up to 2TB)

- Windows 10

However....there are upgrade packages coming soon with up to 32GB RAM, better GPUs and more default storage.

TBH, I have 10 year old laptops in the closet I could use with this that would suddenly make them viable systems again.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#146

Post by sershe » Mon, Dec 21, 2020, 2:15 AM UTC

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…

There is/was a trope that an average Apple user only uses Safari so there's no need for this or that feature (starting from when Jobs was against having an appstore for the first iPhone), that's the only way I can think of that this statement is correct.

My laptops serve 2 purposes - first, the actual laptop that I use for travel with no monitor, and can use for work, photo processing, movie watching, gaming or whatever with some compromises. For that, 11" is utterly useless; it might have been acceptable in 2005 for checking something online, reading or sending an email, but these days a phone can do that so there are literally 0 uses cases for an 11" laptop imo.

The other use case is a portable desktop that I always plug into a (27-38") monitor for serious work or gaming; for that MBA is woefully underpowered. I used to work for a company where you could choose if you get an MBA (mostly salespeople/PMs/etc.) or an MBP (mostly engineers); there were always jokes about how you could immediately tell who never actually does any work ;)

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#147

Post by GavinMcG » Mon, Dec 21, 2020, 2:16 AM UTC

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.”

Nah, that means adding unnecessary adornment. "Gilding" is explicitly about form. It would be a stretch to use that for a change that worsens something's substance.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#148

Post by kbrackbill » Mon, Dec 21, 2020, 2:18 AM UTC

bane wrote: post #145

I'm seriously considering switching over to a Shadow PC and downsizing my home computing needs. Reasons: - It's relatively cheap, starts under $200/yr. It would take years to equal the cost of an equivalent system. - Like most cloud services they'll upgrade the hardware over time. - I can log into my exact same workstation from anywhere, on any device and even pick up from where I last left off. - I can upgrade to mo…

I've been using Shadow for the past few months as I've been on the road and didn't want to drag my gaming PC with me. Overall it's been a great experience. The biggest downside for my use case is that it's very sensitive to internet quality- internet that's totally fine for streaming video, browsing, etc will cause games to be unplayable on shadow since you need such consistent throughput and latency. Related to this, I haven't gotten USB passthrough (or the joystick forwarding) to work at all really, and I'm guessing that's also a connection quality issue.

For your use case where you're using it at home to downsize I think you'd avoid all of these problems, assuming you have good internet at home.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#149

Post by vbezhenar » Mon, Dec 21, 2020, 2:23 AM UTC

mattmanser wrote: post #141

aksss wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

Really? I got a 16gb laptop in Feb 2015 and I' doubt I'd get more than that if I bought a new one today. I've never seen it get even close to max memory. Work-wise, at least. If it was a gaming machine I'd probably buy 32gb.

AFAIK only few months ago Intel released CPU with LPDDR5 support. And LPDDR4 does not support more than 16 GB. Not sure about AMD.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#150

Post by girvo » Mon, Dec 21, 2020, 2:24 AM UTC

bane wrote: post #145

I'm seriously considering switching over to a Shadow PC and downsizing my home computing needs. Reasons: - It's relatively cheap, starts under $200/yr. It would take years to equal the cost of an equivalent system. - Like most cloud services they'll upgrade the hardware over time. - I can log into my exact same workstation from anywhere, on any device and even pick up from where I last left off. - I can upgrade to mo…

I used Parsec with an AWS GPU instance for gaming for a couple of years. As long as your connection is good and you don’t ever want to access it offline, I can recommend this paradigm!