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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

#171

Post by dionidium »

hh3k0 wrote: post #14
dionidium wrote: post #4

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 I’m sure a newer computer would seem faster, but I couldn’t imagine spending 3x for a newer version of this thing that’s working just fine for my needs.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…

> There’s a limit to this, but it’s further back than you might think. I also have a 2012 quad-core Mac Mini that’s still in regular use. It’s also fine! No recent version on Xcode would work on this one, though.

That’s not entirely correct. Mine’s running Catalina and was running the latest version of Xcode as of late summer, which is the last time I powered it on. Big Sur just dropped support for this model.

See: https://eshop.macsales.com/guides/Mac_OS_X_Compatibility

But you’re right that this means this particular model’s days are numbered. Shame! The quad-core Mini from this era still works quite well!

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#172

Post by antiterra »

nuker wrote: post #77
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…

> As a coder, working on something older Have you seen Retina HiDPI displays? You'd never go back.

I have Retina/HiDPI everything, but I still sorely miss the speed of a real text mode, and, for coding, would miss nothing about high-dpi font rendering.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#173

Post by sneak »

raunakdag wrote: post #55
dmichulke wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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?

German has no word for "silly". "Funny", "stupid", et c, yes, but no "silly".

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#174

Post by [deleted] »

jodrellblank wrote: post #143
nuker wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

[deleted]

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#175

Post by sneak »

fheld wrote: post #11
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…

>(in this case, lightning) I suppose you mean Thunderbolt

It doesn't help the situation that a Thunderbolt port's icon is a bolt of lightning.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#176

Post by hollerith »

antiterra wrote: post #172
nuker wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a coder, working on something older Have you seen Retina HiDPI displays? You'd never go back.

I have Retina/HiDPI everything, but I still sorely miss the speed of a real text mode, and, for coding, would miss nothing about high-dpi font rendering.

Interesting. I used text mode daily for many years on a succession of 3 PCs and did not notice any slowness when I switched to graphics mode (around 2006). I am pretty sure graphics mode is slower, and I didn't notice only because the slowdown does not bother me.

Similarly, when I switched from Terminal.app to Emacs's shell mode for interacting with Bash, I didn't mind the fact that it was much slower (because "cursor control characters" and ANSI color codes are processed by Emacs byte code rather than much faster objective C code) whereas other users here on HN find Emacs shell mode unusably slow.

I am usually the first person to be annoyed (e.g., by the flicker from many brands of LED bulbs) so it is refreshing to find a tech trend that annoys someone else before it annoys me because I have the luxury of sitting back and watching them lobby for reform before the trend continues far enough to annoy me :)

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#177

Post by [deleted] »

dmichulke wrote: post #35
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…

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

[deleted]

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#178

Post by glouwbug »

jansc wrote: post #61
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.

I rocked a T43 (from 2005) until 2012, then called it quits, and got a x230 which I still use until now. I always thought I was crazy running a 2005 machine until 2012, but the x230 has been up and running for 8 years now.

It's a very good machine, and it fits in my little blue shoulder lunch bag

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#179

Post by ohazi »

The sweet spot for me seems to be last year's thinkpad + all the parts needed for a complete refurbishment + upgrades.

  eBay thinkpad: $400-$800
  ssd: $150
  new battery: $100

  (As needed)
  new keyboard: $50
  new trackpad: $30
  new plastic parts: $140
  new hinges: $20
  new display: $150
  ram: $100
You can spend more on the laptop and skip some/all of the cosmetic refurbishment, or spend less on a junker and replace everything. Either way, you can end up with a "looks and feels new" machine for around $1000 that would be comparable to a $1500 - $2200 model if you bought it new.

It's also kind of fun.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#180

Post by nonford150 »

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.

The Z was the ultimate - traveled everywhere with it. If it only could be updated a bit...
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