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How and why I stopped buying new laptops

solar.lowtechmagazine.com

221–230 of 288 posts

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#221
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…

Actually the Asus 1215B solved it for me, not Air.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny you mention that machine... I just finished a development contract that I did on an early 2013 MBA 11 inch. That little machine made me about $50K. I'm disappointed it cannot run Big Sur but keeping it anyway.

I gave mine a second life as an Ubuntu machine. 2GB is... tight, for almost anything, and I'm a bit concerned about the wear all that swap puts on the SSD. Loved the form factor though, and yeah, that machine was my bread and butter for a solid year.

The irony that when I bought Slackware 2.0, my machine had 32MB.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#223
post #125

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…

This baby is doing just fine with 8GB.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#224

This story works well for a professional writer. If you are a professional developer/ video editor/ audio professional, or any number of other professions that lean heavier on the hardware they use, it's quite different. If buying new hardware is going to substantially improve my work-day, I'm going to buy new hardware. With the pace of modern hardware improvement, the time between purchases is longer, but there is s…

As I replied on another thread, I don't do containers and this laptop is doing just fine with 8GB, running stuff like W10 Pro and VS 2019.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#225

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 wish a couple of more Rust aficionados, and the Android Studio team, would do the same instead of using most likely beefy Ryzen desktops.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#226

This story works well for a professional writer. If you are a professional developer/ video editor/ audio professional, or any number of other professions that lean heavier on the hardware they use, it's quite different. If buying new hardware is going to substantially improve my work-day, I'm going to buy new hardware. With the pace of modern hardware improvement, the time between purchases is longer, but there is s…

I can see how that works for you, but it’s not a given. With the exception of software developers, creative professionals really don‘t make that much money (unless they’re famous), and upgrading also brings a lot of inconveniences (software that no longer works, ports that no longer come with your computer) that incur extra costs (new software and the time to learn it, dongles). My friend edits her movies on a 2012 laptop, my other friend records her album on a 2012 laptop. Graphic designers around here often buy the 2015 or earlier macbooks second hand, because of the useful ports and the keyboards that don’t break.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#227
TLDR used/refurbished thinkpads have much better value than any new laptop

also bought T520 1-2 years ago perfectly satisfying my needs after upgrading RAM and SSD, for years used another used T20 and in between some cheap new thinkpad but not T line, had the worst experience actually with the cheap new one

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

500W? That's an absurd amount of heat. I suppose they don't make 75W GPUs anymore (I'll replace my 1050Ti when they do), but still...

500W is pretty average for a desktop PC. In my particular computer, CPU, GPU and display are rated to 65W, 250W, and 80W respectively. That’s 400W just for these 3 most power-hungry components, under high load/maximum brightness. Lower-end office PCs often ship with ~500W PSU. Gaming PCs typically include 700W PSU or even more. For instance, nVidia recommends 750W PSU for their released but unavailable RTX 3080, that…

Pure electric isn't considered efficient when it comes to heating. Heat exchangers, somewhat counterintuitively, have a lot more than 100% efficiency. Especially when combined with other sources of heat such as the ground or the sun.

This is just considering the colder season of the year.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#229

This story works well for a professional writer. If you are a professional developer/ video editor/ audio professional, or any number of other professions that lean heavier on the hardware they use, it's quite different. If buying new hardware is going to substantially improve my work-day, I'm going to buy new hardware. With the pace of modern hardware improvement, the time between purchases is longer, but there is s…

Pro dev rocking MacBook Pro 2015 here. I use it for full stack rails, js, front end design including photoshop. And for photography - capture one photoshop Lightroom etc. I use MagSafe, SD card slot, USB ports daily, and the full size hdmi port weekly. The keyboard is wearing out, and the battery cycles are in the hundreds but everything just works. That feeling that you get when you accidentally walk at full speed t…

Running a 2013 maxed out Macbook Pro professionally and it‘s great! I upgraded from a 2015 Macbook Air (both used), and the extra speed was useful. I don’t really feel to need for it to be any quicker though. But like you I use the ports all the time—so upgrading would in some sense feel like a downgrade.

(btw in my experience the battery can be replaced easily, also at non-official repair shops)

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#230
post #17

The X60 ThinkPads TFA settles on are the pinnacle of the X-series ThinkPad form factor. That's not just any old laptop, and if my situation is any indication, the author wouldn't hesitate one moment if offered a brand new X60 specimen with a stronger less crack-prone chassis material and modern SoC+LED-lit LCD. Unfortunately no such thing is currently available.

Like an X62 or X210 from 51nb? https://www.facebook.com/lcdfans/

The X62 doesn't improve on the chassis flaws at all. I already have an SXGA+ modded X61s, it's quite a fragile end result and still CCFL unless you do an LED mod which I've done as well with mixed/mediocre results.
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