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

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#21

Post by smileysteve » Fri, Feb 19, 2021, 4:09 AM UTC

Anecdotal, but I made a used ibm t23 last from 2005-2009.i had to replace the motherboard once because of bad capacitors; and the ram eventually failed.

But, I had the thing optimized. Removable cd rom meant I could save the weight.

For it to last in 2009 against peers with quad cores and 4gb of ram, I had everything compiled as specifically as possible. It could run windows through virtual box "better" than peers that had windows with bloatware. Ultimately used it for a video processing project in 2009 because it would run python and qt better than the 4 other people in my group project.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#22

Post by awinter-py » Fri, Feb 19, 2021, 4:11 AM UTC

esotericn wrote: post #20

deathanatos wrote: post #14

> I grumpily ordered a replacement key for 15 euros. In the months after that, replacement keys became a recurring cost. After spending more than 100 euros on plastic keys, which would soon break again, I calculated that my keyboard had 90 keys and that replacing them all just once would cost me 1,350 euros. Am I missing something, or can an entire replacement keyboard not be had for ~32 EUR? https://www.amazon.com/R…

Potentially - but I think that part of the author's point is that this shouldn't be necessary. Binning an entire keyboard for the sake of a few keys breaking?

in a community of fellow used-product users, you could buy the replacement kb and part out the keys to fellow travelers

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#23

Post by throwaway3699 » Fri, Feb 19, 2021, 4:11 AM UTC

paulcole wrote: post #6

The environmental impact of an individual person buying a new vs. used laptop isn’t even worth considering. If an individual can sway the actions of thousands or tens of thousands of people, then it’s worth considering, perhaps it is. How people (not necessarily the author) will scrutinize the environmental consequences of inconsequential decisions while willfully ignoring the big picture never ceases to amaze me. Ki…

Some of those things you've listed at the end make life worth living. No, we need to make those things more environmentally friendly, not regress as a species.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#24

Post by smileysteve » Fri, Feb 19, 2021, 4:12 AM UTC

killjoywashere wrote: post #13

jaimex2 wrote: post #12

It's usually just Apple people cycling their macbooks every "new shiny" release. Most people on PCs run them into the ground over 6-8 years.

Haven't bought a new MacBook since the original rMBP (or any other new laptop), which I ordered before the keynote was finished.

I also have the 2012rmbp; it's not even showing its age.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#25

Post by maximente » Fri, Feb 19, 2021, 4:12 AM UTC

awinter-py wrote: post #9

this is bazonkers 'use low energy software' isn't that simple me just being a person in the zoom era uses a combination of a windows gaming rig, an old mac for video conferencing, a new mac for xcode, and a linux laptop so I don't hate myself the best tools don't work at all on old hardware . your time isn't free we would need to legislate open APIs for every commercial service before it would be reasonable for tech…

yeah, most "gamer" culture inspires absurdly wasteful habits, spec porn, etc. so that's probably not in alignment, and the windows tax is no joke either - it's delicious that their mondo data hoovering burns up your own cpu cycles, but neither here nor there.

that said, i'm still using an amd phenom II x4 bought in 2010 and manage hacking on clojure, golang, and odds and ends fairly well as a software consultant. arch, xmonad, emacs, and firefox are my "stack". similar to you, i also have a macbook air from 2013 for meet and zoom (and non cloud iphone backup :) ), so not quite as old as this person but certainly don't need a new one any time soon.

love the blog btw

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#26

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Feb 19, 2021, 4:14 AM UTC

deathanatos wrote: post #14

> I grumpily ordered a replacement key for 15 euros. In the months after that, replacement keys became a recurring cost. After spending more than 100 euros on plastic keys, which would soon break again, I calculated that my keyboard had 90 keys and that replacing them all just once would cost me 1,350 euros. Am I missing something, or can an entire replacement keyboard not be had for ~32 EUR? https://www.amazon.com/R…

[deleted]

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#27

Post by xenocyon » Fri, Feb 19, 2021, 4:14 AM UTC

awinter-py wrote: post #9

this is bazonkers 'use low energy software' isn't that simple me just being a person in the zoom era uses a combination of a windows gaming rig, an old mac for video conferencing, a new mac for xcode, and a linux laptop so I don't hate myself the best tools don't work at all on old hardware . your time isn't free we would need to legislate open APIs for every commercial service before it would be reasonable for tech…

> me just being a person in the zoom era uses a combination of a windows gaming rig, an old mac for video conferencing, a new mac for xcode, and a linux laptop so I don't hate myself

I'm typing this comment on a Thinkpad X230 - not quite as old as the X60s, but still the better part of a decade old. It can perform most tasks quite adequately.

The real problem is getting spare parts for it; replacing the battery, for instance, was quite the fishing expedition, and I eventually had to settle for a bulky 9-cell instead of the smaller 6-cell I had previously enjoyed. So there are some downsides to be sure.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#28

Post by secfirstmd » Fri, Feb 19, 2021, 4:14 AM UTC

killjoywashere wrote: post #13

jaimex2 wrote: post #12

It's usually just Apple people cycling their macbooks every "new shiny" release. Most people on PCs run them into the ground over 6-8 years.

Haven't bought a new MacBook since the original rMBP (or any other new laptop), which I ordered before the keynote was finished.

Yeh I've always found the opposite. Mac tends to last longer. I'm on a 2014/15 1TB SSD 16GB Pro Retina and it's still a rocket. I've found very little that would make me want to buy a new Mac at this stage.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#29

Post by awinter-py » Fri, Feb 19, 2021, 4:15 AM UTC

maximente wrote: post #25

awinter-py wrote: post #9

this is bazonkers 'use low energy software' isn't that simple me just being a person in the zoom era uses a combination of a windows gaming rig, an old mac for video conferencing, a new mac for xcode, and a linux laptop so I don't hate myself the best tools don't work at all on old hardware . your time isn't free we would need to legislate open APIs for every commercial service before it would be reasonable for tech…

yeah, most "gamer" culture inspires absurdly wasteful habits, spec porn, etc. so that's probably not in alignment, and the windows tax is no joke either - it's delicious that their mondo data hoovering burns up your own cpu cycles, but neither here nor there. that said, i'm still using an amd phenom II x4 bought in 2010 and manage hacking on clojure, golang, and odds and ends fairly well as a software consultant. arc…

thank you! yeah, that old mac air is really pulling its weight

IMO the web stack is best on old hardware -- it's designed to handle massive load at scale and has the most attention to pure build tool performance

when I was pure web dev, I could use just the linux laptop too.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#30

Post by saagarjha » Fri, Feb 19, 2021, 4:15 AM UTC

jaimex2 wrote: post #12

It's usually just Apple people cycling their macbooks every "new shiny" release. Most people on PCs run them into the ground over 6-8 years.

Anecdotally, this is not how Mac users buy computers at all, unless they are quite well off or have someone else paying for them. Most people run Macs for half a decade if not more.