The X60s is magnificent. I love mine and may also buy more in the future.
Just a fantastic piece of kit. If only the mainboard were upgradable...
The lack of webcam is a bonus as far as I'm concerned; "Zoom culture" can burn.
How and why I stopped buying new laptops
31–40 of 104 posts
Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops
#32this 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…
I intentionally bought the cheapest and slowest laptop that can run low-spec commercial VR software. Same for xcode. If your thinkpad can do both of those things it has a market value of $2500 and I'll buy it from you
Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops
#33The 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.
For a gamer the new laptop is make life worth living, so I guess it's all relative :)
But sure, if a person doesn't care about getting a new computer, it's not totally fine as well.
Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops
#34It'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.
Most of peers at college used MacBooks and kept the same one for many years. Most only considered upgrading when theirs broke.
Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops
#35What frustrates me is that the continual push forward of major operating systems forces you to purchase a new laptop. I have a 2013 MacBook that works wonderfully but Apple no longer provides updates for it, and eventually the browsers will stop supporting it. It’s almost like there is a general movement towards forcing us to buy new technology by rendering older devices obsolete.
Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
I intentionally bought the cheapest and slowest laptop that can run low-spec commercial VR software. Same for xcode. If your thinkpad can do both of those things it has a market value of $2500 and I'll buy it from you
You're correct; my comment may have overstated the case. I reworded it to say "most tasks quite adequately".
Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops
#37It'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.
can confirm, am still running a late-2015 macbook as my daily driver. it still works really well and despite trying to convince myself otherwise, I can't think of a good reason to replace it.
Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
Innovative idea :) Could be extended to buying and sharing multiple sets of parts for multiple products.
Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops
#39What frustrates me is that the continual push forward of major operating systems forces you to purchase a new laptop. I have a 2013 MacBook that works wonderfully but Apple no longer provides updates for it, and eventually the browsers will stop supporting it. It’s almost like there is a general movement towards forcing us to buy new technology by rendering older devices obsolete.
Yes, this movement is called quarterly reports.
Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> Anything for editing videos. Probably blender.
I got my now-high school kid an old Macbook Air (made sure to get 8GB RAM) for US$300. He's been experimenting with Blender and video editing (FCPX, make sure to render proxy files!) Sure, that's "only" 7 years old, but it's fine?