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

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#51

Post by stickfigure » Fri, Feb 19, 2021, 5:10 AM UTC

0_____0 wrote: post #37

saagarjha wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I've been using a (max'd) 2015 Macbook Pro as a dev box for... a long time now. I'm about 2 hours into the upgrade to an M1 air.

The difference is... jaw dropping.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#52

Post by stephen_g » Fri, Feb 19, 2021, 5:10 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.

I've never heard of anybody doing that with a Mac, and have never replaced a Mac laptop with less than 5-6 years of heavy use of it...

I type this on a Mid-2015 Macbook Pro, still working well but Mac OS tells me I need the battery serviced. I'll probably buy a new Macbook Pro 16" when they bring one out with Apple Silicon and then do the battery replacement and keep this one going as a spare machine (and for the old Photoshop and other Adobe CS6 apps that won't work on a 64-bit only OS which is why this is still running Mojave).

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#53

Post by reasonabl_human » Fri, Feb 19, 2021, 5:13 AM UTC

xenocyon wrote: post #27

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…

If you’re having trouble finding a battery due to OEM only choices, here’s an anecdote that may help: I used thinkwiki years ago to get info on flashing the embedded controller firmware of my T430s to a patched version that didn’t query batteries for authenticity, opening up a whole new world of prior gen and cheap aftermarket battery compatibility... perhaps the same can be done with your X230?

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#54

Post by ohazi » Fri, Feb 19, 2021, 5:17 AM UTC

reasonabl_human wrote: post #50

ohazi wrote: post #49

As with used cars, 1-3 year old Thinkpads seem to be a pretty good sweet spot. New enough to be reasonably powerful / efficient / light, but old enough to be cheap and accessible. Corporate IT shops are often selling off batches of laptops that they've replaced, so selection is usually good. The repair ecosystem will have been running for a while, so it'll be easy to get model specific upgrade and replacement parts o…

Still rocking my T430s bought used on eBay about 6 years ago... the hobby community around these devices alone is worth the cost of ownership, especially when it comes to repair and Linux support. Installed a community made eDP converter for 1080p screen upgrade and flashed custom EC firmware for 3rd party battery support, replaced a cracked palm rest and odds and ends for a few bucks on eBay etc all pretty easily th…

> replaced a cracked palm rest and odds and ends for a few bucks on eBay

Heh. I did exactly this with my previous T520 after half a decade. I've been meaning to dig it out to play with coreboot, but haven't had time or desk space lately.

Speaking of EC firmware -- one of the annoying aspects of the T480 dual-battery system is that the switchover point is fixed at 5%. It would be nice to be able to set this to something like 20% for better battery longevity. I don't really want to do firmware experiments on a system that I'm using as a daily driver, but at some point it would be nice to try and hack around this, assuming someone doesn't beat me to it.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#55

Post by awinter-py » Fri, Feb 19, 2021, 5:20 AM UTC

underseacables wrote: post #35

What 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.

alfred p sloan prefers the term 'dynamic obsolescence'

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#56

Post by ncmncm » Fri, Feb 19, 2021, 5:33 AM UTC

Google234 wrote: post #8

ncmncm wrote: post #5

This is a super-great article. I still have a bunch of old P60s and P61s I got for $100 each, a decade back, and (mostly) replaced the screen-backlight ballast. They did get unreliable after a while, freezing up at random times. There is a place where you can get a completely new motherboard for a certain old Thinkpad model, that I think I will try. My only problem with ancient laptops is that nowadays I need 32GB of…

Just because you can technically run something on a device doesn’t mean it will be usable. A 12 year old Intel proc (even with 32 GB of ram) will feel extremely slow.

It didn't feel slow then. With an SSD, and lots of RAM (where that is possible), it will be faster than it was.

Jevon's Law makes modern machines as slow as the old ones, by loading them down with crap animation. Don't run that, and they get as fast as ever, which was plenty fast enough. Many of us have got used to Chromebooks with pokey ARM chips, and have no complaints.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#57

Post by rektide » Fri, Feb 19, 2021, 6:22 AM UTC

Another article giving the general idea a bad name. If it works for him, fine, but "How and why I stopped buying new laptops", as an article, should not be about this idiotic level of self-flagelation. This author is promoting a likely-to-be harmful path, one unsuitable for almost everyone.

The energy efficiency of an Intel Haswell (June 2013) is off the wall better than the rusty dusty antique this joker is suggesting as an ok workbook. There's so many incredible semi-modern used laptops to consider. You don't have to be a weird retro-compute freak who loves stupidly slow machines like this guy. You can buy really nice used laptops that perform wonderfully, & get great great deals on them.

Incredible what a dis-service this article does, how much of a turn off it would be, to most sane people considering whether to buy used. It ends up serving as propaganda for buying laptops. In no way do you have to sacrifice your quality of life, like this dude, if you buy used.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#58

Post by mickotron » Fri, Feb 19, 2021, 6:24 AM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #30

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.

Running 2011 macbook as mostly daily driver, was daily driver for much of its life, has run linux most of its life.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#59

Post by fulafel » Fri, Feb 19, 2021, 6:29 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…

Also cars.

But in the greater scheme of things, this is the big problem of environmental self-whataboutism. Do what you can, even smaller things. For example, if you do decide to have a kid, doing the other things will instill better values on them and will mitigate them getting angry with you for making their world unliveable when they develop thinking capabilities.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#60

Post by manicdee » Fri, Feb 19, 2021, 6:30 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.

My 2011 MacBook Air still works fine.

My Windows-using friend is on their third laptop in the last decade, not including the Chromebook they inherited from work.

If you want to find the "new shiny every year" people, look for the ones buying gaming rigs. There are very few games that run on macOS so there's very little pressure to upgrade to the latest greatest every year.