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I went back to using a ThinkPad from 2012

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Re: I went back to using a ThinkPad from 2012

#71

Post by ya_throw »

ciphol wrote: post #33
ya_throw wrote: post #16

Does this mean that "things that have survived for 10 years are more durable than average", or "in the last 10 years, we have become unable to make useful, durable laptops"? If it's the latter, then I can hear the footsteps of the Anti-Singularity getting ever closer....

We're capable, companies have just decided there isn't a market for it. Or else there are still useful durable laptops being produced, but not this model or this company.

What's the difference between the two? Especially when the product in question requires the co-ordination of 10s (probably 100s) of thousands of engineers, designers, and operatives, as well as a mass-market able to make the initial investment worth it.

Re: I went back to using a ThinkPad from 2012

#73

Post by zwaps »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #17

I'm all for frugality but that seems like a lot of compromises for what is this person's main work laptop. Cool that it works; but why have a slow workhorse like that? I picked up a Samsung Galaxybook a few weeks ago. Nice core i5 system on a chip thing with Iris XE gpu. Runs cool including when under load and it's fast enough. Driver support seems decent in Linux. Even the graphics are quite alright. I played some s…

For one thing (for me, at least): The keyboard.

I have yet to see a good keyboard on a modern laptop, and I use a lot of different ones. Some people do not care, but I do. There's some keyboards that are "still decent", but all of them are progressively getting worse. Well, they say that Mac keyboards are getting better again, but I don't like their zero-keytravel style in the first place, not even in the ones that were considered good.

Thinkpad T400 roundabout was a good keyboard in my view.

Re: I went back to using a ThinkPad from 2012

#74

Post by throw8932894 »

10 years used laptops are wonky. Maybe nice DIY project but definitely not as main workstation for travels. And if you want multiple 4k screens or newer peripherals...

My current setup is Dell XPS 13 from 2015 and portable Deskmini PC with Ryzen 7 5700g. This laptop is pretty hackeable ultrabook, over years I replaced chassis, keyboard and some ports. But it has only 16GB RAM and supports only 1x4k@30Hz, so it will be soon replaced by Framework laptop (64GB RAM, 4x4k screens).

And Deskmini is tiny 2kg PC with great desktop CPU. I found all high end laptops to be rather expensive and with insufficient cooling for constant load. With this I can have proper desktop performance in laptop sized package.

So my final setup will be two computers, with 12 cores and 128GB RAM and weight of only 5KG. I can use 7x4K screens and have total 20 TB of integrated storage. All cheap hardware with no crazy hacks.

Re: I went back to using a ThinkPad from 2012

#75

Post by kinow »

iammjm wrote: post #53

I own a T430 myself and have enjoyed using it for a couple of years already. Very durable, reliable and upgradable - plus its just fun to use. I removed the CD Rom and put an SSD in its place; upgraded to 8GB Ram; got a GTX 1050ti as an external GPU running and connected it together with an external monitor, keyboard and mouse to a docking station. That way I can use it on the go and then just put it on the docking s…

Does the external GPU works alright? I have a T530 with a NVidia that I use dual monitor. But it's old, and Blender doesn't use it for rendering. Been thinking about one of these little egpu adapters, but don't know anyone that used it actually.

Re: I went back to using a ThinkPad from 2012

#76

Post by G3rn0ti »

1.5 years ago I went ahead and upgraded my retired workplace laptop, a Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook E743 from 2014:

- bigger 500 GB SSD, resized system partition (no re-install necessary)

- replaced the dual core CPU with a quad core model (Intel Core i7-3612QM, 35W)

- replaced its really crappy keyboard with a backlit one from a later model that fitted

https://www.facebook.com/gernot.kieseritzky/posts/1022366591...

All in all the upgrade cost me about €200 (about US$230) and the laptop is still up and running, used daily for home office and private stuff (including streaming of retro games on Twitch). Replacement batteries are easy to come by but we still had some unused spares at my workplace.

Unlike the Thinkpads these laptops are kind of an underdog when it comes to its modding community. But these things are actually quite hackable. I wonder if I could have even tried to plug in a 45W model of the same CPU mentioned in TFA to get even more processing power and maybe modded the cooler that is a bit too loud for my taste.

Re: I went back to using a ThinkPad from 2012

#77

Post by kinow »

TheFattestNinja wrote: post #61

I have been using as my only machine a T530 uninterrupted (think 10h/day uptime) since Nov 2012, both as a desktop replacement and to carry it around. I had to replace its motherboard recently but it was my fault as I put it in too enclosed of a space and overheated/burned it. Aside from a bit of fan noise, it's still going strong. It's definitely underspecced wtr to graphics nowadays, but still able to run things li…

My only machine too since... 2015 I think? Replaced an old Dell inspiron, been running great with containers, IntelliJ, Jupyter Lab, dual monitor. Only Blender 3.0 doesn't work too well due to the old version of cuda. Other than that, never had any issues.

Re: I went back to using a ThinkPad from 2012

#78

Post by zwaps »

I miss my Thinkpad T400-420s

I especially miss the keyboard and that particular pointstick (with those buttons).

It is really weird that since then, keyboards just have been getting worse. Build quality otherwise has improved, especially on the lower end. But when it comes to keyboards, it seems no one has found a good solution except ye olde IBM engineers.

Re: I went back to using a ThinkPad from 2012

#79

Post by ribit »

maccard wrote: post #28
bungle wrote: post #15

> The CPU innovation stagnation between 2012-2017 has resulted in 4 cores still being an acceptable low-end CPU in early 2022 I recently got M1 Max MacBook, and I was expecting a huge jump from my 2010 Mac Pro, but on my day-to-day work. It is barely noticeable, despite the raving reviews of M1. Perhaps for me it is not about things getting obsolete, but more of that my own needs on CPU/GPU performance were pretty mu…

> I am a programmer, so my needs are not that high This isn't true for all programmers. I'm a programmer, and until 3 years ago a good chunk of my day was spent waiting for compiles to finish. > Or perhaps it is that after 12 years, the laptops are now on bar with desktops. I think the biggest improvements for me in last 20 years have been the SSDs and then the NVMe. Not even remotely close. I have an AMD threadrippe…

What about real world tests for you specific workflows? My M1 Max runs my daily bread and butter R scripts approximately 4x faster compared to a top of the line Intel Coffee Lake. For me it's a huge improvement. Having over 100GB/s RAM bandwidth per core and a huge cache are a big thing for many latency-sensitive workloads.

Re: I went back to using a ThinkPad from 2012

#80

Post by jokoon »

Same thing, I bought a low quality L-series thinkpad, without a GPU.

GPUs need a lot of cooldown, and thus a lot of space, and laptops can't be well cooled.

I upgraded to a SSD, I can still add some RAM if I want.

Laptops can't be war machines, unless you have deep pockets, and it will be difficult to cool it down.

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