Tell HN: I used the same computer since 2007 (with minor upgrades)

While I agree with the general sentiment, I think this can be nuanced.

By that I mean that always keeping up with the latest and greatest can be overrated, [0] and actually be quite a huge time sink to keep looking for a new computer and / or new parts, compare them, etc. Sure, if you only buy the latest MBP that's easy, since there's not much to choose from. But it is expensive, and it's not always worth it.

I'd been working all through the pandemic lockdowns on an i5-6500 I had saved from the bin at work. Old SATA SSD from ~2012, 16 then 32 GB RAM. Integrated HD graphics (not the newer UHD).

I never felt held back by it, it would chug along nicely through pretty much everything I threw at it. The only thing for which I had to wait around a bit was Rust compilation.

Then at the end of last year, my work laptop was up for renewal. So I spent around a week comparing models, looking up on intel vs amd, etc. In the end, I ended up with a zen 3 model. While the CPU is fast, in my day-to-day I see no difference compared to the old one. It compiles some of my Rust projects almost twice as fast, but it's still not instant, and I don't wait around for full compiles anyway. [1]

Aside from that, Teams, web pages, etc, there's absolutely no difference in perceived performance.

I get that this is less extreme than OP's situation, but I guess the point is that they maybe shouldn't go to the other extreme and upgrade with each new CPU that comes out. I also realize that up until last year or so Intel CPU upgrades didn't bump performance all that much.

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[0] Yes, some people absolutely need the last drop of performance they can squeeze, by even among HN readers, I think those people are not the majority.

[1] Incremental Rust compiles were still somewhat slow on the AMD, but in the meantime I've found out about mold, which speeds things up nicely even on the old machine.

My gmail was great on my commodity 2010 Windows laptop until a couple of months ago, and then it suddenly fell off a cliff. I've tried everything I can think of, but I think Google just messed something up and made it at least an order of magnitude slower quite recently.

I've had the opposite experience - my 2011 MBP died (due to dodgy graphics chip, logic board was replaced twice and it still died a third time), replaced it with a mid-2015 and it's been super solid. I did finally have to replace the battery last year for like $200 but it's running Monterey like a champ. Still my primary work machine with no signs of giving up yet.

All machines get extra lives!

- 2004 custom dual boot gaming desktop is running FreeNAS at a friend's house

- 2007 custom desktop survived until 2019 when a power surge fried the motherboard, memory and PSU. I repurposed the case and drives (which survived!)

- 2011 MBP is really one of the best. Replaced the battery, memory and display over the years. Now dedicated shared kids machine because parental controls are super simple for all adults

- 2015 MBP is my personal laptop for freelance work, learning, etc. Will most likely repurpose it as the kids shared laptop after I do a battery replacement. The 2011 will then migrate to storage until I'm sure I won't need things like a CD/DVD drive, SDXC card slot, Thunderbolt port, Firewire, Ethernet, etc.

- 2009 Samsung SyncMaster 23" is still used as a secondary monitor

- 2007 Razer mouse still used today

- 2012 (?) original RaspberryPi is my wireless print and scanning server

I do hate the obsolescence - in my case it's 100% the device vendor's fault. Had some great Firewire interfaces, they worked fine in Mojave, but when that went out of support I couldn't keep it back because I use it as a work machine so I really need to keep on top of security updates. (I still do have an install on an external drive for messing about but it's a lot of friction to jump back into that).

As far as I can tell, literally all the vendor would need to do is re-compile the drivers and sign them. But they just say "Sorry, it's end of life so we won't bother". So my perfectly functional hardware doesn't work on any recent Mac OS or Windows versions anymore...