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Electronics are built with death dates. Let’s not keep them a secret

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Re: Electronics are built with death dates. Let’s not keep them a secret

#241

Post by scarface74 »

pca006132 wrote: post #132
scarface74 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as you don’t care about things like battery life, heat, or your laptop sounding like a 747 under load.

I'm using a Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 with a Ryzen 7, which works fine, battery lasts for more than 6 hours if I am not doing computationally intensive work, not as good as a Mac but works for me. The heat is also fine, the fan is not too loud and it doesn't run usually. I think you just have to avoid gaming notebook.

6 hours of battery life is less than one third of the low end MacBook Air. Unfortunately, because of the prevalence of Electron apps like Teams and Slack. It doesn’t take much to tax an x86 based laptop. Chrome is also a notorious battery hog.

It’s nice to be able to treat my laptop like I’ve been treating iPads for a decade - a portable device that you don’t have to worry about running out of battery during a day of normal use.

Re: Electronics are built with death dates. Let’s not keep them a secret

#242

Post by ClumsyPilot »

pessimizer wrote: post #61
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have been a long time enthusiast of high power flashlights. We typically use 18350, 18650, 21700, or 26650. But I have been in dismay as even in this community, companies are starting to move away from these standards and provide proprietary batteries (Olight) or sealed (some newer Fenix models). We went through this exact cycle with laptops and cellular phones. The hardcore internet users were furious when compa…

> But the market reacted positively. What does this mean? That people didn't swear off using smartphones entirely after every manufacturer decided that sealed-in batteries would sell more phones?

its simple - you are a decision maker, you need a higher power to approve of your decision, to show the people you were right. It used to be God, now its the market.

Before priests would help you veil your decisions in religious terms. Now economists help you veil them in economic terms.

When everything is going okay, tou can use that as divine approval for any random decision you made. When everything is going badly, you can blame it on any random decision you opponents made.

We look at a downturn after the pandenic as a sign of the divine entity, the market, being displeased. We attempt to applease the divine entity with human sacrifice, by throwing the poor to the wolves and cutting taxes.

Anyone that points out that we've been trying the same religious orthodoxy for 40 years with poor results gets labelled a heretic - a socialist.

Re: Electronics are built with death dates. Let’s not keep them a secret

#243

Post by scarface74 »

exodust wrote: post #186
scarface74 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, analog watches don’t allow me to leave my phone at home when I go for a run and let me listen to music, take phone calls, get directions, track my speed, etc.

Why not just go for a run? You don't need to "get directions" or "track speed"... you're running not driving. If someone calls you when you're out running, call them back when you get home!

I had a Garmin GPS watch for running a decade ago. Of course because of the technology at the time, it was a lot larger. Even back then I used it to track my pace when I was running.

Also heart rate based training isn’t a new concept. Neither is running to music. I’m running much shorter distances now - because age. But the only thing that made running half marathons tolerable was music.

Re: Electronics are built with death dates. Let’s not keep them a secret

#244

Post by fsflover »

SergeAx wrote: post #196

I would happily buy a smartphone with replaceable battery, which will be surely available in 2-3 years, but those are just not made anymore. Europe mandated all the phones have USB-C charging capability in two years. Maybe it's time to standardize batteries too?

Consider GNU/Linux phones, Librem 5 or Pinephone, which are designed to be repairable and have lifetime software updates. The batteries are replaceable and should be available for a long time, too.

Re: Electronics are built with death dates. Let’s not keep them a secret

#245

Post by saurik »

emj wrote: post #235
intothemild wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't get this. USB-C can on do the following on the same cable at the same time 1. Charge 2. Data 3. Video Your power cable can 1. Charge How is that "orders of magnitude" worse?

The USB-C connector is a lot easier to break than a normal power connector, it's also pretty fidgety to get right when you fix the connection on the laptop side. The fixability can be done better than normal charging ports, I've done a USB-C daughter board swap in about 2 hours of total time (research, ordering, mounting). The normal way though is doing soldering surface mounted USB-C connectors which is not somethin…

Other than Apple's old magsafe connectors, I remember every power connector I've ever had on a laptop to have been pretty easily breakable using angular force, and I know of both myself and a handful of other people who have broken the power connector on our laptops, and yet I haven't seen or experienced such with my USB-C laptops yet (quite possibly as they are lighter weight), so I am surprised you say the USB-C is more easily broken. I do miss magsafe, though: that's the one non-USB-C power connector I think would be worth supporting. (That said I have some memory of magsafe connectors destroying themselves due to the slapping of metal at power, though I never hadn't one die myself.)

Re: Electronics are built with death dates. Let’s not keep them a secret

#246

Post by Aerroon »

intothemild wrote: post #222
causality0 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I hate the trend of only charging over type-c. It's an order of magnitude less robust and far more prone to falling out than, say, a ThinkPad connector. Having the option is nice but I despise having to babysit my $100 Asus charger lest I stomp it flat by accident.

I really don't get this. USB-C can on do the following on the same cable at the same time 1. Charge 2. Data 3. Video Your power cable can 1. Charge How is that "orders of magnitude" worse?

It doesn't matter what other things your charging cable can do if the cable itself is worse at doing its primary job.

Re: Electronics are built with death dates. Let’s not keep them a secret

#247

Post by csomar »

clumsysmurf wrote: post #4

I have been a long time enthusiast of high power flashlights. We typically use 18350, 18650, 21700, or 26650. But I have been in dismay as even in this community, companies are starting to move away from these standards and provide proprietary batteries (Olight) or sealed (some newer Fenix models). It would be good if * We could safely obtain reputable Li-ion batteries from reputable sources. I trust a handful of com…

I recently bought a Fenix and was disappointing the battery was not standard. In hindsight, I should have returned the model not to encourage these companies for these practices.

Re: Electronics are built with death dates. Let’s not keep them a secret

#248

Post by scarface74 »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #221
scarface74 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how much larger would they be?

That's an interesting question, and I'd like an honest answer to that. We've heard the same argument about phones, and my old Galaxy S5 with a user-replaceable battery was a whopping 0.5 mm thicker than an iPhone 13 mini. That's the width of a mechanical pencil lead. They're both water-resistant, too.

.5 inches and heavier for AirPods would make a huge difference ergonomically.

Re: Electronics are built with death dates. Let’s not keep them a secret

#249

Post by ClumsyPilot »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #239
CamperBob2 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it actually worked that way, we wouldn't be having this conversation, would we?

We would, since I'd argue most people (hence, "the market") find having sealed batteries "acceptable", or, at least, not reason enough to not buy the product. Most of the people I know replace their phones often enough that it doesn't seem to be a problem, and usually the battery isn't the issue. They mostly break them / get stolen / they just want the new shiny.

Thep problem with Market Extremists, is they they are so high on their own supply, they do not notice when they make statements that outright contradict the real world we live in. They live in a separate fantasy land, just like communists do.

Fist falsifiable statement about e-waste policies - if it is so easy to read a company's e-waste policy, could you tell me which companies had policies that said "we will ship this waste to Indonesia and Africa, where it will de dumped without reprocessing and poison children'? If companies are so open about this information, and they want consumers to have a choice, then why do they send armed goods to beat up journalists investigating E-waste supply chain? If I buy a phone from a company that says 'we fully reprocess every single atom' and then it turns out they don't, why do they not go to jail for fraud?

Second falsifiable statement - 'people find having sealed batteries "acceptable" - this claim is not difficult to check - have you ever asked people on the street what they think about this? Have you looked at polls? Majorify of people prefer removable batteries.

Re: Electronics are built with death dates. Let’s not keep them a secret

#250

Post by throwaway787544 »

Car parts fail reliably enough that the manufacturer tells you when you should replace parts of the car at regular intervals. They don't tell you the car will last forever, it's clearly in a constant state of breaking down. Electronics manufacturers should be just as honest.

I think it's pretty funny when people pay more for an electronics gadget than for a used Honda Civic, and the Civic outlasts the gadget by 10 years (with maintenance). And the Civic's electronics, ironically, usually don't need maintenance.

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