Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

solar.lowtechmagazine.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 551 posts

Re: I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

#181

Post by jwells89 »

Miraste wrote: post #138
edflsafoiewq wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not what he means by "Laptops don't change". He means > A 2015 research paper discovered that the embodied energy of laptops is static over time. > Improvements in functionality balance the efficiency gains obtained in the manufacturing process. Battery mass, memory, and hard disk drive mass decreased per unit of functionality but showed roughly constant totals per year. > New laptops may be more energy-effic…

2015 was the nadir of processor improvements. At that point, Intel had effectively used the same processor in every laptop since 2008. I would like to see this analysis post-Ryzen and Apple Silicon.

Yes, I previously owned a pre-touchbar 15" MacBook Pro (the last "good" Intel model) and though it was a great laptop, my M1 Max MBP is dramatically better across the board. Way more power, far better battery life, much less heat and fan noise, and a significantly better screen and speakers.

Granted, leaps like that aren't a given but they can and do happen sometimes.

Re: I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

#182

Post by user_7832 »

Somewhat meta, but having seen the breath-takingly shitty hinges on many HP laptops including mine, followed by all the inevitable hardware issues with nearly every laptop at home (choose between buggy/unreliable/disabled x touchpad/left speaker/audio jack/webcam/Bluetooth/WiFi/screen/hinge/chassis shell/keys) made me realise that the only “true” solution is to spin your own laptop or similar.

Frameworks may be good starting points for most, I prefer smaller devices and hope to build a cyberdeck with a 4”*4” SBC as soon as I have the necessary resources.

I am done with troubleshooting glitchy hardware/software. (Modern) HP can go burn in an eternal hell. (Oh, and Lenovo and Asus are at the gates as well.)

Re: I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

#183

Post by jamespo »

ido wrote: post #127
BowBun wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the article? The author is, well, an author. They don't program or 3d model. Computation sped wasn't even mentioned in the point they were making. I guess I don't see the reason to read an article about a specific use-case/point of view, only to follow up and say, "yeah well it wouldn't work for this completely different thing you weren't talking about". It's not the 'gotcha' you think it is.

I'm not trying to make a any gotchas. Yes, if all you need is MS Word and a web browser you can use a 10-15 years old laptop, I don't think this surprises anyone here (in fact its why most people these days use phones instead of PCs to do most of their internet browsing).

I guess your superfast laptop wasn't very good at rendering the webpage of the article

Re: I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

#185

Post by [deleted] »

MAGZine wrote: post #135
cj wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s delusional is highly paid engineers not investing money in essential tools to get their work done. A new laptop is 1-2% of the annual salary of many people here.

If productivity is so important, why are people using laptops at all? Desktop processors are faster.

[deleted]

Re: I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

#186

Post by zmk5 »

robocat wrote: post #168
ripply wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The framework laptops definitely run hot, I gave up on mine because it would overheat several times a day throttling down to 200Mhz. It sits in a box unused now and I consider it ewaste, I don't have the time or patience to bother with it anymore. I reached out to support maybe 6+ months ago but I haven't finished following their instructions because the laptop was just so bad and I wasted so much time dealing with i…

> I consider it ewaste Leave it in a box in a cupboard and it is. Give it to somebody who will use it (at the next time you are hanging with geeks) and it isn’t e-waste. Offer it for free pickup next Framework thread - somebody wants it enough to not cost you more time than a drive format.

Yeah I would suggest you do this instead of keeping it in the cupboard. Lots of people looking to pick one up for cheap.

Re: I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

#187

Post by Tade0 »

mahogany wrote: post #77
Tade0 wrote: post #49

> According to the most recent life cycle analysis, it takes 3,010 to 4,340 megajoules of primary energy to make a laptop 4340 MJ is around 135 litres of gasoline in terms of primary energy, or a little less than 36 US gallons. Commuters blow through this much in 1-2 months, depending on distance. My point is that if you're concerned about embedded energy, there's a lot of other, lower hanging fruit to pick.

Energy usage isn’t the only thing to be concerned about. There are resources that have to be extracted, and non-recyclable waste piling up in huge quantities. Seems like a fine fruit to pick if you consider broader environmental impact. (Also, we can do multiple things at once. Burning an extra 36 gallons of oil if you don’t have to is still bad.)

I want to agree, but fossil fuels are generally non-recyclable and extracted on a much larger scale.

I mean, global production of cobalt - a highly controversial material - is around 200k tonnes.

By weight this is approximately 1.6% that of daily oil production - 90mln barrels a day.

Re: I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

#188

Post by soulbadguy »

user_7832 wrote: post #182

Somewhat meta, but having seen the breath-takingly shitty hinges on many HP laptops including mine, followed by all the inevitable hardware issues with nearly every laptop at home (choose between buggy/unreliable/disabled x touchpad/left speaker/audio jack/webcam/Bluetooth/WiFi/screen/hinge/chassis shell/keys) made me realise that the only “true” solution is to spin your own laptop or similar. Frameworks may be good…

+1

At the high-end windows laptop are usually a coin flip. If you want any guaranty you need to basically sign on for a PhD level of research and review watching to make sure you don't get a turd.

At the low-end/middle end... God damn it's rough... The average quality from poor screen to poor keyboard, bad termal you name it ... just plain sucks.

Re: I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

#189

Post by Casteil »

go_prodev wrote: post #45
Casteil wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Err, mobility? M1 / M2 Pro MBPs pack a serious punch... and they don't have to sacrifice battery life to do so - they smoke virtually all other laptops in terms of battery life.

Battery life gets mentioned quite often with laptops, but is it still really that important? I run my business from an X1 Carbon, but it's more about portability than battery life. Trains, planes, Starbucks all have power available so it's constantly plugged in and I can't remember the last time I used it on battery for more than an hour.

It's just one of many great aspects for such a capable device.

They also run very cool and are effectively silent even when the fan DOES eventually turn on for a sustained max load. By comparison, every Windows/Intel laptop I've had over the last decade exhibited obvious fan noise every time there was some short-lived load on the CPU - that includes several nicer business/pro grade laptops including Dell XPS, Latitudes, and a Thinkpad.

...and NONE of those other laptops came remotely close to reliably lasting 10+ hours on battery like the MBPs can/do.

Re: I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

#190

Post by maleldil »

littlestymaar wrote: post #157
stetrain wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

18 hours advertised is usually running a locally stored video file on loop at medium to low screen brightness and some light web browsing. My 18-hour laptop is more like 8-10 hours of real work usage, which is still fantastic compared to the 2-3 hours I would get at similar tasks 6-7 years ago. Another big change is improvements to sleep and standby time. I can use half the battery, close the lid, and be reasonably c…

> My 18-hour laptop is more like 8-10 hours of real work usage, Ans in which context do you find yourself needing to be even 8 hours in a row on your computer without being close to a power plug? You can even charge your computer in planes now!

> which context do you find yourself needing to be even 8 hours in a row on your computer without being close to a power plug?

It's summer. I was writing a paper in an outdoor pub. No plug available, unless I wanted to go indoors (I didn't). I used the entire battery. Granted, it was mostly VS Code being a power hog.

> You can even charge your computer in planes now!

Not if you're flying economy on British Airways.

Post reply on HN