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

211–220 of 551 posts

Re: I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

#211

Post by flangola7 »

redroyal wrote: post #203
quadrifoliate wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. I lose any hope for us as a species being able to reverse climate change if the top comment about an article that goes quite deep into meaningful ways to “reduce, reuse, recycle" is that this is virtue signaling, and that we should buy Macbooks every year instead because they are "expendable tools". Guess what, their impact on the environment is very much noticeable. There is no way we are going to reverse or e…

That issue can’t be solved by reusing laptops or sorting cans from cardboard. The argument that every little helps is totally flawed. Fantasy, make believe. The other 8 billion people simply don’t care and why would they? 50 years from now they’ll all be dead. Since when did people care about future generations and the good of humanity? It’s a very recent western fashion. The only thing that truly motivated the vast…

This is lazy defeatism and an immediate disqualifier I use in the selection of both friends and employees.

Re: I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

#212

Post by littlestymaar »

jwells89 wrote: post #197
littlestymaar wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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!

Part of the appeal is the convenience. Not having to pull out the brick and charging cable, sit next to an outlet, and then pack it all back up is nice. Longer battery life also means that for trips, you don't necessarily need to bring a full size laptop brick at all and instead can charge overnight off of a tiny phone charger.

> Not having to pull out the brick and charging cable, sit next to an outlet, and then pack it all back up is nice.

But then even 18h isn't enough, and at some point you end up running to the plug in the middle of a meeting, because of course in the end you need to charge it (this is happening to a different co-worker almost every week in remotr, and I dont even spend that much time in meetings).

> Longer battery life also means that for trips, you don't necessarily need to bring a full size laptop brick at all and instead can charge overnight off of a tiny phone charger.

Given that a small charger is already enough to give you 30W, I'm not sure it's going to make too much of a difference: if you keep tour computer plugged while working, the battery will slowly discharge, but under most load I suspect it will still survive the day without issues.

Re: I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

#213

Post by kelsolaar »

> This is facilitated by the fact that laptops are now a mature technology and have more than sufficient computational power.

Depends what you do with them, if you program, edit movies, do 3D rendering or play games, there will never be enough power.

Re: I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

#214

Post by kibwen »

mitchell209 wrote: post #118
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…

I want my EV to last a month on a single charge and yet some people are arguing against battery improvements. Crazy.

This is a straw man. The argument is not against improving batteries. It's about engineering products for what people actually need, and not over-engineering them for the fantasies that we construct regarding what their needs are. To continue the EV example, the majority of trips by car in the US are less than 3 miles. You could comfortably reduce an EV's range from 300 miles to 30 and sell a car that still suffices for the majority of people, and what you gain from that is decreased costs and increased efficiency, which disproportionately benefits both overall power consumption and charge time (remember the tyranny of the rocket fuel equation). Most people don't need a car that charges once a month, they need a car that lasts just long enough for the time between when it's convenient to charge.

The truth is that almost nobody actually needs a computer that can last more than a single eight-hour workday on a single charge. In fact, most people need even less than that; if you're working somewhere with wifi, you're working somewhere with electricity. It's rare that I need my laptop to last more than two hours, let alone eight.

Re: I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

#215

Post by starttoaster »

user_7832 wrote: post #176
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, which is still fantastic compared to the 2-3 hours I would get at similar tasks 6-7 years ago. I’m not sure if you’re using an M1/2 MacBook but if you’re using windows laptops - 2 to 3 hours is pretty poor even for an old laptop (assuming it didn’t have an H series processor which is a whole another story). My (dad’s) HP Probook with its 6th gen i5 proce…

I have a fairly recent Dell XPS, maybe 2 years old. i9 and mobile RTX 3070. Realistically I get about 3-4 hours on it before it's dead. Pretty similar battery life if I'm on my linux partition too.

Re: I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

#216

Post by aCoreyJ »

CraigJPerry wrote: post #162
Atotalnoob wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if framework can let you reuse the "shell" for 2-3 upgrade cycles until they have to change the motherboard, that's a lot better than having to buy an entire new laptop. It's not about keeping the same form factor forever, that's unrealistic. It's about reducing the amount of stuff you have to buy for each upgrade. Opening and closing stuff is realistic, if it's easy. I've opened and upgraded various components of…

>> So if framework can let you reuse the "shell" for 2-3 upgrade cycles I badly want the framework laptop idea to succeed - the idea of re-using your old laptop battery as a battery bank when you upgrade, that's just brilliant. The idea of taking your old motherboard and sticking it in a slim case that bolts to the vesa mount on the back of your monitor, beautiful. However, it's far more expensive that just buying a…

Those comparisons work against any Windows business laptop though, which Framework competes well with on price and features.

No doubt Apple Silicon has really exposed AMD/Intel and x86/64 in general

Re: I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

#217

Post by andrekandre »

2h wrote: post #67
redroyal wrote: post #37

“Laptops don’t change” Really? because a few years ago battery life was maybe 7 hours and now it’s 18. And with faster processors, thunderbolt 4 and USB C charging, wifi 6, better screens and lighter. I keep hearing this argument for not buying a new laptop every year and it just doesn’t hold water. I say buy the latest MacBook, expense it, factor it in as a monthly cost. These are expendable and essential tools. The…

> I keep hearing this argument for not buying a new laptop every year and it just doesn’t hold water. I say buy the latest MacBook, expense it, factor it in as a monthly cost. this is why Apple is a trillion dollar company. because people mindlessly buy any new thing they put out, regardless if it makes sense or not. https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ydje1ivynIM

  > this is why Apple is a trillion dollar company. because people mindlessly buy any new thing they put out, regardless if it makes sense or not.
not to defend apple or anything but whats the complaint here?... that apple is really good at capitalism?

Re: I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

#218

Post by pnpnp »

Atotalnoob wrote: post #50
redroyal wrote: post #37

“Laptops don’t change” Really? because a few years ago battery life was maybe 7 hours and now it’s 18. And with faster processors, thunderbolt 4 and USB C charging, wifi 6, better screens and lighter. I keep hearing this argument for not buying a new laptop every year and it just doesn’t hold water. I say buy the latest MacBook, expense it, factor it in as a monthly cost. These are expendable and essential tools. The…

So if framework can let you reuse the "shell" for 2-3 upgrade cycles until they have to change the motherboard, that's a lot better than having to buy an entire new laptop. It's not about keeping the same form factor forever, that's unrealistic. It's about reducing the amount of stuff you have to buy for each upgrade. Opening and closing stuff is realistic, if it's easy. I've opened and upgraded various components of…

I love that they’re doing this. However, in my use-case I keep a laptop 5+ years now. At that point, it’s pretty worn out and usually warrants a total replacement.

All the individual components keep me happy for so darn long now. After 5+ years, there have usually been pretty big improvements in every area.

Re: I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

#219

Post by ip26 »

soulbadguy wrote: post #200
ip26 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

laptop sales would go down, but that’s precisely what we need. Furthermore, with today’s computing efficiency... Somehow these conversations never seem to talk about how we would not have current levels of compute if everybody kept their computers for one or two decades before buying another. Good or bad, right or wrong, the present state of affairs only happened with the present replacement cycle. I'm not arguing we…

> Good or bad, right or wrong, the present state of affairs only happened with the present replacement cycle. Hmmmm... I am not sure that those two things are as correlated (much less causally linked) as it might first appear. We could have the same "average" pace of innovation, just delivered between longer intervals.

Ok, you’re probably right as long as your total spend in dollars is the same. If everyone buys laptops half as often but pay twice as much. It’s the spend that funds the advancements.

Re: I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

#220

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

neuralRiot wrote: post #198
Atotalnoob wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if framework can let you reuse the "shell" for 2-3 upgrade cycles until they have to change the motherboard, that's a lot better than having to buy an entire new laptop. It's not about keeping the same form factor forever, that's unrealistic. It's about reducing the amount of stuff you have to buy for each upgrade. Opening and closing stuff is realistic, if it's easy. I've opened and upgraded various components of…

Upgradeable hardware sounds great in theory but doesn’t work in real life, just like PCs you configure it once and it will be that HW until it is obsolete for your purpose.

> just like PCs you configure it once and it will be that HW until it is obsolete for your purpose.

Nearly every PC I own has had its disk replaced at least once, and many have more RAM than they started with; both of these massively extend their useful lifespan.

Post reply on HN