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I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

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Re: I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

#421

Post by DeathArrow »

dangus wrote: post #314
bitwize wrote: post #143

I knew a guy who would buy a laptop, use it for like 3 months, then flip it on eBay and buy another. He said this is how you get good value for money -- flip it before it loses much of its resale value and buy new with the proceeds. I'm not sure why people would do this. I use computer equipment to the point of exhaustion. I still have laptops from the 90s that work fine; while they will never be a main they are fun…

These days you’d have to keep extensive tax records to do that scheme because eBay is going to report earnings over $600 to the IRS. And you’ll get eaten alive by eBay fees.

You can use Facebook marketplace, Craigslist or another site.

Re: I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

#422

Post by kramerger »

yokoprime wrote: post #404
NovaDudely wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compute power has never been an issue for me, but I generally try to max out the RAM as much as my budget allows. This is why I still have a 2010 Macbook that is more than fine. Started with 4GB and was barely usable for heavier even when it came out, but dropping 16GB into and it has been smooth sailing for over a decade now. That said my daily runner is now T420 from (2011-ish) that came with 6GB of RAM that is in…

My main issue with especially lenovos from 2010-2015 is that the lcd panels are poor quality (dim, loads of bleed etc) everything else is really good

You could buy them with both crappy panels or good high resolution panels. Obviously most companies opted for the cheaper crappier version, that's why most second hand thinkpads have them

But you can often buy a LCD upgrade kit for cheap on amazon/aliexpress

Re: I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

#423

Post by pmontra »

cm2187 wrote: post #396
LeFantome wrote: post #341

For a lot if what I do, the CPU on an older laptop is just fine. So, I too use really old laptops. That said, I am upgrading laptops that sold with 2 - 4 GB of RAM to 16 GB, or at least 8 GB. Often I am replacing on old HDD ( maybe as slow as 5400 RPM ) with a faster SSD. That SSD also juices the battery life. So, what I am using is a lot nicer than what the original owner had to deal with. Many laptops today will no…

The only thing that has aged, other than HDD that can be replaced, is video cards, which you can't upgrade. 4k monitors have become common and you will need something fairly recent to drive that. 4k videos also, my laptop struggles with certain 4k hevc iphone videos.

Actually my ZBook has an upgradable graphic card but I can upgrade it to a better model of the same age, so it's basically useless for compatibility with newer drivers. Nvidia and Noveau are going to end supporting cards from 2014 sooner or later.

Re: I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

#424

Post by simonsmithies »

layer8 wrote: post #408
grudg3 wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Frameworks are amazing on paper, and yet I still can't purchase one in New Zealand but I can easily purchase Apple hardware.

It’s straightforward to use a shipping forwarder, just adds a bit to the cost.

NZ Post’s forwarder - YouShop - has worked well for me in the past.

https://www.nzpost.co.nz/tools/youshop

Re: I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

#425

Post by pjmlp »

Same here, among my personal computers, the most recent one is 5 years old.

Even for 3D programming, if the Web is the main target, the 3D standards are made for 2009 hardware (WebGL 2.0), or 2015 (WebGPU), so having the latest GPU model doesn't make any difference.

As much as I like to program graphic related stuff, I am not a one person AAA studio, nor going to create the next AI startup, so the NVidia MX150 is mostly on vacations.

Dealing with Docker and friends, is something I leave for work, so again, nothing that really impacts my private computing needs.

Re: I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

#426

Post by code51 »

I would still be able to use 2013 Macbook Pro if I could have someone around who understand that GPU related issue would be solved by "holding u8900 chip down with rubber material"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lumJ0cN5oyY

https://www.reddit.com/r/macbookpro/comments/ek0pmi/comment/...

However, Apple declares your device "vintage" and repair shops avoid it like the plague. Because they only know who to replace the entire board. That's when you device to buy another laptop.

Re: I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

#427

Post by sundvor »

Joeri wrote: post #383
LeFantome wrote: post #341

For a lot if what I do, the CPU on an older laptop is just fine. So, I too use really old laptops. That said, I am upgrading laptops that sold with 2 - 4 GB of RAM to 16 GB, or at least 8 GB. Often I am replacing on old HDD ( maybe as slow as 5400 RPM ) with a faster SSD. That SSD also juices the battery life. So, what I am using is a lot nicer than what the original owner had to deal with. Many laptops today will no…

That soldered ram is indeed a killer, and the transition can be quite sudden. We have a 2014 macbook air with 4gb of soldered ram, and my kid was fine using it for office and browsing, until at one point he suddenly wasn’t. The ram footprint of that software together with macOS updates passed some threshold where it just became too slow, so now he’s using one of my other old laptops, a windows machine with an even sl…

Yeah I'm so glad I paid top dollar for the 8GB version of the OG X1 Carbon back in 2012 - and got the i7 with the biggest NVME, a 256gb.

I also have a newer Nano for work, but prefer the keyboard of the old. If I had picked the 4GB model then, it would have been pretty useless today.

Today I wouldn't buy a personal laptop with less than 32GB of memory. The X1 Nano was hard locked at 16GB, and I guess I didn't quite anticipate how much I'd be using Docker. :(

Re: I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

#428

Post by HlessClaudesman »

AnonymousPlanet wrote: post #407
NovaDudely wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compute power has never been an issue for me, but I generally try to max out the RAM as much as my budget allows. This is why I still have a 2010 Macbook that is more than fine. Started with 4GB and was barely usable for heavier even when it came out, but dropping 16GB into and it has been smooth sailing for over a decade now. That said my daily runner is now T420 from (2011-ish) that came with 6GB of RAM that is in…

I have a T420s that really struggles with video e.g. Youtube. Watching any h.245 via VLC or mplayer is impossible. Also the battery is in a bad state and I haven't been able to find a good replacement that isn't equally poor or worse right from the start. It actually has two batteries, one being in what used to be the cd tray. Still, usage time is 3 hours tops. It had been my daily driver for years, running Linux, bu…

Yeah, I replaced the battery on my t540p but it's still sub 1 hour life.

Replaced hard drive and upgraded the ram so now it works pretty well as a desktop PC running win 10.

It was running super slow for ages, fixed after I banished Google drive backup. Maybe a compatibility issue with newest Google software thrashing constantly on older OS / hardware.

Re: I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

#429

Post by bodge5000 »

viraptor wrote: post #312
bodge5000 wrote: post #59

I can't say I stick to this 100%, but I actually like using underpowered laptops. Optimisation is an important step in the development process but its often rushed through even by those who consider it most important (myself included). However, if you NEED to optimise your code just to get the thing to work on your computer, a lot more attention is put into it. If I'm optimising for a lower spec machine than my users…

You can easily underpower your better laptop on demand for a specific task. And also you can do it in more controlled ways: what happens if the process gets less memory, fewer cores, lower cpu speed, worse network, etc. Getting an underpowered laptop to do both development and testing is not the only, or even best way to do this.

You can, but you won't. Not regularly anyway, thats not the way you'll run your computer daily. Maybe for a while, but then you'll forget or want the extra power for something and get too used to it. Instead, you'll do it occasionally at specific times.

You've just recreated the problems I was talking about with an optimisation step but in a new environment.

Re: I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

#430

Post by Reason077 »

lathiat wrote: post #340
Reason077 wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an M1 MacBook Air and use an app called CoconutBattery to monitor power usage. What I’ve noticed is that while the laptop is usually super efficient (say, 2.5-4W while web browsing giving 8+ hours battery life), occasionally the power draw climbs up to 6, 7, 8W or more with no obvious explanation, draining the battery in 3 or 4 hours. Activity Monitor will show no apps using unusual energy yet the power is goi…

Watch your backlight level, which auto adjusts to the room light level. "When comparing battery life, remember that screen brightness makes a huge difference! On an M1 MacBook Air sitting idle on the KDE desktop, you will get around 7 hours of runtime at 100% brightness, and 23 hours of runtime at the minimum (not zero) brightness. Even keyboard brightness matters! Those numbers are with the keyboard backlight turned…

Yes, I should have mentioned I always have keyboard backlight turned off [1]

I’ve suspected something to do with screen brightness in the past also. System log was often full of messages from the brightness adjustment/monitoring daemon, which raised my suspicions, but I think it might just have been normal behaviour at the time.

However the mystery power draw seems to happen independent of screen backlight setting. ie: when the problem is happening, turning backlight right down will reduce power draw a bit, but it’ll still be high. On other occasions, even with the screen brightness at 100% I’ll still get “normal” power draw. I’ve experimented with turning off brightness auto-adjustment too, with no effect.

[1] Keyboard backlight is very annoying at night when trying to watch a movie or something, and Apple made it difficult to toggle on and off on recent Macs by removing the hot key for it. So I’ve learned to just live without it.

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