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I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

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Re: I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

#461

Post by bloomingeek »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #239
bloomingeek wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, all branches of science should invent ways to recycle almost anything. We know we have a waste problem, yet society doesn't demand enough to have ways created to deal with recycling. Forget Mars and looking at the Titanic till we find ways to deal with real world problems. Burying our heads in the sand will hurt future generations!

The evidence indicates that recycling is burying our heads in the sand. It is reduce>>>>reuse>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>recycle. As far as I can tell, very little recycling actually ever happened or does happen. It was always just poorer countries willing to look the other way and trash it and claim it was recycled.

I'm guessing you're assuming I meant throw everything into the landfill? That's the problem with assuming, it's almost always dead wrong. And besides, I didn't say that. Perhaps you though I said "throw away"?

I meant we have to quit adding to landfills and reuse materials from discarded objects, or in other words "recycle".

Re: I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

#462

Post by Scoundreller »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #263
wyldfire wrote: post #14

I often buy a ~one generation old phone for this same reason. It's just so much better value to buy someone else's phone. The folks who keep buying the newest generation tech often seem to take really good care of their gear - perhaps because they plan to resell it later. I haven't done this as much with laptops because I do tend to keep those for such a long time that I can reasonably amortize a bigger investment ov…

Went to comment this. A mid-range or high end product from a gen or two ago is often the same price as this year's budget option, and way, way better in every sense.

And in a favourable position on the bathtub curve of reliability.

Re: I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

#463

Post by mkesper »

Gigachad wrote: post #364
the-grump wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but it's nowhere near the choice you get with a typical x86_64 laptop with an AMD/Intel chipset. I have minor problems with my Lenovos and Framework, but by and large they do work out of the box.

Asahi Linux basically works. The main issue is that Linux software, especially proprietary, does not play nice with ARM.

That can only be proprietary sw. Almost every program I know works on arm64, thanks to availability of the platform through raspberry pi.

Re: I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

#464

Post by OldManRyan »

draw_down wrote: post #10
OldManRyan wrote: post #4

Quick aside: This should have a (2020) tag. The keyboard and mousepad on my Thinkpad have died twice. I've replaced it twice for 30 dollars each time. I would have had to buy a new laptop if I had something else. The conclusion about this being a hack and not a new economic model is why I'm hoping Framework seems success. Unfortunately I think my Thinkpad is on the way out for good and I plan to replace it with the F…

If the keyboard or trackpad died on my laptop I would simply take it to be serviced. The company that made it has storefronts around the country where I can bring it in. They have an app that makes the scheduling easy. In fact I just had the battery replaced after 5-6 years (I don’t quite remember). Works for me.

That's great that whoever makes your device(assuming Apple) has stores where they can do repairs. Having a repairable device doesn't mean you have to repair it yourself, it just means you can.

Re: I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

#466

Post by owenmarshall »

dns_snek wrote: post #442
mike_hock wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I won't take any distro seriously that doesn't support at least i686, amd64, arm and arm64. Compiling for four architectures can't be too much to ask. Shit software that can't be written portably enough to run on more than amd64 must be kicked off the repo. We need this pressure on developers if we're to maintain a modicum of code quality.

> Shit software that can't be written portably enough to run on more than amd64 must be kicked off the repo. Convince me, why should I spend my time supporting i686? Just to accommodate a handful of people still running 32bit hardware? Calling other people's work "shit" just because they don't spend their free time supporting the wishes ( not needs!) of 0.1% of their users is rude and extremely entitled.

FWIW, I agree with you. But I think there is an argument to be made: the OpenBSD team has indicated that cross-architecture ports help them find bugs that otherwise might not be noticed if they were just targeting the usual suspects.

Re: I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

#467

Post by dnissley »

pcdoodle wrote: post #457
kelnos wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm with you on the battery life. Though I don't understand where you get the 12-hour figure for a full discharge while in suspend. In that time period I lose about 20%. (If you're running Linux, try changing from 's2idle' to 'deep' sleep; not sure if it's possible to change this on Windows.) The thermals are indeed terrible. My 12th-gen has this issue where it will sometimes overheat, and the firmware will loc…

3:2 is used by microsoft on the surface. 16:9 is plain disgusting for a computer.

Also the original pixelbook: https://www.google.com/chromebook/device/google-pixelbook/

Re: I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

#468

Post by crazygringo »

Reason077 wrote: post #433
watersb wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Metadata indexing for Spotlight? I've had very stubborn runs of the md* indexer (not at laptop can't recall name -- mdimport?) decide that yes, this coffee shop is a great place to crank it up. A similar one is a large initial indexing by the Dropbox app. I've had my M1 Air on the desktop Thunderbolt dock for the past month so it's gotten way past that initialization stage.

Spotlight’s energy use shows up in Activity Monitor, though. Whatever drains my battery is invisible to Activity Monitor (but visible to apps that monitor the power management hardware itself), so presumably it must be some hardware device?

I'm no expert but I definitely can't help but wonder if it's WiFi or Bluetooth. Maybe something like radio interference making it work 50x harder?

Around a decade ago I had a MacBook that was super sensitive to interference issues. Although I'm not sure if that results in a big power draw (the way it does with cell phones for example when you're constantly going in and out of service).

Re: I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

#469

Post by crazygringo »

kelnos wrote: post #417
patchtopic wrote: post #323

I work for a non profit org. We sometimes purchase reconditioned laptops as they are good value for some use cases. We have a lot of WfH users so need to courier laptops to some staff. We recently had an insurance claim denied for a damaged reconditioned laptop as TNT/Fedex used a "no second hand goods" clause in their insurance to wriggle out paying up. This has not stopped me purchasing reconditioned laptops, but s…

You sorta hint at this in your post, but I assume that eating the cost of the rare damaged-in-transit laptop is still cheaper than paying full price for all-new hardware. And while I certainly understand that environmental impact might not be the chief concern for a company (even a non-profit), continuing to give secondhand hardware a new life is certainly way better for the environment. Regardless, it seems bonkers…

If you look at it from the courier's side it makes more sense though.

It's obvious if an item was new and you can safely assume it was the delivery company that damaged it.

Whereas for secondhand items there's no way of knowing the original shipping condition. And it would open up massive amounts of fraud where people would buy a cheap broken item on eBay (sold for parts), ship it to a nearby friend with full insurance, and then claim the shipper broke it.

Insurance should still cover the case of an item lost in shipping however, regardless of new/secondhand, since there's no opportunity for fraud there.

Re: I stopped buying new laptops (2020)

#470

Post by dangus »

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #447
dangus wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Believe it or not, Apple laptops are now quite capable of gaming, and Apple’s recent release of a game development porting toolkit shows that they’re getting serious about the space: https://youtu.be/bIPl71ZeOYk 40fps in Cyberpunk 2077 on a Mac laptop including a translation layer.

1080p, no ray tracing ... long way to go.

Sure, but you’re really missing the point I’m making here.

It’s good enough to play any modern game you throw at it, even poorly optimized and demanding ones like Cyberpunk.

So all it needs is better software compatibility and you have a lot of Mac users who are no longer motivated to buy a second system. Apple sells 1/4 of all laptops in the US to the most affluent segment of the market.

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