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The laptop that won't die

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Re: The laptop that won't die

#221

Post by ryzvonusef »

nirui wrote: post #104

This is another Thinkpad festival post? Let me just cold you down a bit by telling you that a 12-year-old laptop still kicking isn't that big of a deal. I have this DELL Studio laptop released back in September, 2009, and it can still kick very well too if I decide to recruit it back to my "workforce". I retired it just 3~4 years ago because I got a T480. Heck, some of my code (old versions) for the same project that…

Excuse me sir, you are interrupting our Thinkpad circletrek, begone with your Dell heresy.

I absolutely love my cute little Thinkpad X230T, but finding a battery for that fits the T variant is a pain in the butt in my country, I tried like a 6-7 in the shop but they were all old and dead, very little market for them so they stayed unused and died out, I am limping along on my 15-minute battery for now.

I believe Lenovo could have designed the laptop a bit better to fit the more common battery found in the X220/X230, which I can find very easily, but Lenovo had a weird mindset at the time, a bit like Nokia, come to think of it.

Lenovo has had some missteps too, but I think their brand name is(was?) famous for a reason. In my country Lenovo/Dell/HP laptops from old American office discards are rather common, and I have had better luck with Lenovo than the other two, though it could just be my family's experience.

I am in the lookout for a reasonably priced T480, because soon windows 11 will become inevitable and I would like to be ready. Stupid TPM 2.0 requirements will cause a lot of good laptops to go bunk.

Re: The laptop that won't die

#222

Post by jefc1111 »

nirui wrote: post #104

This is another Thinkpad festival post? Let me just cold you down a bit by telling you that a 12-year-old laptop still kicking isn't that big of a deal. I have this DELL Studio laptop released back in September, 2009, and it can still kick very well too if I decide to recruit it back to my "workforce". I retired it just 3~4 years ago because I got a T480. Heck, some of my code (old versions) for the same project that…

I am a Thinkpad fanboi, my oldest fully working one is around 14 years old. I am also super-impressed that my partner's 10 year old Macbook air is still doing fine. It's been abused to the point that it is a bit bent! The software is a bigger problem though...

Re: The laptop that won't die

#223

Post by windowsrookie »

wiredfool wrote: post #154
baz00 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the same is true of Apple stuff. I mean the current line of soldered SSDs, RAM and pain in the ass to remove batteries is quite frankly annoying as hell. And Apple service isn't much better (it has been 2 weeks and I'm waiting for them to refund AppleCare on something but they have a bug in their system that is preventing it that no one knows how to fix). As for Lenovo, at that price, I can usually just buy a…

The 2016+ era MBPs were awful. The previous 2 generations were good, but had their occasional issues. Like the drive cable on the unibody MBP. I got 7 years out of a 2012 Air. The jury is still out on the m1 era, but it's looking better. We'll know for sure in about 5 years.

My 2018 15" MacBook Pro has been used daily (since 2018) and still works great. I have never had a single issue with it.

My M1 MacBook air has had a logic board replacement, and is currently getting a screen replacement because it shattered from the light pressure of my finger while adjusting the angle of the screen. Both of these issues seem to be very common across the internet.

Before someone chimes in saying that I closed the lid on something and cracked the screen. No, It cracked while the lid was open, when my finger touched the display. Also it is the inner actual LCD that cracked. The outer glass sheet has no damage at all.

Re: The laptop that won't die

#224

Post by mettamage »

I'm so happy with this post. I needed to buy a cheap laptop for a family member and I went so all in on Mac a decade ago that I really don't know the lay of the land when it comes to Windows. I'll just get a Lenovo Thinkpad second hand :)

Re: The laptop that won't die

#225

Post by tommica »

m463 wrote: post #105
MichaelRo wrote: post #101

>> I needed a machine that a) could run Logic Pro (the finest music-editing software available to humanity), b) had a high-resolution screen for my lousy eyesight, and c) had a 1-terabyte hard drive. It was the only machine that fit the bill. For a time, I too fell into the trap of looking for "readily made laptop" with shiny specs, only to eventually notice that getting ripped off is an understatement. Like spot a d…

> I'm buying "gaming laptops". step 1: disable rgb. Honestly, I wish the "lunchbox" style laptops existed. EDIT: I remember dolch lunchbox style laptops from a long time ago (search for "dolch pac") EDIT2: wow, search for FlexPAC III Of course, if these were a thing, somebody would bring it to starbucks.

Slam the 30kg "laptop" on the table and order a coffee... I'd so want to have that thing!

Re: The laptop that won't die

#227

Post by windowsrookie »

jamesgeck0 wrote: post #96
guestbest wrote: post #51

I have a MacBook 13 inch from 2011 that now plays YouTube videos daily for my daughter when she is eating and Netflix until we canceled the subscription. Still going strong with only a replaced battery and the hard drive replacing the dvd spot. I have an older 2004 Toshiba portage m200 tart also won’t die. The only thing that seems to die on these computers is the battery, which used to be a lot easier to replace.

Yeah, my 2013 MacBook Air is similarly still trucking along. I wish it used a more standard storage medium; upgrading the chip did not look particularly cheap or easy.

Storage is easily upgradeable in those MacBook Airs. It's a socketed SSD just like a PC laptop. (but a proprietary socket)

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd/owc/macbook-air

Re: The laptop that won't die

#228

Post by olabyne »

noud wrote: post #88

I still have a working X60s from 2006. Really liked that laptop. Unfortunately, for modern standards, the battery life is not great, a couple of hours at most. And the resolution is just a little bit too low, 1024 × 768.

hey friend ! I gave my mom the X61t, from the same era. For what she does, it is a marvel, from XP to 7 to 8.1, I bought her an Ipad last year since 8.1 droppped the support.

I think with an upgrade of 4Gb it could be still ok in 2023. Just avoid website full of JS and videos.

Re: The laptop that won't die

#229

Post by cvccvroomvroom »

The T480 was last non-Apple cargo cult, repairable design.

The T490 and onward aren't good.

The problem though of old hardware is lack of CPU features needed by some operating systems and the presence of hardware vulnerabilities, and the obsolete ports they contain like FireWire, slow USB, and PCMCIA.

Re: The laptop that won't die

#230

Post by PennRobotics »

hawski wrote: post #102
thot_experiment wrote: post #99

I have a crazy idea that would vastly improve modern laptop design. You would build in some sort of a reversible conduit interrupt device (may be lost tech but I hear rumors that it's possible) that would allow the end user to disconnect the battery. This would solve the #1 problem with laptops which is that sometimes I need to use the laptop and it's out of battery because it decided to turn itself on in my bag.

One thing that would go a long way would be the return of S3.

Are there any current laptop models with S3? Desktop?
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