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

The laptop that won't die

clivethompson.medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 344 posts

Re: The laptop that won't die

#261

Post by thefz »

rollcat wrote: post #163
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…

> a 12-year-old laptop still kicking isn't that big of a deal. I have a 20yro TiBook. Both the RTC and the main battery are dead, and there's a tiny screen defect, but the machine is otherwise perfectly usable (if relatively slow). And by usable, I mean the desktop experience of Mac OS X 10.5 often feels more polished than that of some of the modern OS's... The big bummer is that the modern web keeps raising a wall t…

I don't think TLS is going to pose much of an issue when 4K HDR streaming ads load in a tiny window with PCM uncompressed audio while you browse.

Re: The laptop that won't die

#262

Post by MichaelRo »

Moldoteck wrote: post #113
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…

Imo for your usecase you can get a desktop+macbook. Use desktop when home, use macbook+some remote control when traveling.

I kept trying to convince myself to buy a desktop but the difference in performance from a laptop isn't so staggering to make up for the loss of convenience. It's easier to move a laptop and I can carry it to places where I don't have an external monitor.

Gotta have fantasies though. "When I'll have enough expendable money" I'll build myself some monster configuration. Which I'll probably use to run Geekbench (proving it's very powerful) and watch YouTube :P

This phenomenon is even more visible in smartphones. Desktop-level CPU performance and RAM / storage to do what? Browse Facebook and send pictures on WhatsApp. I could do that 10 years ago on a much more modest spec'd phone. Oh wait, I can still do that on the very same phone.

Re: The laptop that won't die

#263

Post by marci »

mettamage wrote: post #224

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 :)

Avoid the T480S

It has 2 internal batteries, and with older batteries, they can fail to switch from one to the other when they reach 0%. Models with a removable battery are a bit bulkier, but I think of greater value.

Re: The laptop that won't die

#264

Post by ubermonkey »

cglace wrote: post #259

My M1 MacBook Pros keyboard and trackpad quit working after almost exactly one year. Apple now wants 600 to fix the issue. This is the closest I've come to considering abandoning Apple but I don't know what to switch to.

My conclusion, drawn from decades of electronics purchases, is that AppleCare is the only extended warranty worth purchasing.

It's only RARELY come up for me, but since I use my machine for work knowing I'm covered for 3 years is nice. This USED to be the period I'd keep a computer, too, but for about the last maybe 8 years (?) I find the upgrade-at-36-months thing isn't as much of a slam dunk as it used to be. I kept my last one like 4.5. My current one is 2-year-old M1 Macbook Pro, and it's still crazy fast to me. I can't imagine that's gonna change in a year.

Re: The laptop that won't die

#265

Post by sumtechguy »

baz00 wrote: post #153
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…

That's not normal for Dell. Believe me. We bought a boat load of very recent Precision series and getting 12-18 months out of them would be considered a miracle. I've got a dead 5550 in the cupboard (thermal failure) and my 7670 is dying now as well. Also I have so many blown up Dell docks I look like a far Eastern recycling slum at the moment. Their monitors are good though!

All fleets of computers have that 'oddball' that lasts forever. That he has a dell that will not die is kind of interesting.

I have an HP laptop that is only kicking the bucket because the plastic is starting to become brittle. The rest of the computer is fine (other than the battery). I know that for the type of HP I bought that is not normal for a computer from 2012. The MSI I bought to replace it is well on its way to rubbish after 2-3 years (less than that as I noticed these things a year ago).

Re: The laptop that won't die

#266

Post by manchmalscott »

I don't have a medium account so I can only see the first paragraph ish, but I will comment that I used to daily drive a thinkpad T440p that I bought off ebay for ~$140, and ran arch linux on it. I was living the dream every article or think-piece like this seems to believe in. I now (for a laptop) use an M1 pro macbook pro.

The reason why I was open to buying a new laptop at all is because I had gotten used to watching youtube videos at 2x speed, and it literally couldn't handle it. The video would freeze and the audio would keep going and the only fix was to refresh the page multiple times per video.

I recently went on a week long trip, and needed a linux laptop, so I brought it with me, and was working on an OpenGL project. Practically every time I hit compile, the entire X session would freeze, to the point where the clock in the KDE taskbar wasn't even updating anymore, and the only fix was to hard reset the machine (I have never gotten magic sysreq working on that computer). I now have a framework 16 on preorder to be my linux laptop.

I also never got the webcam to be detected by linux (looking in lsusb, lspci, etc) even though it was enabled in the bios, the battery life wasn't enough to make it through a day of classes on one charge, and it ran too hot to be comfortable on my lap.

To its credit, the keyboard was nice, the trackpoint was fine, and when the trackpad died entirely, I was able to buy a new one (also on ebay) and swap them out without issue. With an SSD, it boots very quickly. That's about where my good things to say end.

"Just buy a used laptop from over a decade ago" is not good advice. Operating systems, the apps we use, the websites we use, are no longer optimized for a 10 year old dual core with 10 year old intel HD graphics. You're better off saving that money to buy something newer.

Re: The laptop that won't die

#268

Post by leke »

fefe23 wrote: post #252

> Create an account to read the full story. No. I shall not. > To make Medium work, we log user data. By using Medium, you agree to our Privacy Policy, including cookie policy. That's now how this works. Please don't use Medium, post to Medium, or share Medium links. Sites like this are a cancer on the Internet.

I had this from another medium post I tried to access today. Have they locked down everything recently? Sounds like possible enshittification.

Re: The laptop that won't die

#269

Post by Aerbil313 »

larme wrote: post #202
Aerbil313 wrote: post #127

While everyone is bragging about their old ThinkPads, I am typing these on a Pi Zero 2W. I spilt coffee on my ~8 years old HP Laptop two weeks ago. While waiting for my parents to buy me an iPhone 15 Pro (with its USB-C to connect to the monitor) I am using a Pi Zero 2W + Asus Zenscreen Portable Monitor + 10.000 mAH Powerbank setup, connecting to my server via RDP. Github Pro student credits on DigitalOcean, all free…

I love my zero 2w as a development machine. For web browsing I try to use w3m when possible. In headless model (using mosh to access), I can even disable 2 cpu cores with acceptable performance. "Each part upgradable and replaceable" -> super agree this point. You can clone microsd easily. So if microsd die, you swap the microsd. And if the board die, you just insert the microsd to another zero 2w and everything come…

Wait, how can you use a web browser on Pi Zero 2W? Simple static web pages take ages to render on mine. What is your configuration?

Re: The laptop that won't die

#270

Post by scblock »

tonystubblebine wrote: post #256
fefe23 wrote: post #252

> Create an account to read the full story. No. I shall not. > To make Medium work, we log user data. By using Medium, you agree to our Privacy Policy, including cookie policy. That's now how this works. Please don't use Medium, post to Medium, or share Medium links. Sites like this are a cancer on the Internet.

The author put this behind a paywall. How is that any different to you than Substack or the NYTimes?

Those are both unusable too. If only the author had put it on his own blog like in the good old days.
Post reply on HN