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The laptop that won't die

clivethompson.medium.com

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Re: The laptop that won't die

#311

Post by jjav »

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…

> 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.

Indeed. I have a Toshiba laptop I use almost daily, I bought it used in 2010. So not sure exactly when it was built, probably 2008-09 or so.

Re: The laptop that won't die

#312

Post by sodapopcan »

close04 wrote: post #289
sodapopcan wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP made a plea, not a demand: > Please don't use Medium, post to Medium, or share Medium links. There was no implication people don't have a choice to keep using terrible software.

You misunderstood me, it wasn't OP's implication, it's Medium's. Medium implies that by clicking on their link I agreed with their ToS/cookies (so tracking). This is not just a wrong implication, it's an illegal one. The person I was replying to above only referred to the paywall issue when I think the main basis for the initial plea to avoid Medium was the second point, Medium's objectionable or illegal practices (n…

Ah gotcha, my mistake.

Re: The laptop that won't die

#313

Post by YZF »

CmdrKrool wrote: post #31
YZF wrote: post #22

I just had my T420 die on me the other day. It simply will not power on. I do have some spare parts but I think I'll finally cave in and buy a new laptop.

Try this 'one weird trick' if you haven't already. It sounds unlikely but it's worked for me with Thinkpads once or twice: http://www.masnick.com/2007/09/07/the-secret-thinkpad-powerb...

I've tried it... No go.

Re: The laptop that won't die

#314

Post by webworker »

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 can relate. I have a Dual 1.25 GHz Mirrored Drive Doors machine that is insanely fast in almost every use-case besides the web.

Re: The laptop that won't die

#315

Post by walteweiss »

marci wrote: post #274
thrtythreeforty wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll second this: Non-Thinkpad Lenovo laptops are poorly designed trash heaps. Thinkpads have largely retained the build quality that everyone brags on. My tl;dr advice for buying a computer on a budget is, get a T480s off of eBay. They are corporate cast-offs and there are so. many. of them. The R2v3 rating system has become popular. Get one rated C5 or better (cosmetic: minor usage marks only) and F4 or better (fun…

For people eyeing a T480s, make sure both batteries inside don't have too much degradation. At some point, the switch from one battery to the other doesn't work properly and the laptop will most times suddenly switch off when battery #1 reaches 0%, even if the 2nd one is at 100%, no matter how many recalibrations you do.

What if you take the internal one off and use only second one? Will it work that way?

Re: The laptop that won't die

#316

Post by hawski »

vel0city wrote: post #304
hawski wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue it is still a problem with the sleep state if it is allowed to be changed by software without restrictions. If the user decided to put his machine in the S0ix state there should be no way other than opening the lid or pushing a button to change it. Maybe there could be a hatch to allow the user to select what has higher privileges. I would worry that the corporate mandate would make all kinds of things…

Ok, we limit it to only lid open events. So I'll just register my app as a laptop lid driver and emit a lid open event.

AFAIU not every app can be a driver and most probably no app you installed without administrator rights. There could also be an easy restriction that there can be only one lid open driver or limited to the manufacturer. There are lots of things that could be tried and I will not excuse a billion dollar company that mandates S0ix in the first place.

I guess also that most things that do wake the computer up aren't really doing anything fancy, but Windows just is too nice for them.

Re: The laptop that won't die

#317

Post by Moldoteck »

MichaelRo wrote: post #262
Moldoteck wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 (provin…

i was referring more to the price difference. Typically a desktop will get you much more for the same price compared to a laptop and is much more upgradable. Combined with a lightweight M1 air with top battery, you get best of the both worlds. For me, top performance in smartphones means lack of lags on 90-120hz smooth screen and easy of switching between apps without being afraid of them being unloaded from memory (nowadays apps are really heavy: look at combined instagram, firefox browser, some messenger like whatsapp/telegram, youtube, linkedin, etc... and suddenly RAM memory fills pretty fast and you'll also typically need a good battery life for top perf, meaning you need better processor with smaller nm)

Re: The laptop that won't die

#318

Post by lproven »

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…

Your rant is rather incoherent so it's hard to be sure what you're saying, but it seems to me that you're missing several different points.

> the poor Intel Duo Core CPU

Do you mean an Intel Core Duo? You both mangled the chip model number and didn't give the Dell model number at all, so I can't check.

If so, there's point #1. A Core Duo is a 32-bit chip. It maxes out at 3-and-a-bit GB of RAM. That's not much use in 2023 and it can't run common apps such as Google Chrome, which is 64-bit only.

Point #2 is not that these elderly Thinkpads still work, it's that they are still useful. I don't know what Dell you have but I own two Thinkpad T420 machines, as mentioned in this post. Both are still in use. Here is why:

They were high-end devices when new. That means no cheap crappy hardware like "Pentium Dual Core" or Celeron chips, but full-spec Core 2 Duos. They are 64-bit bit CPUs, so my i5 T420 has 8GB of RAM and dual-boots FreeBSD 13.2 and ChromeOS Flex. My i7 T420 has 16GB of RAM and USB3, and it runs the latest Win10, the latest Fedora, and the latest Ubuntu, in multiboot.

Point #3: they are expandable with cheap bits.

My i7 one has a discrete GPU. That helps: they're still quite quick. Mine can run 2 VMs side-by-side and remain useful, or 1 usefully-big VM and a few bloated Electron apps on the host and still remain responsive.

That's why people go on about them. They are still useful in a way a 12YO Core Duo can never be.

They also have great expansion, so my machines both have dual SSDs, as well as optical drives, as well as lots of ports. DisplayPort, which can drive HDMI (while HDMI can't drive DisplayPort) and SVGA. Mine have $5 USB3 ExpressCards in them, because why not? You can't have too many USB ports, or too fast.

Point #4: great keyboards, and 3 physical mouse buttons.

I am a writer. I demand a good keyboard. I am a heavy Linux user. I need 3 mouse buttons. I don't care much about trackpads and I don't want gestures, but I need that middle mouse button.

Now none of those might matter to you, but they do matter to some of us and that's why we use them and keep going on about them.

Just accept that other people like things you don't and move on.

Re: The laptop that won't die

#319

Post by lproven »

xtracto wrote: post #217
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…

About a year ago I bought a Thinkpad for personal use after looking for a windows laptop (after a windows surface died). I thought I'd made the best choice after heavy research. Earlier this year I got a Dell Latitude for work. Both laptops are comparable. But the Thinkpad plastic seems cheap an "bendy" while the Dell just seems higher quality. I had never bought dell before but loved the finish, and so far it's been…

What Thinkpad?

The newer, the more plasticky. Post the ??20 series the keyboards get progressively worse and worse.

Re: The laptop that won't die

#320

Post by lproven »

segfaultbuserr wrote: post #84
calvinmorrison wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

X220 for the compact version. With the 9 cell? Hnnnngg

I recommend getting the X230 over the X220, if anyone decides to play with these old Thinkpads. I have both machines, and I found heat dissipation has been significantly reduced on the X230 for otherwise the same performance, thanks to Ivy Bridge's die shrink over Sandy Bridge. Most components from both machines are interchangeable with the exception of their bottom covers and motherboards (an EC firmware hack is ava…

Nah, it has a crappy chiclet keyboard.

I have both i5 and i7 X220s. The i7 has USB3 and 16GB of RAM, plus dual SSDs, and it remains 100% usable today. I just wish it had a slightly higher-res screen. I'm perfectly happy with the colours and the viewing angles, but it's a bit cramped, which is one reason I still use Unity.

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