11–20 of 149 posts
Unfortunately, with the advent of soldered ram and storage, this isn't feasible any more for more taxing uses. Most of the used devices will have the default ram and storage and you'll have to buy new so you can order the thing with enough resources.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep, saw that too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36646791 374 points, 530 comments
LOL I posted this in the previous thread > I am still on my MacBook Pro 2015 because of the Keyboard and Trackpad. So in about 2 years time this will be 10 years of usage. I dont intend to replace it any time soon. For browsing it is fast enough. And if you look at the Louis Rossman Channels it seems newer MBP just aren't built the same. It may be worth looking at it again I 2025. How little ( or big ) the past 10 ye…
They fixed the keyboard and the trackpad has been good even in the emoji keyboard models.
Do get one with 32 Gb ram if you can. You never know what you'll want to use it for next year.
[*] Of course, if you compile/run renders etc you may get to hear the fan and it won't last 20 hours.
Maybe for OpenBSD. These days I am parano... savvy and prudent enough to not trust security swiss-cheese software bare metal, and so I box it all up into qubes with Qubes OS. For Qubes, it's always best to max out RAM, core count, and GPU count (AI). Libreboot laptops don't cut it if you want to run seven isolated chat/social profiles on seven separate VPN/Tor connections while also running LM Studio in an offline GP…
Bravo for you, but surely you realize that almost nobody does this? Hardly relevant to an article about getting some more useful life out of an old laptop.
>I grumpily ordered a replacement key for 15 euros. A single key for 15€?! I remember ordering one from an online shop specialized in replacement laptop keys at some point in the 2010s and it was like 2€ total. Browsing through similar shops now, it seems like the minimum is 5€ per key nowadays, but still a far cry from 15€. >After spending more than 100 euros on plastic keys, which would soon break again, I calculat…
I presume, with Windows 10 support ending this year, there's going to be a glut of used laptops.
Alternatively, can the community come up with some interesting uses for all the machines?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
LOL I posted this in the previous thread > I am still on my MacBook Pro 2015 because of the Keyboard and Trackpad. So in about 2 years time this will be 10 years of usage. I dont intend to replace it any time soon. For browsing it is fast enough. And if you look at the Louis Rossman Channels it seems newer MBP just aren't built the same. It may be worth looking at it again I 2025. How little ( or big ) the past 10 ye…
Jumping from x86 to arm may be worth it just because of how little power it needs. Perhaps you'd like a laptop where the fan never [*] turns on enough to be audible and with 20 hours battery life? They fixed the keyboard and the trackpad has been good even in the emoji keyboard models. Do get one with 32 Gb ram if you can. You never know what you'll want to use it for next year. [*] Of course, if you compile/run rend…
That's all fine when you use the laptop as a typewriter. I keep around a 2010 laptop that only has some text editing software on it for that exact reason. Unfortunately, with the advent of soldered ram and storage, this isn't feasible any more for more taxing uses. Most of the used devices will have the default ram and storage and you'll have to buy new so you can order the thing with enough resources.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Jumping from x86 to arm may be worth it just because of how little power it needs. Perhaps you'd like a laptop where the fan never [*] turns on enough to be audible and with 20 hours battery life? They fixed the keyboard and the trackpad has been good even in the emoji keyboard models. Do get one with 32 Gb ram if you can. You never know what you'll want to use it for next year. [*] Of course, if you compile/run rend…
The Lunar Lake laptops have reduced the power efficiency gap by a lot.
You can play some pretty taxing x86 3d games on my M3 pro laptops, in spite of the two layers of emulation. Those Lunar Lake laptops would need a GPU for that wouldn't they?
Have they in the Wintel world figured out why Apple trackpads can actually act like a mouse replacement yet?
The Old T430 I got from a relative who went to a MAC is also quite adequate for daily use. I have NetBSD on it and just finished upgrading to 10.1, so this was typed on that T430.
So unless you are a heavy duty gamer or work on complex 3d graphics professionally, any recently used laptop will work just as well.
Use refurbed when possible. But obviously the "don't buy new" incentive only scales to a hard limit
It is one of those big beasts with a number pad and decent GPU. I use it as a gaming PC. I was just last night playing Dead Island Riptide with default settings. It is probably the best computer purchase I have ever made.
My advice: keep an eye out for Dell refurb deals on slickdeals.com. They occasionally have half-off deals, which is what I scored.