I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad • Hacker News Board

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#381

Post by cosmic_cheese » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 3:24 PM UTC

organsnyder wrote: post #347

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Framework’s offerings are interesting, but after having gotten used to the solid rigidity of M-series MacBooks and X1 series Thinkpads, the level of flex in the Framework 13 is a major issue for me. It’s difficult to justify for the price, plus PCBs and repeated flex stress don’t mix nicely. I think it’s time for either Framework or a third party partner to sell a new chassis that’s compatible with the FW13’s mainboa…

I have an M4 MacBook from work and a personal Framework 13. The MacBook certainly feels more solid, but I wouldn't call the Framework flimsy, and it still has a premium feel. I made the mistake of packing my MacBook (at the time an M1 model), my Framework, and my iPad Pro 12.9 (with keyboard case) in a single laptop bag for a work trip a while back. The Framework got bent around the power button in a way that made th…

MacBooks haven’t had mechanical trackpads in over a decade now — they’re solid glass with really good haptics to make it feel like they move, so I doubt what you’re experiencing with yours is a mechanical jam. It’s more likely that the haptic motor is malfunctioning occasionally or there’s something that’s causing the process in charge of haptics to stall.

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#382

Post by culopatin » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 3:27 PM UTC

xandrius wrote: post #327

bartread wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If being able to replace a part requires me to have a screwdriver (literally a Philips one should do), the component, and no additional PhD or bravery coming from youth, inexperience or both, I will welcome it with open arms. You have to understand though that people like us are a tiny minority. Increasingly I hate creating waste, especially e-waste, and so I'll tinker with things to get them working or upgrade the…

I don't think many throw away their remote controller when the batteries run out. So why do we do that for laptops? Because it makes them 2cm thinner? I believe this change benefits 100% the companies imposing them, consumers always have a tech-enthusiast around to ask if needs be.

Rechargeable remotes like the Samsung one, yes. My dad tried to fix it and I had to get him a new one lol.

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#383

Post by 4k93n2 » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 3:27 PM UTC

shoo wrote: post #127

CursedSilicon wrote: post #6

I wish that Framework could attain the same lofty levels of "second hand market success" that ThinkPads enjoy. A lot of the "Thinkpad fans" I've talked to genuinely want them, or respect them for similar reasons they enjoy the ThinkPad legacy. ThinkPads are durable but every day they get older, slower and more difficult to source parts for as collectors entrench themselves and the requirements of operating systems (a…

> enough Thinkpads on Earth to probably stretch end-to-end around the moon and back LD, average distance between Earth and Moon = 384,399,000 m [1] C = circumference of moon = 10,917,000 m R := approximate round trip distance = 2LD + 0.5*C = 774,256,500 m n = total number of thinkpads on earth Alas, T / R, the ratio of total thinkpad distance T to our lunar round trip distance R, is at most about 0.11 . This is with…

brilliant comment. dont forget theres also thinkpads like that W700ds that had secondary displays that extended out from the side haha

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#384

Post by asdffdasy » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 3:27 PM UTC

stronglikedan wrote: post #377

DrNosferatu wrote: post #373

Want a real solution to electronic waste? The EU should mandate 10-year warranties for higher-end consumer electronics and durable goods. This could work on a sliding scale: less expensive items get shorter warranties (but never below the current 2-year minimum), while pricier products require longer coverage periods. Such legislation would: 1. End the exploitation of workers in sweatshops producing deliberately shor…

The reality is that no one wants to carry around a five pound laptop just for the sake of sturdiness or repairability.

98% of laptops are portable desktops.

Only in very niche jobs you carry your laptop to/from office/home every day.

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#385

Post by culopatin » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 3:28 PM UTC

sitkack wrote: post #279

bartread wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If being able to replace a part requires me to have a screwdriver (literally a Philips one should do), the component, and no additional PhD or bravery coming from youth, inexperience or both, I will welcome it with open arms. You have to understand though that people like us are a tiny minority. Increasingly I hate creating waste, especially e-waste, and so I'll tinker with things to get them working or upgrade the…

I have taught at least three people how to do simple repairs and upgrades on laptops. Anyone that can read and use their brain can strip a laptop down to components and reassemble it.

Ok, but you’re missing the point and reassuring OPs. Three people might as well be zero.

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#386

Post by asdffdasy » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 3:29 PM UTC

DeathArrow wrote: post #318

randerson wrote: post #314

My old ThinkPad X220 is the laptop I miss the most. My employer at the time replaced laptops after 4 years and sent the old ones to be destroyed for compliance reasons. I begged them to just destroy the SSD and let me keep the laptop, but "company policy..." In a sensible world I would still have that machine.

You can buy one for a song.

and you will probably get that very same one.

IT data destruction companies all remove the storage, and put the device back on ebay the same day.

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#387

Post by tomnipotent » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 3:30 PM UTC

dagw wrote: post #281

squiggleblaz wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can buy a brand new Ryzen 7000 series laptop for the price of replacing a Ryzen 7000 series mainboard for a Framework laptop. I haven't been able to confirm this (I found laptop prices running at about twice the cost of the mainboard), but I wonder if you're comparing an EOL runout model from a place that can afford heavy discounts against a standard price from a smaller company. If you just need a laptop and you…

This is 173% fud. If it happens, it's because Framework is dead Take a look at the Framework desktop, it comes with soldered on RAM. Not because of any active decisions made by Framework, but simply because that's how that CPU ships. It literally didn't support RAM slots. I can only see this trend continuing. I don't doubt that Framework will be the last hold out in the fight against soldered on RAM and SSDs, but soo…

My gut is that Framework shipping a desktop with soldered RAM was simply a compromise of opportunity, given the LLM boom and interest in AMD Strix Halo. I can only guess, but I'm betting the Intel desktop will not have soldered parts. I'm further hopeful that if folks need to upgrade this specific device that there will be a healthy second hand market hungry for them like there is for used Nvidia GPU's.

But I do agree that the trend of soldered SoC-like will grow, seeing that less than 1 in 10 consumers ever upgrade a computer. Apple silicon has been out for four years and I don't really come across a lot of grumbling about their integrated components which gives me hope that it's a tenable option and we're worried about nothing.

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#388

Post by acrooks » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 3:32 PM UTC

DrNosferatu wrote: post #378

stronglikedan wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reality is that no one wants to carry around a five pound laptop just for the sake of sturdiness or repairability.

One thing does not prevent the other: that's what standards are for.

You will need to sacrifice something. If the regulations become more restrictive, one of the following needs to change:

- cost (laptops getting more expensive) - quality (laptops getting less powerful / smaller) - time (manufacturers have a long grace period before they need to implement the regulations, to allow technology to catch up)

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#389

Post by b8 » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 3:34 PM UTC

I have a x220 with an adjustable screen. I broke the screen and the battery can't hold a charge. The power button cover is messed up. No hard drive cover. Last I looked up the screen install was complicated and expensive. Probably take over $200 I paid on eBay for it. It has an unlocked bios though which I've read is rare.

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#390

Post by culopatin » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 3:42 PM UTC

bkor wrote: post #138

quailfarmer wrote: post #79

The tightness of hardware integration isn't a bug, it's genuinely a feature; In fact, it's the defining feature that makes Apple hardware great. Socketed RAM, CPU, and Storage just weren't worth the tradeoffs, namely size, weight, cost, and performance. Including those modular interfaces just wasn't worth it when the internal interfaces would be obsolete within 5 years, and the average user was replacing sub-componen…

> Socketed RAM CUDIMM is changeable and fast. > The user being able to swap parts easily is _neat_ but it's just not an required feature Mostly because people seem to have forgotten that it was possible. Often laptops are slow to due either a too full disk and/or not enough memory. It used to be more common to upgrade those. But apparently that knowledge/skill is forgotten and it's now more custom to buy a new device…

People as in the general population were not doing it, just us weirdos.

I funded my early career years by doing IT for home users of all sorts of expertise and budget and I feel like I got a decent gauge at what the average user did during the replaceable hardware era.

The people in the middle class and below would end up with such a shit device out of the gate (those 400-600usd laptops at the time, lower outside of the us), that by the time they started complaining about slowness, the upgradeable things did not make a difference. 1 to 2gb ram with a shit Celeron? Hardly worth the money. Bottom shelf Core2duos, overheating, cracking hinges, etc.

Not to mention that even then not all laptops were very standard in the way they were built. Taking one apart could be very time consuming and they would pay by the hour for me to do it, so after labor it was above what the device was worth and it would only buy them a few months of time at most. You do that once and you realize next time you’ll get a desktop.

The richer people would just get MacBooks and only call me for software stuff.

Companies had thinkpads and once purchased would never go out the standarized build. Just swap them when out of warranty, or at the time most would actually work at a desk with a desktop and leave work at work.