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When the cheap one is the cool one

arun.is

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Re: When the cheap one is the cool one

#71

Post by burnt-resistor »

userbinator wrote: post #12
prngl wrote: post #2

Resonates. Reminds me of old Thinkpads. Cheap sometimes means accessible, simple, minimal, functional.

Thinkpads were definitely never cheap.

Yup. My T480 was ~$2500 new on-sale. It has 2 batteries with one removable one, and upgradeable RAM.. features not found on the T490 or T480s.

I subsequently swapped the logic board from the iGPU to the dGPU + max performance CPU model, swapped the top cover for a magnesium one, HDD->SSD, and installed a better WiFi module. Also had to replace the screen once because I suck and broke it.

Re: When the cheap one is the cool one

#72

Post by wink »

ErroneousBosh wrote: post #57
Gigachad wrote: post #10

Apple has been doing this for ages. The base tier one always gets the fun colors while the pro models get silver, grey, and maybe some muted blue. Not sure why they make the cheaper models cooler than the top tier ones. Maybe it's just too expensive to stock multiple colors of every product. The Neo has minimal customization options for specs so making it colorful is cheaper.

In the very olden days of 1999-ish when I worked for a very expensive AV shop in Glasgow, we used to be an agent for Loewe. You could order your expensive (like four times as much as an equivalent top-spec Sony, three times as much as Grundig) TV in any colour you liked - they'd spray it anything you wanted. One of the last jobs I did for them before moving onto a very early streaming video company in 2000 was openin…

I still have an ATX Midi case sitting here in my office, bought in 1998, spray painted with the same Ford Metallic blue colour that my Fiesta had, a couple years later, because I only needed the can to fix a couple small scratches and had so much paint left.

I don't see anything wrong here except the price ;)

Re: When the cheap one is the cool one

#73

Post by timpera »

While I am back to my Surface Laptop 7 after a few weeks with the Neo because the latter wasn't good enough for my usage, I agree it's the coolest Mac right now, the colors are great! I don't really understand why Apple keeps its "more serious" devices mostly color-less, it's a shame.

Re: When the cheap one is the cool one

#74

Post by eeixlk »

mjamesaustin wrote: post #31
gradstudent wrote: post #30

Weighing up a Neo vs Framework 12 for my kids. The Neo is nicer, but I'll probably get the Framework even though it's more expensive. Apple products seem to have a fixed shelf life; a certain number of years of support and then the machine is slowly incompatible with apps that have since moved on to newer versions of macOS. Meanwhile Framework supports Linux and is still providing hardware/software upgrade paths for…

Just my personal perspective, every Apple laptop I've ever owned has lasted 10+ years. Their phones may have some planned obsolescence, but I don't find that to be the case at all with their computers.

As someone who keeps apple laptops for 7 or so years but also has encountered numerous macbook pro meltdowns both applecare covered and not, 10+ is a crazy number and you'll probably need to provide some proof for that to be reasonable.

Re: When the cheap one is the cool one

#75

Post by squeedles »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #58
margalabargala wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$10 in enamel paints and a free half hour and you can have as cool looking of a laptop as you like!

You can fairly easily get skins that will customize your laptop. I’ve done that, in the past. Seems the thing most people are into, these says, is “bumper stickers” on their laptop lids. I suspect neutral colors work best for that. I’ve found that I tend to replace my primary development machine every 3 years or so. Since retiring, I don’t travel much, so I got an M4Pro Mini. Works great, and I still have my M1Max Ma…

I large part, the sticker trend is so that people can distinguish one gray rounded slab from another. It is the reaction, not the cause.

Re: When the cheap one is the cool one

#76

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

squeedles wrote: post #75
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can fairly easily get skins that will customize your laptop. I’ve done that, in the past. Seems the thing most people are into, these says, is “bumper stickers” on their laptop lids. I suspect neutral colors work best for that. I’ve found that I tend to replace my primary development machine every 3 years or so. Since retiring, I don’t travel much, so I got an M4Pro Mini. Works great, and I still have my M1Max Ma…

I large part, the sticker trend is so that people can distinguish one gray rounded slab from another. It is the reaction, not the cause.

Maybe, but I always assumed that it was for the same reason that people put them on their cars.

They are really signals to others.

Re: When the cheap one is the cool one

#77

Post by [deleted] »

eeixlk wrote: post #74
mjamesaustin wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just my personal perspective, every Apple laptop I've ever owned has lasted 10+ years. Their phones may have some planned obsolescence, but I don't find that to be the case at all with their computers.

As someone who keeps apple laptops for 7 or so years but also has encountered numerous macbook pro meltdowns both applecare covered and not, 10+ is a crazy number and you'll probably need to provide some proof for that to be reasonable.

[deleted]

Re: When the cheap one is the cool one

#78

Post by TheDong »

vermilingua wrote: post #59
izacus wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is not as much shelf life, as whether you want your kids to be builders or consumers.

You can put Linux on Macbooks, you can build on macOS.

You cannot run Linux on the macbook neo at the time of writing, unless you mean in a VM, and the processor + memory are barely enough to reasonably manage that. Even a mid-sized rust project, or a nixos build, would OOM for a VM.

Re: When the cheap one is the cool one

#79

Post by martheen »

voidUpdate wrote: post #67
sandos wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isnt chromebooks to a large extent just this?

Wikipedia suggests chromebooks generally use normal x86 hardware, they just run chromeOS

Most of the major vendors are already assembling x86 laptops for the far larger Windows market, it's cheaper to just reuse those models for ChromeOS instead of designing a special ARM design, which in turn due to lack of scale are priced similarly to their x86 counterpart. Price sensitive customers thus don't see that much saving.

Battery life is nice, but I doubt there's that much market yearning for a cheap laptop with long battery life. People who really need large screen for long work without wall power either go at x64 (which can reach 12 hours on mid range now), or change their workflow to use Android tablet. The ubiquity of USB charging port that can power the laptop (or at least top it up while standing by on lunch) also means even if an x86 laptop may not last an entire day, the owner don't have to suffer the inconvenience of carrying around the power brick.

Re: When the cheap one is the cool one

#80

Post by maccard »

eeixlk wrote: post #74
mjamesaustin wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just my personal perspective, every Apple laptop I've ever owned has lasted 10+ years. Their phones may have some planned obsolescence, but I don't find that to be the case at all with their computers.

As someone who keeps apple laptops for 7 or so years but also has encountered numerous macbook pro meltdowns both applecare covered and not, 10+ is a crazy number and you'll probably need to provide some proof for that to be reasonable.

Anecdotally, my path was 2010 macbook pro -> 2015 macbook pro -> 2021 M1, with each device lasting about 10 years, and keeping 2 in flight at once. The 2015 one is showing it's age, and is likely to be replaced this year or next. Running linux on it isn't an option due to all the nonsense involved in suspend/sleep and the effect it has on battery life.

I also have a 2007 Intel mac with firewire that I use for some audio stuff that's still going strong with just an SSD swap.

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