791–800 of 1001 posts
In my case, I feel that Apple has priced itself out of the EU market with the latest Macs and iDevices. The new base M2 Air begins at €1500 after taxes which is genuinely an absurd amount of money to ask for a device that comes with 8 GB and 256 GB of non-replaceable ram and ssd respectively. The cheapest iPhone 14 starts at a bit over €1000. My plan is to keep my entry-level M1 Air for a few more years and then I'm…
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Seems far more likely that you've been incredibly unlucky. I've had many Macs and have never had battery expansion or logic board failures. I know many people that still use their 2013-era machines and they're still chugging along.
Parent: big org with many machines You: sample size = 1 Maybe parents opinion is coloured negatively by hearing about failing machines of colleagues. They even said that Windows machines were worse. Maybe you have been lucky. Zero snark intended.
My wife has been using Macs for a long time now while I use both Macs and Dells with Linux and, occasionally, a Lenovo or an HP. We have gone through at least 10 Macs in total and none of them failed in less than 8 years. One got a puffy battery (replaced in warranty), one got chipped when it fell from the desk (a white MacBook, Apple replaced the bottom, keyboard, and palm rest for free, even though the machine was out of warranty, but was listed in a recall for the palm rest). Some HDs died and some flash got upgraded. While it's not a daily driver, even the white MacBook is still going strong (as is the Bondi Blue iMac, the eMac, and the dual G5, none of which get much uptime these days, but boot up just fine every month or so). Both our current Macs (a 13" Pro and an i5 Mini) are from 2014 and will be replaced by M2 ones because they can't get the newest OS (while I can get away with it, my wife won't for long due to professional compliance rules).
No consumer-grade PC laptop or desktop of mine lasted that long in active use (some x86 servers did, as all the Sun and IBM PPC/POWER stuff) without extensive overhauling. Even my Thinkpads got cracks after five years.
The thing that worries me the most with the newer Macs is the flash storage - when it dies, I don't expect them to be repairable. I hope Apple includes M.2 slots in the future, even if the laptops need to be bulkier because of that.
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> 85%+ of the population can get an appointment within a day or two I'd love to see where you got that statistic. IME, I have to wait months for any kind of specialist. And when I finally get to see one, my insurance underpays and then I spend endless hours fighting with both the provider and the insurer. This crap happens every single time I need to see a doctor. I can't wait to retire and move to a second world cou…
> IME, I have to wait months for any kind of specialist. Ok sure so just realize when you retire in that 2nd world country the wait is for GPs! forget specialist. > https://www.england.nhs.uk/gp/case-studies/routine-gp-appoin... The average has dropped to 10 days! The US wait for equivalent of GP is like next 1-2 days, or even same day if you get triaged by the group. Also they are seeing 30+ patients a day which eve…
Again, I'd like to see the stats on that. I wanted to see my Dr for an annual checkup and was told it was a 2+ month wait and if I didn't want to wait I could see some random nurse practitioner.
There are 2nd world countries where it is incredibly cheap to call your doctor's cell phone and have them come to you in a day or two.
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I can pay my non-imaginary taxes with dollars. All my other bills also helpfully accept dollars. This gives dollars a useful non-imaginary quality crypto does not have.
It's still imaginary. It's belief-based. Just living in the imaginary world of a lot more people than crypto.
The value of cryptocurrency is just far more imaginary than dollars, euros, or even gold.
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FWIW, macs are high quality and last a long time. My wife needed a laptop for class a year ago, so I gave her my old macbook pro 13 i bought in 2014. I also had a macbook air m1 for personal use, which I replaced recently with a macbook pro 14 m1, and planned to give my wife the air. She refuses the air bc she likes the old 13 so much, and she abuses the shit out of it. How often does a laptop go strong for 9 years?…
My dad bought an 11" MacBook Air in 2011 - I think it was the cheapest possible Mac you could get at the time (maybe $900-$1000?) But I really wanted him to be on MacOS. He basically never used it as a laptop, and it's been plugged in to an external monitor and keyboard for many years. He used to stack paper on top of it until I told him to stop it so it could vent better. I would update the software, but I think it'…
There is an application called "AlDente" that lets you control this more precisely - not only can you essentially force it to hold at a specific charge level at any time, but you can also configure battery temperature limits (battery won't charge above, eg, 35C) and also "sailing mode" which gives it some hysteresis so it won't immediately charge up to 80% (or whatever you set) but rather stay at (eg) 76% if you run unplugged for a few minutes.
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Yeah they really caused some bad blood with this business prioritisation.. Not just with us in the community but also with Broadcom who now view them as competitors as opposed to a friendly outreach project. They should have stuck with their core IMO.
I'm not very deep in the raspberry PI world, mostly because it's been hard getting a hold of one. Are there alternatives that the community has gravitated towards?
* https://pine64.com/product-category/single-board-computers/
The Rock64 fits in a Pi3 case and is roughly equiv. and runs DietPi (makes a good Pihole).
The RockPro64 is a great media machine.
The A64 doesn't really do it for me but I am sure it has applications.
My one big complaint about the Rock64 design is that the tiny barrel power plug (the same size and voltage used for USB powered hubs) is right next to the 3.5mm audio jack and fits inside and if you mistakenly put it in it will fry the board (ask me how I know). I have taken to popping the connector off shitty headphones and putting it in the audio jack so that can't happen.
In my case, I feel that Apple has priced itself out of the EU market with the latest Macs and iDevices. The new base M2 Air begins at €1500 after taxes which is genuinely an absurd amount of money to ask for a device that comes with 8 GB and 256 GB of non-replaceable ram and ssd respectively. The cheapest iPhone 14 starts at a bit over €1000. My plan is to keep my entry-level M1 Air for a few more years and then I'm…
FWIW, macs are high quality and last a long time. My wife needed a laptop for class a year ago, so I gave her my old macbook pro 13 i bought in 2014. I also had a macbook air m1 for personal use, which I replaced recently with a macbook pro 14 m1, and planned to give my wife the air. She refuses the air bc she likes the old 13 so much, and she abuses the shit out of it. How often does a laptop go strong for 9 years?…
As other posters have demonstrated, having a laptop last this long is part good design and part good luck.
In my case, I feel that Apple has priced itself out of the EU market with the latest Macs and iDevices. The new base M2 Air begins at €1500 after taxes which is genuinely an absurd amount of money to ask for a device that comes with 8 GB and 256 GB of non-replaceable ram and ssd respectively. The cheapest iPhone 14 starts at a bit over €1000. My plan is to keep my entry-level M1 Air for a few more years and then I'm…
FWIW, macs are high quality and last a long time. My wife needed a laptop for class a year ago, so I gave her my old macbook pro 13 i bought in 2014. I also had a macbook air m1 for personal use, which I replaced recently with a macbook pro 14 m1, and planned to give my wife the air. She refuses the air bc she likes the old 13 so much, and she abuses the shit out of it. How often does a laptop go strong for 9 years?…
There is no Apple-bias. Apple hardware is not really any better than other brands, but they are chic and you pay for it. That's almost always been the case, speaking as a Mac guy before it became cool (pre-iPod). Stories of longevity for any brand are generally from people who take care of their stuff, but you can find exceptions even here.
I bought a refurbished Lenovo laptop 10 years ago for $300, it's still going strong after updating to an SSD a couple of years ago. The comparable Apple hardware would have cost 3x that. I also don't have to worry about losing security updates because my hardware doesn't go EOL like you just described.