While buying the latest tech is tempting, older desktop and laptop computers are often more than enough to meet the demands of modern computing work. An older machine may require some time and tinkering to get up to par, but the payoff can definitely be worth the work and the results can be rather surprising. https://www.notebookcheck.net/Age-before-beauty-Why-a-decade-old-laptop-is-more-than-enough.858863.0.html
Old laptops suck. They can't play 4K videos. But then an Android TV box that only costs $50 can make up for this deficiency...
Interesting, mostly...
I've been saying this for YEAR's but would add an additional layer to the filtering:
- What are your use cases that don't actually need or require a 'network' or much less the 'internet' at all?
- What are your use cases that DO require 'networking' with other computers and/or require 'internet access'?
Given that the modern "PC" or "Home Computer" has been around since the early 1980's[/b] and over the FOUR PLUS DECADES a VERY LARGE number of Operating Systems and Programs/Applications have been released to run on these "home computers", the reasons to replace a computer might involve:
- it is no longer functional at all
- it will not run the latest and greatest OS/software
Given that there are countless perfectly functional OLDER COMPUTERS (as you've mentioned), why would anyone purchase a new one?
Well as mentioned "it will not run the latest and greatest OS/software".
Why might this be important? For those that have use cases that involve communicating with OTHER computers and/or the INTERNET keeping a fully 'patched' computer OS+apps is less likely to be "infected" resulting in at least data loss, ID being stolen and/or other countless possible nasties.
However given that the "infection points" on computers are via: a network connection, infected media/files installed and/or opened on computer if your use case does not require/need a network connection and/or you don't exchange files or media with others then the likely hood of getting "infected" are ZERO to NONE.
Granted MOST people don't have a 'handful or more' aging (or NOT!) computers laying about to have 'special use cases' IE: 'offline only' and 'safe to stream'. :)
(this was typed on a 2013 13" MBP OSX 10.13.6)
:)
"Linux is not the complicated boogeyman it once was"
Linux DEs are utter garbage and WILL NEVER EVER - mark my words ---> NEVER EVER be mainstream with the way they are currently developed and maintained. I'm so sick of neckbeards and dry eggs pushing there linux fanboy propaganda arguing it's a viable alternative when these distros can't hold a candle to apple/msft in terms of stability, reliability, and app availability and yes, I'm talking about the desktop enviroments not the servers running linux just to remove that talking point.
So sick of people lying about how its a great user experience yet never disclose just how much hoops they probably had to jump through just to get it stable let alone the constant breaking changes pushed via updates because of the elitist fragmented mindset of most linux maintainers Then there's the community that is so arrogant and toxic. Yeah no.
Someone once said Linux DEs are like a hundred recipes for the "perfect mac and cheese" that are never as good as the box you buy from the store. Words have never been truer and its a shame, because it would be nice if there was a true legit third-party alternative to the MSFT/Apple monopoly but right now Linux DEs are not it.
"Linux is only free if your time is worthless"
I can certainly relate. I've been using my 2013 Lenovo yp510 for 12 years now. I had it retrofitted with an nvme booting drive and a 1 To ssd and an SLI Nvidia 785M (I think?) It runs like a charm, is somewhat noisy at the gills and is not Win 11 compatible (I don't care)
My use cases are surfing, playing online chess, watching YT videos and casual gaming (Crysis, remember?) This beast never failed me and I made it a personal challenge to make it last another 5 years (yeah, right)
That old laptop uses less power than my way newer laptop i would kill for a 10w idle only get 3 hours of battery life
Quote from: Bizarro_NikoB on July 17, 2024, 23:19:54"Linux is not the complicated boogeyman it once was"
Linux DEs are utter garbage and WILL NEVER EVER - mark my words ---> NEVER EVER be mainstream with the way they are currently developed and maintained. I'm so sick of neckbeards and dry eggs pushing there linux fanboy propaganda arguing it's a viable alternative when these distros can't hold a candle to apple/msft in terms of stability, reliability, and app availability and yes, I'm talking about the desktop enviroments not the servers running linux just to remove that talking point.
So sick of people lying about how its a great user experience yet never disclose just how much hoops they probably had to jump through just to get it stable let alone the constant breaking changes pushed via updates because of the elitist fragmented mindset of most linux maintainers Then there's the community that is so arrogant and toxic. Yeah no.
Someone once said Linux DEs are like a hundred recipes for the "perfect mac and cheese" that are never as good as the box you buy from the store. Words have never been truer and its a shame, because it would be nice if there was a true legit third-party alternative to the MSFT/Apple monopoly but right now Linux DEs are not it.
"Linux is only free if your time is worthless"
Love how you limit it to desktop environment.
Linux already is the most popular OS, by far. It skipped the "DE" And went straight for server and mobile. And embedded. And pico. And virtual.
Yeah Mom&Pop don't use it on their laptop or desktop. Doesn't mean it sucks there, either.
While I adore my lenovo x220s (plural), I finally stopped using them and bought a 3rd hand (correct) lenovo convertible. There is one key reason: battery. Yeah, they're quite cheap, though not as cheap as the author claims (around 25 - 35 EUR mark, and only that cheap if you buy off aliexpress), but they're all (ALL) - s***. I've bought about 4 in total, various brands, including those with glowing reviews, and they were all s***, regardless of their claims. They last 2hrs, if I was lucky, AND wear out to very low capacity after a few weeks' use, so near-instant landfill. I can't spend the rest of my life hunting for a 'good enough' battery, so I retired my lenovos, even though the swappable battery and hdd, and fantastic keyboard beats the s*** out of my 'current' model (which is already considered 'ancient' being made in 2018 and each and every newer version is worse in every possible aspect).
both those laptops despite similar power consumption are underpowered (that macbook 2014 is what, 900/1200 geekbench? less that ARM singleboards for $50) and are hot as hell.
also yeah, you can replace hdd, wow. for another slow sata drive.
Quote from: jkhjhjbj on July 18, 2024, 14:54:26also yeah, you can replace hdd, wow. for another slow sata drive.
Exchanging an HDD with a "slow" SATA SSD actually makes a big difference. It made a really big difference on my (also) 10 year old desktop computer. Everything installed and loaded up much faster then. I remember an Unreal Engine 4 game where a savegame previously took 2-3 minutes to load, and with a Sata SSD it was only 20 seconds. That was in fact "wow".
and don't forget how all the HDD noises disappeared as well...
Quote from: Bizarro_NikoB on July 17, 2024, 23:19:54Linux DEs are utter garbage and WILL NEVER EVER - mark my words ---> NEVER EVER be mainstream
mac os is a unix system
Quote from: indy on July 18, 2024, 05:23:15Love how you limit it to desktop environment.
Linux already is the most popular OS, by far. It skipped the "DE" And went straight for server and mobile. And embedded. And pico. And virtual.
Yeah Mom&Pop don't use it on their laptop or desktop. Doesn't mean it sucks there, either.
Exactly. On the server side it is rock solid. Number 1 choice in my opinion for servers. My critique was focused on the DEs which I don't think are as good as hyped in the tech sphere - at least not in their current form. They're getting there but still need work and what they really need is for software companies to start offering linux compatability but that's a whole different conversation.
Quote from: Gep on July 18, 2024, 00:20:04I can certainly relate. I've been using my 2013 Lenovo yp510 for 12 years now. I had it retrofitted with an nvme booting drive and a 1 To ssd and an SLI Nvidia 785M (I think?) It runs like a charm, is somewhat noisy at the gills and is not Win 11 compatible (I don't care)
My use cases are surfing, playing online chess, watching YT videos and casual gaming (Crysis, remember?) This beast never failed me and I made it a personal challenge to make it last another 5 years (yeah, right)
No VP9 decoder and that's it, you can't watch YT in good quality on fhd screen - 4k@60fps is not available to you, because my Asus 2014 with i7 4700HQ can't play 4k@60fps VP9 also...
Quote from: NikoB on July 18, 2024, 23:06:49watch YT in good quality on fhd screen - 4k@60fps
What's so important you've found on YT that you want to watch it downsampled to not miss any of the precious details on that immensely huge 15 inch screen.
Maybe the reason you can't watch it in good quality is your old 2014 70% sRGB screen?
Quote from: sam2 on July 18, 2024, 23:38:29Maybe the reason you can't watch it in good quality is your old 2014 70% sRGB screen?
Firstly, the screen is 72% NTSC, secondly, color rendition has nothing to do with this topic of bitrate per pixel, and thirdly, you are just another ignorant man in the street who doesn't understand why you can't watch 1080p video on the YT screen and it's undesirable even 1440p , if there is a 4k source. 1080p is a forced choice only in the absence of higher resolutions.
You should take a crash course in self-education about bitrate per pixel. And also carefully compare the quality of 4k video on an fhd and 1080p screen.
There were already people here who wanted to argue with me, and all arguments were immediately lost, even with their own screenshots as "evidence".
This is why stupid reviews that a 2013 laptop is enough for them to watch high-quality videos on YT cause nothing but a smile from real experts.
The first laptops with real working support for VP9 appeared around the second half of 2015, but rather en masse in 2016.
This is the cut-off point before and after. All laptop hardware up to VP9 support does not provide smooth playback at 4k@60fps, and therefore does not provide high-quality video.
And AMD, in fact, a working VP9 decoder appeared only in 2020 in May (starting with Zen+) with the release of the next version of drivers. But it loaded the processor and igpu much more than Intel.
Quote from: NikoB on July 19, 2024, 22:38:47Quote from: sdfghj on July 19, 2024, 16:14:02Bitrate literally IS color rendition, because video compression is done in color space
What kind of nonsense are you writing, noob?
All reasonable people will simply select 1080p and 4k resolution on the fhd screen on YT and see for themselves that I am 100% right. One stubborn debater with me posted a bunch of his own screenshots (not even a dynamic video!), assuring everyone that there was no difference, despite the fact that the difference there was huge.
I laugh at amateurs every time. Time after time, but they are the majority on the planet, so this nonsense will never stop on the forums...
Snob much?
Frankly IDK if the video I'm watching on a portable device is <= 720P!!!
IMHO: 4K video is for the 4K big screen in the living room with Gigabit Internet.
(Even then WHO CARES? Nobody sits close enough to really see the difference anyway)
Quote from: Bizarro_NikoB on July 17, 2024, 23:19:54"Linux is not the complicated boogeyman it once was"
Linux DEs are utter garbage and WILL NEVER EVER - mark my words ---> NEVER EVER be mainstream with the way they are currently developed and maintained. I'm so sick of neckbeards and dry eggs pushing there linux fanboy propaganda arguing it's a viable alternative when these distros can't hold a candle to apple/msft in terms of stability, reliability, and app availability and yes, I'm talking about the desktop enviroments not the servers running linux just to remove that talking point.
So sick of people lying about how its a great user experience yet never disclose just how much hoops they probably had to jump through just to get it stable let alone the constant breaking changes pushed via updates because of the elitist fragmented mindset of most linux maintainers Then there's the community that is so arrogant and toxic. Yeah no.
Someone once said Linux DEs are like a hundred recipes for the "perfect mac and cheese" that are never as good as the box you buy from the store. Words have never been truer and its a shame, because it would be nice if there was a true legit third-party alternative to the MSFT/Apple monopoly but right now Linux DEs are not it.
"Linux is only free if your time is worthless"
I've been running this laptop on linux for 10 years, so far nothing ever broke that required me to jump through any hoops. If anything, I've had more issues with Windows and MacOS breaking over these years that required going through hoops to fix
Of course I understand everyone's experience would vary depending on what they deal with.
The issue has 0 to do with DEs stability and reliability. And everything to do with that linux is simply not there on most computers when you buy them. As they are not available, you are dealing with hit or miss on your hardware. Lately it has been a lot more hit than misses, but nothing is absolute
As for software availability, that will always be catch 22, until Linux Desktop becomes more popular, you aren't going to get more software, at least not unless most software goes into the cloud or becomes wasm.
The notion of fragmentation is nonsense though. All distros are is preconfigured defaults. You pick whatever default you like that requires you to configure less
For a new user with an old pc, opt for an LTS distro. For a new user with a new pc, opt for an LTS distro with latest kernel.
As for DEs, for new computers I suggest KDE(especially if you like to do heavy customization, but default is fine too) or Cinnamon, for old pcs MATE. Of course any DE works fine.
Quote from: jkhjhjbj on July 18, 2024, 14:54:26also yeah, you can replace hdd, wow. for another slow sata drive.
Well worth it, the magic of an ssd is the fast access times. In real life, the jump from HDD to slowest sata ssd is larger than jump from slowest sata ssd to fastest nvme ssd. Unless you spend all your time copying huge files for sequential r/w (which is very rare)
Quote from: NikoB on July 19, 2024, 22:38:47One stubborn debater with me posted a bunch of his own screenshots (not even a dynamic video!), assuring everyone that there was no difference, despite the fact that the difference there was huge.
You were asked WHY do you need that sharpness on your 15 inch dim bad screen lol and you still can't answer anything except "because I want to". Why not 8K, retard? Are you like using your awful laptop only to pixel peep fullscreen youtube videos?
Quote from: NikoB on July 19, 2024, 22:38:47All reasonable people
Are those "people" here with us, in this room? Or are they all just you with different names. I don't even know people who watch fullscreen youtube anymore. Maybe some old jobless guys who don't have anything to do with their laptops.
Quote from: lol on July 21, 2024, 16:45:32Quote from: NikoB on July 19, 2024, 22:38:47One stubborn debater with me posted a bunch of his own screenshots (not even a dynamic video!), assuring everyone that there was no difference, despite the fact that the difference there was huge.
You were asked WHY do you need that sharpness on your 15 inch dim bad screen lol and you still can't answer anything except "because I want to". Why not 8K, retard? Are you like using your awful laptop only to pixel peep fullscreen youtube videos?
Heh, that "one stubborn debater" is me, here are the posts, check his comments and you will clearly see that that's exactly what he does (pixel-peel YT vids):
Quote from: Neenyah on May 12, 2024, 16:25:32Quote from: NikoB on May 12, 2024, 15:41:30Quote from: Victor Lilley on May 12, 2024, 13:35:12It would be more useful to me, having already bought it, if it made concrete suggestions, on a external monitor, that would overcome the disadvantages of the internal screen, bearing in mind the limitations of the current graphics card.
From my comment you can already draw a practical conclusion when watching YouTube - never choose a resolution lower than 4k (if available) on a 2.5k screen
1080p on a 2.5K screen: https://imgur.com/Wvpieqm (https://imgur.com/Wvpieqm)
2160p on a 2.5K screen: https://imgur.com/NDvnXDm (https://imgur.com/NDvnXDm)
Striking difference... Not.
&
Quote from: Neenyah on May 12, 2024, 22:37:01Quote from: NikoB on May 12, 2024, 22:32:58Here is a typical example of how a low bitrate merges everything into a shapeless mess:
youtu.be/FjU_x1106pg?t=707
We look at the treetops from 11:48 in 1080p and then in 4k.
There you go:
1080p @ 2.5K screen: https://imgur.com/nrnovkI (https://imgur.com/nrnovkI)
2160p @ 2.5K screen: https://imgur.com/M1VsvIB (https://imgur.com/M1VsvIB)
Now go bark at that same tree you dumb lying moron.
&
Quote from: NikoB on May 13, 2024, 09:49:25Dumb moron, even the dumbest reader will instantly see the difference in real screenshots, not fabricated ones:
Real 1080p from Youtube: i.imgur.com/kMsk7Lu.png
Real 1080p from Youtube: i.imgur.com/76X0TvW.png
Zoom for 100% and switch fast both in browser
It's enough just to scroll carefully on the fhd screen to immediately see the monstrous difference in detail between 1080p and 4k, and even more so without a paid Premium subscription, deliberately imposed by Google through the deterioration of the 1080p bitrate without it.
You moron already disgraced yourself earlier when you quietly merged from the thread regarding the clarity of the text in Chrome under the pressure of irrefutable evidence from your own screenshots.
And it's morons like these who slow down progress. Or corrupt. paid trolls masquerading as ordinary people or simply real morons in terms of intelligence. You are more likely from the second category.
After that he kept spamming a load of his usual trash to proclaim himself victorious and superior, check the full discussion if you are interested into it.
Quote from: lol on July 21, 2024, 16:45:32Quote from: NikoB on July 19, 2024, 22:38:47All reasonable people
Are those "people" here with us, in this room? Or are they all just you with different names. I don't even know people who watch fullscreen youtube anymore. Maybe some old jobless guys who don't have anything to do with their laptops.
Well said 👍
IMHO: The FACTS of the matter is that EVERYONE has different use cases and needs/requirements to fill them.
Sure while generalizations can be made and some users "grouped" into categories with other similar users not everyone always 'fits'.
It may not make any sense to other but we all decide what is important to US.
With the above said IMHO there is NO "must have" feature that was introduced in laptops (or computers in general) in the last +10yrs. Does that mean that I have NOT purchased any devices for +10yrs? No. Just because I kept purchasing different devices for different reasons does not mean they had anything 'special' about them.
It is mostly because I could. :)
I agree with the article. I'm also still on a 10 year old desktop computer. An i3-4160 with integrated HD 4400 graphics. No dGPU. It works still fine for many things, e.g. internet, documents, 2D image editing, audio editing, 3d modelling (blender) and animation, smaller projects in Unity game engine, casual gaming (titles before 2010). Though as I mentioned in a previous post, the biggest difference in performance made a SSD versus a previous HDD.
A lot of universal tasks can be done just fine - contrary to many people's opinions in forums and youtubers, who act like you will always need the latest and bestest, every new year of course, and if you don't, you can't do s#it. Which is B.S.
The thing where I personally realized it's too slow, is video editing, screen recording, newer gaming. These things definitely need a better computer. There is no way around that. But for other tasks, even a 10 year old computer will probably do. But even if you need a better computer, it's debatable if you need one with a dGPU or if a more current iGPU is enough, since these have become much stronger.
While in the 1980's a family MIGHT own ONE computer that was expected to do it all.
However now in 2024 things have changed:
- I retired after +40yrs of my EMPLOYER(s) providing whatever computing device(s) I needed to do my job for them
- 'Home computing' tasks are split between Smart Phone, Tablet, Laptop and Desktop systems. Obviously not all devices can do everything the other devices can do.
The iPhone10 won't be getting updates much longer, a few tablets are already OBS, the OSX laptops are VERY down revision and the WIN laptops are almost all WIN10.
They ALL have software and applications on them that I installed shortly after purchase and surely many if not ALL the applications have 'new and improved' versions out that I have no need or use for.
While the MAC, Tablets and Phone have modern current release browsers installed the WIN machines sit behind TWO HW Firewalls with MS Blocked and may only venture out to the 'internet' to get the current version of Steam and download & update a game or two. (which are OFFLINE games)
Maybe someday MS will get a handle on any application being able to access & write anywhere however in 2024 that is not the case.