[johansch]

I built a desktop PC almost exactly five years ago.

- Intel Core i5 2500K, 3.3 GHz, quad-core (200 USD)

- 8B (2x4GB) DDR3 1600MHz C9 (100 USD)

- 120GB 2.5" SSD Intel X25-M G2 (200 USD)

- GeForce GTX 460 1GB (200 USD)

It's sad that a full five years later, CPU performance/USD has barely moved at all. RAM is half the cost now, SSDs a quarter the cost. Not sure about how GPUs have developed?

(Edit: The GTX 960 which today also costs 200 USD seems to be about twice as fast as the GTX 460.)

[Spooky23]

You represent the 5% of PC consumers.

The average person goes to Walmart/Bestbuy/BJ's/Staples and spends $475 on some shitbox laptop. The 25th percentile user (ie. millions of people) probably spent $275-325.

That average person who bought that average PC in 2011 has an aging HP/Dell/Asus laptop with a failing battery, $30 Celeron or AMD processor, 2GB memory, integrated graphics, a 500GB 5400rpm disk and integrated graphics.

[slantyyz]

I still have my 2008 plastic Macbook refurb that I still use to browse the web.

I had the pre-release Win 10/64 on it for a while, and it actually ran faster than OSX did on that machine (in my experience, Windows runs faster on Mac than OSX itself, but ymmv). And keep in mind that my Macbook pretty much got left behind by OSX after Lion.

[Pengwin]

I was reasonably happy on my bosses plastic Macbook until OSX stopped supporting them, and I need xCode for my job.

I now have his non retina Macbook pro to compile apps, and i fear the day that stops working too.

[Merad]

Eh, probably more like the top 40-50%. All the people (and yes, there are more than a few of them) who bu anything better than the cheapest POS Walmart laptop. I built a computer for my parents at the beginning of 2012 - entirely lower midrange compnents - AMD CPU with built-in graphics, 4 GB RAM, etc. IIRC the total cost including monitor was a bit over $500.

The only thing wrong with that computer today is that it has a 7200 RPM mechanical hard drive. Even then it's not slow, it's just noticeably slower than a SSD.

[wlesieutre]

Don't forget the 1366x768 screen! They were selling those as standard on 15.6" laptops with the good old "It's a good screen because it has more inches" line.

Only in the last year or two has anything better than that become remotely common.

[Narishma]

"Were"? As far as I'm aware that's still the case for the vast majority of cheap mainstream laptops all the way up to 17" ones.

[wlesieutre]

I really thought this had gotten better with all the high DPI convertibles and Windows + 3rd party software finally being pretty reliable with it. But you're right, Best Buy's most popular 15" laptop today is this:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-15-6-laptop-intel-celeron-4...

Specs claim '15.6" display, HD resolution.' with no actual screen resolution listed.

Digging around on Asus's website I see it's available with 1080p, but I'm guessing the 1336x768 base model is the common one. Since 720p is technically "HD", they can claim that in advertising and then dodge around admitting how crappy it is. If BestBuy's product listing were for the 1080p version, they'd be advertising as either 1080p or Full HD.

https://www.asus.com/Notebooks/X540SA/specifications/

[Spooky23]

In computer spec alternate reality "HD" is 1366x768, HD+ 1600x900 and True HD 1920x1080.

[yoodenvranx]

I have an even shittier PC than you (Celeron 2.6 GHz for 40 USD, no dedicated GPU) and it is still absolutely fine for everything I do (web development, image processing in python, typing papers in TeX, editing images in Gimp, ...).

If I had to upgrade one component it would be my 22" monitor which is 6 or 7 years old but even for this there is no need.

And replacing my PC with an iPad Pro? lol, wtf? No TeX, no Python/matplotlib, no SublimeText/vim/emacs, no real filesystem, ...

btw, I think you can drop a SSD into almost any shitty PC/Laptop and make it usable again. Before SSDs I had to update my PC quite often because it always felt slow, but SSD have been an absolute game changer for me. I even revived my old trusty T61s by adding a SSD and now it is good again.

[facepalm]

GPUs have developed a lot. I had a high-end card a couple of years ago, and now I can barely run Elite: Dangerous. For the upcoming VR headsets I would definitely need a new GPU. Apple doesn't even have a computer on offer that would be powerful enough for the VR headsets (Oculus/Vive). 8GB RAM is also the bare minimum.

[piva00]

GPUs are much better now since GTX 460 but that's all you'd need to upgrade in this computer (and some storage) if you wanted to play current AAA games in 1080p or even at 1440p.

[Grishnakh]

It's just another facet of the Lost Decade that we're in.

[Too]

Five years ago that was a desktop. Today you can get the same stuff in a super slim 13" with a whole days worth of battery.