[adrian_b]

It is not at all a joke.

When you have monitors at the destination, e.g. when commuting between home and office, it is much easier to carry in the backpack or in the briefcase a NUC than a laptop. A NUC-like computer weighs much less than 1 kg, typically between 0.3 kg and 0.5 kg.

Even if you go e.g. in a business trip and you carry with you a portable 17" inch monitor (weight around 1 kg) and a compact keyboard, the weight is less than that of an equivalent 17" mobile workstation, which weighs between 2.5 kg and 3.5 kg.

So yes, a NUC is much easier to carry than a large laptop, and when you already have a monitor at the destination it is much easier to carry than the thinnest and lightest ultrabook.

I have carried NUCs daily to the office for years, because it was much more convenient than carrying the laptop, but previously I have not also used them for most business trips, because I did not have a portable monitor.

A NUC can be also battery-powered like a laptop, e.g. by using a laptop charger from Anker or similar, but I have needed this very seldom.

[rdevnull]

I understand. Just talking about weight a Macbook 16" is 2 Kg. So it would be much lighter, more integrated then carrying around all these pieces. If you go in a business trip you need the integration and battery of a laptop. Allright, this is not a 17" inches but you can easily increase the text size if needed.

Of course to each its own and is perfect that this solution works for you. But suggesting that is a lighter alternative to a real, modern laptop is incorrect. As it is the article that seems to advocate using obsolete browsers, obsolete editors and no modern software for the sake of saving money or the World.

The truth is that whomever depends on a computer for paid work needs performance. New processors (like the apple M1) are much faster than a 6-7 years old laptop. And, if the green cause is important, much more efficient energy management and longer battery life.

If you need power and quality (think images/video editing) you can't work with software and hardware of a decade (of two decades ago).

[syntheweave]

Yes, it's the performance standards that keep me in the market.

While the embedded energy cost in new devices is noteworthy, I've run through the causes and consequences, and we still have a rationale to keep pushing up performance and energy at hardware level before trying to gut features.

And once you get on that treadmill, you're generally stuck buying at the same price points because when you go downmarket, the manufacturers will remove I/O and BIOS settings, solder the flash drive, etc.

That said, buying slightly old(even refurbished with no wear) is a great savings and I always tend to opt towards that for computers.

[benj111]

You can keep upgrading whilst buying old though. If you keep your current computer for 10 years and upgrade to a 5 year old model.

You're aware of the treadmill. Hack it.

I'm sure someone will oblige by linking to the xkcd comic playing games 20 years behind everyone else.

[dylan604]

Never mind the 15mins of setup time whenever you arrive at your new destination for working vs just opening the lid.

[madrobot]

I think the trend with macbook pros without a display ( will swap over to us) with monitors at different places or a virtual reality device with some tool like immersed. its lighter without a display, everything else is included ( keyboard, trackpad, batteries, sound and so on)

[NortySpock]

Nice solution!

I guess you cannot call it a 'luggable' like in days of yore, since it is not heavy, but I wonder if there's a snazzy term for a portable headless computer...