[redroyal]

“Laptops don’t change”

Really? because a few years ago battery life was maybe 7 hours and now it’s 18. And with faster processors, thunderbolt 4 and USB C charging, wifi 6, better screens and lighter.

I keep hearing this argument for not buying a new laptop every year and it just doesn’t hold water. I say buy the latest MacBook, expense it, factor it in as a monthly cost. These are expendable and essential tools. They pay for themselves

And these framework laptops are pretty awful. They run hot and are poorly designed. The modular usb addons are a joke and exchangeable GPUs? heavy, power hungry, not for laptops. 3 hour battery life. The main product feature AFAICS is virtue signaling. These products are not open hardware either. Then, there’s this modularity argument. Like this is the last laptop you’ll ever own and forever will be replacing it piece by piece. Disassembling over and over. But that’s not realistic. You’ll have to upgrade to faster processors and the form factor of the mb will change regardless of what they say, and you’re counting on the company being around in a few years which is a poor bet. They can’t compete with Apple or even Lenovo

[Atotalnoob]

So if framework can let you reuse the "shell" for 2-3 upgrade cycles until they have to change the motherboard, that's a lot better than having to buy an entire new laptop.

It's not about keeping the same form factor forever, that's unrealistic. It's about reducing the amount of stuff you have to buy for each upgrade.

Opening and closing stuff is realistic, if it's easy.

I've opened and upgraded various components of my steam deck half a dozen times in the last 6 months.

It's reduce, reuse, recycle.

I don't own a framework.

[CraigJPerry]

>> So if framework can let you reuse the "shell" for 2-3 upgrade cycles

I badly want the framework laptop idea to succeed - the idea of re-using your old laptop battery as a battery bank when you upgrade, that's just brilliant. The idea of taking your old motherboard and sticking it in a slim case that bolts to the vesa mount on the back of your monitor, beautiful.

However, it's far more expensive that just buying a MacBook. I bought the base model M1 Air for £999 at launch. I just sold it, what's this, 3 years later, with 90% battery life remaining for £600 plus shipping, after eBay & paypal's cut I'm £537. That's £462 for 3 years of having faster single core / interactive responsiveness than anything else at comparable price on the market.

How much more would I have had to pay over a similar time frame for a slower heavier framework with much much less battery life.

I considered the framework for this laptop cycle but instead I just traded up to a second hand 16" M1 Pro/16Gb/1Tb with 16 cycles count on the battery - i.e. brand new. Sure it's 25% slower than the equiv £2800 M2 Pro version but this cost me just £1500 delivered in pristine condition. I'm feeling very confident I'm going to come out ahead again in total cost of ownership.

[finitestateuni]

My framework (latest revision i5 DIY edition) is lighter than my wife’s maxed out M1 MBA. She has 16gb of RAM and 2tb of storage, and it cost $2500 with taxes and shipping. I have the latest i5 DIY edition and I forwent everything (charger, RAM, storage). I got the fastest 2tb m2 drive supported and the fastest 64gb of RAM supported on Amazon. Total cost with taxes and shipping for everything was $1250.

My framework compiles the linux kernel faster than her MBA and lasts all day on a single charge. I did spend an enjoyable afternoon dialing things in, although I know not everyone would enjoy that. I wouldn’t recommend a linux laptop to anyone who doesn’t understand init systems and how to manage config files.

They’re both great laptops, but with different target markets. Let people enjoy things!

[aCoreyJ]

Those comparisons work against any Windows business laptop though, which Framework competes well with on price and features.

No doubt Apple Silicon has really exposed AMD/Intel and x86/64 in general

[the-grump]

Too bad Apple's hardware doesn't play nice with Linux.

[themadturk]

It's not doing to badly with Asahi Linux. There are still shortcomings to work out, but there are people using Asahi on their Apple Silicon machines for their daily driver.

[the-grump]

Yeah but it's nowhere near the choice you get with a typical x86_64 laptop with an AMD/Intel chipset.

I have minor problems with my Lenovos and Framework, but by and large they do work out of the box.

[Gigachad]

Asahi Linux basically works. The main issue is that Linux software, especially proprietary, does not play nice with ARM.

[redroyal]

Linus released the last kernel from an ARM MBA

[coldtea]

>It's not about keeping the same form factor forever, that's unrealistic.

It's not that unrealistic, if we constraint forever to like 10-15 years.

In a lot of laptops I'd rather they keep most of the ports (and just e.g. update USB2 to USB3, and add a few new ones) but keep the form factor the shape.

Often new keyboards (Apple is notorious, but holds for others) are worse than in the previous form factor.

And when they go and "make it thinner", beyond some point, I'd often rather they added more battery, or added a space for an extra use installable SSD, or put bigger speaker cones, or just leave the space inside for better thermal dissipation...

[pnpnp]

I love that they’re doing this. However, in my use-case I keep a laptop 5+ years now. At that point, it’s pretty worn out and usually warrants a total replacement.

All the individual components keep me happy for so darn long now. After 5+ years, there have usually been pretty big improvements in every area.

[neuralRiot]

Upgradeable hardware sounds great in theory but doesn’t work in real life, just like PCs you configure it once and it will be that HW until it is obsolete for your purpose.

[yjftsjthsd-h]

> just like PCs you configure it once and it will be that HW until it is obsolete for your purpose.

Nearly every PC I own has had its disk replaced at least once, and many have more RAM than they started with; both of these massively extend their useful lifespan.

[musicale]

RAM, storage, and GPU upgrades are great.

Unfortunately CPU upgrades often require a new socket/motherboard.

[nine_k]

CPU upgrades on desktops did not make much sense for several years, until Zen came out.

[KronisLV]

> Upgradeable hardware sounds great in theory but doesn’t work in real life, just like PCs you configure it once and it will be that HW until it is obsolete for your purpose.

This isn't really the case for many folks out there.

If I get a better CPU, the previous one might go to one of my homelab servers (consumer hardware). The same goes for motherboards, that's how I got a second homelab server (bought a mobo with more RAM slots for main PC). I occasionally swap out drives and now my homelab servers also have SSDs like my desktop. Once I bought faster RAM for my desktop, I moved some of the old sticks to the servers.

You can easily replace homelab servers with a family PC or another machine that you have (or just spare parts in case something fails) in the example and it will still make sense.

Actually a lot of that hardware is also second hand - since it was easier to just get affordable first gen Ryzens for my desktop, instead of saving up money for a while. Those homelab servers both also use 200GEs because of the low TDP, which others might consider obsolete, but which have a second life here.

[musicale]

I think you can often make a similar hand-me-down argument for non-upgradable (or minimally upgradable) hardware as well.

For example, obsolete thin client PCs can be repurposed as home servers or control systems. With a USB GPIO interface they can even do Raspberry Pi-like things.

Apple makes it harder since you may fall out of the 7-ish year macOS security patch window, but you can often install Linux or NetBSD if you plan to connect to the internet.

[KronisLV]

> I think you can often make a similar hand-me-down argument for non-upgradable (or minimally upgradable) hardware as well.

That's fair and I'd probably also make that argument as well: as long as the hardware/software isn't locked down and utterly unsupported, then even older pieces of kit can be utilized well, instead of being thrown in a landfill somewhere.

I do have a netbook with a N4000 CPU and 4 GB of RAM that is still good enough for web browsing, note taking, some light development and even using as a stream dashboard when I'm streaming on the main PC. As far as I'm concerned, that is only possible due to good drivers and support for Linux distros that are lightweight.

But at the same time, if it had more RAM slots, it'd last me years longer than a soldered offering - it's easy to imagine an old netbook being repurposed as a homelab node, for an internal Wiki, maybe some project management software, internal file repository, or some other simple goal like that.

That's also why I'm upset at some Android phones: that go out of support in a few years, with no way to easily install an up to date release, weird driver situation and locked down bootloaders and sometimes even batteries that cannot be replaced! It's like they're the ultimate form of planned obsolescence, even though the same hardware could last me close to a decade.

[zacmps]

Terrible example, a large proportion of gamers (including myself and almost everyone I know with a PC) builds their own.

Upgrades are piecemeal and old components are variously sold, given to friends, or re-used in home servers.

[vGPU]

I built a desktop 5 years ago. I recently upgraded it. I was able to reuse a lot of the components including SSD, cooling, case, power, etc. And that computer had been upgraded a few times over its life before it was retired too.

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

I'm a huge Framework fan but I worry that the upgradeability produces more e-waste rather than less. I already see Framework laptop owners tossing mainboards every generation. I think the e-waste angle is the weakest- I like the upgradeability because it saves me money. As a cheap bastard I almost see it as a challenge to use my devices for as long as possible.

[squarefoot]

> I already see Framework laptop owners tossing mainboards every generation.

That would be extremely stupid, especially after they released the case to turn the Framework mainboard into a mini PC.

https://frame.work/products/cooler-master-mainboard-case

[LUmBULtERA]

You know people who are literally tossing old mainboards? I’d be happy to take one off of someone’s hands if they’d otherwise be throwing it away.

[tyg13]

> The main product AFAICS is virtue signaling.

Friendly reminder that people do care about things you don't care about. Claims of virtue signaling say more about you than them, quite frankly. And really, you should care about the massive amount of e-waste generated every year.

[quadrifoliate]

This.

I lose any hope for us as a species being able to reverse climate change if the top comment about an article that goes quite deep into meaningful ways to “reduce, reuse, recycle" is that this is virtue signaling, and that we should buy Macbooks every year instead because they are "expendable tools".

Guess what, their impact on the environment is very much noticeable. There is no way we are going to reverse or even meaningfully delay climate change with this kind of collective attitude.

[nine_k]

Laptops are expendable tools, no question.

The problem is that their price does not include the expenses of the global warming accelerated due to their production and transportation. So they are sold artificially less expensively than they will turn out to be.

When laptop production, transportation, and recycling become largely carbon-neutral, it would be easier to argue for throwing them away once a slightly better model is available.

[hdivider]

Worth remembering this is HN, where all too often, people hide behind screens and make less-than-considered comments for points. This is just one of many echo chambers. Apple worship in particular is quite prevalent in this thread -- but in reality, way more people use Windows.

The folks who spearhead the real fight against climate change aren't likely to spend much time on threads like this. They're in meetings with supply chain and logistics folks trying to figure out how to hit an ambitious decarbonization quota.

My point: there is hope, and usually, it's not found online, but out in the real world.

[Gigachad]

Who is buying macbooks every year though? I'm using the M1 2020 for work and it still feels like a brand new laptop.

[redroyal]

That issue can’t be solved by reusing laptops or sorting cans from cardboard. The argument that every little helps is totally flawed. Fantasy, make believe. The other 8 billion people simply don’t care and why would they? 50 years from now they’ll all be dead. Since when did people care about future generations and the good of humanity? It’s a very recent western fashion. The only thing that truly motivated the vast majority of people is sex and money or objectives closely descended from that tree. To modify mass human behavior you have to incentivize based on that leverage. But - even modification of the behavior of the crowd won’t be sufficient. The only way to fix this is w new technology

[liamN]

You're falling prey to the fallacy that just because 1 person's actions can't make a world of difference on their own, those actions aren't worth taking. By your logic, you may as well not vote either, because everyone else is voting. Every little bit DOES count, because the more people believe they can make a difference, the more of a difference they will make collectively. You have to lead by example. Rolling over and dying because you dont think you can make a difference makes you part of the problem.

New tech certainly would help, and it isnt/shouldnt be on the shoulders of just individuals to make all the change. But Im not going to use that as an excuse not to change my own behavior for the better.

[piaste]

> By your logic, you may as well not vote either, because everyone else is voting.

Correct. Voting is the worst possible example, because while e.g. individual recycling has a negligible but technically non-zero impact, voting is overwhelmingly* likely to have exactly zero impact.

* unless the voting base is either extremely small, or extremely close. Your vote only matters as much as the likelihood that at least one result is decided by exactly one vote, which is only realistic in something like a local town election. Which are the only elections most people should actually pay attention to.

> Every little bit DOES count, because the more people believe they can make a difference, the more of a difference they will make collectively.

That's pure wishful thinking.

What actually happens is that people believe they are making a difference, even when they actually aren't, but since they feel personally good about having put in an effort, they stop worrying about the actual problem, and stop even thinking (let alone acting) towards solutions that might actually work.

Why do you think the "carbon footprint" idea was actively pushed by BP and other super-polluters? Out of the goodness of their great? Or because it drew attention away from other, less corporate-friendly CO2 reduction measures?

[bscphil]

> Your vote only matters as much as the likelihood that at least one result is decided by exactly one vote

This is entirely wrong. The value of your vote is the relative ratio of the fraction of alternate universes in which you vote in the election and your side wins, over the fraction of alternate universes in which you don't vote in the election and your side wins.

The value of your vote, as a result, is emphatically and enormously greater than the likelihood of the election being decided by a single vote. That's because there is an enormous amount of correlation between you not voting and people in the same voting demographic as you not voting. The question of whether you will vote should be seen as largely a consequence of the turnout characteristics of your voting block, not a free choice of the "uncaused cause" variety.

In fact, the real danger of the your argument is that by taking it seriously, you greatly reduce your voting power by making your demographic that of the tiny group of people who decide whether to vote based on meta-arguments about the value of their single vote. And this particular demographic basically never swings elections, so by putting yourself in that demographic, you effectively make the value of your vote zero.

[redroyal]

I mean you’ve got to appreciate the scale of the problem here and be pragmatic. The danger of recycling is it gives the illusion of progress, but I’m not against it otherwise. Philosophically you might be correct but voting blue in a non swing red state is completely meaningless

[paulryanrogers]

We need not be locked in a two party system forever. If enough of us demand same day primaries and ranked choice then other parties have a chance.

Only voting in blue strongholds certainly isn't going to break the duopoly.

[vel0city]

There's 8 billion people so my actions don't matter. I guess I'll pour all my old paint and paint thinner down the storm drains. Maybe my motor oil and used coolants as well. After all I'm just one person out of 8 billion, my actions don't matter.

I'll just litter all my stuff as well. Single use plastics? Sign me up, I'll just throw it out in the street. I'm only one of a few million in my city, my actions don't really matter.

Or maybe my actions really do matter.

[piaste]

Your actions do not, indeed, matter. Neither does your vote, or your boycotting of $global_evil_corp, precisely because there's millions or billions of people involved. (To be pedantic: while not literally zero, your actions matter several order of magnitude less than would be necessary to be able to perceive their effects.)

But that's a really hard pill to swallow. Your post is a beautiful example of that difficulty: you spell out examples of how your actions don't matter [as much as you would like], and then wildly swing into open denial with "Or maybe my actions do really matter".

My advice - if you focus on the consequences of your actions that you can actually perceive, instead of the ones you only wish you could, you'll be less frustrated. For example, helping your local community will typically give you far better returns than trying to improve any global issue.

[vel0city]

So you're saying my neighbors and I should feel fine throwing old car batteries in the lake and switching back to leaded gas?

[flangola7]

This is lazy defeatism and an immediate disqualifier I use in the selection of both friends and employees.

[bloomingeek]

I agree, all branches of science should invent ways to recycle almost anything. We know we have a waste problem, yet society doesn't demand enough to have ways created to deal with recycling. Forget Mars and looking at the Titanic till we find ways to deal with real world problems.

Burying our heads in the sand will hurt future generations!

[lotsofpulp]

The evidence indicates that recycling is burying our heads in the sand.

It is reduce>>>>reuse>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>recycle.

As far as I can tell, very little recycling actually ever happened or does happen. It was always just poorer countries willing to look the other way and trash it and claim it was recycled.

[gotoeleven]

How much climate change do you think has been allayed by sorting garbage into 3 kinds of trash cans and drinking from paper straws?

[Shekelphile]

Owning a macbook vs owning a framework laptop isn't going to effect climate change in any way. In fact, Apple's track record is that their products generally outlast the competition, even when they do otherwise stupid things like software DRMed screen and battery replacements and soldered SSDs.

It is purely virtue signaling. If you want to do good by the climate and still want a powerful tool there is no better option than a used macbook.

[kelnos]

I don't think Framework is expecting to compete with Apple. They're competing with Dell, HP, Lenovo, Acer, ASUS, etc. Apple's laptop market share is what, still under 10%?

Assuming Framework's thesis bears out, that their customers will actually upgrade their laptops piece by piece when given the opportunity to do so, rather than buy a whole new laptop, then it's a matter of increasing their market share, especially through corporate IT contracts.

Every new company/concept has to start from zero. Maybe Framework has a sub-1% market share right now, but what if, over the next decade, they can grow that to 10%, maybe beyond? While there will certainly be some e-waste (likely most users will not find a use for their old Framework mainboard when they upgrade, and some mainboard upgrades will presumably require new RAM), it'll still be a lot less than people chucking complete laptops, including chassis, keyboard, touchpad, and screen, once every few years.

> Apple's track record is that their products generally outlast the competition

Not sure I agree with this, though my personal experience is pre-Apple-Silicon, which may have changed things for the better. When I used Apple laptops for software development, I only got around three years out of them before they felt uncomfortably sluggish, given the general bloat increases in software development tools (and the increasing number of lines of code we need to compile) over time. Apple certainly does fairly well by their users who have more modest computational needs; my partner has a ~10 year old MacBook Air that's still usable for light web browsing and video playback, though not much more.

At any rate, telling people that their desire to own an upgradeable laptop is mere virtue signaling is just lazy thinking. I might venture to suggest it's a defensive reaction to justify their own purchasing habits, but perhaps that goes a little too far.

[Shekelphile]

> Assuming Framework's thesis bears out, that their customers will actually upgrade their laptops piece by piece when given the opportunity to do so, rather than buy a whole new laptop, then it's a matter of increasing their market share, especially through corporate IT contracts.

You can't upgrade a framework laptop 'by piece', unless you mean swapping in more ram or a bigger/faster ssd. Not really any different from other mainstream laptop vendors in that regard. The CPU is soldered, so you can't upgrade within the CPU platform generation, there's no drop in replacement options for the screen except the IPS panel they ship with (so no high dpi options or OLED/microled, no high refresh rate option, etc), and only proprietary recessed USB-C dongles for changing ports. It's a joke product.

> When I used Apple laptops for software development, I only got around three years out of them before they felt uncomfortably sluggish

Sounds like your usecase calls for a desktop system then, I know plenty of people still using 2013-2015 retina macbook pros for daily development work and they do just fine. There wasn't much performance improvement after those years until the apple silicon transition, you could get 6 and 8 core coffee lake CPUs on the last year of the intel macbook pros but they were essentially unusable for laptop usecases since they had to aggressively thermal throttle and nuked battery life as a result (something that is an even worse problem now with Intel and AMD both juicing core count and clock speeds to chase benchmark wins rather than improving perf per watt and overall system usability).

[edflsafoiewq]

That is not what he means by "Laptops don't change". He means

> A 2015 research paper discovered that the embodied energy of laptops is static over time.

> Improvements in functionality balance the efficiency gains obtained in the manufacturing process. Battery mass, memory, and hard disk drive mass decreased per unit of functionality but showed roughly constant totals per year.

> New laptops may be more energy-efficient per computational power, but these gains are offset by more computational power. Jevon’s paradox is nowhere as evident as it is in computing.

[Miraste]

2015 was the nadir of processor improvements. At that point, Intel had effectively used the same processor in every laptop since 2008. I would like to see this analysis post-Ryzen and Apple Silicon.

[jwells89]

Yes, I previously owned a pre-touchbar 15" MacBook Pro (the last "good" Intel model) and though it was a great laptop, my M1 Max MBP is dramatically better across the board. Way more power, far better battery life, much less heat and fan noise, and a significantly better screen and speakers.

Granted, leaps like that aren't a given but they can and do happen sometimes.

[DeathArrow]

Well, go to Geekbench and compare CPUs from 2015 with CPUs of today.

[photonerd]

So… you can do more, faster, for longer, then?

Sounds like a good argument for upgrading

[croes]

The article author is a journalist, I bet his speed depends on his speed of typing and not the speed of his laptop.

He could to more, faster and longer but if he doesn't the extra costs are useless.

[VBprogrammer]

I suspect the next big laptop update I have will be whatever lets me run GPT-4 size models natively.

[littlestymaar]

> more, faster

Not in the world de live in: https://jmmv.dev/2023/06/fast-machines-slow-machines.html

[photonerd]

Maybe not your world, but mine? Definitely true.

[dijit]

Until software causes performance improvements not to be worthwhile.

Though nobody can argue that battery lives haven't improved.

[marcus0x62]

The author is choosing to optimize for environmental impact over raw performance.

[photonerd]

Given newer MacBooks are also both highly recyclable AND made of mostly recycled material… also seems an incorrect statement then

[marcus0x62]

You have a laptop x that already exists.. At what point does buying laptop y, which needs to be manufactured, have the lower environmental footprint?

[dehrmann]

I didn't find that point all that interesting. Once laptops got as small as is practical (full-size keyboard, just thick enough for a USB port), we continued cramming in as much tech and battery as it would fit and not get too hot. This shouldn't be a surprised.

[ImPleadThe5th]

Do you actually buy a new laptop every year? I feel that's a bit delusional. Year to year most upgrades are pretty minor.

An argument can be made maybe every 3 years if you're doing some incredibly resource intense stuff.

[kristopolous]

> Year to year most upgrades are pretty minor.

Really this depends on the year. We're in a more chunked paradigm now when significant progress is happening more intermittently.

That doesn't mean buy new. Wait it out a year or two and buy used.

Some years matter. Most don't. You can exploit this.

[ImPleadThe5th]

Fair, and I agree. Especially if you're out of sync with the CPU/GPU upgrade cycle.

But even then the odds it will have a major impact on most workloads is very unlikely.

I think as tech people we tend to try to maximize when there is no need.

[cj]

What’s delusional is highly paid engineers not investing money in essential tools to get their work done. A new laptop is 1-2% of the annual salary of many people here.

[MAGZine]

If productivity is so important, why are people using laptops at all? Desktop processors are faster.

[yardstick]

If you just work in one location only, sure. I work from home, the office, coffee shop. When Im at home I often like to code from the couch rather than the home office. Laptops add flexibility. I like their middle ground of flexibility and performance.

I’m also one of those “weird” people that don’t use an external monitor. And yet I’m still just as productive, probably more so, than most of my coworkers.

[musicale]

I like having two large monitors and a desktop-style "mechanical" keyboard, but there's absolutely a benefit to having a full productive work environment with you, with your data and work in progress, anywhere you might want to work - even if you're not online. And when you're in an office (or home office) environment, you just plug in and continue from where you left off.

A high-end MacBook Pro may not be cheap, but it packs some serious mobile compute power along with good battery life.

[glogla]

List of places I worked from last month:

- my desk at home

- my couch at home

- my dinner table at home (in a boring call while preparing and eating lunch)

- my desk at work

- like 15 different meeting rooms in offices across two continents

- couch on terrace at work

- beanbag on terrace at work

- hotel room desk

- airport lounge

- airplane (if you count watching conference talks as working)

Flexibility is great!

[cj]

And cheaper! I personally run on a M1 Mac Mini (and iMac before that)

I paid less than $700 for the Mac Mini right when the M1 chip came out. It’s hands down the fastest computer I’ve ever owned.

[andrekandre]

  > I paid less than $700 for the Mac Mini right when the M1 chip came out. It’s hands down the fastest computer I’ve ever owned.

same, though i did kind of regret getting only 8GB ram (for what i am doing).

[leetcrew]

is BYOC that common at software companies these days? even if I wanted to "invest money in essential tools", I wouldn't be allowed to connect them to any company networks.

in any case, the most resource-intensive thing my work laptop does is have outlook and firefox open at the same time. the "heavy lifting" is done on a cloud instance that can be easily scaled up or down depending on what I'm currently working on.

[klardotsh]

I haven't used a company issued machine since 2017+18, and prior to that, literally never. So 13 months or so out of a nearly decade career. It helps I guess that I'm upfront with companies about being picky about hardware and Linux being a strict requirement (that one job was the lone and exception), they just shrug and go "sure, go for it dude".

[ImPleadThe5th]

I think there is nothing wrong with investing in equipment. I think there is something wasteful with replacing a laptop every year.

Unless its some crazy jump in hardware between cpu/gpu generations that you weren't in sync for.

[Crywastaken]

You can sell your mac every year then upgrade don't cost full price

[HWR_14]

If everyone insists on new hardware, then there is no one to sell your used Mac to.

[gghffguhvc]

I do a lot of Android and iOS app compilation (Lots of flavors/schemes of apps). So lately the upgrades in cores has meant a faster upgrade cycle for my work dev machine than for the intel based MacBook Pro era. I’m sure Apple can’t keep up this pace of the last few years though.

Back in early 2000s we used distcc for distributed compilation of QT apps and reused old workstations in a server room. But with XCode and Android studio it isn’t pragmatic.

[pshirshov]

Why don't you buy an EPYC/Threadripper workstation then? Even best M2 laptops still can't compete with hackintosh on dated 3970x

[kiratp]

Because it’s not faster. Well at least the 3990x wasn’t.

Compilation rapidly drops from parallel to single thread bound for most workloads.

https://twitter.com/kiratpandya/status/1457438725680480257

[pshirshov]

Depends on your workload. For me 3970x is faster in all my workflows.

[gghffguhvc]

I also have a maxed out Mac Studio when I need the extra cores and don’t need the portability. But I haven’t looked into hackintosh options for a long time. Perhaps I’ll check it out again some time. Thanks for the tip.

[ido]

I think you severely underestimate how fast the M2 series is.

[pshirshov]

I compared. They are better on bang per watt but I'm still getting significantly shorter compilation times on 3970x.

[simplify]

> When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Edit out swipes.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[elliotec]

Yikes. Don’t be like that.

[agentultra]

I had young kids. I took my laptop to conferences and events. Performances.

Things happen in these circumstances. Drinks spill. Laptops fall from heights. Cords get pulled.

You know what happens when a MBP encounters a liquid? It depends. But one thing almost every device will have in common in such an encounter: they cannot be repaired.

You have to replace the entire mainboard. And the cost is enough that you may as well buy a new one. The rest ends up in an unlicensed dump somewhere in the global south where a kid is going to get exposed to cancer causing chemicals when they drag it out and bring it to some back alley disassembly shop.

The cost for a laptop is pretty high. Building them to be bench repairable and upgradeable help extend their useful life. As the article points out the best we can do is use them for as long as possible.

[kevinh456]

This is part of why Apple is pushing trade in when you buy a new device. They recycle it.

[agentultra]

They claim to. I would love to read an independent audit of their recycling process. I suspect the vast majority of devices they extract the battery, the screen if it’s viable, and the rest ends up in a dump. “Recycled,” in a sense but not really.

[gremlinunderway]

If you read the rest of the site, you would see that the argument against not buying a new laptop every year is to find ways to lower the insane amount of electronics waste we're generating any single year.

It's not just about lack of features, it's also just ridiculously wasteful even for an industry already known for it. At least my PC, I'm just swapping out parts for upgrades. I'm not dumping my entire PC tower in the garbage every few years.

We're so goddamn lucky that PCs haven't become these disposable machines like every other piece of tech out there. Video game consoles, phones and laptops are just the worst for this and while it's cheaper in the short term, the costs are there we just don't see them.

[happymellon]

And this is another reason I avoid Nvidia whenever possible.

At least with laptops, I have perfectly serviceable Intel and AMD systems, but I have old laptops with Nvidia that are no longer supported and basically can't be used anymore for productive purposes.

[HWR_14]

> buy the newest MacBook, expense it

Obviously if the cost (to you, because your company will pay for it) drops to zero, you should consume a new laptop every year. It costs nothing and if nothing else the battery is newer!

Of course, that logic applies to almost anything (take free stuff) even if it is objectively stupid. Your company will pay for your laptop but not part of your electric bill for your home office, just buy a new MacBook every two days with a fully charged battery!

[kibwen]

> a few years ago battery life was maybe 7 hours and now it’s 18

At what point do battery improvements become completely unnecessary? Who's out here using their laptops for 18 hours continuously? It's like an electric car that can go 2,000 miles on a single charge; YAGNI. The vast majority of people would be perfectly well-served by a smaller, lighter, less expensive laptop that cuts down the battery to just 10 hours.

[stetrain]

18 hours advertised is usually running a locally stored video file on loop at medium to low screen brightness and some light web browsing.

My 18-hour laptop is more like 8-10 hours of real work usage, which is still fantastic compared to the 2-3 hours I would get at similar tasks 6-7 years ago.

Another big change is improvements to sleep and standby time. I can use half the battery, close the lid, and be reasonably confident that the other half will be ready and waiting the next time I need it.

EVs may actually be an apt comparison, where an EPA rating of 300 miles is more likely to give you 240 miles at highway speeds, or 150-200mi between charging stops since the optimal charge speeds fall off above a 70% charge.

[MAGZine]

10 years ago I could write software and take notes and browse the Internet for 8h a day on a MacBook air.

[lvspiff]

I recall the same - the first and second gen airs were to me the epitome of what a laptop should be. Solid feature delivery in a portable light package that was still humming after a flight from LA to DFW.

[mitchell209]

I want my EV to last a month on a single charge and yet some people are arguing against battery improvements. Crazy.

[kibwen]

This is a straw man. The argument is not against improving batteries. It's about engineering products for what people actually need, and not over-engineering them for the fantasies that we construct regarding what their needs are. To continue the EV example, the majority of trips by car in the US are less than 3 miles. You could comfortably reduce an EV's range from 300 miles to 30 and sell a car that still suffices for the majority of people, and what you gain from that is decreased costs and increased efficiency, which disproportionately benefits both overall power consumption and charge time (remember the tyranny of the rocket fuel equation). Most people don't need a car that charges once a month, they need a car that lasts just long enough for the time between when it's convenient to charge.

The truth is that almost nobody actually needs a computer that can last more than a single eight-hour workday on a single charge. In fact, most people need even less than that; if you're working somewhere with wifi, you're working somewhere with electricity. It's rare that I need my laptop to last more than two hours, let alone eight.

[kelnos]

> if you're working somewhere with wifi, you're working somewhere with electricity

I agree with most of what you said, but I think this isn't necessarily true. Many people who want to work from a cafe have access to wifi but not electricity. Sometimes those outlets are in high demand and most people don't get one.

Or maybe you're on a plane, and your laptop is trying to draw too much current than the plane's crappy socket will give you (this just happened to me on a flight a week ago), so it only intermittently charges, but not enough to keep the charge percentage from steadily dropping.

Not wifi, but you might be tethering to your phone, away from electricity entirely.

Or maybe you just are offline entirely, without wifi or electricity.

Granted, I do agree with your overall point: the vast majority of the time my laptop is plugged in, and when it isn't, I expect I'll be near an outlet again within 2-3 hours at the most. Though I wonder how much of that is inherent to my usage patterns, and how much of that is me modifying my behavior because my laptop gets pretty bad battery life.

[stetrain]

Most people don't need a lot of things that they have.

Most people don't need laptops, or nice monitors, or ergonomic desks and chairs.

The issue with arguing about need in this way is deciding who is the arbiter of what people need versus letting them buy things that they find useful or convenient or just nice.

[littlestymaar]

I'm pretty sure you're not ready to pay a premium for that.

[user_7832]

> My 18-hour laptop is more like 8-10 hours of real work usage, which is still fantastic compared to the 2-3 hours I would get at similar tasks 6-7 years ago.

I’m not sure if you’re using an M1/2 MacBook but if you’re using windows laptops - 2 to 3 hours is pretty poor even for an old laptop (assuming it didn’t have an H series processor which is a whole another story).

My (dad’s) HP Probook with its 6th gen i5 processor could get between 6-10 hours of battery life when I got it around 2020, after some years of use. Sure, old batteries degrade, but 2-3 hours for a laptop less than 3-4 years old (or older, but with a new battery) is kinda poor to start with.

[starttoaster]

I have a fairly recent Dell XPS, maybe 2 years old. i9 and mobile RTX 3070. Realistically I get about 3-4 hours on it before it's dead. Pretty similar battery life if I'm on my linux partition too.

[andrekandre]

  > 2 to 3 hours is pretty poor even for an old laptop

i get this on my macbook pro m1, but it happens when i have some webpages that suck battery life (google docs, jira etc) and/or xcode/android studio open (just sitting there) oh and corporate mandated ant-virus...

i think it might be highly dependent on work patters/environments

[datavirtue]

Never had a windows laptop that would last more than three hours...brand new or remanufactured. And I have used a LOT of windows laptops in my time, both used and new.

Except for the Lenovo Thinkpad X, or whatever they called it. I think I got ~8 solid hours of use out of them.

My 2022 MacBook Pro easily goes all day and into the evening under heavy use.

[stetrain]

I’m comparing my experience with Macbooks with M1/M2 Max vs Dell XPS with Intel H-series and DGPUs.

Back in 2017-2019 3 hours of battery with visual studio, docker, etc. running was pretty standard for those as I remember it.

[littlestymaar]

> My 18-hour laptop is more like 8-10 hours of real work usage,

Ans in which context do you find yourself needing to be even 8 hours in a row on your computer without being close to a power plug? You can even charge your computer in planes now!

[maleldil]

> which context do you find yourself needing to be even 8 hours in a row on your computer without being close to a power plug?

It's summer. I was writing a paper in an outdoor pub. No plug available, unless I wanted to go indoors (I didn't). I used the entire battery. Granted, it was mostly VS Code being a power hog.

> You can even charge your computer in planes now!

Not if you're flying economy on British Airways.

[stetrain]

Need? Fairly rarely. Not having to watch the battery percent tick down like a clock is nice though.

It charges when docked to my monitor at my desk, and I basically never have to worry about running low in any normal situation.

I can be in meetings all morning, plug it in over lunch, and be in meetings all afternoon without issue.

When working at home I can use it on the couch, or the patio, and when I'm done put it back in the bag for tomorrow without running to the charger.

Do I need it? No. I also don't need a nice keyboard, or a good monitor, or an ergonomic desk setup.

[jwells89]

Part of the appeal is the convenience. Not having to pull out the brick and charging cable, sit next to an outlet, and then pack it all back up is nice.

Longer battery life also means that for trips, you don't necessarily need to bring a full size laptop brick at all and instead can charge overnight off of a tiny phone charger.

[littlestymaar]

> Not having to pull out the brick and charging cable, sit next to an outlet, and then pack it all back up is nice.

But then even 18h isn't enough, and at some point you end up running to the plug in the middle of a meeting, because of course in the end you need to charge it (this is happening to a different co-worker almost every week in remotr, and I dont even spend that much time in meetings).

> Longer battery life also means that for trips, you don't necessarily need to bring a full size laptop brick at all and instead can charge overnight off of a tiny phone charger.

Given that a small charger is already enough to give you 30W, I'm not sure it's going to make too much of a difference: if you keep tour computer plugged while working, the battery will slowly discharge, but under most load I suspect it will still survive the day without issues.

[rospaya]

> At what point do battery improvements become completely unnecessary?

A week of heavy CPU/GPU use, on full brightness. We should strive for better. I want to go on a trip without carrying my charger.

[kibwen]

This is asking for a battery with hundreds of times more capacity, which, regardless of any future advancements in battery tech, would result in laptops with batteries which are hundreds of times heavier, hundreds of times more expensive, and using hundreds of times more materials than they could otherwise be (to say nothing of being hundreds of times more dangerous in the event of a battery failure).

[themadturk]

When I first got my 2020 MacBook Air, could use it from getting up in the morning until going to bed at night...close to 18 hours on a weekend. Some of that was sleep time, but most was browsing, writing, watching video.

Now, almost three years later, I get noticeably shorter time, but I can still open my laptop at 7 in the morning, unplug it, and use it until mid evening without plugging it in. I've never had a laptop that lasted 18 hours, or even 12-14 hours as it does now.

When I got my MBA, my goal was to use it like an iPad...don't plug it in unless required to. I still don't have to worry much about it, even with battery wear.

[lannisterstark]

>Who's out here using their laptops for 18 hours continuously?

"We should stop battery improvements because no one I know uses it" (to put it with a bit exaggeration) is certainly a novel take. Sometimes I put my laptop on the kitchen counter after doing stuff and not have to worry it'll be dead next afternoon when I need it for something.

You're forgetting one important take. Batteries degrade. In 3 years your "10 hour battery" will be more like 3 hours.

[datavirtue]

You need an 18 hour battery to get a solid, reliable 10 hours of use.

[RunSet]

> At what point do battery improvements become completely unnecessary?

I find when I can swap in a charged battery I care less about any given battery's life.

Similarly when the battery is soldered to the laptop I would rather it have a life longer than I am likely to ever use just in case.

[cbzoiav]

Or even the older setups where you had a relatively small battery in the device and a bigger wedge shaped battery that could clip on the bottom.

Or there were a couple of devices with dual battery slots so you could hot swap.

Then on odd occasions when you need it just take the extra battery/ies.

[oliwarner]

They change, but my 2015 ThinkPad 13 still delivers on performance, battery, screen, etc.

I'm a grown up now. I've got better uses for £2k right now. I'll get a new laptop when I need one.

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

You sound like you've fallen for some marketing. They want you to think that your laptop is "old" and you must upgrade. They want you to chase specs regardless of the benefit to your workflow because specs will improve forever.

I don't upgrade unless my computer can't do a thing that I need it to do.

[marcel_hecko]

"ThinkPad® X260 will go as long as you do with over 21 hours of continuous battery life". Thats a quote from Lenovo website from 2018. I can confirm this was in practice the case with extended battery pack.

[lwkl]

Doing what kind of work? And with what kind of screen brightness?

I like Lenovo laptops but I never got that kind of battery life on them I got maybe half or sometimes only a third of what they advertised.

[benj111]

So you buy a new laptop every year?

What do you do with your old one? Throw it away? Or sell it? If you're selling it who do you think is buying it?

You do realise most people don't need the fastest processor, an 18 hour battery life, thunderbolt 4 or WiFi 6

And better screens and lighter weight are relative. If I upgrade my 10 year old laptop to a 5 year old laptop I'm still realising those gains. Next year a better screen will be out. Presumably we can agree that today's best screen is adequate, despite the knowledge that in the future it won't be the best screen, so if it's adequate today, why would it cease to be adequate in 1/3/5 years?

[redroyal]

Well in 5 years I expect most dev work will be done in VR collaboratively with remote teams, w multiple virtual screens and AI assistance. Another world. Laptops and cell phones will be gathering dust with the desktops. Things change fast. Remember the world without the iPhone? That was 16 years ago. So when you talk about using a 5 year old laptop to save a few dollars it just doesn’t make sense. You can listen to music on a CD player, sounds great, doesn’t make sense. Using a heavy hot i7 MBP w 6 hours battery life from 2017 also doesn’t make sense, to save what $1200 rather than buying a 15 inch MBA. Not today - this machine is your everything. Spend some money already

[benj111]

>this machine is your everything

Philosophically I disagree.

Further I spend more time in my bed, but I didn't spend anywhere near that when I got it, and I haven't replaced that in 10 years.

>5 years I expect most dev work will be done in VR collaboratively with remote teams

Really?

You know that people lives are different to yours. I'd guess that most people on HN aren't employed as Devs, myself included. Of those that are Devs I'd guess that most aren't using the latest and greatest processes and languages.

There's still production COBOL code, do you think those Devs will be moving to VR anytime soon. And that's assuming your prediction is correct, which I highly, highly doubt.

[anthk]

VR sucks for work. And multiple virtual screens... FVWM did virtual desktops since... 1994?

[tmtvl]

How about we save that $1,200 and donate it to something like Rainforest Alliance instead?

[benj111]

Tbf the whole point of the the article is to use less stuff. If we all did that then we'd hopefully not be in the situation of having to chop down the rainforest.

So logically as it's consumption that's causing that destruction, you should really be donating the $1200 when you buy the new laptop, not when you don't.

[chasil]

It is well-known that planar transistors are more reliable than FINFET.

It is usually agreed that the end of planar transistors was the last process node of 28 nanometers. Everything below this (14, 10, 7, 5, 3, and 2 nanometers so far) is less reliable.

The fastest, lowest power, and most reliable CPU in a laptop will be on a 28nm process node. Everything beyond this sacrifices reliability for speed and lower power.

(And if you really care about lower power, then you are on ARM.)

[tengbretson]

The failure rate of CPUs could go up 10x and it would still be a rounding error when quantifying what causes laptops to be decommissioned.

[chasil]

A quick check of Google shows that TSMC does have a 16nm finfet process that is tested and approved for use in automobiles, which is a much more punishing environment than laptops or phones.

As a measure of redundancy, multiple finfet transistors can be wired together to act as one. It would not surprise me if this was heavily exploited in automobile applications.

https://electronics360.globalspec.com/article/16795/2-automo...

[tebruno99]

I like my framework and the 2 mini pc made from upgrading the internals. The slots are pass through thunderbolt 4 just like laptops with only USB’s ports. Not sure why they offended you. Get 4 usbc inserts and pretend they aren’t changeable if that’ll calm you down. Battery life does suck though I’ll give you that. It’s good overall at the cost though

[alxmdev]

> I say buy the latest MacBook, expense it, factor it in as a monthly cost. These are expendable and essential tools. They pay for themselves

Yay, another top comment that steamrolls the posted article. I say don't buy the latest Macbook: instead repair, refurbish, and get true lifetime use out of these expensive devices. They're expensive to manufacture, expensive to buy, and expensive for our planet and people to just throw them away every year.

They're not expendable at all, here is just one example of the human sacrifice involved in their manufacturing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_Samsung

[robbintt]

If you're trading it in then it's going to see more life, refurbished.

[DyslexicAtheist]

>> “Laptops don’t change”

> because a few years ago battery life was maybe 7 hours and now it’s 18

seconded for linux as well. a few years ago battery life was maybe 4 hours, and now it's 1.

[sheepscreek]

For OPs use-case which is mainly writing articles, reading and such - an older laptop will work fine. Especially when powered from A/C.

My MacBook Pro 2014 base model can still hold a candle to MacBook Air M1 for general use (even dev work to an extent), and that’s saying something. It’s slower, but doesn’t feel 9-years-old slow - if you know what I mean. It doesn’t drive me nuts to use it and I can be productive on it (my daily driver is a MacBook Pro M1 with 64GB RAM and I own a MacBook Air M1, so I speak from experience).

Also, we already do this for cars (used cars market is huge), so why not laptops. In fact, with cars - there are arguably stronger reasons to go with newer tech (safety, automatic cruise control) than with a newer laptop.

[doubled112]

Always assumed it was because laptops start at $300 and cars start at $30,000.

Don’t call me out on the actual numbers, I am only really paying attention to the zeros.

[ripply]

The framework laptops definitely run hot, I gave up on mine because it would overheat several times a day throttling down to 200Mhz. It sits in a box unused now and I consider it ewaste, I don't have the time or patience to bother with it anymore. I reached out to support maybe 6+ months ago but I haven't finished following their instructions because the laptop was just so bad and I wasted so much time dealing with it that I don't care anymore.

[robocat]

> I consider it ewaste

Leave it in a box in a cupboard and it is. Give it to somebody who will use it (at the next time you are hanging with geeks) and it isn’t e-waste. Offer it for free pickup next Framework thread - somebody wants it enough to not cost you more time than a drive format.

[zmk5]

Yeah I would suggest you do this instead of keeping it in the cupboard. Lots of people looking to pick one up for cheap.

[conceptme]

Just being able to replace the battery is a huge win.

[2h]

> I keep hearing this argument for not buying a new laptop every year and it just doesn’t hold water. I say buy the latest MacBook, expense it, factor it in as a monthly cost.

this is why Apple is a trillion dollar company. because people mindlessly buy any new thing they put out, regardless if it makes sense or not.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ydje1ivynIM

[andrekandre]

  > this is why Apple is a trillion dollar company. because people mindlessly buy any new thing they put out, regardless if it makes sense or not.

not to defend apple or anything but whats the complaint here?... that apple is really good at capitalism?

[2h]

> whats the complaint here

Its dont mindlessly buy any new thing Apple puts out

[andrekandre]

why? whats wrong with people buying things that they like?

[2h]

you seem to keep ignoring this key word:

mindlessly

[andrekandre]

yes, because you haven't provided any evidence for these "mindless" consumers so i'm not going to try and debate that point (besides calling apple customers mindless and then saying thats why they have 3 trillion dollar market cap is nearing troll territory)

my point is:

if i (mindlessly perhaps?) concede the point that those consumers are mindlessly spending money on useless things... then so what? its their money, let them do what they want with it. why make value judgments?

[smoldesu]

> 3 hour battery life.

Maybe if "laptops don't change", sure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuw-YpbFkkM

[redroyal]

Using the modular GPU

[footlose_3815]

That sounds like batteries change

[yieldcrv]

Every year is a lot

But I think the article is more about impulse control taken to an extreme because they lacked it in the past