[rabf]

When people ask what computer they should buy I always tell them to get any old office computer from ebay and use the rest of the money to buy a really nice monitor, and a really nice keyboard and mouse, as these are the bits you use! For most tasks that are undertaken on a computer any processor from the last 10 years coupled with 16GB of ram is more than sufficient.

[nasmorn]

If you buy a really nice monitor, which for me starts at 6K 32” - the eBay computer will no longer drive it. What I find insane is how long companies issued 19” 1080 screens to their employees. I don’t think that was a well calculated choice given that a couple of hundred more over 5 years would have surely improved productivity by a little bit for their 50k year employees. It felt almost done out of spite to keep people in their place

[vladvasiliu]

I wouldn't call a 6k monitor "nice", that's way above that. I would love on of those, since I can't stand blurry text, but even for me that's way too expensive to justify. So as the sibling says, if people are looking at old used pcs on ebay, they're unlikely to drop more than a grand on the screen.

A 32" 4k screen is nice enough and a reasonable one [0] can be had for a third of that. My I don't-know-how-old desktop I saved from the bin at work sporting an i5-6500 could drive that with no issues.

---

[0] Around 2020 I bought an LG something-or-other for 350 Euros for work, 32", 4k, some form of VA panel. It had pretty good colors and better contrast than the IPS monitor I use as a Sunday-photographer.

[rickydontrun]

> which for me starts at 6K 32”

that's a weird start. for me the start is 4k with proper blacks & proper color calibration

> given that a couple of hundred more over 5 years would have surely improved productivity by a little bit

no company wants the bulk of it's people to improve their productivity by even a little bit. you should be productive enough, that's it.

> It felt almost done out of spite to keep people in their place

otherwise amazon and the likes would have competitors in every country. but I don't think it's out of spite.

it's the 'established' interpersonal culture between employers and employees, like in packs without natural alphas: if one beta-beta steals the show of the beta-alpha a few times too many, he's a goner. in packs with alphas the performer gets commended and a chance to compete for the top because you want your team to be lead by the currently best. hasn't been the case in our species for a long while now.

companies don't treat their employees bad out of spite, it's so they can stick to low, moderate(d) standards and cultures, ... and have an easy work life

[nkrisc]

A 6K monitor seems like complete overkill unless you’re editing 4K video or sitting way too close to it.

[scherlock]

Many employees are doing text work and, until recently, operating systems and apps did a really bad job of working with Hi DPI displays. Your best bet was to target around 115 DPI on a monitor for decent text rendering without having to deal with font scaling. 19" 1080p is perfect for that. You just gave them multiple monitors if you wanted more real estate.

[IshKebab]

People asking for computer buying advice obviously don't need a 6K screen.

[wpm]

I have a ThinkPad T420 that is sufficient for most tasks that don't involve HEVC acceleration. It's got a mobile Sandy Bridge i7, booting off of a SATA SSD.

The only thing that really needed an upgrade was the display. I ditched the crappy 1366x768 TN for a 1440p IPS and an LVDS-eDP conversion board. Looks fantastic. Runs great.