57
So the plastic chassis of any budget laptop is intentionally designed to disintegrate after about two years of normal use, right? (hexbear.net)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/technology@hexbear.net
35 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Every laptop I've ever owned has been at the 500USD or less price point, and every laptop I've ever owned has had some kind of catastrophic structural failure in the chassis that causes the entire thing to gradually disintegrate after about two years, like clockwork.

Like, that must absolutely be something they do as an explicit design goal that forces you to buy a new disposable laptop just after the standard warranty expires, right? It's not just me being bad at computer or something?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

Thinkpads and other non consumer laptops (Dell and HP though they are seen as B tier to Thinkpads) i.e. used business laptops are the only ones meant to stand up to continual abuse within a corporate/work setting.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 8 child comments
    •
  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    Eh, kind of but I even found Thinkpads to be lacking there, they start showing wear and tear symptoms after around a year tops.

    Unfortunately, literally the only company that produces laptops with some actual durability and build quality is Apple. I would really like to be proven wrong here but so far I haven't.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    True though in contrast with Thinkpads you can buy a lower spec model and not worry about soldered ram or in a few cases have the option for a GPU swap out or even CPU swapout/upgrade (this is for the PGA prev gens only though).

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I just got a refurbished T14s thinkpad and it's the most pleasant laptop experience I've ever had. Worked with every Linux distro I've tried out of the box. Good build quality, great matte IPS screen, charges by USB-C. It even has a little built-in sliding webcam cover. Not great for gaming but fantastic for travel.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Not great for gaming but fantastic for travel.

    Yeah for gaming you'd need a thinkpad with a descrete GPU and there are a variety but sadly they're value goes down on the secondhand market much slower. For instance I recently splurged on a previous gen refurbished P16 that came with an nvidia gpu and it does acceptable gaming but nothing crazy like what you'd see from a desktop setup

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    To second this - Thinkpads in my experience have been pretty solid. I'm still using the second hand x280 I bought a few years ago and installed linux on. It took a big hit and the screen smashed so bought a replacement (higher resolution) third party screen on aliexpress. I poured a glass of water on the keyboard. It still worked but some of the keys had to be pressed quite hard, so I got a replacement keyboard also on aliexpress, was pretty easy to install (youtube video plus 20 mins time, the replacement even came with the screwdriver I needed). I treat it pretty rough but it keeps ticking along. I don't think I'd ever buy a new laptop unless I could expense it. Plenty of second hand thinkpads online with decent processors / ram. idk if they're any good for gaming but for work/web browsing they're great.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •