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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
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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?

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[–] 4 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

I am convinced laptops are designed beginning and ending with specs and price point. Shit like the keyboard, case, speakers, electronics, etc. are 100% afterthought, and completely neglected if the alternative is being $10 more expensive than a competing product line. Nobody is sorting their search results on Amazon or NewEgg by durability. There is no way to assess this when ordering online.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    This is absolutely true. It’s called design-to-cost or design-to-spec. It’s not how every laptop is made but it’s how a lot of them are

    Most companies will say “let’s make a $699 laptop built around amd ryzen with 15” display and 8gb ram” then engineerings job is to work around the constraints

    That’s how you end up with plastic instead of aluminum casing, 60hz panel instead of 120, soldered ram, weirdly placed ports, etc

    Some laptops are design first (macbook, framework, surface) but even these will have cost cutting measures to bring them to ideal price points

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