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Had to buy a new laptop to replace a 2009 MBP recently. Chose the mid 2012 non-retina display. Took out the disk drive and put in my own SSD and RAM. Does ever

Had to buy a new laptop to replace a 2009 MBP recently. Chose the mid 2012 non-retina display. Took out the disk drive and put in my own SSD and RAM. Does everything I want it to do without the slightest complaint. All told I probably paid ~$700 less for a comparably powerful machine with 10x the internal storage of a late model MBP retina, albeit heavier and with a slightly inferior display. Next time I need to upgrade I'm with you - it's just too painful to knowingly buy into an ecosystem where upgrades and repairs feel like unabashed extortion. Obviously there's a very large target market of folks that just want their tech to work and will happily drop a few hundred bucks each time they need to upgrade or repair. But it's hard to go back once you've opened up your computer and seen how cheap/easy it is to replace some of these extremely modular components. I imagine my mindset will change as I get older and have less time/more disposable income.

toomuchtodo 11y ago
> Obviously there's a very large target market of folks that just want their tech to work and will happily drop a few hundred bucks each time they need to upgrade or repair. But it's hard to go back once you've opened up your computer and seen how cheap/easy it is to replace some of these extremely modular components. I imagine my mindset will change as I get older and have less time/more disposable income. There is. I'm 33, and do devops/infrastructure. I just want my rig to work. Macbook Air maxed out on ram and disk. To me, its disposable every three years (comes out to be ~$60/month). Apple is going to have to get pretty bad before I throw away the experience of walking into an Apple store, buying a new laptop, restoring from TimeMachine, and being up and running almost immediately. As you mention, disposable income and a lack of time changes the equation.
- Someone1234 11y ago
  > (comes out to be ~$60/month) Even phased like that that is a lot of money.
  - toomuchtodo 11y ago
    Not for a tool contributing towards six figures of income for me annually. That's an insane ROI. EDIT: I know people who spend more than that on Starbucks each month.
    - douche 11y ago
      Just about everything starts to look cheap when you stack it up next to a daily Starbucks habit...
      - deleted 11y ago
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      - deleted 11y ago
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    - NicoJuicy 11y ago
      That's not a realistic comparison... My acculated sum of every webapplication i use is (outside of my business ofc): - 9 € / month ( Google Play Music) - 3 € / month ( Netflix shared with 3 other people) - 3€ / month for Google Apps ( actually, this is business... But i also use the mail for private use..) = 15 € / month. If i'm not mistaking, you're OS X device costs you 4 times more every month then the sum of every online webservice i use. ( this is another comparison than yours.. Some people just throw out money, others don't :) . Earning a lot of money doesn't automaticly mean you have to waste all of it )
      - deleted 11y ago
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      - bobbles 11y ago
        >If i'm not mistaking, you're OS X device costs you 4 times more every month then the sum of every online webservice i use. Well.. you need something to run those things on
- NicoJuicy 11y ago
  Full stack developer here on Windows, not everything maxed out. Payed 550€ for my laptop ( 8 gb, ..) 2 years ago, everything is still working fine and it's still enough ( Visual Studio is supposed to be a "heavy" program). = 23 € / month till now and still dropping... And it's hardly game over with my laptop. When i'm at 3 years, it will cost me about 15,2 € / month. I'll probably use it for longer. But let's say i don't have any costs and sell the laptop for 150 €, that makes it 11,2 € / month. PS. No repairs required untill date Edit: You can install Linux on it too or dualboot it ( i did this a long time, but didn't feel the need for it now)
  - toomuchtodo 11y ago
    Can you run Docker on Windows yet? We're a Docker/Python/Go stack.
    - NicoJuicy 11y ago
      I can on my Raspberry Pi 2, but Docker should run: https://docs.docker.com/engine/installation/windows/ https://docs.docker.com/engine/installation/windows/ Edit:. The Pi is just for experimenting, no GUI required ;)
      - deleted 11y ago
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    - radicalbyte 11y ago
      You can run it in a virtual box VM and ssh in. Works fine, at least as long as you have lots of RAM & a fast HDD. It does suck battery though.
    - Nullabillity 11y ago
      About as well as on Mac OS X.
    - zurn 11y ago
      Docker is Linux-only :) There are tools like docker-machine facilitate running Docker under Linux VMs non-Linux platforms though.
- unethical_ban 11y ago
  I'm 27 and just want my rig to work. That's why I build my own PC, demand mobile phones with replaceable batteries, and have a great 6 year old Lenovo laptop that, besides a slow-ish CPU, is spec'ed pretty well for 2016.
  - toomuchtodo 11y ago
    Different strokes. I've got better things to do with my time. I'd rather walk into the Apple store and replace my MBA or my iPhone when I've got a problem. That saves me time for my wife or my hobbies. Trade money for things that save you time, to spend that time on what's important to you (if you've got the money).
    - mahranch 11y ago
      > I've got better things to do with my time. I'd rather walk into the Apple store and replace my MBA or my iPhone when I've got a problem. I don't get the comparison. It's like apple users think the only options are buy apple (expensive, but "allegedly" rarely needs fixing, works 99% of the time, lasts a long time, etc) and a PC ("allegedly" breaks all the time, requires more maintenance, requires more time to keep up with, "cheap", etc...) Those are not the options -- it's a false premise. There are laptop PCs which have the exact same performance & reliability as apple, but for a fraction of the price. I've gone through 4 PC laptops since 1996. My first 2 laptops, I admit, I spent a lot of time repairing but that was due to my own youthful tinkering, experimenting and the general instability of earlier OSs (DOS, Win95, Win98/ME, etc). But my last 2 have lasted me 7+ years a piece. And I only decided to upgrade because they were beginning to show their age (slower compared to newer stuff). You can buy PC laptops with the same "just works" fidelity as apple. More options open up, and you can save yourself a fortune, if people would just eschew their brand loyalty.
      - toomuchtodo 11y ago
        > You can buy PC laptops with the same "just works" fidelity as apple. More options open up, and you can save yourself a fortune, if people would just eschew their brand loyalty. What do you consider a fortune? $1000? $1400? That's about two days of my time consulting. I'm fine paying the premium for what I consider a better experience. It's not brand loyalty, that's for sure. I've had a terrible, terrible time trying to get work done on Windows 7, Windows 10 looks like a train wreck, and there are no Lenovo stores I can walk into same day and get a replacement like I can with an Apple store (which is in every major metro I visit). Build a better experience, and I will gladly pay for it. Until then, Apple (grudgingly) gets my dollars.
mmastrac 11y ago
Yep. That was the last Macbook that I would consider to be "adequately repairable". I handed one of those down to my kid after replacing the optical drive with an SSD (creating a fusion drive) and loading it up with RAM. It's still very usable as a desktop/gaming Mac. I've even replaced the battery in it once (IIRC it was glued in, but in a way that was reasonably simple to extract).
mizzao 11y ago
There was an article about how that MBP model is still very popular: https://marco.org/2016/01/04/md101ll-a https://marco.org/2016/01/04/md101ll-a HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10840227 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10840227
sbd01 11y ago
I've just bought the computer you have and have maxed it out as well. It does what I need, and it will last me for a few more years, but I don't know what I'll do when I need a new computer. I've always chosen Mac, and I have no idea where to look for a good, high-performance Windows laptop.

toomuchtodo 11y ago

> Obviously there's a very large target market of folks that just want their tech to work and will happily drop a few hundred bucks each time they need to upgrade or repair. But it's hard to go back once you've opened up your computer and seen how cheap/easy it is to replace some of these extremely modular components. I imagine my mindset will change as I get older and have less time/more disposable income. There is. I'm 33, and do devops/infrastructure. I just want my rig to work. Macbook Air maxed out on ram and disk. To me, its disposable every three years (comes out to be ~$60/month). Apple is going to have to get pretty bad before I throw away the experience of walking into an Apple store, buying a new laptop, restoring from TimeMachine, and being up and running almost immediately. As you mention, disposable income and a lack of time changes the equation.

Someone1234 11y ago
> (comes out to be ~$60/month) Even phased like that that is a lot of money.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  Not for a tool contributing towards six figures of income for me annually. That's an insane ROI. EDIT: I know people who spend more than that on Starbucks each month.
  - douche 11y ago
    Just about everything starts to look cheap when you stack it up next to a daily Starbucks habit...
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
  - NicoJuicy 11y ago
    That's not a realistic comparison... My acculated sum of every webapplication i use is (outside of my business ofc): - 9 € / month ( Google Play Music) - 3 € / month ( Netflix shared with 3 other people) - 3€ / month for Google Apps ( actually, this is business... But i also use the mail for private use..) = 15 € / month. If i'm not mistaking, you're OS X device costs you 4 times more every month then the sum of every online webservice i use. ( this is another comparison than yours.. Some people just throw out money, others don't :) . Earning a lot of money doesn't automaticly mean you have to waste all of it )
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - bobbles 11y ago
      >If i'm not mistaking, you're OS X device costs you 4 times more every month then the sum of every online webservice i use. Well.. you need something to run those things on
NicoJuicy 11y ago
Full stack developer here on Windows, not everything maxed out. Payed 550€ for my laptop ( 8 gb, ..) 2 years ago, everything is still working fine and it's still enough ( Visual Studio is supposed to be a "heavy" program). = 23 € / month till now and still dropping... And it's hardly game over with my laptop. When i'm at 3 years, it will cost me about 15,2 € / month. I'll probably use it for longer. But let's say i don't have any costs and sell the laptop for 150 €, that makes it 11,2 € / month. PS. No repairs required untill date Edit: You can install Linux on it too or dualboot it ( i did this a long time, but didn't feel the need for it now)
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  Can you run Docker on Windows yet? We're a Docker/Python/Go stack.
  - NicoJuicy 11y ago
    I can on my Raspberry Pi 2, but Docker should run: https://docs.docker.com/engine/installation/windows/ https://docs.docker.com/engine/installation/windows/ Edit:. The Pi is just for experimenting, no GUI required ;)
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
  - radicalbyte 11y ago
    You can run it in a virtual box VM and ssh in. Works fine, at least as long as you have lots of RAM & a fast HDD. It does suck battery though.
  - Nullabillity 11y ago
    About as well as on Mac OS X.
  - zurn 11y ago
    Docker is Linux-only :) There are tools like docker-machine facilitate running Docker under Linux VMs non-Linux platforms though.
unethical_ban 11y ago
I'm 27 and just want my rig to work. That's why I build my own PC, demand mobile phones with replaceable batteries, and have a great 6 year old Lenovo laptop that, besides a slow-ish CPU, is spec'ed pretty well for 2016.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  Different strokes. I've got better things to do with my time. I'd rather walk into the Apple store and replace my MBA or my iPhone when I've got a problem. That saves me time for my wife or my hobbies. Trade money for things that save you time, to spend that time on what's important to you (if you've got the money).
  - mahranch 11y ago
    > I've got better things to do with my time. I'd rather walk into the Apple store and replace my MBA or my iPhone when I've got a problem. I don't get the comparison. It's like apple users think the only options are buy apple (expensive, but "allegedly" rarely needs fixing, works 99% of the time, lasts a long time, etc) and a PC ("allegedly" breaks all the time, requires more maintenance, requires more time to keep up with, "cheap", etc...) Those are not the options -- it's a false premise. There are laptop PCs which have the exact same performance & reliability as apple, but for a fraction of the price. I've gone through 4 PC laptops since 1996. My first 2 laptops, I admit, I spent a lot of time repairing but that was due to my own youthful tinkering, experimenting and the general instability of earlier OSs (DOS, Win95, Win98/ME, etc). But my last 2 have lasted me 7+ years a piece. And I only decided to upgrade because they were beginning to show their age (slower compared to newer stuff). You can buy PC laptops with the same "just works" fidelity as apple. More options open up, and you can save yourself a fortune, if people would just eschew their brand loyalty.
    - toomuchtodo 11y ago
      > You can buy PC laptops with the same "just works" fidelity as apple. More options open up, and you can save yourself a fortune, if people would just eschew their brand loyalty. What do you consider a fortune? $1000? $1400? That's about two days of my time consulting. I'm fine paying the premium for what I consider a better experience. It's not brand loyalty, that's for sure. I've had a terrible, terrible time trying to get work done on Windows 7, Windows 10 looks like a train wreck, and there are no Lenovo stores I can walk into same day and get a replacement like I can with an Apple store (which is in every major metro I visit). Build a better experience, and I will gladly pay for it. Until then, Apple (grudgingly) gets my dollars.

mmastrac 11y ago

Yep. That was the last Macbook that I would consider to be "adequately repairable". I handed one of those down to my kid after replacing the optical drive with an SSD (creating a fusion drive) and loading it up with RAM. It's still very usable as a desktop/gaming Mac. I've even replaced the battery in it once (IIRC it was glued in, but in a way that was reasonably simple to extract).

mizzao 11y ago

There was an article about how that MBP model is still very popular: https://marco.org/2016/01/04/md101ll-a https://marco.org/2016/01/04/md101ll-a HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10840227 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10840227

sbd01 11y ago

I've just bought the computer you have and have maxed it out as well. It does what I need, and it will last me for a few more years, but I don't know what I'll do when I need a new computer. I've always chosen Mac, and I have no idea where to look for a good, high-performance Windows laptop.