4 ms·

I see a lot of 'a laptop for school' wishes from teenagers. I'm curious whether the current generation of cheap laptops just aren't cheap enough, or is it a sta

by LeonM 9y ago

I see a lot of 'a laptop for school' wishes from teenagers. I'm curious whether the current generation of cheap laptops just aren't cheap enough, or is it a status thing where they actually mean they want an expensive Macbook?

hannasanarion 9y ago
Or it could be that they want something that's not bottom-of-the-barrel cheap while also not being as expensive as a macbook. There are people who know they don't need a $1200 computer, but also don't want a $100 one that crashes when you open the sixth browser tab.
- fredley 9y ago
  The middle ground of markets like this is always a crap-fest, it's the same with phones: when you're not solely competing on price (performance is ~no object) or performance (price is ~no object), you end up trying and cram in as much crap as possible to differentiate your product. Look at any mid-range laptop or phone's sales pitch and it'll scream features and specs, and consumers are drawn into trying to compare by these metrics, and the game becomes all about these pointless numbers, rather than how well it'll actually just handle what you want it to do. As a manufacturer, you care more about having a processor with a faster clock speed, or a hard disk with more space than a setup that'll launch launch Chrome and get to Facebook in n seconds. Chromebooks are perfectly positioned to totally occupy this middle-ground with a fast-ish machine that just works, I don't know why they haven't pulled it off yet.
neogodless 9y ago
Having been poor, for a lot of people, you don't just "go out and buy a laptop." You have to save up for it. You might be working two jobs while going to school just to cover the bare costs of tuition, housing, food and possibly transportation. I saw one instance where it sounded like they had a computer, but not a laptop. (Or they were stuck in the computer lab.) Another said they wish they had a computer to help them jump-start a career for their family. And like my sibling post points out, sometimes the laptops that are available for $150-200 really are pretty terrible. When you have a limited budget, it isn't appealing to save up for something, and then you buy it, and it's buggy or painfully slow, or unable to run the software you'd need it to for your classes. And finally, when you don't have a lot of money, and you don't already have a good computer yourself, and you maybe haven't learned all the tricks, you don't know how to find a "good" laptop on the internet. (Not that it's wildly hard - Amazon has some decent ones, depending on price point... but you won't be coming from a place of confidence in your buying skills.) The next step up seems to be - how many compromises can I avoid at my price point? (This is super common on SlickDeals: you see $600-1000 laptops, and people pick apart the CPU, the GPU, the weight, the screen technology, the HDD vs SSD, the amount of RAM, the build quality. None of them get all of those right because if they did, they would be $1200+ laptops, not deals!)
- 52-6F-62 9y ago
  Having been in the same place, I can second all of this. Even I’m my (40% below market) current job I still take my time weeding through comparisOne to consider the most weight for my money. The city is expensive. That said I know of programs in this city where disadvantaged people can apply to purchase refurbished laptops for between 30 and 100 CAD. They won’t get you far in the work world but they might get you through a boot camp or part time management of an EBay account or job search and some online courses, etc. (Toronto) There could be more of that, yeah? I haven’t had to go to that route. But I can attest to the ability to get to that next rung being strengthened by having the correct tool.

by LeonM 9y ago

hannasanarion 9y ago

Or it could be that they want something that's not bottom-of-the-barrel cheap while also not being as expensive as a macbook. There are people who know they don't need a $1200 computer, but also don't want a $100 one that crashes when you open the sixth browser tab.

fredley 9y ago
The middle ground of markets like this is always a crap-fest, it's the same with phones: when you're not solely competing on price (performance is ~no object) or performance (price is ~no object), you end up trying and cram in as much crap as possible to differentiate your product. Look at any mid-range laptop or phone's sales pitch and it'll scream features and specs, and consumers are drawn into trying to compare by these metrics, and the game becomes all about these pointless numbers, rather than how well it'll actually just handle what you want it to do. As a manufacturer, you care more about having a processor with a faster clock speed, or a hard disk with more space than a setup that'll launch launch Chrome and get to Facebook in n seconds. Chromebooks are perfectly positioned to totally occupy this middle-ground with a fast-ish machine that just works, I don't know why they haven't pulled it off yet.

neogodless 9y ago

Having been poor, for a lot of people, you don't just "go out and buy a laptop." You have to save up for it. You might be working two jobs while going to school just to cover the bare costs of tuition, housing, food and possibly transportation. I saw one instance where it sounded like they had a computer, but not a laptop. (Or they were stuck in the computer lab.) Another said they wish they had a computer to help them jump-start a career for their family. And like my sibling post points out, sometimes the laptops that are available for $150-200 really are pretty terrible. When you have a limited budget, it isn't appealing to save up for something, and then you buy it, and it's buggy or painfully slow, or unable to run the software you'd need it to for your classes. And finally, when you don't have a lot of money, and you don't already have a good computer yourself, and you maybe haven't learned all the tricks, you don't know how to find a "good" laptop on the internet. (Not that it's wildly hard - Amazon has some decent ones, depending on price point... but you won't be coming from a place of confidence in your buying skills.) The next step up seems to be - how many compromises can I avoid at my price point? (This is super common on SlickDeals: you see $600-1000 laptops, and people pick apart the CPU, the GPU, the weight, the screen technology, the HDD vs SSD, the amount of RAM, the build quality. None of them get all of those right because if they did, they would be $1200+ laptops, not deals!)

52-6F-62 9y ago
Having been in the same place, I can second all of this. Even I’m my (40% below market) current job I still take my time weeding through comparisOne to consider the most weight for my money. The city is expensive. That said I know of programs in this city where disadvantaged people can apply to purchase refurbished laptops for between 30 and 100 CAD. They won’t get you far in the work world but they might get you through a boot camp or part time management of an EBay account or job search and some online courses, etc. (Toronto) There could be more of that, yeah? I haven’t had to go to that route. But I can attest to the ability to get to that next rung being strengthened by having the correct tool.