4 ms·

But should they? I suspect a majority of the market would take a few extra mm of thickness for a durable laptop with a durable battery that would last a few mo

by sliken 7y ago

But should they? I suspect a majority of the market would take a few extra mm of thickness for a durable laptop with a durable battery that would last a few more years. But instead manufacturers of laptops, phones, and tablets are putting in substandard batteries to help ensure you come back in a few years for a new one. Especially evil is when there's no screws and they epoxy the battery.

sigstoat 7y ago
> But instead manufacturers of laptops, phones, and tablets are putting in substandard batteries to help ensure you come back in a few years for a new one. which manufacturer is it they're buying from that's substandard, who should they be buying from, and how are those "standard" companies the standard when they have to be making a tiny slice of the batteries on the planet if they're not used in laptops, phones or tablets? in fact, what device would i find one of their standard-quality batteries in?
- sliken 7y ago
  Apple for instance, although their battery replacement program helps. Their macbook air and other very thin laptops have very hard to replace batteries. Not to mention the apple problems (keyboards and flexgate/stage light most recently). Is it worth 3 generations of keyboard problems for some tiny saved amount of thickness? Google Pixel phones, slate, and pixel book are similarly hard. Dell and Lenovo are mixed, some of the thin ones are hard to work on, some of the thicker ones are great, modular, and easy to work on.
  - sigstoat 7y ago
    you addressed none of my questions.
flukus 7y ago
I'd take a lot of extra thickness. I had a cleanout of old tech recently and found an 10" HP laptop I hadn't used for a few years and fighting the nostalgia to get rid of that one was hard. It was such a solid, thick and chunky little thing that I could put through hell and would just keep on working. It was just perfect for it's job of mostly coding during commute time. I don't feel remotely the same way about the thinner, faster dell I replaced it with.
- scottlocklin 7y ago
  Wrote my thesis on an Omnibook 800 (with 16 megs of ram, lol) running twm. Miss the form factor, the ruggedness and the amazeballs integrated mouse. Still can't understand why people haven't copied the mouse design. Then again, I still can't understand why manufacturers are incapable of producing a nice keyboard like the Omnibook 800 had. http://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=233 http://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=233 HP of today ... it's just a brand. The engineers that designed sturdy and usable stuff like the Omnibook 800 have been all put out to pasture or went to Agilent.
  - brokenmachine 7y ago
    What's the amazeballs integrated mouse?
    - scottlocklin 7y ago
      Look at the photo I linked. You press a button and this mouse on gimbals shoots out the right hand side. It's amazing; best laptop mouse ever. Or, look at this helpful vidya: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B-cGzmuKYM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B-cGzmuKYM
      - brokenmachine 7y ago
        So it's just a pop-out mouse attached to the side? Is there anything else special about it? Can you pull it away from the side of the laptop? It looks hard to use attached like that. I was hoping to be amazeballed, but unless there's more to it, so far I'm not amazeballed.
damnyou 7y ago
Yes, which is why it should be illegal to build non-repairable laptops and phones. This is exactly what a market failure looks like. Everyone racing to be the prettiest, at huge environmental costs. We need to make things slightly less pretty for the world to survive. Only very slightly less, thankfully.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

by sliken 7y ago

sigstoat 7y ago

> But instead manufacturers of laptops, phones, and tablets are putting in substandard batteries to help ensure you come back in a few years for a new one. which manufacturer is it they're buying from that's substandard, who should they be buying from, and how are those "standard" companies the standard when they have to be making a tiny slice of the batteries on the planet if they're not used in laptops, phones or tablets? in fact, what device would i find one of their standard-quality batteries in?

sliken 7y ago
Apple for instance, although their battery replacement program helps. Their macbook air and other very thin laptops have very hard to replace batteries. Not to mention the apple problems (keyboards and flexgate/stage light most recently). Is it worth 3 generations of keyboard problems for some tiny saved amount of thickness? Google Pixel phones, slate, and pixel book are similarly hard. Dell and Lenovo are mixed, some of the thin ones are hard to work on, some of the thicker ones are great, modular, and easy to work on.
- sigstoat 7y ago
  you addressed none of my questions.

flukus 7y ago

I'd take a lot of extra thickness. I had a cleanout of old tech recently and found an 10" HP laptop I hadn't used for a few years and fighting the nostalgia to get rid of that one was hard. It was such a solid, thick and chunky little thing that I could put through hell and would just keep on working. It was just perfect for it's job of mostly coding during commute time. I don't feel remotely the same way about the thinner, faster dell I replaced it with.

scottlocklin 7y ago
Wrote my thesis on an Omnibook 800 (with 16 megs of ram, lol) running twm. Miss the form factor, the ruggedness and the amazeballs integrated mouse. Still can't understand why people haven't copied the mouse design. Then again, I still can't understand why manufacturers are incapable of producing a nice keyboard like the Omnibook 800 had. http://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=233 http://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=233 HP of today ... it's just a brand. The engineers that designed sturdy and usable stuff like the Omnibook 800 have been all put out to pasture or went to Agilent.
- brokenmachine 7y ago
  What's the amazeballs integrated mouse?
  - scottlocklin 7y ago
    Look at the photo I linked. You press a button and this mouse on gimbals shoots out the right hand side. It's amazing; best laptop mouse ever. Or, look at this helpful vidya: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B-cGzmuKYM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B-cGzmuKYM
    - brokenmachine 7y ago
      So it's just a pop-out mouse attached to the side? Is there anything else special about it? Can you pull it away from the side of the laptop? It looks hard to use attached like that. I was hoping to be amazeballed, but unless there's more to it, so far I'm not amazeballed.

damnyou 7y ago

Yes, which is why it should be illegal to build non-repairable laptops and phones. This is exactly what a market failure looks like. Everyone racing to be the prettiest, at huge environmental costs. We need to make things slightly less pretty for the world to survive. Only very slightly less, thankfully.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]