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> I don’t care about thin or light at all. I’m happy to carry a few extra pounds; these are my tools, and if that’s the price of durable, maintainable and resi

> I don’t care about thin or light at all. I’m happy to carry a few extra pounds; these are my tools, and if that’s the price of durable, maintainable and resilient tools means a bit of extra weight in the bag I’ll pay it and smile. I just want to be able to fix it; I want something I can strip all the way down to standard parts with a standard screwdriver and replace piecemeal when it needs piecemeal replacing. Does anyone make anything like this anymore, a tradesman’s machine? The MNTRE people are giving it a shot. Is anyone else, anywhere? If durable, maintainable, and resilient are your number one priority, maybe you want a desktop. It is trivial to open up the case and replace or upgrade components. Desktops also tend to last longer than laptops. It is harder to transport, but I am sure just like the various mechanics, you can come up with a rolling toolbox for your desktop that you can load into the back of your pickup truck. As a bonus, you can also get higher performance CPU's since you can deal with the heat better in a desktop case. I am sure that such a risk could easily last you 10 years, and it does seem like the perfect choice given your priorities.

CoolGuySteve 7y ago
I think the more annoying thing about modern laptops is the lack of standardization from year to year from the same manufacturer (other than the SSD, usually). When HP, Dell, Lenovo, or ASUS refresh their laptop, usually the overall design of ports, body, and keyboard stay more or less the same for about 4 years or so, but the motherboard dimensions, ribbon connectors, cooling system, and batteries change for no real reason. A lot of components will have dimensions that differ by only a few millimeters but that's enough to make searching for replacement parts an ordeal. For example, if I could get a Thinkpad X1 Carbon what was guaranteed to have an upgradeable/interchangeable motherboard for the next 4-5 years I would gladly buy one. I don't even get why that's not currently the case, the current Thinkpad X1 Carbon more or less looks identical to the one from 6 years ago. Instead I buy whatever's cheapest every 2-3 years. It's so bad that the EU had to legislate USB-C because this problem manifested itself as hundreds of marginally incompatible barrel pin chargers. It's wasteful and annoying.
fao_ 7y ago
> If durable, maintainable, and resilient are your number one priority, maybe you want a desktop. It is trivial to open up the case and replace or upgrade components. I'm both confused and utterly baffled about why you think taking a full-blown desktop computer to conferences, hackathons, cafés, work, etc. is even an option. It feels like a common response on hacker news, and hell, even in developer circles in general at the moment, is the equivalent of: "I want X, Y, and Z, and we used to make things that satisfy those requirements, and we don't anymore. Why is that?" "You don't want Z, you want Q, which does X and Y" where Q is something that makes the whole point of X and Y impractical for the person's use-case. To belabour the point: I don't see how you get from "A slightly less-thin laptop that has some room for upgrades" to "A desktop computer that requires a separate monitor, a stable and available power supply, a table, and associated peripherals" Thinkpads used to be designed in a way that would allow upgrading and replacing of common components. Hell, it used to be the case that IBM/Lenovo had a line of thinkpads that were specifically designed for this sort of upgrading. Why aren't they still? There is a market for this (one only has to look at the prices and the demand of second-hand Thinkpads of that variety), the problem is that not only did laptop manufacturers realise that not allowing users to upgrade components, means that they can charge them again for a more powerful laptop in a few years time, but laptop manufacturers are trying to compete on Apple's "we have the thinnest machine in the world" front, for whatever reason.
- bluGill 7y ago
  It is the old 3 legged triangle in a different context: fast, cheap, right: pick two.
  - fao_ 7y ago
    I disagree, given that as I mentioned, those machines were manufactured at some point in time, in the last decade. From Thinkwiki[0]: As successor of the 600 series, the T series became IBM mobile productivity line. Usually leading the ThinkPad range in technology, innovation and price, the T series was intended for the travelling businessman - comparatively more stylish, functional, and rugged machines; and easy to disassemble for repair or upgrades." The last T-series Thinkpad laptop with non-soldered ram was manufactured in January 2018[1]. [0]: https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/ThinkPad_series https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/ThinkPad_series [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinkPad_T_series#Specifications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinkPad_T_series#Specificatio...

CoolGuySteve 7y ago

I think the more annoying thing about modern laptops is the lack of standardization from year to year from the same manufacturer (other than the SSD, usually). When HP, Dell, Lenovo, or ASUS refresh their laptop, usually the overall design of ports, body, and keyboard stay more or less the same for about 4 years or so, but the motherboard dimensions, ribbon connectors, cooling system, and batteries change for no real reason. A lot of components will have dimensions that differ by only a few millimeters but that's enough to make searching for replacement parts an ordeal. For example, if I could get a Thinkpad X1 Carbon what was guaranteed to have an upgradeable/interchangeable motherboard for the next 4-5 years I would gladly buy one. I don't even get why that's not currently the case, the current Thinkpad X1 Carbon more or less looks identical to the one from 6 years ago. Instead I buy whatever's cheapest every 2-3 years. It's so bad that the EU had to legislate USB-C because this problem manifested itself as hundreds of marginally incompatible barrel pin chargers. It's wasteful and annoying.

fao_ 7y ago

> If durable, maintainable, and resilient are your number one priority, maybe you want a desktop. It is trivial to open up the case and replace or upgrade components. I'm both confused and utterly baffled about why you think taking a full-blown desktop computer to conferences, hackathons, cafés, work, etc. is even an option. It feels like a common response on hacker news, and hell, even in developer circles in general at the moment, is the equivalent of: "I want X, Y, and Z, and we used to make things that satisfy those requirements, and we don't anymore. Why is that?" "You don't want Z, you want Q, which does X and Y" where Q is something that makes the whole point of X and Y impractical for the person's use-case. To belabour the point: I don't see how you get from "A slightly less-thin laptop that has some room for upgrades" to "A desktop computer that requires a separate monitor, a stable and available power supply, a table, and associated peripherals" Thinkpads used to be designed in a way that would allow upgrading and replacing of common components. Hell, it used to be the case that IBM/Lenovo had a line of thinkpads that were specifically designed for this sort of upgrading. Why aren't they still? There is a market for this (one only has to look at the prices and the demand of second-hand Thinkpads of that variety), the problem is that not only did laptop manufacturers realise that not allowing users to upgrade components, means that they can charge them again for a more powerful laptop in a few years time, but laptop manufacturers are trying to compete on Apple's "we have the thinnest machine in the world" front, for whatever reason.

bluGill 7y ago
It is the old 3 legged triangle in a different context: fast, cheap, right: pick two.
- fao_ 7y ago
  I disagree, given that as I mentioned, those machines were manufactured at some point in time, in the last decade. From Thinkwiki[0]: As successor of the 600 series, the T series became IBM mobile productivity line. Usually leading the ThinkPad range in technology, innovation and price, the T series was intended for the travelling businessman - comparatively more stylish, functional, and rugged machines; and easy to disassemble for repair or upgrades." The last T-series Thinkpad laptop with non-soldered ram was manufactured in January 2018[1]. [0]: https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/ThinkPad_series https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/ThinkPad_series [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinkPad_T_series#Specifications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinkPad_T_series#Specificatio...