5 ms·

Your scenario definitely exists, but it also doesn't hit the likes of the user you respond to as much as you might expect. SSD's don't fail the way they used t

Your scenario definitely exists, but it also doesn't hit the likes of the user you respond to as much as you might expect. SSD's don't fail the way they used to, RAM requirements don't change as much as it used to and while batteries do die, at this time I've seen more people switch machines before any of that happens. The last time I wanted or needed to replace memory or storage in a laptop must have been 7 years ago, and I don't see anyone else doing that either. Even desktop upgrades are somewhat dead at this point, except for a GPU upgrade if someone is a gamer, or storage upgrade if people still use direct attached storage and didn't get enough when they initially got the machine. Just because a scenario that hits a small percentage of DIY users is getting hard doesn't mean it's bad for everyone else as well.

sudosysgen 6y ago
If SSDs don't fail, more RAM isn't needed, and so on, then why do people feel the need to buy a new laptop every three years? I think the percentage of users that would buy a new, 1500$+ machine instead of a small 100$ upgrade is much lower than one expects living in a bit of an echo chamber. There's a lot of people that get burned by outrageous repair prices or that buy new computers when they could simply upgrade a part. Ask yourself; if you've never felt the need to upgrade a laptop or to replace a break, then why really would you upgrade?
- oneplane 6y ago
  Because the overall degradation. Sometimes I want 10% of 'everything', plus a new feature, plus less weight to carry around. That's practically been the only driver of my personal upgrades over the last 15 years. And by degradation I don't mean the existing device degrades per se, but the degradation of productivity on the current device vs. new device. At the same time, the way work is done has changed a lot for me and the people around me: heavy workloads are almost never done on a laptop anymore.
  - the_af 6y ago
    > but the degradation of productivity on the current device vs. new device. What does this mean? Do you mean your current device starts working poorly (but that would mean "existing device degrades per se", which you ruled out) or that the existence of a new device automatically makes you perceive your device as being of "degraded productivity"?
    - oneplane 6y ago
      For example if I run something that can take advantage of AVX512 and my current CPU doesn't have that but a new CPU does. Same goes for TB2 vs. TB3, very useful when you want to connect an external GPU. It does work on Thunderbolt 2 but the extra bandwidth of Thunderbolt 3 is a nice improvement. Say you change your workload model there might be ~20% improvements between bare metal, virtual machines and containers. If you simulate a part of infrastructure using containers you may not need more RAM, but more CPU would be nice. But when you then want to do a lot of recording/capturing and process that, RAM gets more important. Just upgrading the RAM wouldn't help much because without a CPU to generate the data you might as well offload the whole thing.
      - kelnos 6y ago
        > For example if I run something that can take advantage of AVX512 and my current CPU doesn't have that but a new CPU does. Same goes for TB2 vs. TB3, very useful when you want to connect an external GPU. It does work on Thunderbolt 2 but the extra bandwidth of Thunderbolt 3 is a nice improvement. This is definitely an echo-chamber/bubble point of view. The vast majority of users out there don't even know or care what AVX is, don't use external GPUs, and don't know or care about the difference between Thunderbolt 2 and 3. If you personally need these things and want to buy a new machine every few years, then that's great, you should do that. But there are a ton of people who would benefit from an easily-repairable, easily-upgradable (RAM, storage) machine that end up dropping $1500 every few years instead of the couple hundred they could instead spend for a reasonable upgrade.
        oneplane 6y ago
- ilikehurdles 6y ago
  > why do people feel the need to buy a new laptop every three years? Beats me. You will often see comments in these threads about people (like me) using nearly decade-old Macbook Pros to this day. I stopped replacing laptops every 3 (or less) years after I stopped buying budget non-Apple laptops.
  - marcus_holmes 6y ago
    Well, a lot of people aren't upgrading old MacBooks because the new ones have been such shite. I'm on Linux, and a laptop I can take apart and replace bits of, so I can see myself using this one for a few years more. My Dell XPS 15 is suffering from Windows Rot after only two years. When I get a free afternoon I'm going to have to back it all up and clean it out, hopefully avoid reinstalling from scratch. For all the negativity I've had towards OS X, at least it's better than that.
  - oneplane 6y ago
    Some people probably have some write-off system, or perhaps resell them why the devices still have some value so they always are somewhere 'in the middle'. I personally tend to keep my most recent device and the new device at the same time for about 2 years because of vendor lag (happens a lot with those classical software vendors that take months between software releases) and because I need the ability to compare between versions of both hardware and software. The newest device gets promoted daily driver (usually many benefits there, as they often are lighter yet more powerful). In general it means 2.25-ish devices per 10 years. Other hardware, like SBCs tend to rotate out slower, but generic x86 platforms rotate out faster because if a critical component fails the labour for finding parts and replacing them is too much vs. buying up to date replacements. Luckily, due to lower usage of those machines they last longer, so technically the Apple hardware made the non-Apple hardware have a longer lifecycle in my case. There is some irony in there as I do provide board-level repairs and the machines I work on for other people are ones I'd never personally invest in.
- AlphaSite 6y ago
  How many upgrade their personal laptops every 3 years? Work one, sure. But I haven’t upgraded my Mac in years.
  - oneplane 6y ago
    Work one gets at least 4 years of life, it's not good for value beyond that due to write-offs etc, which is somewhat strange when you think about it. After that, they are sold to whoever wants them (we wipe them, clean them and unlock them). Most people get close to 8 years before they actually want a new one when their work doesn't change much -- if your requirements don't change and your tool fits, no reason to change.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y ago
  Apple devices do hold their value fairly well (certainly much better than non-Apple hardware), so the cost is offset somewhat. I whinge about the non-upgradability of our devices as much as the next guy, but it's not like people are throwing their 3 year old macbooks in the trash can.
- apsanz 6y ago
  Most normal people I know have 10+ year old laptops machines. People that buy laptops every 3 years are pros or enthusiasts that want the best performance.
kelnos 6y ago
> I've seen more people switch machines before any of that happens. My opinion is that people switch machines more often precisely because they're not upgradable/repairable. I think if most people could go to their local computer repair shop to get RAM/storage/etc. replaced or upgraded, we'd have a lot less electronics waste, and consumer computers would last a lot longer. At this point, software CPU and GPU needs aren't increasing all that much year by year, unless you're a gamer or do HPC. For the rest of everyone -- the majority -- a CPU and GPU made 5-10 years ago is still just fine for what they want to do. These old machines just need more RAM and sometimes more storage. I get that it's hard to fit sockets for replaceable modules when everyone wants a super thin laptop, but overall this is a source of so much economic and physical waste.
- oneplane 6y ago
  There are plenty of people switching machines that can be completely taken apart and replaced or upgraded component by component. Some other post around here mentioned eBay: plenty of completely modular HP and Dell laptops (and not even in bulk) for sale. Most computer repair shops around here have disappeared because it's no longer the way people buy and use their computers. At least not enough people to keep those shops running. Sometimes people upgrade because they feel like it. Doesn't always have to do with the numbers.
72deluxe 6y ago
Why are there so many Apple devices with 8GB RAM for sale on eBay then? The RAM prices for new Apple devices are 3x the normal rate so people get disappointed with all the Electron apps eating RAM and sell it!
- oneplane 6y ago
  I'm not sure that is an indicator of anything at all. You could speculate that people sell their laptops because they want more RAM and that is the one and only reason this is happening. But then that's like what, 100 MacBooks? 1000 maybe? Hardly large in numbers compared to any other laptop from any other brand on eBay. I know that a lot of people are very emotional about their RAM and SSDs and it can be a PITA, but it doesn't affect as many people as you'd think. At least that's what the available data shows.
  - 72deluxe 6y ago
    This is very true, thanks.
NotPractical 6y ago
I agree in that, these days, I don't see myself wanting to upgrade a laptop's RAM before I'd just replace it with a newer machine. While it would be a nice bonus to have the option, realistically I imagine the 8 GB of memory that comes standard with the baseline MacBook Pro model would be enough for anything I'd personally want to do with a laptop in its lifespan, and I would be willing to sacrifice memory upgradability for a slimmer design, for example. However, I think Apple (and other laptop manufacturers) cross the line when they ship soldered-in batteries with their laptops. Batteries are consumable components that are guaranteed to degrade over time. Unlike RAM, which, assuming Apple sources it from quality vendors, you can expect to last for many years, laptop batteries will definitely begin to degrade within a few years, and will, over enough time, render the laptop unusable. Apple is producing $1500+ laptops with a non-replaceable component that will, without a doubt, eventually break down. Your options at that point are to buy a new laptop, or to send it to Apple so they can charge an arm and a leg to replace the entire top case instead of just the battery (as that'd be impossible). You should buy a new laptop when you want to, not because you "might as well" without the option of battery replacement, and with Apple's "repair" option costing a quarter of the price of a new one. Though to a lesser extent, it also irks me that the SSDs are soldered in, not necessarily because I'd want the ability to upgrade them post-purchase, but mainly because your valuable data lives there, and it will become trapped on a dead board if something goes wrong with an unrelated component. Even if failures like this are rare, the threat of data loss while using a MacBook would still concern me more than while using a laptop with a replaceable SSD. I believe Apple has a data recovery procedure, but you'd still have to send your laptop to them and cross your fingers in the event it dies, whereas if the SSD wasn't soldered in, you'd have the option of manually recovering your data, or taking it to a repair shop where they could do it for you. I would love to see a MacBook Pro with, at the very least, a replaceable battery (but especially with a replaceable SSD as well).

sudosysgen 6y ago

If SSDs don't fail, more RAM isn't needed, and so on, then why do people feel the need to buy a new laptop every three years? I think the percentage of users that would buy a new, 1500$+ machine instead of a small 100$ upgrade is much lower than one expects living in a bit of an echo chamber. There's a lot of people that get burned by outrageous repair prices or that buy new computers when they could simply upgrade a part. Ask yourself; if you've never felt the need to upgrade a laptop or to replace a break, then why really would you upgrade?

oneplane 6y ago
Because the overall degradation. Sometimes I want 10% of 'everything', plus a new feature, plus less weight to carry around. That's practically been the only driver of my personal upgrades over the last 15 years. And by degradation I don't mean the existing device degrades per se, but the degradation of productivity on the current device vs. new device. At the same time, the way work is done has changed a lot for me and the people around me: heavy workloads are almost never done on a laptop anymore.
- the_af 6y ago
  > but the degradation of productivity on the current device vs. new device. What does this mean? Do you mean your current device starts working poorly (but that would mean "existing device degrades per se", which you ruled out) or that the existence of a new device automatically makes you perceive your device as being of "degraded productivity"?
  - oneplane 6y ago
    For example if I run something that can take advantage of AVX512 and my current CPU doesn't have that but a new CPU does. Same goes for TB2 vs. TB3, very useful when you want to connect an external GPU. It does work on Thunderbolt 2 but the extra bandwidth of Thunderbolt 3 is a nice improvement. Say you change your workload model there might be ~20% improvements between bare metal, virtual machines and containers. If you simulate a part of infrastructure using containers you may not need more RAM, but more CPU would be nice. But when you then want to do a lot of recording/capturing and process that, RAM gets more important. Just upgrading the RAM wouldn't help much because without a CPU to generate the data you might as well offload the whole thing.
    - kelnos 6y ago
      > For example if I run something that can take advantage of AVX512 and my current CPU doesn't have that but a new CPU does. Same goes for TB2 vs. TB3, very useful when you want to connect an external GPU. It does work on Thunderbolt 2 but the extra bandwidth of Thunderbolt 3 is a nice improvement. This is definitely an echo-chamber/bubble point of view. The vast majority of users out there don't even know or care what AVX is, don't use external GPUs, and don't know or care about the difference between Thunderbolt 2 and 3. If you personally need these things and want to buy a new machine every few years, then that's great, you should do that. But there are a ton of people who would benefit from an easily-repairable, easily-upgradable (RAM, storage) machine that end up dropping $1500 every few years instead of the couple hundred they could instead spend for a reasonable upgrade.
      - oneplane 6y ago
ilikehurdles 6y ago
> why do people feel the need to buy a new laptop every three years? Beats me. You will often see comments in these threads about people (like me) using nearly decade-old Macbook Pros to this day. I stopped replacing laptops every 3 (or less) years after I stopped buying budget non-Apple laptops.
- marcus_holmes 6y ago
  Well, a lot of people aren't upgrading old MacBooks because the new ones have been such shite. I'm on Linux, and a laptop I can take apart and replace bits of, so I can see myself using this one for a few years more. My Dell XPS 15 is suffering from Windows Rot after only two years. When I get a free afternoon I'm going to have to back it all up and clean it out, hopefully avoid reinstalling from scratch. For all the negativity I've had towards OS X, at least it's better than that.
- oneplane 6y ago
  Some people probably have some write-off system, or perhaps resell them why the devices still have some value so they always are somewhere 'in the middle'. I personally tend to keep my most recent device and the new device at the same time for about 2 years because of vendor lag (happens a lot with those classical software vendors that take months between software releases) and because I need the ability to compare between versions of both hardware and software. The newest device gets promoted daily driver (usually many benefits there, as they often are lighter yet more powerful). In general it means 2.25-ish devices per 10 years. Other hardware, like SBCs tend to rotate out slower, but generic x86 platforms rotate out faster because if a critical component fails the labour for finding parts and replacing them is too much vs. buying up to date replacements. Luckily, due to lower usage of those machines they last longer, so technically the Apple hardware made the non-Apple hardware have a longer lifecycle in my case. There is some irony in there as I do provide board-level repairs and the machines I work on for other people are ones I'd never personally invest in.
AlphaSite 6y ago
How many upgrade their personal laptops every 3 years? Work one, sure. But I haven’t upgraded my Mac in years.
- oneplane 6y ago
  Work one gets at least 4 years of life, it's not good for value beyond that due to write-offs etc, which is somewhat strange when you think about it. After that, they are sold to whoever wants them (we wipe them, clean them and unlock them). Most people get close to 8 years before they actually want a new one when their work doesn't change much -- if your requirements don't change and your tool fits, no reason to change.
rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y ago
Apple devices do hold their value fairly well (certainly much better than non-Apple hardware), so the cost is offset somewhat. I whinge about the non-upgradability of our devices as much as the next guy, but it's not like people are throwing their 3 year old macbooks in the trash can.
apsanz 6y ago
Most normal people I know have 10+ year old laptops machines. People that buy laptops every 3 years are pros or enthusiasts that want the best performance.

kelnos 6y ago

> I've seen more people switch machines before any of that happens. My opinion is that people switch machines more often precisely because they're not upgradable/repairable. I think if most people could go to their local computer repair shop to get RAM/storage/etc. replaced or upgraded, we'd have a lot less electronics waste, and consumer computers would last a lot longer. At this point, software CPU and GPU needs aren't increasing all that much year by year, unless you're a gamer or do HPC. For the rest of everyone -- the majority -- a CPU and GPU made 5-10 years ago is still just fine for what they want to do. These old machines just need more RAM and sometimes more storage. I get that it's hard to fit sockets for replaceable modules when everyone wants a super thin laptop, but overall this is a source of so much economic and physical waste.

oneplane 6y ago
There are plenty of people switching machines that can be completely taken apart and replaced or upgraded component by component. Some other post around here mentioned eBay: plenty of completely modular HP and Dell laptops (and not even in bulk) for sale. Most computer repair shops around here have disappeared because it's no longer the way people buy and use their computers. At least not enough people to keep those shops running. Sometimes people upgrade because they feel like it. Doesn't always have to do with the numbers.

72deluxe 6y ago

Why are there so many Apple devices with 8GB RAM for sale on eBay then? The RAM prices for new Apple devices are 3x the normal rate so people get disappointed with all the Electron apps eating RAM and sell it!

oneplane 6y ago
I'm not sure that is an indicator of anything at all. You could speculate that people sell their laptops because they want more RAM and that is the one and only reason this is happening. But then that's like what, 100 MacBooks? 1000 maybe? Hardly large in numbers compared to any other laptop from any other brand on eBay. I know that a lot of people are very emotional about their RAM and SSDs and it can be a PITA, but it doesn't affect as many people as you'd think. At least that's what the available data shows.
- 72deluxe 6y ago
  This is very true, thanks.

NotPractical 6y ago

I agree in that, these days, I don't see myself wanting to upgrade a laptop's RAM before I'd just replace it with a newer machine. While it would be a nice bonus to have the option, realistically I imagine the 8 GB of memory that comes standard with the baseline MacBook Pro model would be enough for anything I'd personally want to do with a laptop in its lifespan, and I would be willing to sacrifice memory upgradability for a slimmer design, for example. However, I think Apple (and other laptop manufacturers) cross the line when they ship soldered-in batteries with their laptops. Batteries are consumable components that are guaranteed to degrade over time. Unlike RAM, which, assuming Apple sources it from quality vendors, you can expect to last for many years, laptop batteries will definitely begin to degrade within a few years, and will, over enough time, render the laptop unusable. Apple is producing $1500+ laptops with a non-replaceable component that will, without a doubt, eventually break down. Your options at that point are to buy a new laptop, or to send it to Apple so they can charge an arm and a leg to replace the entire top case instead of just the battery (as that'd be impossible). You should buy a new laptop when you want to, not because you "might as well" without the option of battery replacement, and with Apple's "repair" option costing a quarter of the price of a new one. Though to a lesser extent, it also irks me that the SSDs are soldered in, not necessarily because I'd want the ability to upgrade them post-purchase, but mainly because your valuable data lives there, and it will become trapped on a dead board if something goes wrong with an unrelated component. Even if failures like this are rare, the threat of data loss while using a MacBook would still concern me more than while using a laptop with a replaceable SSD. I believe Apple has a data recovery procedure, but you'd still have to send your laptop to them and cross your fingers in the event it dies, whereas if the SSD wasn't soldered in, you'd have the option of manually recovering your data, or taking it to a repair shop where they could do it for you. I would love to see a MacBook Pro with, at the very least, a replaceable battery (but especially with a replaceable SSD as well).