I don't really care about the noise to know what the computer is doing. I prefer a silent computer, because I really need silence to be able to focus my mind on

I don't really care about the noise to know what the computer is doing. I prefer a silent computer, because I really need silence to be able to focus my mind on something. (And it might seem inconsistent, but I do love clicky mechanical keyboards and their sound does not bother me.) But regarding 'feedback' from the computer, there are other options: laptops typically have an indicator light for hard disk activity, to indicate whether the battery is charging or whether the laptop is receiving power, or a slowly pulsating light to indicate that the laptop is in suspend-to-ram mode. Also I remember that long time ago, when every laptop came with a replaceable battery, that the batteries themselves often had indicator lights so that you could easily see whether a battery needed to be charged (1). Some laptops even had some indicator lights twice: one on the inside of the screen that is visible when you're working on the laptop and one on the outer shell of the screen that is visible when the laptop is closed (2). I love that kind of thing, because to me those indicators are often useful. Maybe not everyone is into that or cares, but I'm also the kind of people that likes to have a cpu load monitor somewhere on screen to know what is going on on the computer. (1) The battery indicators I remember from the iBook G4 and old Dell laptops. There was a button that you could press to indicate the remaining charge with some leds. While charging the leds would be blinking and indicating the charge at that moment. (2) The indicator lights on both the inside of the screen and the outside, I noticed on the Thinkpad X200. I also discovered that the dock for the X200 actually comes with an extra charging port for a battery. So while you're working on the dock, you could externally attach a 2nd battery to the dock to charge it. I really appreciate the attention that went into these kinds of designs.