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For a while around 2012 or 2013 I was using a circa-2008 Dell M4400 workstation laptop. It cost me $350 used on Craigslist, complete with docking station and HD

For a while around 2012 or 2013 I was using a circa-2008 Dell M4400 workstation laptop. It cost me $350 used on Craigslist, complete with docking station and HDD caddie, and it absolutely beat the pants off of anything you could buy new at that point for twice and probably even three times as much money. It came with a 15.4” 1920x1200 display, 2.80Ghz T9600 Core 2 Duo CPU, Nvidia Quadro FX 770M (GTX 9600M equivalent) GPU, 8GB DDR2 RAM, a hotswap bay, wifi/Bluetooth card, and WWAN slot and a ridiculous number of ports, including 4x USB, full size DisplayPort, and gigabit Ethernet (and that’s before docking it!). Its only real downfall is an odd design decision to bridge a large gap between the heatsink and GPU with a thick thermal pad, which was fixed by replacing the pad with thermal paste and a copper shim. I don’t have a lot of use for it now, but I’ve upgraded it to a 2.53Ghz QX9300 Core 2 Quad (socketed CPU!!), Samsung SSD, and an Intel Wifi 6+Bluetooth 5 card just for fun. With all that, it’s quite serviceable nearly 14 years after manufacture when running a lighter modern OS and good adblocker. The value on that machine is probably among the best of any tech purchase I’ve ever made.

laurensr 5y ago
You made me realize again how much I miss the 1920x1200 screen of my HP 8740w. I'm on a ZBook now, and even though full HD, or a multiplier thereof, is more standardized, I still miss 16:10 enormously.
- kitsunesoba 5y ago
  The good news is that 16:10 is finding its way back into laptops. The Thinkpad X1 Nano I bought last year is 16:10, as are several other Thinkpad models refreshed recently. Same is true for the XPS 13/15/17 models. Also, Apple has stuck to 16:10 with MacBook Pro’s this entire time, with exception of the latest 14” and 16” models, which are 16:10 but with extra vertical pixels for the menubar to “live” in.
jacquesm 5y ago
How are the batteries doing? Keep an eye on those, old laptop batteries can sometimes behave in weird / dangerous ways. See reddit 'spicypillows' for some examples.
- kitsunesoba 5y ago
  Yeah, one of the batteries I have for it is shot while the other holds an hour or two of charge under moderate use. Definitely keeping an eye on them.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    If they are 18650 form factor you may be able to replace the cells, and probably with higher capacity ones.
bserge 5y ago
> QX9300 Core 2 Quad (socketed CPU!! Yes, socketed CPU on a laptop! The HP equivalent to the M4400, Elitebook 8530w, even had a slotted GPU (MXM slot), which you could upgrade, wow! I loved doing that kind of upgrade with older workstations. Sadly, Haswell is the last chip that was socketed on laptops. Anything newer and you get a pre-soldered chip that you can't upgrade. They can be overclocked substantially, partly thanks to FIVR (VRMs on-die, Haswell exclusive, very hot - literally), often outperforming Skylake and even newer chips lol Only solution nowadays if you want a laptop is to get one of the rare ones using a desktop CPU. They're surprisingly not as huge as you'd imagine, about the same as the article's Elitebook. Still, a pain in the ass.
bluedino 5y ago
We have tossed out some 5 year old HP laptops, but they are big, the power bricks are huge, the screens aren't the best quality, they make quite a bit of heat and have some fan noise... Other than the dedicated GPU, a 3 year old slimmer version seems to work at lot better for most people. Not sure how good integrated graphics are right now compared to that vintage.

laurensr 5y ago

You made me realize again how much I miss the 1920x1200 screen of my HP 8740w. I'm on a ZBook now, and even though full HD, or a multiplier thereof, is more standardized, I still miss 16:10 enormously.

kitsunesoba 5y ago
The good news is that 16:10 is finding its way back into laptops. The Thinkpad X1 Nano I bought last year is 16:10, as are several other Thinkpad models refreshed recently. Same is true for the XPS 13/15/17 models. Also, Apple has stuck to 16:10 with MacBook Pro’s this entire time, with exception of the latest 14” and 16” models, which are 16:10 but with extra vertical pixels for the menubar to “live” in.

jacquesm 5y ago

How are the batteries doing? Keep an eye on those, old laptop batteries can sometimes behave in weird / dangerous ways. See reddit 'spicypillows' for some examples.

kitsunesoba 5y ago
Yeah, one of the batteries I have for it is shot while the other holds an hour or two of charge under moderate use. Definitely keeping an eye on them.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  If they are 18650 form factor you may be able to replace the cells, and probably with higher capacity ones.

bserge 5y ago

> QX9300 Core 2 Quad (socketed CPU!! Yes, socketed CPU on a laptop! The HP equivalent to the M4400, Elitebook 8530w, even had a slotted GPU (MXM slot), which you could upgrade, wow! I loved doing that kind of upgrade with older workstations. Sadly, Haswell is the last chip that was socketed on laptops. Anything newer and you get a pre-soldered chip that you can't upgrade. They can be overclocked substantially, partly thanks to FIVR (VRMs on-die, Haswell exclusive, very hot - literally), often outperforming Skylake and even newer chips lol Only solution nowadays if you want a laptop is to get one of the rare ones using a desktop CPU. They're surprisingly not as huge as you'd imagine, about the same as the article's Elitebook. Still, a pain in the ass.

bluedino 5y ago

We have tossed out some 5 year old HP laptops, but they are big, the power bricks are huge, the screens aren't the best quality, they make quite a bit of heat and have some fan noise... Other than the dedicated GPU, a 3 year old slimmer version seems to work at lot better for most people. Not sure how good integrated graphics are right now compared to that vintage.