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My daughter (11) has to constantly be reminded not to pick her laptop of by one hand, by the edge, holding it horizontally. She just doesn't "get", no matter ho

My daughter (11) has to constantly be reminded not to pick her laptop of by one hand, by the edge, holding it horizontally. She just doesn't "get", no matter how often I tell her, that it results in stress on the hardware and kind wind up breaking it.

scotty79 4y ago
I couldn't learn that either when my laptop weighed 3.5kg. Even the feeling of my wrist getting nearly twisted out of socket couldn't teach me anything.
CrampusDestrus 4y ago
Maybe you should think of a demonstration instead of simply telling her
doubled112 4y ago
Don't worry too much. I was a retail computer technician for a while and people a lot older than that just don't get it either.
reaperducer 4y ago
My daughter (11) has to constantly be reminded not to pick her laptop of by one hand, by the edge, holding it horizontally. Back when day trading was a thing and Starbucks was packed with people on laptops, I used to see people pick up their computers by the top of the screen all the time. I never understood that.
- yencabulator 4y ago
  That was literally a sales demo for Thinkpad, back in the day. Grab top of screen, give it a good shake, nothing happened.
todd8 4y ago
I do this all the time. Out of a dozen laptops around here (Apple, Dell, Lenovo) none have broken over the years. I usually just outgrow them, or the batteries lose their ability to hold a charge. Thinking about this, I realize that all of my laptops fall into four categories: (1) MacBooks ——these are made of metal and are quite rigid and strong, (2) large screened Dells, too heavy to pick up comfortably with one hand, (3) Lenovo Thinkpads that are thin but very lightweight, and (4) a couple of Chromebooks that sit permanently on a desk for web use only and don’t get picked up. In all of these cases, there is little danger that I will injure them by handling them as you’ve described.
- le-mark 4y ago
  I had an HP laptop provided by work that bent when picked up by the edge, such that four pads on the bottom no longer contacted and it had a tilt. I personally believe this should not happen, even if it costs an ounce.
  - todd8 4y ago
    You’re right! I start thinking about my collection of laptops and amended my comment above.
- addaon 4y ago
  The white plastic iBooks, especially the G3s, were incredibly prone to damage this way. I think I went through three G3s (on warranty) before they replaced it with a G4, and then swapped out a busted G4 still on the original warranty. Never occurred to me to change how I was using the system; it was clearly a design defect that was on them to handle. And none of the metal laptops ever gave me problems, although the TiBook certainly felt a bit fragile due to its size.
jay_kyburz 4y ago
My 11 year old just drops stuff a lot. Two hands please!
asguy 4y ago
If you let her break it, and go without it, she’ll probably get it real quick.
jacquesm 4y ago
That's really not on her though, or her understanding of physics but simply that the designers of this stuff should have foreseen that this is exactly how people will handle the gear, just like a book. If you can grab it by something you should be able to lift it. It's not as though you're trying to lift a car by a mirror.
- uni_rule 4y ago
  It really is just unfortunate how squishy LCDs are but it's not like laying sheets of digitizer glass across the same screen makes them particularly more durable. It's almost hard to imagine how many laptops break in that exact same stop near the top center of the screen from being picked up like that.
- RHSeeger 4y ago
  > If you can grab it by something you should be able to lift it. I disagree with this completely. I can pick a reasonable sized mirror up by the edge, and it has a chance of breaking. I can pick a table up by one of four legs, but it puts stress on the connections. I can pick lots of things up in ways that would do damage to them. And the people that made them _could_ make them stronger to avoid that, at the cost of a higher price. Or they could not spend the money and just say "don't pick it up in a way that puts unreasonable stress on it". It is a compromise and, for many items, there is a point beyond which it's not worth spending more money on it.
yencabulator 4y ago
Maybe I'm buying more sturdy laptops than your daughter gets, but I've never broken anything by doing that, and I have laptops well over 10 years old, and have been doing that for some 25 years. I understand the theory, but I think significantly more laptops are broken by e.g. squishing them against a non-flat object in a bag, or dropping. Think of a modern tablet. Would you seriously say one must not hold a tablet by an edge? (Me personally, I destroy all my laptop hardware by spilled drinks...)
- RHSeeger 4y ago
  I've never knocked a computer off the edge of a table because it was left with part of it extending beyond the edge. But leaving it like that does make increase the risk of that happening. The same idea is true of picking it up by the edge; it increases stress on the hardware, which can cause damage. The fact that it hasn't happened to you just means it's isn't _sure_ to cause a problem.

scotty79 4y ago

I couldn't learn that either when my laptop weighed 3.5kg. Even the feeling of my wrist getting nearly twisted out of socket couldn't teach me anything.

CrampusDestrus 4y ago

Maybe you should think of a demonstration instead of simply telling her

doubled112 4y ago

Don't worry too much. I was a retail computer technician for a while and people a lot older than that just don't get it either.

reaperducer 4y ago

My daughter (11) has to constantly be reminded not to pick her laptop of by one hand, by the edge, holding it horizontally. Back when day trading was a thing and Starbucks was packed with people on laptops, I used to see people pick up their computers by the top of the screen all the time. I never understood that.

yencabulator 4y ago
That was literally a sales demo for Thinkpad, back in the day. Grab top of screen, give it a good shake, nothing happened.

todd8 4y ago

I do this all the time. Out of a dozen laptops around here (Apple, Dell, Lenovo) none have broken over the years. I usually just outgrow them, or the batteries lose their ability to hold a charge. Thinking about this, I realize that all of my laptops fall into four categories: (1) MacBooks ——these are made of metal and are quite rigid and strong, (2) large screened Dells, too heavy to pick up comfortably with one hand, (3) Lenovo Thinkpads that are thin but very lightweight, and (4) a couple of Chromebooks that sit permanently on a desk for web use only and don’t get picked up. In all of these cases, there is little danger that I will injure them by handling them as you’ve described.

le-mark 4y ago
I had an HP laptop provided by work that bent when picked up by the edge, such that four pads on the bottom no longer contacted and it had a tilt. I personally believe this should not happen, even if it costs an ounce.
- todd8 4y ago
  You’re right! I start thinking about my collection of laptops and amended my comment above.
addaon 4y ago
The white plastic iBooks, especially the G3s, were incredibly prone to damage this way. I think I went through three G3s (on warranty) before they replaced it with a G4, and then swapped out a busted G4 still on the original warranty. Never occurred to me to change how I was using the system; it was clearly a design defect that was on them to handle. And none of the metal laptops ever gave me problems, although the TiBook certainly felt a bit fragile due to its size.

jay_kyburz 4y ago

My 11 year old just drops stuff a lot. Two hands please!

asguy 4y ago

If you let her break it, and go without it, she’ll probably get it real quick.

jacquesm 4y ago

That's really not on her though, or her understanding of physics but simply that the designers of this stuff should have foreseen that this is exactly how people will handle the gear, just like a book. If you can grab it by something you should be able to lift it. It's not as though you're trying to lift a car by a mirror.

uni_rule 4y ago
It really is just unfortunate how squishy LCDs are but it's not like laying sheets of digitizer glass across the same screen makes them particularly more durable. It's almost hard to imagine how many laptops break in that exact same stop near the top center of the screen from being picked up like that.
RHSeeger 4y ago
> If you can grab it by something you should be able to lift it. I disagree with this completely. I can pick a reasonable sized mirror up by the edge, and it has a chance of breaking. I can pick a table up by one of four legs, but it puts stress on the connections. I can pick lots of things up in ways that would do damage to them. And the people that made them _could_ make them stronger to avoid that, at the cost of a higher price. Or they could not spend the money and just say "don't pick it up in a way that puts unreasonable stress on it". It is a compromise and, for many items, there is a point beyond which it's not worth spending more money on it.

yencabulator 4y ago

Maybe I'm buying more sturdy laptops than your daughter gets, but I've never broken anything by doing that, and I have laptops well over 10 years old, and have been doing that for some 25 years. I understand the theory, but I think significantly more laptops are broken by e.g. squishing them against a non-flat object in a bag, or dropping. Think of a modern tablet. Would you seriously say one must not hold a tablet by an edge? (Me personally, I destroy all my laptop hardware by spilled drinks...)

RHSeeger 4y ago
I've never knocked a computer off the edge of a table because it was left with part of it extending beyond the edge. But leaving it like that does make increase the risk of that happening. The same idea is true of picking it up by the edge; it increases stress on the hardware, which can cause damage. The fact that it hasn't happened to you just means it's isn't _sure_ to cause a problem.