Enjoying that Macbook Pro? Having a good time with that sweet Vaio? Too bad you got screwed over – because new laptops are for suckers. I’m rocking a G3 Powerbook right now, and I probably get more done than you do. Because in the end, it’s all about the guts, and laptops have been slow since day one.
Can you think of anything your laptop does right now that a laptop from 1995 doesn’t do? Sure – new games, editing that hi-def video, there’s a bunch. Now take that list and take out the ones you’d rather do on a desktop. What’s left? If you’re honest, probably nothing. Unless you feel like doing things by halves – lowering those graphics settings, working with slow external hard drives, dealing with the fact that customization is shady at best and lethal to your comp at worst – you’re going to be way better off with a desktop. And can we talk about the heat and battery life? New laptops have such ungodly power consumption that they’ll drain your $500 battery in two hours – so much for mobility. And while it’s doing that, it’ll singe your erogenous zones, or maybe if you’re lucky just burst into flame on the table or melt your desk.
So what’s the story here, is this columnist so totally insane that he thinks laptops, one of the most popular technologies of all time, are useless? Of course not, only new ones are – or, more precisely, useless at doing new things. What you need is something to check your email, browse the web, write papers, save your pictures, and so on, and a Thinkpad sporting a Pentium III 1.5GHz processor and maybe a little extra RAM will serve you just fine. In fact, you could easily go back further and still be perfectly sound, while saving yourself thousands. A good laptop costs at least $1500 new, and meanwhile you’ve got last year’s models half off, and some from five years ago going for 75 bucks. Go find a mirror, look yourself in the eye, and try to tell yourself honestly that you’ve gotten $1400 worth of use out of that Macbook that you couldn’t have gotten from a decrepit old Inspiron from 2003. I knew you couldn’t do it.
New laptops are all hype – they’re like buying a Lamborghini when all you’re going to do is race around downtown Barstow. To be honest, it’s embarrassing, and you should be a little ashamed for buying the hype. Think about what you need – do you need coverflow? Do you need visualizations in Winamp? You don’t need Vista, you don’t need XP, hell, you could probably get away with running Windows 3.1. Spend a couple weeks with a G3 Powerbook running OS 9 and I think you’ll agree that not only are your needs being met, but you’ll probably enjoy it. And let’s not forget Linux; Xubuntu and other distributions are designed with old hardware in mind and will run all your favorite open source apps. Maybe you’ll even learn something!
The point is you don’t use your laptop for anything an old one can’t do, or if you do, you can only do it half as well and for a quarter of the time as you could on a desktop. New laptops are for suckers. Be realistic, save yourself a couple grand, and buy a decade-old lappy from Craigslist for a bill, you’ll be glad you did.
What my new Macbook Pro does that my old Toshiba (circa 2001) could not do:
1. Start from hibernate and log-on to the internet within 3 seconds
2. Shut-off almost as fast
3. Run ten programs without crashing (Word, Excel, Devonthink Pro, Keynote, Firefox, Entourage, Skim, EndNote, NoteTaker, iPhoto)
4. Give me eye candy that makes me feel good
5. I’m sure I could think of more things if I wasn’t about to get on a plane…
I learned this from the eeepc. that laptop runs windows xp flawlessly and plays some games pretty well too. It uses some of the cheapest components and runs everything you need on a laptop.
I’m not saying that this is what you should get, but it is tons cheaper and made me realize that today’s laptops are uselessly overpowered especially since we will all be waiting to load that website for the same amount of time.
^mike
1. the load time is nice, but $1000 nice? I don’t think so.
2. how long it takes to shut down? does that extra 5 seconds do anything for you?
3. why do you need to run 10 programs at the same time?
4. exactly, you are paying for eye candy
5. you should do that because I am unconvinced.
The point would be valid if everyone used computers the same way the author did. But isn’t the whole big deal about this age of converging technologies is that we use different gadgets for different things? What might be that guy’s second computer, used for writing flame-ware inducing articles at Starbuck’s, might be someone elses only computer; they need the extra juice. It’s the same reason they sell more than one candy bar in the grocery store.
Sure, I have a Vaio, and I use 100% Linux on it. What does that make me? Less of a sucker than my Vaio owning friends who use Windows on them?
I own a Sony Vaio, and I only run Linux on it. Does that make me less of a sucker than my friends who use Windows on their Vaios? I use the extra power, for games when I’m bored, and also for running a helluva applications at once. Given that I have only 1 gig of Ram, Ubuntu runs fast and smooth..
My new Macbook is lighter, more portable, cooler (temp wise) and has better battery life than my old Powerbook. I may not use my laptop to do a whole lot more, but it does do what I want with less wait time. and honestly since when in the history of man kind has purchases not included some “I want that” factor? if there wasn’t that we would all be driving 87 ford escorts…
Someones salty they can’t afford a new computer. I just bought a brand new top of the line DV9000 series pavilion and it’s HANDS down better than my desktop. Even though it has vista. It has more ram , it a bigger HD , it have a better Video card ( the desktop doesn’t even have PCI ), PLUS It has a HD DVD drive. Of which none of my desktop has. Although I’ve never had a problem with my desktop, it runs greats , and i purcahsed the laptop for mobility. Before you say the desktop is a POS it’s only 3 and 1/2 years old, and it was pretty nice back in the day.
You say that the older laptops can do anything the newer ones can. But thats only if you have all the time in the world. I have a toshiba that i’ve had since 2000. I haven’t touched it in YEARS. It has nothing on it to slow it down, when i used it ; it took SO long to load up IE and load websites that i didn’t have the patience for it. It took about six minutes on what would take me a minute on any regular computer. Come on and we all know that you need faster processor to run the newer programs plus more and more ram all the time.
I think what you said is slightly true just completely vague. Explain your self more throughly next time.
Wow. And here was I thinking that we as a human race were moving forward thanks to technological advancements that allow us to do more in less time. Obviously not all of us took that bus…
Sure, not everyone is going to use their brand new laptop to save the world, but we sure as hell ain’t going to use some el cheapo 3+ year old dust collector to perform a virus scan on (dual core anyone?)
While the author of this article may be able to surf the net or check email, he failed to mention whether he could complete such ’simple’ tasks within 1 or 2 decades. For, even the most basic web pages employ advanced technologies (well advanced 10 years ago) such as Java and Adobe Flash. So loading the latest blockbuster movie website may take a little longer than making the proverbial cup of coffee.
And downgrading your operating system – two versions back may not be the best idea. The reason people are downgrading to XP from Vista is for the compatibility and for some reason or another Windows 95 doesn’t offer the same diversity of software – if you get my drift.
So to end, laptops any older than say 3 years are NOT going to substitute for a MacBook Pro. The reason: processor speed doubles every 2 years and so does the general expectation of how fast things should run. Perhaps the best example is of the new screensaver in Mac OS X Leopard – Mosaic. This creates an image using hundreds of smaller images from your collection. Previously, to create something as complicated as this required a lot of time and a lot of money – approximately $30k in the 90’s. And now this – albeit trivial program – is just a screen saver. What next? Well you’ll just have to upgrade to find out.
OK, I’ll bite. Devin is right [shudders - I think hell just got one degree closer to freezing over]. If you think about it, more bigger more is no longer as necessary as computing is becoming more saas and the majority of what we do shifts online. This means less power is needed on the user end (exceptions: gaming, cad, dev apps, FF memory leaks – zing!), so your old laptop, and hell throw desktops into the mix too, become less important and your connection speed and the server are what matters most…
I love my house because it’s nice and roomy, and can hold all my stuff. I love my car because it gives me portability, plus a few of the comforts of home, like air conditioning and a stereo.
I’d really love to be able to take all my stuff with me everywhere I go, and be able to do everything I do at home while on the go. But I’m not about to trade in my house and car for an RV.
I love my Macbook that I bought in late May.
Why? Because it replaced a laptop I bought in 1999. That’s why. I used that Toshiba until it literally died. I plan on doing the same with this one.
i have a vintage 1996 compaq thatruns win2000 and ie6 but my mac 5300 with os7 will not work on the net. you are way off…..you buy a new computer(or laptop) because the software forces the change. speed isnt the issue…..sure if someone wrote a browser that worked with flash and javascript i could use my old 386 but if you cant get online and have the sites render properly you need a new box…….
I have a tablet. For any desktop to have the same functionality, I would have to get a Wacom Cintiq which costs 3 times what I paid for my laptop.
Well, an interesting article, even if it is pretty ridiculous. I guess you are hoping to get people hyped up enough to respond. Apparently it worked.
As for me, my laptop is my only computer. I guess not all of us get to have two current computers. If I had to choose between a top of the line portable computer or a top of the line desktop and a crappy old laptop, I would take the portable any day. I love being able to move around the house with it, no stupid cords, I can go to the coffee shop if my Internet dies, I have a 6 hour batter life so I feel sorry for whatever you have, I can do anything I normally do on a 4 or 5 hour cross country flight – do that with a desktop!
Now I am going to pick up my computer and go downstairs. Guess what, when I get there I can do anything I could have done upstairs.
By the way, I got a great deal buying a Dell refurbished laptop, so the price wasn’t even that bad. A unit that was normally $2,300 I got for only $1,600. Sure I could have gotten a more powerful desktop for the same amount – but who cares? I don’t need more.
Old laptops? WTF – You are nucking futs! I almost turned into Rip Van Winkle waiting for it to load, turn on, open a program, open outlook, Fughedaboutit.
Anyway – you accomplished what you wanted with this article, but it is pretty ridiculous.
Rather provocative article, considering that laptop usage is rising every year.
I feel that analysis is missing some important points (and comments suggest the same). I think some insight could be had from the way people are using their laptops. My personal experience shows that (1) majority of people prefer laptops to desktops; (2) “mobility” is more about moving within one house from one room to another or getting from one house to another (or from house to an office); therefore (3) required battery life is about 30 minutes; (4) people change their laptops approximately once in 3 years.
I feel that computers are in that respect are not unlike cars – people don’t upgrade their cars, technical limitations of a given car are usually way above what it’s being used for, 10 year old car is, probably, good enough to carry you from home to office and back, but you’re going to be better off getting rid of it and buying a new one.
I like that my laptop warms up my balls. Great point!
Are the most energy-efficient laptops available today as efficient as those from two years ago? Five years ago? 10 years ago?
Were there even six consumer laptop models that could get 6 or more hours to a full charge five years ago?
I love my macbook pro and use for everything (graphics, coding, browsing, games, email etc) and take it everywhere (home, office, other office coffeeshop etc) and work on it everywhere.
Hey if I were a blogger and just had to fill out wordpress forms all day I could probably get away with that notebook just fine too.
Guess what? Other people have other jobs.
New laptops are smaller, lighter, and usually have more battery life than their used counterparts because of all the new juice-saving features built into the current generation of mobile CPUs and the continuing innovation in new materials, mechanical design, components, and battery tech. I do programming, graphics, and website development on my 2-year-old Dell laptop, and I can confidently say no old system from the Pentium-3 or older days would have been speedy enough or comfortable enough to work on.
On the other hand, for office, web and e-mail work, you are spot on. We have a few old laptops at the office, and one of them is a particularly good example – a 13″ Sony Pentium-III slim laptop which is excellent for those light loads and costs a mere $350 on eBay. I would definitely recommend it to “light” users instead of a new notebook PC.
Finally, I would like to echo the sentiment of a few commenters above to say I’m very satisfied with my current laptop, and I’m not going to replace it with new tech unless it dies on me. Let’s explore the limit of our current systems before running out to purchase new ones just because they’re shinier and are 10% faster CPUs! :)