this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2024
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Laptops from the 2010s represented a peak in design and performance, but since then, it feels like we've seen consistent downsizing and downgrades. Take the latest Intel CPUs, for instance—it's as if the marketing pitch is, 'It may not be very powerful, but at least it’s energy-efficient.' It’s almost as though manufacturers are catering to a market they perceive as indifferent, and we, as consumers, continue to accept diminishing returns while paying increasingly higher prices. This trend reflects a broader issue in life today: settling for less while being charged more.
This picture captures the essence of that realization, and it is truly heart-wrenching.
I'm by no means an apple fan boy (I only have an air) but the apple m processors are getting faster every gen. My m1 air is fast, has a nice design, great battery life, nice screen, etc. idk what else I would want in a laptop. Obviously not a cheap but it should last me a lot longer than whatever pc I would have gotten for half the price.
I don't follow the laptop industry closely though so maybe I'm being ripped off without realizing it?
I believe a significant issue with laptops, in general, lies in the ethical and environmental concerns surrounding the mining of precious metals and components, often carried out by underprivileged workers. The cost of materials and manufacturing remains low, while profit margins for companies continue to grow.
For example, Apple has experienced remarkable growth from 2010 to the present, yet laptop prices have only risen rather than decreased, despite advances in technology and economies of scale. This raises important questions about fairness and sustainability in the industry.
In a way, it feels as though we are being taken advantage of, all while maintaining a positive facade. This, of course, doesn't even address the anti-consumer practices surrounding the repair and maintenance of Apple devices.
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AAPL/apple/stock-price-history
My biggest issue is thermals and build quality.
Feels like macbooks need every square mm of aluminium surface area hence less ports, as they barely manage to not reach autoignition temperature. Likewise plenty laptops with metal shells seem to use them as their ground, being too cheap for one tiny wire, and hence the case will slowly retain charge over a long day and you get this weird scratchy/jittery feeling when touching the case. Because ground is haaaaard.
And such shit in laptops costing thousands of euros. Fuck.
I'm usually happy with increased efficiency as it represents an increase in performance in the future. Cost is something that seems much more inevitable to go down than performance is to go up, so the two metrics I look for in the state of the CPU market are peak single core performance and performance per watt. Of course, this only applies to observing the industry from outside, I'm sure if I was actually in the market for a new CPU right now I'd probably be happier with a worse performance per watt chip as long as it was cheaper.
As an IT professional, I encounter this frequently—people attempt to save money, only to end up with subpar equipment that hampers their ability to perform their work. In the end, they often lose more money than they would have saved, all because they focused on saving that small amount upfront. Cost savings are not always advantageous; it's akin to the saying, 'Saving a penny to spend a dollar'.
And anything that isn’t compatible with USB-C is subpar equipment.