electrocomputerwarehouse

[edward chin]

Listen to Lennart!

On Fri, May 27, 2011 at 1:46 PM, Lennart Sorensen
<lsorense-1wCw9BSqJbv44Nm34jS7GywD8/FfD2ys at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> On Fri, May 27, 2011 at 01:18:58PM -0400, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
>> It depends how important price is to you.  If you listen to Lennart,
>> you will always pay more and get a higher quality device.
>
> I paid $900 for my new thinkpad 2 years ago.  It has been an amazing
> machine so far.  Well worth it.
>
>> I'm impressed by the price-performance of many new notebooks these
>> days.  One side-effect of "inexpensive" is that the products may be
>> flimsy -- electronic components get less expensive most of the time but
>> mechanical components don't.
>
> My wife has an EeepC 1008HA (the very thin one), which she likes, but it
> is a bit flimsy.  In fact she has two (she broke the keyboard somehow
> on the first one when it was a year and a half old, and bought another
> on sale at the time).  Recently the hinge broke off the new one, so we
> swapped the top half of the old one onto the new one.  She now has a
> half pink and half black EeePC.  The netbooks are practically getting
> into the disposable computers price range (and durability).
>
> I don't personally want an EeePC.  I find them impossible to work with,
> but my wife likes hers.  Of course she can always ssh to her desktop to
> do real work from either the EeePC or her symbian phone.
>
>> I think that used and off-lease computers made a lot more sense when
>> new ones were way more expensive than they are now.  I remember a
>> considerable period during which I knew a desktop computer would cost
>> be about $2000, all that changed was what it could do for that money.
>> For example, my Kaypro II cost $2295 -- a Z80 with 64k and two floppy
>> drives.
>
> A new one can have the features you want, and warrenty, and a brand
> new battery.
>
>> Come to think of it, my current desktop cost ~$2k, but that's because
>> about $1100 was my 30" monitor.  Sure beats my Kaypro (24x80 character
>> 9" mono screen).  Over that 30 years, the CPU has increased more than
>> 1000-fold and RAM capacity about 100,000 but the screen has improved
>> more like 10.
>
> $1100 for a 30" is amazing, when you consider a 21" CRT was $3000 a
> decade ago.
>
> I remember having a giant 213MB harddisk and 16MB of ram.  I have 4GB
> ram in my laptop and 320GB harddisk and it cost a lot less too.  Now if
> only disk speeds would improve a bit quicker.
>
>> A used computer is so cheap these days that the store overhead has
>> to significantly add to the price.
>>
>> New notebooks come with a better warranty than used ones.  I think
>> that warranties are particularly useful with notebooks since they are
>> harder to fix yourself.
>>
>> I posted a netbook deal which is still on (barely) for $239.99.  I think
>> that I'd pick that over a used d620 at the same price.  Lennart clearly
>> explained why neither is up to his standards.
>
> I don't like things that break. :)
>
> --
> Len Sorensen
> --
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--
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