Got myself a GTX 1660 for 460$ 5 months ago and I thought I paid too much for it, but now I’m glad I bought it Edit: GTX 1660 laptop
Well you probably overpaid slightly, and refurbished are about half the price, but prices are only going up so the best time to buy anything is going to always be months ago.
I mean GTX 1660 laptop, I forgot to write that in XD
Oh damn, a new gtx 1660 costs more than the whole laptop then, great deal!
“You’ll never own another computer cheaper than $500”
Chinese tech firms produce high end computers for less than $500
“SANCTION! TARIFF! EMBARGO!”
The prices for tech on Taobao in China and in the US are nearly identical for the vast majority of tech items. So much is excluded from the tariffs that it’s silly they even exist on paper. There are indeed some newer items only available there, but they’re rarely on the affordable end of pricing.
Laptops and computer hardware in particular surprise me. I was hoping to get a new Huawei or Xiaomi laptop the last time I was in China since I got my parents a Huawei I’ve been jealous of in the US several years before they were banned. Absolutely nothing I could find on Taobao or in store was comparable value even to computers from Dell/HP/Lenovo.
I have a Huawei watch, and I think it’s great, especially for the price. I guess you can make quality, affordable products when you’re subsidised by the state.
Now do cars, lol
You will never own an EV for under $80k
if you buy slightly used, you are doing something wrong paying more than 15-20k.
The used car market imploded when vehicle production dried up after 2008
Access to the information superhighway will be relegated to only those who can afford a yacht. /s
Full circle back to the first days of the internet that only universities and the rich could use. Also high storage prices again when we’ve had it dirt cheap for decades.
Nothing new.
the majority of people access the internet on their phones or smart devices. almost exclusively.
desktop computer internet is going the way of the doh doh in terms of traffic. it’s for nerds.
Crazy isn’t it!
I stand by, phones are for consuming, computers are for creation. Of course humans thirst for consuming is unending, like an insatiable Godzilla.
Yeah well i’m a social pariah for not being a phone person. I’m over here like it’s 2002 consuming most of my internet on a desktop, not even a laptop! I spend maybe 15m a day on my phone.
Awesome. I do much as I can to live in 2003 (mostly using CRTs, watching my vhs tapes, playing dreamcast, ha!)
I do like my phone for on the go, but I’ve done all I can do de crapify it. Excited to get a pixel and graphene next year.
It’s not actually the “older hardware” that’s responsible for security vulnerabilities, it’s Microsoft chosing to end support for Windows 10.
That “older” hardware capable of running Windows 10 is more than capable of running any Linux distro which will keep on getting security updates for a long while (and you can just upgrade it again if that stops as Linux is nowhere as hardware demanding as Windows, especially the latest, Electron + AI, Windows).
For people who just use their PC for Office software, e-mail and browsing - who are the ones getting entry level PCs - hardware has been more than powerfull enough for 2 decades, and it’s only Windows bloatware having grown to use the available computing power that has forced people to upgrade the hardware.
Also distros aren’t the final step of availability.
There are forks like elks linux runnable with 256Kb RAM.Oh, yeah.
I’m just thinking the more well known stuff with the “fancier” desktops and shipped with applications like LibreOffice and Firefox which are probably closer to familiar and don’t look like a step back for Windows and Mac users.
If you really want to extend the life of your hardware to the max, well, whilst Linux has discontinued support for 486 and Pentium processors last year, any hardware newer than that (so, around 30 years or less) will still run the latest kernel and as you mentioned there are distros targeting machines with very little RAM and HDD space.
People believe it, I couldn’t even convince my own father. He rather spend 600 bucks for a new laptop, for no reason.
My hope is that the crazy RAM and HDD/SDD prices and hence crazy prices for new PCs will push more people to try Linux.
Saving for my kids college went out the window.
Saving for my kids computers now
Does anyone know how difficult it is to swap keyboards on ThinkPads? I wanna get one used but the problem is, most of them don’t have US keyboards since I live in Japan.
If ThinkPad, easy. If IdeaPad, watch out, might not be viable.
It’s amazing how good Lenovo is about ThinkPad, and how crap they are about IdeaPad.
I can’t speak to the ease of the swap, but I do know lenovo is super great for letting you order parts.
https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/parts-lookup
I had to swap out the cooling on one of our newer legions at work and their parts game is on point.
I did the same for realtively new Thinkpad(p14s gen 5, I think). Got original US keyboard from Aliexpress (lucky). It was pretty easy just a couple ofnscreews and had to be careful with folding the flex pcb/cable.
Usually trivial to swap a keyboard, just gotta find the japan Lenovo FRU for the keyboard and order it. Sometimes you gotta buy the upper plastic too if the shape is different. If you have a model in mind I can find you the FRU and guide if you want.
I haven’t tried it myself, but at least iFixit has a bunch of guides: https://www.ifixit.com/Search?query=thinkpad+keyboard&doctype=guide
Sweet, thank you!
My old work place used to buy refurbushed ThinkPads, and they slid rather easily by sliding a switch. I have one of the more recent models (also refurbished) at home as well, I’ll try to see if it’s still the same.
That would be super helpful. I was under the impression that the recent ones aren’t swappable, it would be great if I could replace my surface with an actual laptop soon.
So, I’ve tried it with my T14 Gen1 (which, as I just found out is already 6 years old… Yeowza), and honestly… It’s pretty hard to get the keyboard out of that one already.
It’s nothing like I remember with older models, where you can take off the keyboard out by itself and slot a new one in, but now you need to pry off the mouse buttons of the trackpad, loosen screws under it and pry the keyboard forward to be able to get it out. The mouse buttons are also attached to it, which makes even more anxiety-inducing to get it out.
I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if they removed the function overall in the most recent models, seeing as how it is with this model already.
Only due to basically one reason - oligopolies.
I predict this research firm will not exist by 2030
Depends on how many corporations they can supply favorable polls to.
PC today sold at 1500€ will be sold at 500€ in 2028, so… yeah, I don’t know what people is thinking.
One could say “you’re missing the whole picture, Alessando: in 2028 people would want to buy shiny new 2028 PCs capable of 2028-tripleA-gaming”
But this is also not the whole picture: if a brand new in 2028 that cost 501€ (500+1) doesn’t, at very least, match a 1500€ from the 2025 PC… it simply mean that only rich idiot will buy brand new PC in 2028 (aka: OEM won’t simply sell new stuff)
Snapdragon platform is already tailing PC gaming… if OEM won’t sell new X86 PC, Snapdragon (and like) are coming to get that hole in the PC market.
(but my true hopes are in RiscV: ARM holding can easily dragged in the hardware AI hell as well as AMD and Intel were)
Can you even get one now?
I built one back pre-christmas using ddr5 and onboard graphics. It wound out at about $500usd. Onboard Graphics which wasnt a dealbreaker for my wife but it was pretty ideal for a “rig now, gpu later” type plan.
If you skip a GPU maybe, no chance if you want to include one
Before I’d say building your own can be more cost effective, but I can’t even say that now with those RAM and GPU prices.
Priced a full build yesterday. A 9800X3D and 9700XT build with 2TB storage, 32GB RAM, Noctua Cooler, basic mid case, and 750 PSU is about $2400 before tax and shipping.
yeah prebuilts are cheaper now, sadly
I hope that they just fail in their half-assed attempts and the prices fall again.
Me too or supply rises to met demand with new companies, which can also lower the price. But I mostly want AI to fail.
It’s probably all to plan, for controlling the masses. Subvert and destroy education. Control media.
Also. Remove unmonitored access to information (phones only, outside of work). Especially those Linux fuckers who build their own, can’t have that spreading.
New low end laptops have always sucked. I hope more people become open to used and refurbished devices. A 3 year old used business machine kicks the shit out of a new similarly priced POS. New low end laptops are born e waste.
At this point, I’m starting to go full luddite and hope people just give up on PC/console gaming altogether and go back to games that require you to actually be in the same room as other people. I just don’t see any future where everything electronic doesn’t just enshittify further and further.
Might be time to make more browser games again. Doesn’t have to be complex. Ohhh… If you get some old flash games, those might even run fairly well on a pi zero. And when they ban non ID verified internet we can trade games on SD cards.
I’m game for that :3
I wonder how would be best to make games now that run easily in a browser with very low specs. I know you can just use JS straight in the browser for some types of games but it isn’t really something I have looked into much.
Hi, we (personally)'re various types of queer, and plural, and otherwise don’t really have local “”“”““real-life””“”“” community. The internet and such is crucial to our continued existence and we know literally nobody offline.
Don’t throw out computers just because “oh Real Life is More Real”.
(yes, you didn’t technically say “throw out computers in general” but it feels like you’re implying it with the “throw out games in general”.)
Also singleplayer games exist and those are good too.
Games are not purely a means to be social to other people in the same room with you. They’re still good for that! But societally we’ve moved way beyond that being the only reason.
(English could really use an inclusive and exclusive we, heh)
Games are actually among the LEAST enshittified regions of tech these days. And that’s with all the shit Ubisoft and their ilk are pulling. Games are like the one category of proprietary software where you can update relatively safely and expect to not be screwed over. Most of the time.
– Frost
This is the part people keep forgetting, or not caring about because they hate us
(Okay, what the hell did Lemmy do to my quotes?? I used straight quotes for a reason! It just went and decided to guess opening vs. closing ones and totally scrambled them. If I want open/close quotes I’ll type open/close quotes.)
Might be your font, I’m seeing
""straight quotes
Absolutely this! I just lucked out on a secondhand Thinkpad E14 for $400. It’s basically the same as my X1 except I can add more ram if I want. My husband gave me the side eye when I grabbed it but I just said it’s only going to get worse, having a spare laptop is imperative. Which reminds me, I need to get some ram for it while I can…
I see the landlords found their new rent seeking endeavour. Allons-y les gars, lá révolution nous appelle une fois de plus.
I predict that almost everything will be about 6% more expensive by 2028. That will push things costing around $472 today into the $500+ category.
