Laptop vs Desk Top

[Phi for All]

I am beginning to think that is true of desk tops but that's another topic deserving of a separate thread when I get time.

 

Desktops have a much more open architecture for hardware. Once you get the panel off, most of the parts are pop-out/plug-in. If one piece needs to be replaced, you don't have to remove four other parts just to get to it.

 

Of course, desktops are usually cheaper, so you run into the same problem of repair vs upgrade. If I had a two-year-old desktop and a repair was going to cost me 20% of what a new one might cost, I'd have to consider getting an upgrade.

 

 

Try to buy mother board, gfx card, or cpu for any laptop...

 

I would be delighted to get gfx card for mine broken laptop on free market. I have paid for it $2500 in 2007, and can't get gfx card that for normal PC would be $50. I would even pay up to $300 just to have it running.

Laptop manufacturers force you to buy completely new one, if old one is broken.

 

It is hard to find support for anything more than a few years old. But I think this is more a question of the technology leaping ahead every couple of years and leaving the old stuff in the dirt, rather than it being strictly a laptop size issue. I could be wrong, though, especially with high-end graphics cards and major components like the cpu.

[Sensei]

I agree that technology advances with time. But that's not reason to treat clients like that - leaving them alone with not working hardware they paid for.

There is market for spare elements for older models. But there is no willingness.

f.e. produce 1 mln quantity of single model laptop, and 1.1 mln quantity of gfx card matching for them. 10% more than full sets.

These 10% offer to sell to electronic shops, ebay or whatever other route. Client could buy it for reasonable price, and replace it, if it's damaged.

After all warranty is 2 years, 3 years if extended is purchased. So spare elements have to be taken from somewhere to fix them.

Mine laptop died 1 month after warranty end..

 

Not first such "accident".

But large LED tv I fixed by myself. And there were thousands threads on the Internet about the same issue as I had, with detail description what to do to fix it.

Edited June 30, 2014 by Sensei

[studiot]

 

Try to buy mother board, gfx card, or cpu for any laptop...

 

I would be delighted to get gfx card for mine broken laptop on free market. I could spend hours to unscrew everything and replace it. It's not a problem.

I have paid for it $2500 in 2007 (the best and the fastest laptop at that day on the world), and can't get gfx card that for normal PC would be $50. I would even pay up to $300 just to have it running.

 

Laptop manufacturers force you to buy completely new one, if old one is broken.

 

 

Ask for some help, instead of bleating.

 

If you were to tell us the details, I might be able to offer some suggestions, as might others.

 

For instance I often buy broken laptops on Ebay - that is broken except for the part I want - this can often make an economic repair.

 

Since yours has a mobo failure I would suggest looking for one with a smashed screen, but functioning mainboard. These can be had in the region £25 - £75 in the UK, probably the same number of $ in the US.

Edited June 30, 2014 by studiot

[Hazel M]

It is called "planned obsolescence". Long ago, for a while, I worked as a bookkeeper for a Ford dealer. We had a speaker down from Detroit to talk of many things. One thing he introduced us to was what he called "planned obsolescence". Manufacturers were realizing that they could make more money if they didn't make their products so well that they lasted for years. He said cars were then being built to run beautifully the first year, have minor problems the second and break down badly enough to need replacing the third. I don't know how long cars last but I see this planned obsolescence in everything. I can't believe it isn't as true of computers as anything. And, even if they are running fine, the powers-that-be force you onto a new one. See how often you have to move from Win 95 to Vista to XP to win 7, 8 and onward. Always, to get to the programs you need to use, you have to keep updating. Of course, the "experts" explain and explain tediously that such is necessary to "keep up". Maybe but does that mean they have to kill the old? I still say my Windows 95 was the most stable OS I ever had but it was forced into obsolescence because the company didn't want to continue to support it.

 

Just my thoughts. If something is still running well, as were both my Win 95 and XP, why can't the manufacturer continue to support it? I know everyone could name a lot of other appliances and tools that suffered the same fate. This could generate a lot of pros and cons which is why I said it probably needed a thread of its own. But we got here and here we are.

[Phi for All]

The old operating systems have no functionality with a lot of newer software and hardware. I loved Windows XP when compared to the alternatives at the time, but Windows 7 is even better, imo. Windows 8 seems to support more touchscreen features that I'm not using atm.

 

If we kept the old and just kept adding to it to make it work with the new, we'd end up with some pretty unmanageable systems. If you had told me when I was running Windows 95 that soon I'd be able to have my phone and my laptop working together in a cloud environment, I'm not sure I could have waited. Remember, back in the old Win95 days, your hard drive had 4 gigabytes of space if you were lucky. Now we have that much available in RAM!

[Hazel M]

The old operating systems have no functionality with a lot of newer software and hardware. I loved Windows XP when compared to the alternatives at the time, but Windows 7 is even better, imo. Windows 8 seems to support more touchscreen features that I'm not using atm.

 

If we kept the old and just kept adding to it to make it work with the new, we'd end up with some pretty unmanageable systems. If you had told me when I was running Windows 95 that soon I'd be able to have my phone and my laptop working together in a cloud environment, I'm not sure I could have waited. Remember, back in the old Win95 days, your hard drive had 4 gigabytes of space if you were lucky. Now we have that much available in RAM!

I can't give a good answer because I really do not understand computers. I only know that this planned obsolescence - and the refusal to support the old - is into everything.

 

I can say this. There can be a few who just want to use an old computer for the same old that they were using it for. But, everyone pitches in and makes that impossible. And not just for spare parts. Virus protection is a good example. As soon as the next version comes out, the anti-virus people stop supporting the old versions.

 

You may be right about the "necessary" but I'm not sure. I am out of my element there. But the changes are too fast and too often. I suspect the purpose is to keep us buying. What I do know is that a one-year-old computer, like any one-year old appliance or device should not be costing an arm and a leg to keep it in working order. On that I think I am right.

[Phi for All]

I can't give a good answer because I really do not understand computers. I only know that this planned obsolescence - and the refusal to support the old - is into everything.

 

I can say this. There can be a few who just want to use an old computer for the same old that they were using it for. But, everyone pitches in and makes that impossible. And not just for spare parts. Virus protection is a good example. As soon as the next version comes out, the anti-virus people stop supporting the old versions.

 

You may be right about the "necessary" but I'm not sure. I am out of my element there. But the changes are too fast and too often. I suspect the purpose is to keep us buying. What I do know is that a one-year-old computer, like any one-year old appliance or device should not be costing an arm and a leg to keep it in working order. On that I think I am right.

 

Planned obsolescence is different than built-in obsolescence. In this case, it's the technology that is doing the "planning". It tends to make huge leaps about every three years or so. I'm not sure how you'd reorganize for the better and still maintain market share.

 

Built-in obsolescence is what you really want to watch out for. Products that are mostly metal, except for the part that moves most, which is made of plastic, are good examples of this. I don't see this much with computers, unless it's with connections. Sensei mentioned how fragile some of the port and power connectors can be.

 

Computers and the technology that drives them are balancing on a fine edge here. Manufacturers have a small window in which to introduce new products before they are "old" products, with an even newer technology to replace them. All the costs for research, development, and implementation have to be balanced with the fact that as soon as you go to market, 10 other companies will copy your designs and change them just enough so you can't sue them.

 

 

 

I would recommend that you find a young geek near you who makes desktop computers to sell. Explain what you do with a computer, and let the geek make you a desktop that has just what you need. He/she will be able to upgrade the machine for you every few years with the latest and greatest if it makes sense for you to have it, and ignore upgrades that don't have a lot of benefit for the way you compute.

[Hazel M]

All right. Call it built-in obsolescence. It still amounts to being left without support. I'll try a simple example. Say a woman is using a simple computer to keep files of recipes and other household information. What she does requires no updates to "bigger and better". Or a man is writing his biography for his family. Same story. His simple computer is large enough and works fine. Then, one morning one of them wakes up to see a problem. No idea what it is or how serious it is. Shouldn't this person be able to telephone the company that sold him the computer or the company that made the computer and not hear "sorry, we no longer support that version"? Not even a willingness to listen to the customer's problem and make a suggestion as to what it is going wrong?

 

No, you can tell me a lot about progress in computers and I'll believe it all - or most of it. But when personal service depends on how up-to-date your computer or other electronic device is, that is not right. Nothing will convince me it is. How much effort does it take to listen to a customer and try to help him at least find out what's going on? Someone on this thread wants a part for his old laptop. Someone on this thread just told him where to look. Now please tell me why the company he took the computer to was not able to do that same thing - tell him how to search for a part?

 

How you treat a customer in need may determine whether you'll have a customer in the future. It's that simple. Of course, we are talking about two different things here - built-in obsolescence (still don't like it <g>) and customer service. But both are important.

[studiot]

Hazel, your thread should be in politics or in the lounge, like this one here.

 

http://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/showthread.php?t=95669&page=18

 

When I was young, one of the legacies of Birmingham being the (metal)workshop of the world was that if you needed a piece (or a thousand pieces) of any type metal in any shape of form, there would be a dozen back steet companies who could supply off the shelf or make cheaply to order. Small companies that had grown up supplying to the big ones. which supplied to the world.

Similarly in London, where I lived, there was a place where you could obtain nuts and bolts for any thread ever made. The owner made his fortune out of this simple supply.

 

Nowadays the the West has handed manufacturing on to others, these paragons have all gone and obtaining even simple things is difficult. Sales clerks these days usually don't even know what you are asking for at component level.

 

go well

 

Edited June 30, 2014 by studiot

[Phi for All]

Planned obsolescence is when you plan for a product to need replacement after a certain period. This is accomplished naturally in the market based on the materials you use. PO is part of virtually every manufacturer's business plan. Not everyone can afford products built to last for decades.

 

Built-in obsolescence is different. It's internally dishonest, because it's usually done purposely to cause problems and hopefully get your customer to re-purchase more often. I bought a pasta-making machine that had a metal auger for mixing, it's why I trusted that model. But the bushing the auger socked into was made of plastic, and it was the first thing to break due to heavy torque. Three times. Three replacements. Built to fail, imo.

 

Solid-state electronics have a low failure rate, but they do fail, and it's not cost-effective to test every PCB in every unit for glitches. It's unfortunate, but this is why manufacturers seem to use us to test their products for free. As long as someone responsible is willing to replace electronics failures, there isn't usually a big problem. But it does mean a lot more customer service calls, and I agree wholeheartedly that these companies need to do more in the way of great customer service. That's one part of the marketplace today I really miss, the relationship between a trusted vendor and a good customer. All you can do is tell these companies they need to step up service a few notches, and let you know when they think they have it right, because you won't be doing business with them until then.

[Hazel M]

Hazel, your thread should be in politics or in the lounge, like this one here.

 

http://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/showthread.php?t=95669&page=18

 

When I was young, one of the legacies of Birmingham being the (metal)workshop of the world was that if you needed a piece (or a thousand pieces) of any type metal in any shape of form, there would be a dozen back steet companies who could supply off the shelf or make cheaply to order. Small companies that had grown up supplying to the big ones. which supplied to the world.

Similarly in London, where I lived, there was a place where you could obtain nuts and bolts for any thread ever made. The owner made his fortune out of this simple supply.

 

Nowadays the the West has handed manufacturing on to others, these paragons have all gone and obtaining even simple things is difficult. Sales clerks these days usually don't even know what you are asking for at component level.

 

go well

 

I'm sorry. You've lost me. What thread? This thread? Why would a thread about computers and their care be in politics? I agree that it has gone off-topic a bit. We were talking about the negatives of laptops. Now we are talking about the negatives of computers in general. Is that politics? The lounge I do not know. I'll check it out.

[Arete]

It totally depends on your application. My current workhorse computer is a Dell Precision mobile workstation. It's pretty beefy for a laptop ~9lbs but has 32Gb of RAM, an I7 and dual solid state hard drives set as a RAID. At work, I hook it up to dual 24" monitors and an external mouse/keyboard, and it's pretty much a desktop. It's handy to have the grunt and be able to lug it around, but it is heavy, big and cumbersome for a laptop - it's also overkill for most of what I do, given an increasing amount of my heavy duty computational work is being shifted to the university cluster.

 

More often I leave my workstation at work and use my tablet as a portable device. I can use VPN to log into the cluster and have loads of computer power on hand, even from that device. However, for writing documents, the desktop setup really can't be beaten.

[Phi for All]

I'm sorry. You've lost me. What thread? This thread? Why would a thread about computers and their care be in politics? I agree that it has gone off-topic a bit. We were talking about the negatives of laptops. Now we are talking about the negatives of computers in general. Is that politics? The lounge I do not know. I'll check it out.

 

I moved the thread from Computer Science (which this really isn't) to Computer Help. The Lounge would have been another choice of sub-forums. No big deal.

 

We're still on topic, pros and cons about desktops vs laptops.

[Hazel M]

Oh, all right. Not politics anyway? Yes, I should have asked in Computer Help. Missed that. As far as the OP is concerned, that is ended. I've decided to stick with a desk top. The rest is a new topic, isn't it? Good one, too, with good points. Thanks for making it right.

[studiot]

The 'politics' comment was about the obsolescence discussion, planned, built-in or just plain there, which is what my link is all about.

 

But yeah, whatever, computer help is good too.

Edited June 30, 2014 by studiot

[Delbert]

Thank you so very much. Your #1 surprises me. My main reason for considering a laptop was ease of taking it in for repairs. With my desktop I have to beg (and usually fail to get) someone to come to my home. I have no way to take it to a shop.

Sorry, but you were right about it being easier to take for repairs. But that's as far as it goes!! I've seen engineers spending quite a time just trying to get access to the innards. And I said 'trying', I didn't say 'succeeding'!

 

Having one at work I wouldn't give it house room. And as for tablets and the like, they might have a novelty aspect, but that's all. And as for that damn touch screen business. I might even say the same about Wi-Fi! I recently checked the access at an advertised point (coffee shop), only to find an uncountable number of SSIDs on the same channel!

 

As for ease of repairs, what could be easier than a tower PC? A screwdriver is about all you'll need. The internal architecture of the individual components might be dreadfully complex, but to you and me they are just a few components screwed into a cabinet and connected together with plugs and sockets.

[lamironi]

Finding the technician familiar with the laptop is difficult than technician familiar with computer and repairing the laptop turns out to be far more costly.

Edited July 1, 2014 by lamironi

[studiot]

Here is one way to get the best of both worlds. Use a docking station.

 

The laptop can be seen mounted on the docking station, where it just clicks into place and provides desktop like facilities.

 

The special purpose mouse can be seen in the apple standing on one of the laptop pads.

 

[Phi for All]

Are you thumbing your nose at Dell by using an Apple mouse?