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| Video on planned obsolescence. |
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| james_s:
--- Quote from: tooki on April 16, 2021, 05:06:29 pm ---Another aspect to consider is whether modern laptops actually need as much service as old ones did. Back when I worked as a computer tech, hands down the most commonly replaced component in laptops was hard disks, some as upgrades, many to replace failed or failing drives. But we’ve reached a point where even base models have enough storage for a LOT of applications (especially in business, where data tends to be server based anyway), and SSDs are proving to be much better suited for portable devices, with their inevitable bumps, jostles, and drops. --- End quote --- Hard disks, followed by RAM are the most common parts I've had to replace. Even in modern systems I've had to replace several failed SSDs and at least one RAM module so personally I would not spend my own money on a laptop that had soldered RAM and storage if there was any alternative. |
| SilverSolder:
--- Quote from: james_s on April 16, 2021, 05:41:37 pm --- --- Quote from: tooki on April 16, 2021, 05:06:29 pm ---Another aspect to consider is whether modern laptops actually need as much service as old ones did. Back when I worked as a computer tech, hands down the most commonly replaced component in laptops was hard disks, some as upgrades, many to replace failed or failing drives. But we’ve reached a point where even base models have enough storage for a LOT of applications (especially in business, where data tends to be server based anyway), and SSDs are proving to be much better suited for portable devices, with their inevitable bumps, jostles, and drops. --- End quote --- Hard disks, followed by RAM are the most common parts I've had to replace. Even in modern systems I've had to replace several failed SSDs and at least one RAM module so personally I would not spend my own money on a laptop that had soldered RAM and storage if there was any alternative. --- End quote --- Funny you should say this: today, a friend stopped by with a non-booting Dell laptop that I had helped purchase a while back. It turned out to have a faulty RAM module. It took something like 30 seconds to fix with another module that I had laying around - because this laptop does not have soldered RAMs. If it had... it would likely have been junked, because it is too much hassle to replace, even on a cosmetically nice and still completely usable laptop that would still cost a lot to replace with a similar new one (16GB RAM, Quad core, 1TB SSD). @Tooki, I think you are giving too much benefit of the doubt to some manufacturers. Most consumers are not as knowledgeable as the people participating in this thread... they are going to buy the shiny looking product that they see in the showroom, and assume that it is state of the art and the best available if they pay a lot for it. Deep down you must know this is true... just stand in an Apple store for 20 minutes and you will see all the evidence of this that you could ever wish for. Apple has made the design decisions on their behalf, basically, and you know it! So the real question is if Apple's decisions/tradeoffs on behalf of their average consumers are reasonable. I would say that by and large, for the average non-technical consumer, the decisions are indeed reasonable... not many n00b consumers will be able to keep any portable device working for more than 2-3 years without breaking things on it (ports, screens, wires, covers, etc.) so the idea of removing as much of that as possible and just replacing the whole thing periodically will work fine for those consumers just as much as it does for Apple. They deserve each other, basically! :D If you are a customer for a Dell Precision laptop with a hex core Xeon and 32GB RAM, don't buy a potted tablet and complain that it isn't upgradable or even fixable, or doesn't have enough ports, etc. etc. - the potted device was not made for you. I get it! Truly, I do. But that doesn't mean the potted device was not designed to be semi-disposable! |
| amyk:
On the topic of laptop planned obolescence: a post in another thread reminded me of the infamous NEC Tokin "Proadlizer" CPU decoupling capacitor - rated for only 1000h at 105C, and placed right under the hot CPU. A search here and online shows the massive amount of failures that resulted. |
| madires:
I think that we interpret too much into 'planned obsolescence'. Are cheap no-name electrolytics planned obsolescence or a way to make the product cheaper or the profit larger? Or was an inexperienced youngster designing the circuit? Or is a greedy assembly house making some extra money by swapping parts with cheap no-name stuff? The result is the same in all cases, i.e. the product breaks early. Is it planned obsolescence only when there was the intention to design the product to fail early? |
| SilverSolder:
There isn't 100% agreement on what planned obsolescence actually is, but in order for it to be meaningful it has to involve intention... like the law: murder requires an intention / premeditation to kill the victim, otherwise it is called manslaughter (which in turn can be voluntary e.g. heat of the moment crime of passion, or involuntary e.g. reckless driving ending with the death of someone). Seen in this light, any product that has a "planned" lifetime (e.g. a product with a lithium ion battery that cannot be replaced) is an example of premeditated murder (planned obsolescence). A murder can take many forms - the victim can be shot, poisoned, stabbed, clubbed, etc. - in the same way, there are many ways to commit a pre-meditated product murder (planned obsolescence) too. Then there are the "clever" murderers that get away with a lot of killings before anyone notices or takes offence, and the "dumb" ones that get caught right after their bad deed, and all kinds in between. Against this, there is the fact that we all die, and all products die too. One source of confusion is, "what is the expected natural life of a product?". For cars, we know that all the components are designed for a life of 10 years / 100K miles, and we expect at least minor repairs to start becoming necessary when they get more than about 3 years old. - But there is nothing natural about 10 years / 100K miles. We could have chosen to build cars to a 20 years / 300K miles standard instead. But no car maker competes by claiming a significantly higher life than the standard figures. So, arguably, cars are designed with a planned obsolescence life of 10 years. Moreover, there is "collusion" between the car and component makers that they all build to the same standard. Obviously if we made cars last 100 years, they would become technologically obsolete and unsafe to drive compared to modern designs. So you could argue that there is a good reason not to make products last significantly longer than the speed of evolution/improvement in the industry. - but even if you (correctly) argue that, we are still talking about "planned" obsolescence! ... The example of cheap capacitors placed in a hot location were probably "manslaughter", reckless component selection and placement, whoever did the layout/selection were not doing it to a sufficiently professional level. I doubt that was planned obsolescence, because the "murder" was simply so badly executed! :D |
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