>> I needed a machine that a) could run Logic Pro (the finest music-editing software available to humanity), b) had a high-resolution screen for my lousy eyesight, and c) had a 1-terabyte hard drive. It was the only machine that fit the bill.
For a time, I too fell into the trap of looking for "readily made laptop" with shiny specs, only to eventually notice that getting ripped off is an understatement. Like spot a decent CPU-specc'd machine but with with only 16 Gb RAM in 2023, want 32 Gb? Pay double!
So I took my brother's advice, which I also use for TVs and what else: buy the cheapest brand that offers the specs. All sellers are required to provide 2 years of warranty and at entry level price, worst case you can buy a brand new and better spec'd device if it breaks just after 2 years. But it usually lasts a lot more, by pure statistics: to ensure it lasts 2 years on average, it must me a lot more sturdy than that.
So what I do now? I'm buying "gaming laptops". For several things:
- They have decent specs. Relatively powerful CPU, good cooling so the solder won't melt on the motherboard if I compile a long program (happened to my nephew actually).
- I don't care about laptop's screen and weight. I'm a professional software developer which means 99.9% of the time the laptop sits on my desktop hooked to one or two 27 inch 4k monitors, along with a proper keyboard and mouse. And when it's not, it's just in my bag in transit to another desktop. When you look at LinkedIn pictures, people are being served the fairy tale of the "developer" who programs in bed or on a couch or in a coffee shop sipping a latte ... nothing but corporate bullshit.
- And first and foremost, they are UPGRADEABLE. I can take the laptop WITHOUT LOSING WARRANTY, open it and add more RAM and another SSD. Which means that the price of getting a 32 Gb of RAM machine is now about $30-50$ more and not another time the price I paid for the laptop!
Last laptop I bought was a Lenovo Legion 5, AMD Ryzen 5 6600H, 15.6" Full HD IPS 144 Hz, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 4GB GDDR6 for €500. It's not the main purpose but I don't mind if I can play CS2 at 200 FPS in addition to programming on it :P
I kept trying to convince myself to buy a desktop but the difference in performance from a laptop isn't so staggering to make up for the loss of convenience. It's easier to move a laptop and I can carry it to places where I don't have an external monitor.
Gotta have fantasies though. "When I'll have enough expendable money" I'll build myself some monster configuration. Which I'll probably use to run Geekbench (proving it's very powerful) and watch YouTube :P
This phenomenon is even more visible in smartphones. Desktop-level CPU performance and RAM / storage to do what? Browse Facebook and send pictures on WhatsApp. I could do that 10 years ago on a much more modest spec'd phone. Oh wait, I can still do that on the very same phone.
i was referring more to the price difference. Typically a desktop will get you much more for the same price compared to a laptop and is much more upgradable. Combined with a lightweight M1 air with top battery, you get best of the both worlds.
For me, top performance in smartphones means lack of lags on 90-120hz smooth screen and easy of switching between apps without being afraid of them being unloaded from memory (nowadays apps are really heavy: look at combined instagram, firefox browser, some messenger like whatsapp/telegram, youtube, linkedin, etc... and suddenly RAM memory fills pretty fast and you'll also typically need a good battery life for top perf, meaning you need better processor with smaller nm)
For a time, I too fell into the trap of looking for "readily made laptop" with shiny specs, only to eventually notice that getting ripped off is an understatement. Like spot a decent CPU-specc'd machine but with with only 16 Gb RAM in 2023, want 32 Gb? Pay double!
So I took my brother's advice, which I also use for TVs and what else: buy the cheapest brand that offers the specs. All sellers are required to provide 2 years of warranty and at entry level price, worst case you can buy a brand new and better spec'd device if it breaks just after 2 years. But it usually lasts a lot more, by pure statistics: to ensure it lasts 2 years on average, it must me a lot more sturdy than that.
So what I do now? I'm buying "gaming laptops". For several things:
- They have decent specs. Relatively powerful CPU, good cooling so the solder won't melt on the motherboard if I compile a long program (happened to my nephew actually).
- I don't care about laptop's screen and weight. I'm a professional software developer which means 99.9% of the time the laptop sits on my desktop hooked to one or two 27 inch 4k monitors, along with a proper keyboard and mouse. And when it's not, it's just in my bag in transit to another desktop. When you look at LinkedIn pictures, people are being served the fairy tale of the "developer" who programs in bed or on a couch or in a coffee shop sipping a latte ... nothing but corporate bullshit.
- And first and foremost, they are UPGRADEABLE. I can take the laptop WITHOUT LOSING WARRANTY, open it and add more RAM and another SSD. Which means that the price of getting a 32 Gb of RAM machine is now about $30-50$ more and not another time the price I paid for the laptop!
Last laptop I bought was a Lenovo Legion 5, AMD Ryzen 5 6600H, 15.6" Full HD IPS 144 Hz, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 4GB GDDR6 for €500. It's not the main purpose but I don't mind if I can play CS2 at 200 FPS in addition to programming on it :P