Kurt H Maier wrote: > I have a string of thinkpads. The newest model I have is a T43, and > after my wife brought home an X41 on loan from her employer I > considered buying one. Sure, you can get a used x-series for not much > money, but I bought an Acer Aspire One[1] for $300 -- and it's under > warranty, I don't have to worry about replacing the worn-out battery, > and all the other things that come with a new computer instead of a > used one.
That's stupid! Even if the battery is nearly unusable, you can still buy a new one instead of buying a new computer (I also heard about people who build their own batteries ;)). Buying a new computer if the old one is not entirely broken just contributes to these huge e-waste dumps in Africa and Asia. I bought my Computer a month before the Euro was introduced and it still works and no components died. Old components are great. For example I bought a Matrox Graphics G-450 a few month ago for 1€ at eBay and I'm proud to have it working without proprietary Software, or take my IBM Model M keyboard which was manufactured somewhen in the 1980s (It even survived a chemical laboratory - well, I took some hours to clean it ;)). The only argument that I accept against old components is that the performance/power consumption ratio is lower. > dwm works just fine on 1024x600 -- I don't understand the people who > complain about screen size. I use the same font I used on my 124 dpi > T43[2] and I have no problems. But tiling doesn't work effectively on these screens (at least on my screen it doesn't). > Anyway, it's (as usual) a matter of personal preference, but this > machine is much smaller, lighter, and easier to carry around all day > than an X41. I can only assume that calling these machines "toys" is > a deliberate troll. Nobody's claiming that netbooks are desktop I meant this seriously. I didn't touch a EEE PC 1000, but for the EEE PC 700 this is true. I haven't seen someone using this as his development computer or computer for longer works. > replacements, but not all of us want to lug a 19" laptop around > everywhere we go. A computer's a computer. I didn't say that these netbooks are no computers or have bad performance (I prefer an Intel Atom CPU to a Dual Core processor), I just said, if the manufacturers would build exactly the same machines with bigger displays, the computers would be a good choice - at least currently they are in the majority of cases just toys. Additionally I can't understand, why all people started to carry around laptops (what's the difference between laptop and notebook?) with themselves, except they are maybe professionals (programmers, scientists, ...) and travel a lot. I don't have to have a laptop to sit in an internet cafe during holidays. All the world seems to be busy (or at least pretend this) and therefore has to run around with mobile devices (mobile phones, laptops, ...) in order to do their "important" work. In my opinion these mobile devices are just modern today and people often just buy them and use them in the public for no reason, just to show who they are. It became some kind of status symbol. If your at an airport, just look at the screens of these "business men" - nearly nobody of them does serious work (or at least I got the impression). You can also observe this at internet cafes or railway stations. This is why I decided that I won't buy a laptop and otherwise will buy a used one. > # Kurt H Maier Regards, Matthias-Christian
