Comment by pathartl | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pathartl | Hacker News Reader

Work just upgraded me to an HP EliteBook 835 G8. It's got a Ryzen 7 Pro 5850U and 24GB of RAM. I do mostly .NET/ASP.NET development and it's seriously fantastic. Form factor is good, repairability is good (granted our company is also an HP authorized service center), I/O is good (really only missing eth), and it has a matte display with a touchscreen.

I really think that Apple devices get so much clout mostly due to advertising.

My issues with my iPhone 7 radio made me switch to Android after they told me it was Qualcomm's fault that it wasn't bonded to the PCB properly.

My 2009 MacBook Pro 13" had some sort of issue where the SATA III part of the controller died and I was forced to either pay $800 for a new logic board because I had upgraded the RAM or use an optical drive HDD caddy which ran at SATA I(?) speeds. I had also had the logic board replaced once and the screen replaced twice less than a year after I got it as the screen had stopped working. Don't remember the actual cause of the issue, but seeing as it was covered I have a feeling there was a known issue with that line.

My girlfriend's 2011 13" MacBook Pro ended up with non-functioning USB ports due to a known but never recalled, even silently, issue with a chip on the logic board. Again, would have been a $500+ logic board replacement "fix".

My 2016 MacBook Air 13" started to develop a crack on the black plastic piece covering the hinge because of heat stress. I paid for the most "performant" SKU and after one major macOS update it was practically unusable.

My mom's 2017 MacBook Air 13" worked fine until this past year where the trackpad and keyboard died. Sure, got 5 years out of it, but this is also a very common issue as far as I can tell from research. Also, who the hell routes the keyboard through the trackpad? That's madness.

This is all anecdotal for sure, but I am staying away from Apple products from now on based on my experience. Especially these days with the machines having non-user-serviceable parts, I just can't take the risk anymore. What happens when my logic board inevitably dies? All of my data on that device is toast with no way to recover it. Ultimately you have to purchase something that's going to work and is serviceable... either by yourself or a service center.

"What happens when my logic board inevitably dies? All of my data on that device is toast with no way to recover it."

Backups are your friend. Backblaze, Arq, etc etc etc. Tons of cheap options out there.

Backups are important, but what I also think is important is that an entire laptop shouldn't become garbage just because a soldered component on it fails.

It’s not garbage. Just replace the motherboard.

"Just replace the motherboard" and lose all of your data on it. Yes, backups are important, but there's a loss of time when you have to restore from backup or provision a new machine/motherboard with your environment.

Not to mention that "just replace the motherboard" can often mean costing half, if not more, the original price of the machine. What happens if my SSD wears out? I just have to replace the entire logic board for one wear component?

Say it's not the SSD and it's something else like a voltage regulator. Now this motherboard is complete scrap. There's no harvesting of the RAM or SSD, so the part is probably $300 more expensive than it needs to be. And all those useful parts that are already scarce in a chip shortage will just be ground down and "recycled". These laptops suck.

I get what you're saying, but you really should consider any portable hw(laptops/phones) as disposable. Or better yet -- assume that malicious actor cat get access to your device and configure it accordingly.

No, we really shouldn't. Enterprise generally does hardware refreshes every 3 years. The average consumer can take one of those machines and extend at least another 2 years out of it. Being able to securely wipe or remove storage modules out of the machines for repurposing should be a pretty easy target to hit.

Additionally, some industries like K12 or non-profits a lot of times have to try to squeeze as much life out of their systems as possible. These organizations would benefit insanely from better repairability and cheaper access to parts.

Of course motherboards are a bit harder to repair and usually means replacing the whole board, but it doesn't have to if we had a skilled workforce that could easily refurbish boards. Apple has taken great measures to make sure this never happens.

There's also the argument to be made for historic preservation. The retro computer community has been doing nothing but growing and I can already see in 20+ years time that these machines will be absolutely unusable without some sort of software hack. Even then, your onboard storage is shot and you have to boot externally.

You can make repairable, cost effective, well built, and top of the line machines. Apple just doesn't do it.

I agree with you and I'm all in for right to repair, but I was referring to the specific point mentioned above -- "restoring from backup is a hassle".

If it is a hassle then you're doing it wrong and you'll be in all sorts of trouble if you lose your laptop / it gets stolen.

I’m not going to argue against repairability, but a replaceable failed SSD has exactly the same problem RE data loss.

Right, but the chances of a failed soldered SSD is the chance of any important component on the motherboard or the SSD, not just the SSD. Which doesn't mean you can forgo backups, but it does mean the chances of you needing them may be slimmer (and the cost of the repair smaller).

Then again "ship your entire Mac back to repair the webcam" was always a meme, so maybe Apple gonna Apple.

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