All laptops become e-waste, why are chromebooks different? They were made with low specs, presumably they become obsolete sooner. But then again, I doubt most laptop users have their laptop more than 3 years.
So if a school buys 100 thinkpads, and 100 chromebooks, how long do you think they will last?
They will all become e-waste sooner or later, and most likely sooner in an education environment where they're being lent out to pupils.
There is a bigger problem at play here, a massive culture of consumption. I fail to see how pointing the finger at chromebooks specifically is more than a distraction.
> So if a school buys 100 thinkpads, and 100 chromebooks, how long do you think they will last?
As things currently stand, both will suffer hardware failures at alarming rates because children are terrifying and have very active lifestyles, but the thinkpads will only stop being useful when the hardware dies, while the Chromebooks will be artificially capped by their software, resulting in the thinkpads outliving them.
> I fail to see how pointing the finger at chromebooks specifically is more than a distraction.
Because Chromebooks force the machine to become e-waste regardless of how worn the hardware is. Everything may suck, but they suck more and on purpose.
They have a built-in kill switch. After pre-set number of years (from launch and not from purchase) they become useless to schools.
Macs and PCs only die when they die, not when they hit their cut-off date. At that point the other devices have resale values and 'expired' Chromebooks don't.
> There is a bigger problem at play here, a massive culture of consumption.
Then pointing the finger at Chromebooks is extremely relevant, as enforced lifetime limits lead to (relatively) rapidly replaced devices with no future beyond landfill and more consumption.
Relevant: "how and why I stopped buying new laptops" https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2020/12/how-and-why-i-stop...
It’d be cool if there were efforts to sell kits that allow users to outfit old laptops with higher-capacity (but not physically larger) batteries, quieter cooling, and USB-PD.
It is unfortunate if you get yours eg. one year before the end of the prescribed lifecycle.
This is impractical on most Chromebooks because of how locked into Chrome OS they are. They're more like cheap Android phones with locked bootloaders than they are proper laptops.
I’m surprised that the mention of Google hasn’t yet tarnished a brand. They’re just a big tech incumbent.
More and more companies are moving to 4 and 5 year replacement cycle. The average today for my company is 4.5 years between replacement laptops for the average employee.
For desktops it is 7-8 with some going to 10 years for replacements.
Then they are wiped and given to employee's who continue to use them for many more years. I have given my parents one of these both are still using it, one of which was ironically reimaged from Win7 to CloudReady (now called ChomeOS Flex) and it is still going strong today more than 10 years after its manufacture date.