The prices for tech on Taobao in China and in the US are nearly identical for the vast majority of tech items. So much is excluded from the tariffs that it’s silly they even exist on paper. There are indeed some newer items only available there, but they’re rarely on the affordable end of pricing.
Laptops and computer hardware in particular surprise me. I was hoping to get a new Huawei or Xiaomi laptop the last time I was in China since I got my parents a Huawei I’ve been jealous of in the US several years before they were banned. Absolutely nothing I could find on Taobao or in store was comparable value even to computers from Dell/HP/Lenovo.
I have a Huawei watch, and I think it’s great, especially for the price. I guess you can make quality, affordable products when you’re subsidised by the state.
Full circle back to the first days of the internet that only universities and the rich could use. Also high storage prices again when we’ve had it dirt cheap for decades.
Yeah well i’m a social pariah for not being a phone person. I’m over here like it’s 2002 consuming most of my internet on a desktop, not even a laptop! I spend maybe 15m a day on my phone.
It’s not actually the “older hardware” that’s responsible for security vulnerabilities, it’s Microsoft chosing to end support for Windows 10.
That “older” hardware capable of running Windows 10 is more than capable of running any Linux distro which will keep on getting security updates for a long while (and you can just upgrade it again if that stops as Linux is nowhere as hardware demanding as Windows, especially the latest, Electron + AI, Windows).
For people who just use their PC for Office software, e-mail and browsing - who are the ones getting entry level PCs - hardware has been more than powerfull enough for 2 decades, and it’s only Windows bloatware having grown to use the available computing power that has forced people to upgrade the hardware.
I’m just thinking the more well known stuff with the “fancier” desktops and shipped with applications like LibreOffice and Firefox which are probably closer to familiar and don’t look like a step back for Windows and Mac users.
If you really want to extend the life of your hardware to the max, well, whilst Linux has discontinued support for 486 and Pentium processors last year, any hardware newer than that (so, around 30 years or less) will still run the latest kernel and as you mentioned there are distros targeting machines with very little RAM and HDD space.
Does anyone know how difficult it is to swap keyboards on ThinkPads? I wanna get one used but the problem is, most of them don’t have US keyboards since I live in Japan.
I did the same for realtively new Thinkpad(p14s gen 5, I think). Got original US keyboard from Aliexpress (lucky). It was pretty easy just a couple ofnscreews and had to be careful with folding the flex pcb/cable.
Usually trivial to swap a keyboard, just gotta find the japan Lenovo FRU for the keyboard and order it. Sometimes you gotta buy the upper plastic too if the shape is different. If you have a model in mind I can find you the FRU and guide if you want.
My old work place used to buy refurbushed ThinkPads, and they slid rather easily by sliding a switch. I have one of the more recent models (also refurbished) at home as well, I’ll try to see if it’s still the same.
That would be super helpful. I was under the impression that the recent ones aren’t swappable, it would be great if I could replace my surface with an actual laptop soon.
So, I’ve tried it with my T14 Gen1 (which, as I just found out is already 6 years old… Yeowza), and honestly… It’s pretty hard to get the keyboard out of that one already.
It’s nothing like I remember with older models, where you can take off the keyboard out by itself and slot a new one in, but now you need to pry off the mouse buttons of the trackpad, loosen screws under it and pry the keyboard forward to be able to get it out. The mouse buttons are also attached to it, which makes even more anxiety-inducing to get it out.
I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if they removed the function overall in the most recent models, seeing as how it is with this model already.
The new entry-level PC will be a cloud-based thin client subsidized by collecting every bit of data it can about you directly on a Microslop server where you will have zero user choice.
I’m this close to just quitting society and becoming Amish or something. Technology is just getting worse and worse. Maybe I could be Amish but instead of being locked in the 1800s I just stay in like 2007 when technology was fun
Yeah, I think one of the reasons the AI bubble hasn’t popped yet is because it’s being weaponized to remove consumer hardware from the market entirely. These companies want as much processing done on the cloud as possible so that they can control, monitor and mine data from every user.
They don’t want users using this, it would be a mess. M$ would need to provide consumer facing OS support if they ever tried it, which is something they’ve vehemently refused to do for decades. It would also lead to their OS being blamed as the problem when the internet is having issues. Not to mention the consumer market isn’t really where they get their revenue from when it comes to OS sales.
They want enterprise subscriptions. End of story. Enterprise subs mean there’s an enterprise IT team involved, to at least a bare minimum extent.
They aren’t likely to want end users on this pretty much ever. It’s virtually all downside for them.
We can’t even get reliable broadband across the full US yet (Hughesnet still somehow has customers), i don’t see consumer-VDI being especially popular any time soon.
If 5% of users can’t access a VDI because of poor internet connectivity but it means the remaining 95% create an extra 10% of annual profit, they will just tell that 5% to get fucked. Individuals don’t matter to them; only aggregates do.
Well you probably overpaid slightly, and refurbished are about half the price, but prices are only going up so the best time to buy anything is going to always be months ago.
This is around $250 (and that’s the version for Europe, shipped from Spain and the price includes VAT).
Six months ago it was just $150, so the current RAM and SSD prices seem to be fully included in the device price.
I got one to replace an aging Windows 8 PC of a family member who only does web-browsing and e-mail and put Linux on it, and have another one at home working as a TV Box + Home server.
With Linux that’s more than enough for browsing, e-mail and even office apps. Not a machine for gamers, but then again gamers aren’t buying “entry level PCs”.
I was restricted to my MacBook Air when I was in hospital, and that has the same specs as a 500USD Mac mini (m4, 16GB RAM). It plays 3D stuff like Valheim at 60FPS! The only issue is the more limited library compared to my Linux and Windows machines.
For £500 you are doing a lot more than pong. I am kinda curious how far back you have to go at different price points to play the majority of games from that era. Pretty sure £500 is still doing a lot of games 10+ years old.
Retro gaming on a Pi comes in at £50 or so, depends on which one you get though as more RAM does cost more. Downside here is ARM might limit your options a bit for some things not quite so old but it probably would otherwise be powerful enough for. Box86 + wine exists but that looks too much like 2010 Linux gaming that I would rather leave in the past. Some open source games could be compiled on it too.
Pi Zero could run a few games too and that is like £15. But your choices are going to be very limited for anything beyond retro gaming. CDDA should compile and technically run, slowly. Got a pinephone which has similar specs and can do it but compiling takes about an hour and I found out the game had loading screens I wasn’t even aware of before trying to run it on specs like that.
New low end laptops have always sucked. I hope more people become open to used and refurbished devices. A 3 year old used business machine kicks the shit out of a new similarly priced POS. New low end laptops are born e waste.
Don’t bet on used hardware. Increased costs will lead to companies using their hardware longer. Higher demand for used hardware with lower supply will lead to higher prices.
In the enterprise you run on a tight schedule which you’re really not going to stretch that because your contracts are signed.
Even good SMB IT doesn’t let you run too long as supportability becomes an issue. When rebuilding a machine costs as much in IT hours as half a new machine, it makes sense to simply upgrade rather than spend money on a diminishing resource.
Smaller businesses may hold on, but they’re a tiny portion of what gets deployed.
At this point, I’m starting to go full luddite and hope people just give up on PC/console gaming altogether and go back to games that require you to actually be in the same room as other people. I just don’t see any future where everything electronic doesn’t just enshittify further and further.
Hi, we (personally)'re various types of queer, and plural, and otherwise don’t really have local “”“”““real-life””“”“” community. The internet and such is crucial to our continued existence and we know literally nobody offline.
Don’t throw out computers just because “oh Real Life is More Real”.
(yes, you didn’t technically say “throw out computers in general” but it feels like you’re implying it with the “throw out games in general”.)
Also singleplayer games exist and those are good too.
Games are not purely a means to be social to other people in the same room with you. They’re still good for that! But societally we’ve moved way beyond that being the only reason.
(English could really use an inclusive and exclusive we, heh)
Games are actually among the LEAST enshittified regions of tech these days. And that’s with all the shit Ubisoft and their ilk are pulling. Games are like the one category of proprietary software where you can update relatively safely and expect to not be screwed over. Most of the time.
(Okay, what the hell did Lemmy do to my quotes?? I used straight quotes for a reason! It just went and decided to guess opening vs. closing ones and totally scrambled them. If I want open/close quotes I’ll type open/close quotes.)
Might be time to make more browser games again. Doesn’t have to be complex. Ohhh… If you get some old flash games, those might even run fairly well on a pi zero. And when they ban non ID verified internet we can trade games on SD cards.
I wonder how would be best to make games now that run easily in a browser with very low specs. I know you can just use JS straight in the browser for some types of games but it isn’t really something I have looked into much.
Absolutely this! I just lucked out on a secondhand Thinkpad E14 for $400. It’s basically the same as my X1 except I can add more ram if I want. My husband gave me the side eye when I grabbed it but I just said it’s only going to get worse, having a spare laptop is imperative. Which reminds me, I need to get some ram for it while I can…
It’s probably all to plan, for controlling the masses. Subvert and destroy education. Control media.
Also. Remove unmonitored access to information (phones only, outside of work). Especially those Linux fuckers who build their own, can’t have that spreading.
Holding on to stuff longer isn’t necessarily a bad thing as the pc market was in a very wasteful state before all this. Still sucks though they way things have become :(
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“You’ll never own another computer cheaper than $500”
Chinese tech firms produce high end computers for less than $500
“SANCTION! TARIFF! EMBARGO!”
The prices for tech on Taobao in China and in the US are nearly identical for the vast majority of tech items. So much is excluded from the tariffs that it’s silly they even exist on paper. There are indeed some newer items only available there, but they’re rarely on the affordable end of pricing.
Laptops and computer hardware in particular surprise me. I was hoping to get a new Huawei or Xiaomi laptop the last time I was in China since I got my parents a Huawei I’ve been jealous of in the US several years before they were banned. Absolutely nothing I could find on Taobao or in store was comparable value even to computers from Dell/HP/Lenovo.
I have a Huawei watch, and I think it’s great, especially for the price. I guess you can make quality, affordable products when you’re subsidised by the state.
Now do cars, lol
You will never own an EV for under $80k
if you buy slightly used, you are doing something wrong paying more than 15-20k.
The used car market imploded when vehicle production dried up after 2008
Access to the information superhighway will be relegated to only those who can afford a yacht. /s
Full circle back to the first days of the internet that only universities and the rich could use. Also high storage prices again when we’ve had it dirt cheap for decades.
Nothing new.
the majority of people access the internet on their phones or smart devices. almost exclusively.
desktop computer internet is going the way of the doh doh in terms of traffic. it’s for nerds.
Crazy isn’t it!
I stand by, phones are for consuming, computers are for creation. Of course humans thirst for consuming is unending, like an insatiable Godzilla.
Yeah well i’m a social pariah for not being a phone person. I’m over here like it’s 2002 consuming most of my internet on a desktop, not even a laptop! I spend maybe 15m a day on my phone.
Awesome. I do much as I can to live in 2003 (mostly using CRTs, watching my vhs tapes, playing dreamcast, ha!)
I do like my phone for on the go, but I’ve done all I can do de crapify it. Excited to get a pixel and graphene next year.
It’s not actually the “older hardware” that’s responsible for security vulnerabilities, it’s Microsoft chosing to end support for Windows 10.
That “older” hardware capable of running Windows 10 is more than capable of running any Linux distro which will keep on getting security updates for a long while (and you can just upgrade it again if that stops as Linux is nowhere as hardware demanding as Windows, especially the latest, Electron + AI, Windows).
For people who just use their PC for Office software, e-mail and browsing - who are the ones getting entry level PCs - hardware has been more than powerfull enough for 2 decades, and it’s only Windows bloatware having grown to use the available computing power that has forced people to upgrade the hardware.
Also distros aren’t the final step of availability.
There are forks like elks linux runnable with 256Kb RAM.
Oh, yeah.
I’m just thinking the more well known stuff with the “fancier” desktops and shipped with applications like LibreOffice and Firefox which are probably closer to familiar and don’t look like a step back for Windows and Mac users.
If you really want to extend the life of your hardware to the max, well, whilst Linux has discontinued support for 486 and Pentium processors last year, any hardware newer than that (so, around 30 years or less) will still run the latest kernel and as you mentioned there are distros targeting machines with very little RAM and HDD space.
People believe it, I couldn’t even convince my own father. He rather spend 600 bucks for a new laptop, for no reason.
My hope is that the crazy RAM and HDD/SDD prices and hence crazy prices for new PCs will push more people to try Linux.
Saving for my kids college went out the window.
Saving for my kids computers now
Only due to basically one reason - oligopolies.
Does anyone know how difficult it is to swap keyboards on ThinkPads? I wanna get one used but the problem is, most of them don’t have US keyboards since I live in Japan.
If ThinkPad, easy. If IdeaPad, watch out, might not be viable.
It’s amazing how good Lenovo is about ThinkPad, and how crap they are about IdeaPad.
I can’t speak to the ease of the swap, but I do know lenovo is super great for letting you order parts.
https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/parts-lookup
I had to swap out the cooling on one of our newer legions at work and their parts game is on point.
I did the same for realtively new Thinkpad(p14s gen 5, I think). Got original US keyboard from Aliexpress (lucky). It was pretty easy just a couple ofnscreews and had to be careful with folding the flex pcb/cable.
Usually trivial to swap a keyboard, just gotta find the japan Lenovo FRU for the keyboard and order it. Sometimes you gotta buy the upper plastic too if the shape is different. If you have a model in mind I can find you the FRU and guide if you want.
I haven’t tried it myself, but at least iFixit has a bunch of guides: https://www.ifixit.com/Search?query=thinkpad+keyboard&doctype=guide
Sweet, thank you!
My old work place used to buy refurbushed ThinkPads, and they slid rather easily by sliding a switch. I have one of the more recent models (also refurbished) at home as well, I’ll try to see if it’s still the same.
That would be super helpful. I was under the impression that the recent ones aren’t swappable, it would be great if I could replace my surface with an actual laptop soon.
So, I’ve tried it with my T14 Gen1 (which, as I just found out is already 6 years old… Yeowza), and honestly… It’s pretty hard to get the keyboard out of that one already.
It’s nothing like I remember with older models, where you can take off the keyboard out by itself and slot a new one in, but now you need to pry off the mouse buttons of the trackpad, loosen screws under it and pry the keyboard forward to be able to get it out. The mouse buttons are also attached to it, which makes even more anxiety-inducing to get it out.
I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if they removed the function overall in the most recent models, seeing as how it is with this model already.
I predict this research firm will not exist by 2030
Depends on how many corporations they can supply favorable polls to.
The new entry-level PC will be a cloud-based thin client subsidized by collecting every bit of data it can about you directly on a Microslop server where you will have zero user choice.
You’re not allowed to say ‘Microslop’ it’s ILLEGAL!!!
Not now clippy… not now.
I’m this close to just quitting society and becoming Amish or something. Technology is just getting worse and worse. Maybe I could be Amish but instead of being locked in the 1800s I just stay in like 2007 when technology was fun
Technology keeps getting better and better; it is capitalism that keeps getting worse and worse.
Frutiger Amish
Yeah, I think one of the reasons the AI bubble hasn’t popped yet is because it’s being weaponized to remove consumer hardware from the market entirely. These companies want as much processing done on the cloud as possible so that they can control, monitor and mine data from every user.
They aren’t weaponizing anything against consumers. They don’t care about consumers anymore, they are irrelevant.
They think if they just spend more money they will win the AGI race and therefore the whole economy forever. Consumers don’t factor into it at all.
When you say cloud… I don’t think people understand it is just a huge data centers. There are 288 in Canada, and ¼ of them are in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area).
Don’t forget the rentseeking.
I will go back to MB of ram from a new company that wants to fill the gap at any cost and will not be surprised if that happens.
I ain’t fuckin doin it
Lmao, no.
They don’t want users using this, it would be a mess. M$ would need to provide consumer facing OS support if they ever tried it, which is something they’ve vehemently refused to do for decades. It would also lead to their OS being blamed as the problem when the internet is having issues. Not to mention the consumer market isn’t really where they get their revenue from when it comes to OS sales.
They want enterprise subscriptions. End of story. Enterprise subs mean there’s an enterprise IT team involved, to at least a bare minimum extent.
They aren’t likely to want end users on this pretty much ever. It’s virtually all downside for them.
Unless they outsource their OS support to CoPilot.
We can’t even get reliable broadband across the full US yet (Hughesnet still somehow has customers), i don’t see consumer-VDI being especially popular any time soon.
They don’t care. It’s a cost-benefit analysis.
If 5% of users can’t access a VDI because of poor internet connectivity but it means the remaining 95% create an extra 10% of annual profit, they will just tell that 5% to get fucked. Individuals don’t matter to them; only aggregates do.
They don’t need to stream you a desktop
They just make all their UIs browser based, all the storage cloud based
The own everything, they rent it to you, and you can be cut off if you refuse to be exploited.
Capital’s wet fucking dream
They don’t care. They will literally throw people under buses at this point.
Real
Got myself a GTX 1660 for 460$ 5 months ago and I thought I paid too much for it, but now I’m glad I bought it Edit: GTX 1660 laptop
Well you probably overpaid slightly, and refurbished are about half the price, but prices are only going up so the best time to buy anything is going to always be months ago.
I mean GTX 1660 laptop, I forgot to write that in XD
Oh damn, a new gtx 1660 costs more than the whole laptop then, great deal!
Before I’d say building your own can be more cost effective, but I can’t even say that now with those RAM and GPU prices.
yeah prebuilts are cheaper now, sadly
I hope that they just fail in their half-assed attempts and the prices fall again.
Me too or supply rises to met demand with new companies, which can also lower the price. But I mostly want AI to fail.
Along with anything else costing less than $500.
Well, if the USD loses it’s reserve currency status, even $1000 or $2000 are perfectly possible in 2 years.
Damn that joke becomes less and less funny each year
Adjusting for inflation, a $10 banana in 2003 would cost about $17.50 today. Probably a lot worse if tariffs are factored in.
Mac mini starts at $499 and has gone on sale for $479.
It’s not really for gaming, but for $500, neither is the Windows box. And the laptop is a lie, even with those bezels.
But let’s be real, you can get a decent PC for way less than $500! It won’t compete with the Mac, but it may yet be better for light gaming.
This is around $250 (and that’s the version for Europe, shipped from Spain and the price includes VAT).
Six months ago it was just $150, so the current RAM and SSD prices seem to be fully included in the device price.
I got one to replace an aging Windows 8 PC of a family member who only does web-browsing and e-mail and put Linux on it, and have another one at home working as a TV Box + Home server.
With Linux that’s more than enough for browsing, e-mail and even office apps. Not a machine for gamers, but then again gamers aren’t buying “entry level PCs”.
AMD based mini-pcs with something like 680M or 780M are around 500. But they are out of stock lately.
Light gaming, like Pong, or Breakout. Time to rediscover the classics!
Even a lot of modern indie titles will play on a low-spec PC.
I was restricted to my MacBook Air when I was in hospital, and that has the same specs as a 500USD Mac mini (m4, 16GB RAM). It plays 3D stuff like Valheim at 60FPS! The only issue is the more limited library compared to my Linux and Windows machines.
For £500 you are doing a lot more than pong. I am kinda curious how far back you have to go at different price points to play the majority of games from that era. Pretty sure £500 is still doing a lot of games 10+ years old.
Retro gaming on a Pi comes in at £50 or so, depends on which one you get though as more RAM does cost more. Downside here is ARM might limit your options a bit for some things not quite so old but it probably would otherwise be powerful enough for. Box86 + wine exists but that looks too much like 2010 Linux gaming that I would rather leave in the past. Some open source games could be compiled on it too.
Pi Zero could run a few games too and that is like £15. But your choices are going to be very limited for anything beyond retro gaming. CDDA should compile and technically run, slowly. Got a pinephone which has similar specs and can do it but compiling takes about an hour and I found out the game had loading screens I wasn’t even aware of before trying to run it on specs like that.
Mame and pre-2001 gaming FTW!
Yeah, what you had for 1500$ ten years ago you can for 300$ today
New low end laptops have always sucked. I hope more people become open to used and refurbished devices. A 3 year old used business machine kicks the shit out of a new similarly priced POS. New low end laptops are born e waste.
Don’t bet on used hardware. Increased costs will lead to companies using their hardware longer. Higher demand for used hardware with lower supply will lead to higher prices.
Not really.
In the enterprise you run on a tight schedule which you’re really not going to stretch that because your contracts are signed.
Even good SMB IT doesn’t let you run too long as supportability becomes an issue. When rebuilding a machine costs as much in IT hours as half a new machine, it makes sense to simply upgrade rather than spend money on a diminishing resource.
Smaller businesses may hold on, but they’re a tiny portion of what gets deployed.
At this point, I’m starting to go full luddite and hope people just give up on PC/console gaming altogether and go back to games that require you to actually be in the same room as other people. I just don’t see any future where everything electronic doesn’t just enshittify further and further.
Hi, we (personally)'re various types of queer, and plural, and otherwise don’t really have local “”“”““real-life””“”“” community. The internet and such is crucial to our continued existence and we know literally nobody offline.
Don’t throw out computers just because “oh Real Life is More Real”.
(yes, you didn’t technically say “throw out computers in general” but it feels like you’re implying it with the “throw out games in general”.)
Also singleplayer games exist and those are good too.
Games are not purely a means to be social to other people in the same room with you. They’re still good for that! But societally we’ve moved way beyond that being the only reason.
(English could really use an inclusive and exclusive we, heh)
Games are actually among the LEAST enshittified regions of tech these days. And that’s with all the shit Ubisoft and their ilk are pulling. Games are like the one category of proprietary software where you can update relatively safely and expect to not be screwed over. Most of the time.
– Frost
This is the part people keep forgetting, or not caring about because they hate us
(Okay, what the hell did Lemmy do to my quotes?? I used straight quotes for a reason! It just went and decided to guess opening vs. closing ones and totally scrambled them. If I want open/close quotes I’ll type open/close quotes.)
Might be your font, I’m seeing
""straight quotesMight be time to make more browser games again. Doesn’t have to be complex. Ohhh… If you get some old flash games, those might even run fairly well on a pi zero. And when they ban non ID verified internet we can trade games on SD cards.
I’m game for that :3
I wonder how would be best to make games now that run easily in a browser with very low specs. I know you can just use JS straight in the browser for some types of games but it isn’t really something I have looked into much.
Absolutely this! I just lucked out on a secondhand Thinkpad E14 for $400. It’s basically the same as my X1 except I can add more ram if I want. My husband gave me the side eye when I grabbed it but I just said it’s only going to get worse, having a spare laptop is imperative. Which reminds me, I need to get some ram for it while I can…
It’s probably all to plan, for controlling the masses. Subvert and destroy education. Control media.
Also. Remove unmonitored access to information (phones only, outside of work). Especially those Linux fuckers who build their own, can’t have that spreading.
Holding on to stuff longer isn’t necessarily a bad thing as the pc market was in a very wasteful state before all this. Still sucks though they way things have become :(
That’s true, but I’m also dreading the day my ram breaks down or I need more storage.
I just had to get a replacement drive for my NAS. Cost about half of what I paid for 3 drives 2 years ago.