Posted by cdrnsf 1 day ago
Especially with the failed Apple Intelligence that they will now have to pay their way out of.
My thinkpad is from 2017, but I bought it in 2022, it's still working fine - I upgraded the memory to 32G (£70) and I've replaced the battery twice (once when I bought it, once a couple of months ago). When I replace it it will likely be because of hardware failure (droppping it etc).
They'll look good, work well (from hardware perspective), and you can replace their built-in Windows OS with the Linux flavor/edition of your choice.
By the way, if ultraportable is your idea of laptop nirvana, you can try... Samsung made awesome AI-powered laptops (the Samsung Galaxy Book5 and Book6), I got the Book5 few months back for my friend's son. It is sleek, lightweight and powerful.
Here is the TG review/verdict: https://www.tomsguide.com/computing/laptops/samsung-galaxy-b...
From the arch wiki: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Laptop/Samsung
> Samsung Book5 - Internal Speakers not working on linux
Also, it caps out at 32GiB of ram, I feel like these days that's pretty low for anyone who uses javascript heavy webpages. Like, my firefox on linux is currently using 42GiB of memory, and that's with under 200 tabs open, and then when I build my nixos config, that usually takes another 10-20GiB of memory
Don't get any gaming laptop. Some of them are truly bottom of the barrel slop and it really matters that you do your research. (See, for instance, NuclearNotebook reviews on YouTube)
But for decades, I have found that gaming laptops (decent brands and popular models) gave best bang for buck, especially with AMD hardware. My 12+ years old Lenovo gaming laptop is still going strong, and my 15+ years old Sony Viao netbook is also doing well (with SATA SSD and RAM upgrades few years ago).
But yeah, read/check up on the reviews (from reputed reviewers) before splurging for an expensive laptop.
One nifty trick to identify VFM(value for money) laptops is to check Amazon site/app for "Smartchoice" laptops. It is a special keyword that Amazon adds to listings of popular laptops that are VFM (best deals) and having good reviews.
More to that - many of the ads today aren't even scams. They merely exist as a deliberate source of annoyance to compel the person to pay for an ad-free premium version, like 90s era "nag screens" on shareware.
Times when ads could give a legit business any positive conversion, are long gone.
100% shit
have u ever been to truth social? it's the most user-hostile experience since the days of limewire and bonzai buddy - https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump
I think that's a bit of an exaggeration. Ads are capitalist tools to get you to buy things, but in most cases, you get the thing you buy. I'm into photography, books, and music, for example, and the ads I see for cameras aren't scams, nor are ads for books or records. Some of them may attempt to to manipulate you to part with your money, but this sort of scam is different.
One problem with Apple News on the iPad or Mac is the size of the ads. Yes, I notice them and generally scroll past them, but they are huge and obtrusive. I've been noticing these obvious AI ads for a couple of months; especially the one with the mug or the totebags. But they have become endemic recently.
Someone I know said that he assumes all ads on Instagram are scams. I don't use IG, but I do use Facebook to keep up with local groups. There was a period where there were tons of those "going out of business ads," and I reported many of them. But I'd say about half the ads I see now are brands I know. Presumably, since IG uses the same algorithm and personal data, my experience there would be the same.
I think the problem with Apple News is that it's not widely used, and advertisers don't see it as a good place to spend their money. Since Apple started using Taboola, it's pure enshittification.
It's worth noting that in Apple's earnings call last year, they said that their profit margin on services was 78%. While Apple News probably doesn't account for much in that number, it seems like much of the company, as far as services are concerned, is aiming for cash over quality.
Also there is the converse proposition that: "all clicks are click fraud", that is, many web sites try to trick you into clicking on ads by making pop-ups that are hard to close, by making the layout shift so you click on an ad when you were trying to click a link, etc.