Find me a laptop for the next ten years
October 2, 2024 5:22 PM Subscribe
We're going to be buying laptops to replace our ten year old Lenovo all-in-ones and it's likely to be another ten years before we can refresh them again. Advice?
They don't have to be fancy (they're for a student lab), but they do need to go ten years with minimal upgrading and maintenance costs. Almost certainly an SSD, and no CD drive to break. Preferably < $1000 per unit new. Suggestions on a specific model or on general considerations would be most welcome.
They don't have to be fancy (they're for a student lab), but they do need to go ten years with minimal upgrading and maintenance costs. Almost certainly an SSD, and no CD drive to break. Preferably < $1000 per unit new. Suggestions on a specific model or on general considerations would be most welcome.
Seconding Thinkpads. They also generally work well with Linux, which is important because whatever passes for Windows in ten years is almost certainly not going to run on hardware more than five years old.
posted by phooky at 6:19 PM on October 2 [2 favorites]
posted by phooky at 6:19 PM on October 2 [2 favorites]
Thirding Thinkpads. I'm typing this on a 2016 Thinkpad right now (a t460p) and it runs anything I throw at it like a champ -- Linux or Windows 11, applications, conferencing, games, all manner of development from 6502 to C++. I'm pretty confident this one will last me until at least 2026.
Mind you, this t460p was not an entry-level thinkpad in 2016. Also, of course this is no guarantee that Thinkpad / Linux / Windows will continue to be an enduring solution until 2034, but it's pretty much always been good to be a Thinkpad user.
I don't know if Apple is a possibility here, but I strongly recommend against Apple stuff. Apple laptops traditionally becomes crippled when they exit support, and that happens much faster than I would like.
posted by Sauce Trough at 10:53 PM on October 2 [1 favorite]
Mind you, this t460p was not an entry-level thinkpad in 2016. Also, of course this is no guarantee that Thinkpad / Linux / Windows will continue to be an enduring solution until 2034, but it's pretty much always been good to be a Thinkpad user.
I don't know if Apple is a possibility here, but I strongly recommend against Apple stuff. Apple laptops traditionally becomes crippled when they exit support, and that happens much faster than I would like.
posted by Sauce Trough at 10:53 PM on October 2 [1 favorite]
Consider lower-spec Framework 13 devices -- there's spare parts available because they're built for repair -- and the trade off of performance and battery life is solid, build quality is adequate, too.
posted by k3ninho at 12:29 AM on October 3 [2 favorites]
posted by k3ninho at 12:29 AM on October 3 [2 favorites]
They don't have to be fancy (they're for a student lab), but they do need to go ten years with minimal upgrading and maintenance costs.
Is there a reason these have to be laptops? If the reason is that expected use will include students actually taking them out and about, I think ten years might be fairly optimistic - some will survive, but I'd expect that quite a few won't. Also, with laptops you have to expect both batteries and (especially if taken out and about) power cords/adapters to need to be replaced within that time period.
As a veteran (happy) user of very old Thinkpads, I have to say that laptops have many more ways to break and fail than desktops. And I'm a careful adult user of equipment that I have to pay for with my own money, not a kid/teen using stuff provided to me. So I would either go the desktop route, or make sure my expectations (and therefore budget) were realistic.
posted by trig at 4:27 AM on October 3 [1 favorite]
Is there a reason these have to be laptops? If the reason is that expected use will include students actually taking them out and about, I think ten years might be fairly optimistic - some will survive, but I'd expect that quite a few won't. Also, with laptops you have to expect both batteries and (especially if taken out and about) power cords/adapters to need to be replaced within that time period.
As a veteran (happy) user of very old Thinkpads, I have to say that laptops have many more ways to break and fail than desktops. And I'm a careful adult user of equipment that I have to pay for with my own money, not a kid/teen using stuff provided to me. So I would either go the desktop route, or make sure my expectations (and therefore budget) were realistic.
posted by trig at 4:27 AM on October 3 [1 favorite]
Laptops and all-in-ones both suck as lab machines. For what you pay for either, you can get a more capable and far more easily repairable desktop box plus a screen that's not only bigger and nicer than any laptop screen but also set at a height that won't give your users chronic neck and shoulder issues. Add cheap generic USB keyboards and mice that you can just replace on the spot when your users break them or fill them with Cheetos and ice cream and you're good to go.
Brand doesn't matter much in desktop boxes which are essentially a commodity at this point, except for Dell who frequently insist on weird internal layouts that preclude the use of generic replacement parts, and HP because everything they make is trash.
Framework makes laptops that are very nearly as repairable as desktop boxes have been for decades, but you'll pay dearly for them. Maybe round out your lab setup with a handful of those if you actually need a bit of mobile compute capability.
posted by flabdablet at 6:24 AM on October 3 [1 favorite]
Brand doesn't matter much in desktop boxes which are essentially a commodity at this point, except for Dell who frequently insist on weird internal layouts that preclude the use of generic replacement parts, and HP because everything they make is trash.
Framework makes laptops that are very nearly as repairable as desktop boxes have been for decades, but you'll pay dearly for them. Maybe round out your lab setup with a handful of those if you actually need a bit of mobile compute capability.
posted by flabdablet at 6:24 AM on October 3 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Unfortunately laptops are non-negotiable. In the environment they will be used an individual machine is easily worth half a year's salary, so they will need to be locked up very tightly when they're not in use.
We won't have much problem getting used monitors, keyboards, and mice donated but for sanity's sake we need the machines themselves to be uniform and long lasting.
It sounds like Thinkpads are a reasonable bet. I'll start investigating what Lenovo has by way of discounts for good causes.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 6:51 AM on October 3
We won't have much problem getting used monitors, keyboards, and mice donated but for sanity's sake we need the machines themselves to be uniform and long lasting.
It sounds like Thinkpads are a reasonable bet. I'll start investigating what Lenovo has by way of discounts for good causes.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 6:51 AM on October 3
If I'm understanding right that the point of laptops is to have machines that can be locked up, rather than to enable students to carry them about, then one more option to look into is mini pcs, which are also small enough to lock up after use and can be much less expensive, less fragile, and sometimes more user-maintainable/upgradeable.
I don't have much personal experience here to make specific recommendations, but I'd investigate and maybe post another Ask here for specifics.
posted by trig at 8:07 AM on October 3 [2 favorites]
I don't have much personal experience here to make specific recommendations, but I'd investigate and maybe post another Ask here for specifics.
posted by trig at 8:07 AM on October 3 [2 favorites]
Sauce Trough, i wonder what leads you to say that
Apple laptops traditionally becomes crippled when they exit support, and that happens much faster than I would like.
typing this on a 2015 macbook air which cost €100. it runs mac os 12.7.6 and it still gets regular security updates. it is perhaps a second or two slower than, and its screen is not as bright and shiny as more recent machines but it has a wonderful keyboard, weighs less than 1 kilo and does everything it needs to do. it could not in any way be described as crippled. (mind you i don’t do any video editing or heavy image manipulation work with hi-res images.)
when i see a 2015 macbook air with 8gb of RAM and a reasonably healthy battery for sale for around €100 i buy it so i have six of them :) in case anything ever goes wrong with the one i am currently using.
posted by toycamera at 9:07 AM on October 5
Apple laptops traditionally becomes crippled when they exit support, and that happens much faster than I would like.
typing this on a 2015 macbook air which cost €100. it runs mac os 12.7.6 and it still gets regular security updates. it is perhaps a second or two slower than, and its screen is not as bright and shiny as more recent machines but it has a wonderful keyboard, weighs less than 1 kilo and does everything it needs to do. it could not in any way be described as crippled. (mind you i don’t do any video editing or heavy image manipulation work with hi-res images.)
when i see a 2015 macbook air with 8gb of RAM and a reasonably healthy battery for sale for around €100 i buy it so i have six of them :) in case anything ever goes wrong with the one i am currently using.
posted by toycamera at 9:07 AM on October 5
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