Pay more for less that you can't fix, its glued together and not meant to be opened, ever! Ultrabooks offers a weaker, thinner, lighter computer in disposable fragile package, the Surface computers from Microsoft perhaps the most obvious example!
Thin, Fragile, Dent Prone Metal Cases, Sealed in Batteries, Weak GPU, the Intel inspired Ultrabook computers of today may be thin & light, emblematic of the ideals of an increasingly obese western diet culture filled with endocrine harming carb consumption excesses galore, but computers like the Microsoft Surface are overpriced examples of unrepairable glued together designs that offer an increasingly poor value proposition in terms of cost to performance ratios.
How much computer horsepower do you really need for YouTube, Email, Browsing? What about if you want to play some current STEAM pc games, edit photo libraries and UHD video?
How much RAM does the average computer really need to be future-proof for a few years? Well that depends if you plan on hosting a VM of IBM's Watson or not :P
Do you really need a discrete GPU when most of the all in one chip-sets (APU's) of todays notebooks are able to provide modest gaming acceleration on the cheap?
Do you value thin and light more than fast and high performance?
What about battery life, easy of changing out a defective or failing battery? I think the computer OEM's are shitting on consumers with sealed internal batteries that cannot be easily changed! I think of the royal pain it would be to change out the battery in my Fitbit Surge or Kyocera Brigadier phone! Sealed batteries are a betrayal of consumers because batteries often fail before the design life is achieved, some noteworthy examples of early battery failures can be seen in the Boeing 787, the Apple iPhone 6S and the (fire prone) Samsung Note 7!
30 to 80 % Long Life Lithium Ion Mode
Lithium Ion battery always want to be between 30 & 80 % charged, except when they are brand new you want to charge them to 100% three times in a row to format the new cells. Every time a lithium battery is connected to a charged when it is already 100%, the overcharging will destroy part of the energy storage capacity, ruining the lithium ion cell faster! Analogous to a paper clip being bent fully one way or the other to a rapid demise, fully charging and discharging lithium ion destroys it faster. Shallow cycling between 30 to 80% is like gently bending a paperclip a little bit one way and the other, greatly extending the number of cycles possible. The anode in a lithium ion is swollen by charging and shrinks with discharge, mechanically damaging the anode materials more with deeper cycling. 30 to 80 % extends the life by minimizing swell shrink cycling of the anode!
Few Laptops are Rugged
Rugged or not? Do you care if you notebook computer is impact resistant. In the USA a smartphone screen breaks every 2 seconds because users drop their glass screen phones onto concrete, tile, hardwood flooring, rocks and other hard surfaces that shatter the screen glass. I know all about this because I professionally repair smartphone screens as part of my job! The CTO of DeWalt tools (Black & Decker) was waxing on about the virtues of polymers in power tool manufacturing because they are impact resistant, electrically non-conductive, water proof, they don't ruse or dent easily, newer polymers are really strong especially when reinforced by fibers of glass, carbon, or ultra-high molecular weight polymer strands. I am writing this posting on an 2014 Acer model made almost entirely of plastic and polymers. The screen is glass owing to its "touch" functionality! I just kicked over a glass of water the other day and it shattered on our hardwood flooring. I like drinking from glass because it is chemically inert. Sadly glasses are not impact resistant, think of broken smartphone screens.
Laptops & Cameras giving way to Smartphones
The MVP of most peoples consumer electronics collections, their smartphone. Its the video camera, digital camera, email, web, LTE enhanced jack of all digital information trade device that remarkably is able to run of a 10wh battery for up to 48 hours in some cases, like the Galaxy Note 3 I now use as a VR google cardboard viewer, browser, MID over WIFI device. The point and shoot digital camera market is almost gone because of smartphones, the cameras that people always have with them. Getting photos on an off of a smartphone is not the best thing in the world if you are a power user of SD cards and real cameras. I like being able to edit, post, save and organize my photos across windows, Linux and OSX machines with SD's cards and readers. I have several cameras I cycle through and rarely use my phone as a camera unless it is the only camera I have with me, and or plan to quickly picture text someone. Going from the consumer electronics of the 1980's to the smartphones of today was quite a remarkable transition. Sadly have gone the way of disposable designed obsolescence. Sealed batteries and glue heavy construction makes reparability less feasible. Electronics have some of the highest toxicological footprints from the complex manufacturing processes. Making electronics disposable with so much embedded energy and chemical complexity represents eco-destructive evil driven by a narrow minded focus on next quarters earnings in the stock market. When companies stop pleasing their customers, ruin and decay to their market follows. People do not like being cheated and have long memories towards companies, brands and products that were a waste of their hard earned money!
Inform yourself about a product before you buy. Blind purchases often end up disappointing people, like these half baked curved TV screens that sparkle like a gem, reflecting any beam of light from almost any angle to the obscuring of your viewing experiences, unless you are sitting like you would in front of desktop monitor in the sweet spot of the curved displays viewing area as an individual, hardly the kind of thing you would want for a Super Bowl 2017 Party or any other social viewing experiences. Curved displays may as well be marketed as VR viewer alternative for people with neck pain issues :P Nothing social about curved displays, its the iScreen experience for 1, for individuals, perfect for America, or not!
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