I wrote a blog post about the dangers of focusing too much on hardware specs to predict performance when choosing hardware. In my experience many other factors (such as the software the hardware will run) have much more of an impact. Focusing on specs alone incentivizes bad practices like planned obsolescence and disposable hardware.
@kop316 Yeah in my experience the apps that cause the most problems end up being proprietary ones primarily developed on proprietary platforms that are on this upgrade treadmill. I suspect the developers only test on top-of-the-line hardware, and get new gear every year or two.
It wouldn't surprise me at all. I miss that laptop. I paid $150 for that laptop and put in a 200$ SSD in it. I really liked it since if I lost it or broke it, the pain of losing that SSD would be worse than the laptop, and no one messed with it.
@kop316 I know what you mean, I used a Thinkpad X200s for about six years (with a RAM and disk upgrade along the way) before I got the first gen Librem 13 for my personal laptop. And I used that Librem 13 until I replaced it with a Librem 5 + lapdock.
I have to say the X200 was the last of its kind when it came to keyboard quality (although to me the X60 was even better). Everything since, Thinkpad and otherwise, has been a step down.
Heh. Have you seen this?
https://www.xyte.ch/t700-crowdfunding/
I bought their x2100, that is my current main driver.
@kop316 I would have probably considered the X2100 myself if I didn't have Purism gear as an option. In general I like the idea of breathing new life into old, perfectly great chassis with the addition of a new motherboard.
The T series was always too big for me (even the X series and 13" laptops in general are pushing it), but I'd love to see this done for an X60 or X60T, however unlikely.
People hate this answer though haha. Any time someone asks me which CPU is better I say "depends" and ask them more questions. People are way too unwilling to do some research and they get bamboozled into simply buying newer.
@kyle This is why it was so cool to me that Microsoft developers ensured their code for Windows Phone (not 10) was optimized to run well on low-end phones so it would be even better on higher-end ones. Sadly Android was (and still might be) so bloated that high-end specs were necessary for a good experience, and most people only compared raw specs on the box and generally didn't care about software being optimized better.
@kyle My Librem 5 runs well enough. I expected most problems would be fixed given it took three years to receive it, but it still seems to be a work in progress. Microphone audio is poor, touch controls for the file browser don't work, had to install a browser add-on to view various web sites, hotspot doesn't work because of newer hardware. Progress on the hotspot software fix I can at least follow on the development site.
@tudza It is a huge and ongoing effort to make the entire Linux ecosystem adaptive and mobile-friendly. Bugs in the touch interface for Files (upstream GNOME project Nautilus) is an example. We do continue to work with upstream to improve things and even years on, I think you will notice a steady pace of improvements.
I also recommend the Mobile View Switcher plugin if you use Firefox. It's even worth using on desktops as websites remove a lot of their bloat if they think you are a phone.
@tudza If you are comfortable using the command line to install it using apt, in the mean time you may also want to experiment with the "nemo" file browser, as it also fits within the Librem 5 screen and the touch controls seem to work pretty well.
@kyle Don't recall hearing about nemo as an alternate file browser in the forums. I will give it a try. Thanks.
@kyle I believe that's the solution I found in the forums. Thanks for mentioning it.
@kyle I'm pleased with my Librem mini although I did have to send it in to get the power supply repaired after using it for a year.
@kyle
Heh. For a while, I was using a Thinkpad x200 as my primary laptop. It worked great with Debian+XFCE. The reason I had to buy a newer laptop is because when I went to school, Zoom absolutely cripple the poor thing.