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Joined 1 year ago
Cake day: June 4th, 2025
  • Static electricity doesn’t mess with wires, replacing the wiring seems to be an odd choice. It can and does mess with integrated circuits, so I would sooner be looking at mainboard replacement.

    Still, this behavior seems almost mechanical in nature. Someone else already asked this, but knowing whether or not the same region of the printhead is consistently affected is going to be critical. You might do a few prints of a 5mm high square with an X through it, using the whole bed.

    If it is consistent, I would be inclined to suspect a reassembly issue - maybe something loose at one end of the gantry?

  • I was mostly stuck on the “the only way” part of your comment. In terms of accessibility, I don’t know that the domain method would really be any better - not to mention that it’s limited to Pro/Enterprise Windows editions that most consumers aren’t getting.

    The audit mode path is more GUI friendly but, similar to the Domain option, still requires pre-existing knowledge or web search.

    Here’s hoping Microsoft actually follows through on loosening this restriction, even though I largely hold the position that basic users’ security benefits from the MS Account setup.

  • Anecdotes from an independent repair shop owner / operator.

    I very rarely encounter reparability issues from Lenovo devices. I’ve worked on the full range down to Chromebooks and all the way up to high-end ThinkPad workstations. Parts are generally available, if not from Lenovo then on the aftermarket. They have repair documentation on their site. There are cases where the memory is soldered, but that is not something that is unique to Lenovo.

    From my perspective, the least repairable devices end up being the LG and Samsung laptops. Parts are much harder to come by, which means that when they are available they’re usually quite expensive. Their designs are hostile to repair, documentation has not been readily available, they haven’t used modular memory for about 10 years now.

    Microsoft’s Surface lineup has historically been real bad for repair, it’s not until recently that they’ve been turning a new leaf. Their logic board designs are so unusual that even component level repair becomes a huge pain compared to others.

  • You didn’t, nor did I.

    Lots of normies actually use it for taking notes or putting together smaller bits of information, it’s a lot faster to open than Word or LibreOffice.

    MS probably wanted to capitalize on that to maximize opportunities for engagement with the product.

    Of course, “need” is very debatable in the context of how consumers are having LLMs shoved in their faces everywhere they go.

  • The tech seems to have yassified Grace in the main promotional image that’s being used by every publication.

    The rest of the images look improved, for the most part, and I do think it does make sense to offer this functionality as an option in the upscaling pipeline.

    I’m sure that those repeating artist’s intention have never dared use a reshade or texture swap.

    Hopefully, that yassification will be a side effect of the current state of the tech and not something that ships to end users.

  • You’re not entirely wrong, in that the Apple Tax is real.

    Nonetheless, the quality of the Magic Keyboard is substantially higher than that of a keyboard you can get for “few dollars”

    Ultimately, your assertion was:

    An iPad Air costs the same but comes with a much better M4 processor. The main difference is a less crap operating system in macOS.

    An iPad Air with a keyboard that matches the form factor and build quality of a MacBook Neo does not actually cost the same, it costs an additional $270.

  • Memory utilization is relative to the user though. For someone who wants to do nothing more than check their email and manage online banking, no specs matter (well, within reason, but people do use Chromebooks with 4GB RAM)

    Just because such a system would not be suitable for your use-case does not mean that it is not suitable for any use case.

    The iPhone 16 Pro is a very capable device, yet it “only” has 8GB of RAM. We don’t have the full picture for these new devices, but it’s possible that Apple will be handling memory in a similar manner to iOS, making it possible to do more with less.

    Repairing broken hinges on such a cheap laptop practically has to be a DIY repair. I get this exact repair inquiry every now and then, the owner often balks when the repair cost is more than 50% what they paid for the device. For these low-end laptops, I also find that parts are usually less available than those for most Apple devices. Apple tends to use certain part designs / assemblies for multiple generations. Apple stuff is consistent enough that there are plenty of used parts available aftermarket.

    Far as your repair scenario is concerned, I can only think of 2-3 times where a Mac came in with hinge related failure and those cases all stemmed from abuse like opening the lid too far / egregious mishandling. Meanwhile, I’ve bread lots of butter with HP laptops whose hinges break through regular operation.

    If something costs more to fix but only breaks 1% as often, are you really saving money by purchasing the cheaper solution with the higher fail rate?

  • There’s more to a computer than RAM (or even ither specs), comparing what’s shown in the article to the low-cost option you linked the two systems are leagues apart in terms of build quality.

    Wouldn’t be surprised if the battery life was miles apart too.

    That cheap plastic HP laptop is destined to have its hinge mounts snap away from the upper palmrest through normal day-to-day use.