Would you pay more for a noisy computer?

https://therealadam.com/2021/09/13/would-you-pay-more-for-a-noisy-computer/

by busymom0 • 5 years ago

16 40 5 years ago

tuatoru• 5 years ago

This piece made me wonder: is there an "AirBnB for laptops"? Would people be willing to rent out their laptop to others for a few hours?

gryson• 5 years ago

Nothing frightens me more.

moepstar2• 5 years ago

Would people be willing to rent out their laptop to others for a few hours?

And then what? Burn it? Or rather preserve it in the state it is and wait for law enforcement to come over?

Not sure i can think of a way for this to not go wrong...

RealityVoid• 5 years ago

Internet Cafe's? Probably not a lot left.

busymom02• 5 years ago

In places like India, we have Internet cafes. I think you can also use public computers in libraries in some places.

robjan• 5 years ago

Can't you go to a computer store for a similar experience?

selfhoster11• 5 years ago

No, thank you. The dirt alone is disgusting.

barrenko• 5 years ago

Computer-punk all the way.

skunkworker• 5 years ago

This is actually why I’m still disappointed 3D Touch was removed from iPhones. The ability to have those different levels of pressure result in a different response and more immediate haptic feedback was really pleasing to use.

Edit: I’m still on my Xs

moepstar2• 5 years ago

This is one of the reasons i'm still using my iPhone 8+...

...aside from it being still being supported and snappy enough...

busymom02• 5 years ago

I am still using my iPhone 6S (latest iOS too). However the 3D Touch was replaced with long press sometime in iOS 13 I think and despite having the 3D Touch screen, it’s no longer useful in the iOS itself.

Tsiklon• 5 years ago

Using it to select words and paragraphs when typing was fabulous, long pressing the spacebar isn’t as useful or convenient, in that it doesn’t permit whole word or paragraph selection

riidom• 5 years ago

When I bought my computer in 2017, I was on a budget, but still needed a proper amount of disc space, so I went for a HDD instead of a SSD.

I can barely hear it, because I wear headphones, but I do see the red LED on the tower when it's active (would it be like that with a SSD anyway?).

But the HDD activity is pretty disconnected from my activity at the PC, I have to say. I feel like it's mostly triggered by stuff happening in the background. So it could provide some feedback, but the relationship is too complex to be useful, imo.

lindseymysse4• 5 years ago

I have a Thinkpad X200t from about 10 years ago and a maxed-out Thinkpad X1 Carbon from 2 years ago. I am selling the X1 soon, simply because I hate the keyboard on modern laptops.

I don't understand why people tolerate crappy keyboards on their laptops for the sake of their laptops getting thinner and thinner (and don't get me started on the clicky, insect-like sound of the Macintosh butterfly keys). Why is a more thin laptop more desirable than one that is enjoyable to type on?

The other option, however -- the Alien wares with mechanical keyboards have a video-gamer do-the-dew aesthetic that I would be embarrassed to walk into an office with.

I spend 8 hours a day typing, the tactile sensation is a vital part of enjoying it.

My kingdom for a modern laptop with a keyboard that is an inch thick, anonymous-box with a good keyboard that is repairable and upgradable.

I hope the frame.work laptop can provide a version with an excellent mechanical keyboard soon.

kalleboo• 5 years ago

Depending on what you use your laptop for, you may spend more time carrying it than typing on the built-in keyboard

HanaShiratori4• 5 years ago

Why don't you just use any external keyboard you like? That way you're not narrowing down your laptop purchasing options that much. In case you upgrade your laptop / leave your current work that use other laptops you won't have to get used to the new keyboard layout.

voakbasda• 5 years ago

Because then it will no longer be usable in your lap? The word “lap” is in the name.

cjbconnor• 5 years ago

Have you seen the MNT Reform? It sounds like what you're looking for

lindseymysse4• 5 years ago

A trackball module? That's even better than a pointing stick!

Thanks for the tip, I'm interested!

marianov• 5 years ago

X220 owner here. Do all modern laptops (even thinkpads) have those crappy keyboards? Need to upgrade soon, or maybe I'll RDP to a bigger system

lindseymysse4• 5 years ago

Just below here someone recommended the MNT Reform. I'm curious -- it is a lower powered device with a modern GPU, so it will be an upgrade to both of our devices.

There is also this: https://geoff.greer.fm/2019/03/04/thinkpad-x210/

Which seems interesting, but the MNT seems like the better long-term option.

Tagbert• 5 years ago

One of the things people complained about with the Apple butterfly keyboard was that they keys were noisier. They also had less travel, less space between the keys but still were only slightly thinner. When then replaced those with the older scissor-switch keyboards in 2019, the new ones were quieter and did not require the laptops to be thicker. the new ones also seem to be much more reliable.

There seem to be two preferences for keyboards. Some prefer quiet typing keyboards (which often have less travel). Others prefer the mechanical keyboard with more travel and a tendency for “clacky” sounds.

brokenmachine• 5 years ago

Cherry MX Reds are the most popular type of mechanical switch, and they are "silent".

PaulKeeble• 5 years ago

I guess I am the quiet power type because for many years I ran 9x 120mm water cooled radiators cooling the CPU and GPU with the fans running at 600 rpm. The moment you do that the sound of the hard drive is deafeningly loud and so 100% SSD storage became a necessity as did ensuring the PSU was as quiet as possible. I don't do it today as its a lot of maintenance and the performance gains of doing it are much smaller today but I prefer silent machines with as much performance as I can pack into a quiet package. I change components often and I can't imagine ever feeling any form of connection to the machine, maybe because I have been through 15 different motherboards and CPUs but there isn't any nostalgia or connection value to the hardware, only on what it can do.

rvdginste• 5 years ago

I don't really care about the noise to know what the computer is doing. I prefer a silent computer, because I really need silence to be able to focus my mind on something. (And it might seem inconsistent, but I do love clicky mechanical keyboards and their sound does not bother me.)

But regarding 'feedback' from the computer, there are other options: laptops typically have an indicator light for hard disk activity, to indicate whether the battery is charging or whether the laptop is receiving power, or a slowly pulsating light to indicate that the laptop is in suspend-to-ram mode. Also I remember that long time ago, when every laptop came with a replaceable battery, that the batteries themselves often had indicator lights so that you could easily see whether a battery needed to be charged (1). Some laptops even had some indicator lights twice: one on the inside of the screen that is visible when you're working on the laptop and one on the outer shell of the screen that is visible when the laptop is closed (2).

I love that kind of thing, because to me those indicators are often useful. Maybe not everyone is into that or cares, but I'm also the kind of people that likes to have a cpu load monitor somewhere on screen to know what is going on on the computer.

(1) The battery indicators I remember from the iBook G4 and old Dell laptops. There was a button that you could press to indicate the remaining charge with some leds. While charging the leds would be blinking and indicating the charge at that moment.

(2) The indicator lights on both the inside of the screen and the outside, I noticed on the Thinkpad X200. I also discovered that the dock for the X200 actually comes with an extra charging port for a battery. So while you're working on the dock, you could externally attach a 2nd battery to the dock to charge it. I really appreciate the attention that went into these kinds of designs.

politelemon• 5 years ago

I'm not reading this as a desire for noise literally, but more for _control_ and ownership of a computer in a tangible form that is rewarding to the owner. This already exists in the realm of enthusiasts, and going 'wild' for components and qualities. The problem might be that you are limiting yourself to a set of brands and criteria that don't necessarily translate into computing today. You won't get this from ultrabooks, and not from the mentioned Apple devices, which do not aim to put you in control but more of a device that they 'allow' you to use.

This can be achieved by building your own desktop computer. Install a Linux distro on it, explore them if you're unsure, and then continue tinkering. Nowadays you have increased control over your water coolers, GPUs and even lights and additional screens if you want to go that far, so that you can actually build your own 'noise' the way you want. That is the equivalent of the enthusiast arena; and just like other realms like cars and watches, it takes a little work to get there, after which you reap the rewards and endorphin hits.

StephenJGL• 5 years ago

Silly as it sounds I find Windows 11 new system sounds especially the console audible prompt when hitting tab in Linux to be one of the biggest improvements. It's no longer harsh, angular and error sounding but mildly melodic and has some soft shape. Sounds weird, but it's a major improvement.

thrower123• 5 years ago

Some day there will be a novelty browser that simulates the old dialup modem screech when you launch it.

emptyparadise• 5 years ago

I want my devices to have a soul. Computers these days are so sterile and boring they won't even become tsukumogami given enough time.

jaclaz• 5 years ago

As a side note, I observed something connected with printers and their noise.

We (I am talking of a small hotel) used to have a needle printer (for receipt/invoices, it printed only a few lines of text as we used letterhead paper/forms), so the customer at check out would pay and just after the card was swiped on the POS or the cash was collected/change given, the receipt/invoice would be printed together with the "visual feedback" of seeing the paper fed under the head of the printer line by line and the "noise feedback" of the actual printing.

It took something like 5-6, maybe 7 seconds, not much, but enough to introduce a delay in the procedure.

Then things changed and now there is a thermal printer for receipts and a laser one for invoices, both are overall slightly faster than the old printer, some 4-5 seconds.

But both pause (silence) for 3-4-5 seconds and then instantly the slip of thermal paper comes out (very, very fast) or the sheet of A4 paper exits the laser printer (in practice appears from a black box).

Even if overall the time now needed is (slightly) less, we had more than one of the usual customers notice how it (seems like it) takes more time now to print the receipt/invoice, and the "impression" is exactly that, the silent pause seems everlasting while the wheezing of the old printer seemed "natural".

sliken• 5 years ago

In the early days of computers I was a kid with a 110 baud teletype (keyboard+printer all in one). I played star trek, and it would print out a sector map of you, stars, and enemies. To print each character would spin a little sphere and bank it on the paper. I played it for endless hours. I could recognize klingons by the noise of printing **.

Then finally I got a hazeltine 1410 terminal, that ran at 300 baud. Playing on that was frustratingly slow/boring. No entertainment/drama of the printing.

errcorrectcode• 5 years ago

Every computer needs a robotic orchestra comprised of computer parts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppotron

I sort of have "noise activity indicators" already as my NAS is in an open case with 4 x 14 TiB helium HDDs (ZFS) and the 4 140mm CPU fans are silent until a majority of the 96 cores are under significant load.

Zero_Rzv• 5 years ago

I almost have enough money to buy my first car as gas prices skyrocket, I don't want an almost completely silent electric car, I want an internal combustion engine that actually has a sound, the fact that ~13 years ago people could enjoy cars without all the environmental shit makes me mad that I am too young to enjoy that to it's fullest. Now, in the near future I will probably be taxed more for owning a gas powered car on top of the ridiculous gas prices and I hate that, yes, I am jealous on the 80' and 90' I am jealous that I won't be able to enjoy a car without it taking more money then it would take normally and I am saying this with the hope that they don't make them completely illegal or a luxury to own

Would you pay more for a noisy computer?

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