Comment by trompetenaccoun
8 days ago
>The older they are, the better they are
Everyone agrees the build quality used to be better (my grandpa already said this about appliances from his youth). But one thing I almost never see discussed is the power consumption of these old devices. Older CPUs often double as room heaters. Modern ones, especially the Apple M-series, have become a lot more efficient. So while I agree that modern laptops suck in many ways, I would do the math to see if it's actually cheaper to buy and use an older computer. Maybe not if you're in Qatar or Russia but some countries have extremely high electricity costs.
It just isn't really a measurable impact against an overall picture.
At maximum, a T580 can draw 44 watts. 8 hours per day, 365 days a year, at 50 cents a kWh (quite expensive for the US), that's $65 a year. That's a several-year-old computer already.
The W520 can draw a much higher (but still low relative to a desktop) 150 watts. The cost per year to run it would then be around $220/year - but again, that's assuming maximum power draw for much of the day every day. Your home refrigerator uses more than twice that.
For most people, I don't see this cost increase as a problem.
For me power draw is about battery life. If you occasionally need to work without a power plug, or carrying your laptop from meeting to meeting all over the office, you really appreciate when the power lasts all day. My T14s battery draw of ~6.5W on the 57Wh battery will last me ~8 hours, good enough for a day unplugged at the office. (I'd love a bigger battery, but it is what it is...)
My refrigerator doesn't use anything like 300 W average. An IKEA 310 l fridge is rated at less than 100 kWh per year.
Even if you add a 210 l upright freezer to it is is still less than 300 kWh per year. That's 300 kWh / (365 * 24 h) = 34 W
ThinkPads use 20V chargers. USB-C supports 20V power delivery. What's the efficiency of power adapters back then compared to current gen USB-C chargers?