There are always tradeoffs in tech. That’s why so often we feel disappointed or underwhelmed, despite extraordinary advancements in our lifetime.
There’s a reason you can pick up a smart and not-very-old refurbished Windows ultra portable for over a thousand pounds off its original asking price.
It’s not just that it’s second-hand, discarded as a write-off by enterprise, perceivedly no longer cutting-edge.
The Mac equivalent hold their value for far longer, no matter how old, unfashionable, or outdated.
Yes, it’s partly a matter of supply. There are always going to be far more ex-business devices flooding into the market with each renewal cycle.
Even so, what accounts for such bargains? This is where we encounter those tradeoffs only discovered in actual use.
The device may be a sight to behold, oozing premium quality, with its edge to edge screen, convertible form factor, excellent port selection, and lightweight design.
But of course, in the battle between form and function, something has to give. And for this ever-so-slim chassis, the give is in the thermal architecture, designed to cool the powerful CPU.
I can only imagine that the fleets of management consultants to whom they were probably originally dispatched soon tired of that constant whirring of the onboard fans stirring to life even at idle.
In part, this seems to be a peculiarity of devices with Intel processors running Windows. Macs and Chromebooks don’t seem to suffer from this problem, but for each, there are other tradeoffs.
Sometimes, for some projects, you need the full desktop version of a piece of software to make use of its advanced functionality. That precludes choosing a ChromeOS, Android, or iOS device.
Tradeoffs in functionality, price, storage capacity, long-term support, upgradability, usability, longevity. Every device suffers from a tradeoff of some kind.
The question that remains is whether it’s a deal breaker. Can you live with a keyboard that’s not quite perfect? Or a permanent monotonous whine?
These the pitfalls of the onwards march of progress. Are these tradeoffs we can live with, or are they just too big an obstacle to productivity? In short, is it a return?
Last modified: 21 September 2024