current state of computer market

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dogememe

Joined
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Location
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I know we already know this, but the computer market is well and truly sad right now.

Except for my main workstation and AI server I'm slowly transitioning my entire homelab to laptops. This might sound crazy but in my situation it actually makes sense for a variety of reasons.

Used is mostly out of the question, I have some custom developed (aka vibe coded) stuff running that requires an NPU and older computers don't have that. Basically these are AI workloads that can run very slowly but sip power compared to doing them on CPU or GPU.

So, I head over to Best Buy's site, see what's on sale, as I need another node, and sort by best selling deals to see what's up. Each time I do this I get a bit sadder. Although I know I'm part of the problem because I have spent more on AI GPUs than I have on my entire Chevy Tahoe but that's beside the point.

#1 is a Lenovo model from 2022 that's still over $529.
#2 is an HP without a backlit keyboard. $449. Looks to be about the same as the one I bought my mom early last year for... $300?
#3 is an absolute tragedy of a computer. Intel N150, 4GB RAM, 128GB UFS (unbelievably, f is up to your imagination, slow). $242 for e-waste.
#4 is another old Lenovo, this one a 2023 model, with only 256GB SSD... $614.
#5 is a Dell from 2023 with 8GB of RAM... $549.
#6 is the first one that's actually kinda decent... a 14" HP with 16GB of RAM and 512GB SSD for $549. As long as you're OK with the Snapdragon chip, this is probably the first one I'd actually recommend to anyone. But still no backlit keyboard!
#7 is a $1500 LG laptop that's got a nice Ultra 9 gen 2 CPU with 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. Not too bad if you are OK with the Arc iGPU. But $1500 is still a lot of money for something that doesn't come with NVIDIA RTX-something.
#8 is another HP with an entry level Ryzen, 8GB of RAM, 256GB, and again, no backlit keyboard. for $729!
#9 is a Lenovo. This one's OK... Ultra 7 gen 2 CPU, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, for $849.
#10 is a Chromebook for $200. Celeron N4500, 4GB RAM, 64GB eMMC. Yes, I know it's a Chromebook so it isn't as resource intensive, but that thing wouldn't even be able to scroll Facebook with lagging. Pure trash.

So, 2/10 are acceptable in my book. Wow :(

Ended up with an Acer for $1000 that was deep in page 2 territory. And we all know based on data from Google search and other website analytics over the years that nobody cares about anything beyond page 1. So, people are actually buying those laptops. Sad. But, on the other hand, I have been selling my old systems on Marketplace or parting them out on eBay and getting great money for them which is funding the laptop purchases. So I guess it has its upsides.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
dogememe said:
Except for my main workstation and AI server I'm slowly transitioning my entire homelab to laptops. This might sound crazy but in my situation it actually makes sense for a variety of reasons.

Used is mostly out of the question, I have some custom developed (aka vibe coded) stuff running that requires an NPU and older computers don't have that.

So, I head over to Best Buy's site, see what's on sale, as I need another node, and sort by best selling deals to see what's up. Each time I do this I get a bit sadder. Although I know I'm part of the problem because I have spent more on AI GPUs than I have on my entire Chevy Tahoe but that's beside the point.

#1 is a Lenovo model from 2022 that's still over $529.
#2 is an HP without a backlit keyboard. $449. Looks to be about the same as the one I bought my mom early last year for... $300?
#3 is an absolute tragedy of a computer. Intel N150, 4GB RAM, 128GB UFS (unbelievably, f is up to your imagination, slow). $242 for e-waste.
#4 is another old Lenovo, this one a 2023 model, with only 256GB SSD... $614.
#5 is a Dell from 2023 with 8GB of RAM... $549.
#6 is the first one that's actually kinda decent... a 14" HP with 16GB of RAM and 512GB SSD for $549. As long as you're OK with the Snapdragon chip, this is probably the first one I'd actually recommend to anyone. But still no backlit keyboard!
#7 is a $1500 LG laptop that's got a nice Ultra 9 gen 2 CPU with 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. Not too bad if you are OK with the Arc iGPU. But $1500 is still a lot of money.
#8 is another HP with an entry level Ryzen, 8GB of RAM, 256GB, and again, no backlit keyboard. for $729!
#9 is a Lenovo. This one's OK... Ultra 7 gen 2 CPU, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, for $849.
#10 is a Chromebook for $200. Celeron N4500, 4GB RAM, 64GB eMMC. Yes, I know it's a Chromebook so it isn't as resource intensive, but that thing wouldn't even be able to scroll Facebook with lagging. Pure trash.

So, 2/10 are acceptable in my book. Wow :(

Ended up with an Acer for $1000 that was deep in page 2 territory. And we all know based on data from Google search and other website analytics over the years that nobody cares about anything beyond page 1. So, people are actually buying those laptops. Sad. But, on the other hand, I have been selling my old systems on Marketplace or parting them out on eBay and getting great money for them which is funding the laptop purchases. So I guess it has its upsides.
Click to expand...
They turn them on-they work and seem to be fast enough for what the buyer needs. Like vehicles-they don't care what is underneath "the hood".
 
Our latest laptops came from Costco. Costco concierge service for warranty issues is great. Sometimes Sam's club will have better deals, too. Best Buy around here tends to be more expensive than either of these options.
 
What are the "variety of reasons" laptops make sense for the application? Mobility would be the obvious reason to infer - but do all of your computers need to be mobile?
 
I shop for desktops and laptops for work on Newegg instead; periodically there are machines for sale much cheaper than MSRP. I just got two Dell Pro SFF workstations for $850 each that were listed at $1,200+ on the OEM website (I7-14700, 16GB RAM, 256SSD.) Adding more RAM and SSD separately sucked though, $480 for a matched 16GBx2 of DDR5 and $300 for a RTX5050 🤮. I'm just happy I have a small stack of new and unused 500GB/1TB SSDs ordered right before the prices jumped up though.
 
Every Windows laptop I bought over the last 15 years had unsolvable quirky issues before falling apart. My favorite was a Lenovo dropping a screw into the GPU fan in the middle of an Autodesk render. Waking up inside my backpack and cooking itself/killing the battery. Then keyboard keys dying until it wasn't usable.

The Macs I've owned just work. My current MPB is 5 years old and works fine. The new budget Neo is the perfect laptop for most people IMO.
 
sunroof said:
Every Windows laptop I bought over the last 15 years had unsolvable quirky issues before falling apart. My favorite was a Lenovo dropping a screw into the GPU fan in the middle of an Autodesk render. Waking up inside my backpack and cooking itself/killing the battery. Then keyboard keys dying until it wasn't usable.

The Macs I've owned just work. My current MPB is 5 years old and works fine. The new budget Neo is the perfect laptop for most people IMO.
Click to expand...
Neo would be fine for the typical user... if it came with 12GB of RAM and a backlit keyboard. Everyone can sit here and say how memory management on a Mac is so much better you don't need that much RAM... but 8GB is still the limiting factor when just having Firefox open with six tabs uses 2.5GB of RAM.
 
So a backlit keyboard is really a go/no go feature? Our Dell desktop is old and I'm told outdated and slow. It will occasionally do a 5-6 second screen freeze then be normal. Wouldn't mind something new before it dies but have no idea what to look for. Are these higher prices because of AI the new norm or will they come back down?
 
dogememe said:
Neo would be fine for the typical user... if it came with 12GB of RAM and a backlit keyboard. Everyone can sit here and say how memory management on a Mac is so much better you don't need that much RAM... but 8GB is still the limiting factor when just having Firefox open with six tabs uses 2.5GB of RAM.
Click to expand...
Apple had to increase production due to unexpected demand. But if you need those extra features, the Air delivers and is a better value than its peers, especially if bought used/refurbished.

All that assuming it can run the software you need.
 
AZjeff said:
So a backlit keyboard is really a go/no go feature? Our Dell desktop is old and I'm told outdated and slow. It will occasionally do a 5-6 second screen freeze then be normal. Wouldn't mind something new before it dies but have no idea what to look for. Are these higher prices because of AI the new norm or will they come back down?
Click to expand...

Likely the new norm for a while. If you don't need an NPU which 99.9% of people don't, you can get a used machine and save a lot of money. Personally a backlit keyboard is very important. Not for regular typing because I can do that with my eyes closed but for the various other keys that seem to be arranged differently on every darn computer and I use so many different computers on a daily basis...
 
AZjeff said:
Are these higher prices because of AI the new norm or will they come back down?
Click to expand...

I agree it's probably going to be this way for a while. The DRAM cartel (SK Hynix, Samsung, Micron, Infineon) are now in a new lawsuit for artificial price increase fixing like they did back in 1998. Samsung's profit alone have hit a massive high and is speculated to have more profit in 2026 than it's entire 40 year history combined.
 
sunroof said:
Every Windows laptop I bought over the last 15 years had unsolvable quirky issues before falling apart. My favorite was a Lenovo dropping a screw into the GPU fan in the middle of an Autodesk render. Waking up inside my backpack and cooking itself/killing the battery. Then keyboard keys dying until it wasn't usable.

The Macs I've owned just work. My current MPB is 5 years old and works fine. The new budget Neo is the perfect laptop for most people IMO.
Click to expand...
Agree ... and except for people in forums and computer nerds maybe. For the general public there is nothing more reliable and powerful with many, many years of OS updates and security updates as a Mac mini. Saying that for the "public" almost diminishes the power of the unit.
AS for $800 most likely nothing comes close in computing power, possibly might see on sale near the holidays. This price represents the increase due to computer memory price increases.
I mean for a typical household, it's silly to buy anything else and that is actually diminishing how much more it is capable of.
https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/mac-mini

The ball point pen is a reference to the tiny size of the fanless unit. That old dark gray one (now a temporary light stand) was my old Mac mini that I really have to put on e-bay. The last of the 2018 Intel series that was still working fine but I got the M4 recently "just because" at the time I think I paid $550 on sale instead of the now current $799

Decades of Windows computers and since going Mac it's as stupid simple and trouble free as turning on a light switch.
Next to my 27 inch HP monitor you can see how small it is.

IMG_8975.webp
IMG_8977.webp


Ps I have the original first series of Apple MacBook M1 notebook. The base model. I think three or four years old now.?

Still performs and looks exactly like it did when when new. (With some wear marks on the keys🙃)
IMG_8986.webp


IMG_8988.webp
 
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If you’re interested in sustained peak performance per watt it’s hard to beat Apple’s hardware, especially with the unified memory system.

Here’s a good video overview if you’re new to the platform.

 
fsdork said:
What are the "variety of reasons" laptops make sense for the application? Mobility would be the obvious reason to infer - but do all of your computers need to be mobile?
Click to expand...
Mobility was prime reason. 20 yrs ago I headed up our office conversion to 100% laptops because our mission included a lot of travel to a variety of locations nearly every week. Our project personnel appreciated the mobility and convenience, and we got more work done accordingly. Before we had to load and share laptops, which made no sense to me at sll.

I carried that over to my retirement and don't regret it.
 
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