The "Disposable" Laptop?
by Charles W. Moore
The Sunday Herald's Sylvia Patterson posted a dyspeptic essay last weekend entitled "Forced by consumerism to throw another dead Apple on the pile," lamenting the demise of her circa 2002 G3 iBook and the short-lived nature of computers in general.
Ms. Patterson began:
This week, the computer died. After months of gyp, of sticking, crashing and refusing to turn on altogether, the ghost in the machine finally gave up, no fight whatsoever, to try to save several years' worth of written work (we say we'll back-up "tomorrow" and "tomorrow" turns into "twerp") and blinked it's way to oblivion.
So, today I'm writing on a pal's PC, which is technologically alien and temple-poundingly annoying because my fingers keep pinging on to the wrong keys because they've been trained for years to the Apple way of life, a laptop life now cruelly taken away, the lovely, shiny, spiffy-new Apple Mac iBook sensation which once defined the techno-universe, what with being all white and small and cute and everything, and you couldn't move on transport for its pristine presence twinkling away like a jewellery box......
Peruse official documentation on the obsolescence ruse and terms for this swizz abound: a business strategy which involves "worm coding" and "programmed tragedy", all the better to keep us consumed and aspirational until the day our inbuilt human obsolescence dawns. Computers are by far the worst offenders, their natural, functional life-span can be as little as two piffling years, no more 'natural' a phenomenon than the preservatives which keep a beetroot alive longer than your iPod battery.
As a matter of abstract principle, I'm in complete agreement with Ms. Patterson about the outrageousness of commodities that cost as much as computers, especially laptops, do, having a useful life of only three or four years. It's uneconomic and environmentally irresponsible. If my TV or refrigerator or washing machine, all of which cost less than my laptop, pooped out after just four years of service, I would be fuming, but with computers, I have only once in the past decade and a half gone more than three years without buying a newer, faster one.
The Apple tech Ms. Patterson consulted about her dead iBook told her that she had done better with the Mac laptop than your average PC-user fares, which is a fair evaluation, although it gave her cold comfort. It's really true, though. My family owns a gaggle of PowerBooks and iBooks dating back ten years, all of which are still in working condition. However, only the newest four are really satisfactory for running OS X 10.4, which is elemental to the obsolescence dynamic.
One of my 'Books is a 700 MHz G3 iBook of the same year as Ms, Patterson's recently demised machine. This computer has given me virtually nothing to complain about in the three in a half years I've owned it, most of that time spent in service as my main production computer. It's never missed a beat, still runs reasonably well with OS 10.4.6, had a lovely, bright, crisp display, and looks great.
However, notwithstanding that a has no known functional issues, the little iBook is no longer really satisfactory as a front-line workhorse. The 700 MHz G3 is just too poky for more and more tasks, the 20 gigabyte hard drive is too small and prohibitively difficult to upgrade, it has only a CD-ROM drive, 16 megabytes of video RAM is marginal and the RADEON 7500 graphics processor does not fully support the Core Image technology in Tiger, it doesn't support USB 2 or Bluetooth, and a 640 MB RAM ceiling capacity is not enough. Laptop technology has advanced substantially over the past four years. Consequently, despite the iBook continuing to work perfectly reliably, I was constrained by performance considerations to upgrade to a newer computer five months ago.
There's the rub. The iBook his either impossible (processor, GPU, video RAM, system RAM capacity), or economically not sensible (hard drive, optical drive) to upgrade, so what we have here folks is essentially a disposable appliance.
Now, let me hasten to add that if one's computing needs are minimally to moderately demanding, the 700 MHz G3 iBook would be more than adequate for probably several years to come provided it remained functionally operational and reliable, and if Ms. Patterson only uses her system for the usual basic computing stuff - email and Web surfing, word processing, casual digital photography editing, etc., she has a legitimate bone to pick.
Older, even obsolete computers can give plenty of useful service. My wife is still using our going on eight years old WallStreet 233 MHz, and finds it more than adequate for her needs so far running OS 9.2.2. I expect she will at some point "graduate" to the G3 iBook as the classic Mac OS becomes more marginalized, but for the stuff she does with computers, the old WallStreet provides completely satisfactory performance right now.
Since I handed off the WallStreet to her (replacing a PowerBook 1400 that she had been using), my 550 MHz G4 upgraded Pismo PowerBook has taken on the role of general dogsbody "portable portable" for me, and it's an excellent example of how upgradability can extend the useful life (thereby shrinking the environmental "footprint" and enhancing its value as an investment) of a laptop. Because the Pismo's processor resides on an easily removable daughtercard, it is relatively simple and economical to upgrade. Ditto for the optical drive, which lives in a removable-device expansion bay, and the hard drive, which is a 10 - 20 minute job to swap in and out. There are two RAM slots and a PC Card slot which also contribute to the machine's versatility.
My Pismo has an 8x DVD-burning SuperDrive, and a FireWire 800 PC Card adapter, and has been upgraded to a 5400 RPM, 40 gigabyte hard drive, all of which makes it still a formidable and useful computer, now a few months short of its sixth anniversary. Unfortunately, the graphics processor and video RAM are not upgradable, which is the Pismo's main shortcoming as a modern machine, and pin-compatible G4 processors of more than 550 MHz are not available either, so these computers have apparently reached their expansion limit.
What I would like to see is a laptop built with easy to disassemble, easy to upgrade, modular engineering. With such a machine, one could upgrade their laptop's performance capability as needs and technological advancements warranted, without having to replace the case, chassis, or display - a much more environmentally responsible and sound solution. However, I'm not holding my breath - Apple's laptops have, for the most part, trended to less rather than more upgradable over the past half-decade, although the hard drive in the new MacBook is commendably simple to remove and replace - a step in the right direction.
Incidentally, a MacBook is what Ms. Patterson has gritted her teeth and replaced the dead iBook with, and I hope that the early adopter gremlins don't bite her, and that it will last longer than the iBook did, but it's not a particularly lively hope. The MacBook is a tremendous performance/specifications value at the price, but being built to that price and tending to be a hot-running unit, I'm not optimistic that you will prove to be a long-lived machine. I hope I'm mistaken about that.
Like it or not, in the current context, making ones peace with a short service life, essentially disposal computer dynamic makes considerable pragmatic sense. My old Pismo sold new for $3,500. At that price it should be still on the go after six years. However, a new MacBook eclipses the Pismo in just about every aspect save for expandability, and sells for a relatively piddling $1,099 - less than one-third as much, or to put it another way, given price-stability, you could buy a MacBook and completely replace it twice for less money that the Pismo cost up front.
Consequently, even if the MacBook proves no more long-term durable than the iBooks have, I'm prepared to cut Apple a bit of slack. You tend to get what you pay for, and we're paying a lot less for Apple portables these days, while arguably getting more value on the balance. If an efficient recycling program can be put in place, perhaps the "disposable laptop" motif is the way to go after all.