----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian Vogel" <britechguy@gmail.com>
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2020 11:26:17 -0700
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

There are plenty of machines at the $500 and under price point that are not just adequate, but way more than just adequate, for a very great many users.

That being said, if I have the option of an SSD versus a HDD for a small upgrade fee, I will go with the SSD every time.  I just swapped out the HDD in one of my machines for an SSD and the overall boost in responsiveness - across the board, not just at booting - is as significant as you get when taking a machine with inadequate RAM and upgrading that (and that's after RAM is already upgraded).

The fact of the matter is that the "slowest" SSD is far, far faster than a mechanical spinner with read/write heads that are constantly on the move.  It is the need to spin around to catch "the next block" and move the heads for both reading and writing on a constant basis that is just so much slower than direct access with no moving parts.

I'm perfectly willing to use HDDs, still, and I'm in a minority there.  But I cannot in good conscience claim that even the very best HDD is better than an SSD when it comes to throughput speed and what that means for system responsiveness as a whole.
--

Brian - Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 2004, Build 19041

*Always remember that computers are just glorified light bulbs - they rarely fail in continuous use and usually go pop when turned off and on.*

~ Technician with the username Computer Bloke, on Technibble.com

-----Original Message-----
From: main@TechTalk.groups.io [mailto:main@TechTalk.groups.io] On Behalf Of Gene
Sent: Friday, October 16, 2020 6:53 AM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

Few ports won't matter with hubs available and many people may well not need more than the ports offered. Keyboards, I don't know how serious a problem that is. My lapptop, I don't know if it is in the minority, as a very nice keyboard with large keys and a nice feel. While a keyboard that is more difficult or unpleasant to use than it should be would be an annoyance, at least when used at home, and laptops these days often replace desktops, its easy enough to use a USB keyboard. If this is a problem with many laptops, it is hardly a major flaw and hardly rises to the level justifying spending hundreds of dollars more to solve unless you use the laptop portably some or much of the time and you can't find a portable keyboard that satisfies your needs. Cooling? If you are talking about laptops, the person can use a cooling pad. Not a serious problem at all.

I don't know what problems you are referring to by material design. I'll look at the page, but the objections you have discussed don't justify spending more on a machine unless you want to use the laptop while away from home and a solution to a flaw makes its use unreasonably inconvenient, something I think won't happen with most of the flaws you have discussed.
Then, too, people who live anywhere near a computer store or Walmart or Best Buy or other such stores can inspect computers in person. And there are always user reviews and reviews in computer magazines such as the best laptops for 2020 and other reviews such as the best laptops for 2020 costing under this or that amount of money. And there are lists like this, good places to ask what machines people are using and for evaluations or to ask about a specific machine or machines you are interested in.

In short, you can pick the flaw that either won't matter to you or will be easy to work around, given how you use the computer or you can try to find one without such flaws and I would think some computers without them perhaps many, if you look, can be found.

While your objection is interesting because it leads to a discussion of the ways to find a good computer, it doesn't justify spending more money for the majority of users.

Gene
-----Original Message-----
From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Friday, October 16, 2020 3:10 AM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

Hi Gene,

Systems in that price range today have major flaws, iether few ports, cooling, keyboard, mouse, material design. You can view notebookcheck and similar technology sites, and read reviews for systems in different price brackets, and all of those systems will have their flaws mentioned. Whether these flaws matter though depends on the flaw or person.

On 10/15/2020 9:04 PM, Gene wrote:

And so are laptops. Your information is wrong. I bought a laptop
about nine years ago, and certainly you would get more power for the
same price now, for about 480 dollars. It has worked very well. It
is not compromised. It doesn't have defects.

And no one said a 500 dollar computer is good for everyone. I'm not
talking about gamers or power users. I'm talking about the majority
of Internet users who stream, surf, use a word processor, record
audio, and do other tasks that are not particularly demanding.


Gene
-----Original Message----- From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2020 8:44 PM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

Just because you may consider a system adequate for your own needs
doesn't mean it is for is for everyone. A system like that would have
major compremises. For clerification, I am talking about laptop
prices, desktops in that price range may in fact be midrange. What I
am saying is a minimum system for anyone should have a 6 core or so
CPU, 8 gb or
16 gb of dual channel ram, an I5processor etc.

On 10/15/2020 7:08 PM, Monte Single wrote:

Hi list,
: enes sarıbaş thinks a 500 dollar computer/laptop is less than
adequate for the average user.
He is not the first person on the list to express such thoughts.
The one time I spent more than that for a computer was for the first
one I purchased; that was in the last millennium.
If I spent 500 u s dollars on a computer today, it would be built
with quality parts and be more than adequate for the average computer
user's needs.
: enes sarıbaş go forth and conquer, spend the big bucks.
Hopefully it will stimulate the economy.



-----Original Message-----
From: main@TechTalk.groups.io <main@TechTalk.groups.io> On Behalf Of
Gene
Sent: October 15, 2020 5:29 PM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

That simply is not true. A lot of people have machines in the five
hundred dollar range and they work fine.

And five hundred dollar machines aren't just barely competent machines.

Gene
-----Original Message-----
From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2020 4:14 PM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

No, I would not buy a 500 dollar machine. In fact, I would exclude
machines below a certain build quality as a matter of principle. Is
saving every little penny really worth it for a device people use 12
hours a day or more? possibly? Those machines usually have more than
one major flaw, and have barebone specs. I think a power user should
get a pc above the 1000 dollar range, and a regular user, if they can
aford it should go around 700-800. The difference between an entry
level, and even midrange computer is very apparent in build quality,
as well as components. A midrange system will probably have one or
two important flaws, but a budget system will have three or more,
iether bad keyboard, cheap material, poor cooling, etc.

On 10/15/2020 7:15 AM, Gene wrote:

And I suspect you spent over a thousand dollars to do what a five
hundred dollar computer can do, less if on sale ormanufacturer
refurbished. I don't know enough technically to discuss some of
your technical points, but I'll say the following:
The advice I see from computer advisors is that for the majority of
people, purchasing a machine somewhere in the five hundred dollar
range will meet their needs. And even if memory requirements have
gone up for some programs, they haven't gone up nearly enough that
more than 8GB of ram is recommended for the majority of users. That
is the recommendation and it has been for years.

A little money here, a little money there, a more powerful
processor, and pretty soon, you are spending five hundred dollars or
more than you need to and gambling that your machine will last far
longer than the generally agreed on length for reliable service,
five years. I think it is a very bad gamble, not because the
machine won't last longer, it may well do so, but you are spending a
lot more money now for performance parameters that will be much less
expensive when you replace the computer. And the typical user,
buying a machine around the five hundred dollar range today, unless
their uses change radically, won't have problems that will require a
new machine probably for the life of the current one.

And what about technological changes itself? If you bought a
machine in the Windows 7 days that was future proofed, in your
opinion at that time, it might not run Windows 10 now. My
understanding is, and if I'm wrong, I'm sure I will be corrected,
that a lot of Windows 7 machines won't run Windows 10 because
Microsoft now requires that different processors be used.

While I don't think that sort of thing will happen if one buys a
machine now for use seven or ten years into the future and are
attempting to future proof it, you are again gambling that newer
technologies wohn't come along that will render your computer less
useable, no matter how you future proof it now.

Gene.
-----Original Message----- From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2020 6:27 AM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

This isn't correct. Browsers, and other day to day applications
even, dramatically have increased ram usage, as well as CPU power.
For example, Zoom will only let you blur the background of video if
you have a quad core processor. If you buy a dual core as opposed to
a quad core processor for example, it will struggle at even the most
basic of tasks, and in 5 years, or even in a few years, programas
even screen readers will begin to lag. This happened with my core I5 4200M.
I thought a dual core was ok, though this was a system gifted to me.
Had I been choosing my own system then, I would've gone for an I7,
and now, this dual core is not even good enough for browsing. Large
websites will freeze it and even when I had it, intensive apps like
finereader will lag significantly independant of ram. This is
exactly I future proofed my next laptop, with a 1tb SSD, 32 gb of
ram, and an
r7 4800H processor from AMD, with a 4.2 GHZ boost across all cores.
This should be powerful enough to run anything conceivable in the
next
5 or so years, except maybe AI workloads.
On 10/15/2020 6:07 AM, Gene wrote:

I've seen others, and I believe you, too, make the future proof
argument for buying a more powerful computer than the person's
anticipated needs because it will be useful longer because you
never know when your needs will change. I've always thought such
arguments were not good ones. For one thing, a lot of people will
continue to use computers in about the same ways as now and if they
do use them in more demanding ways, those will not likely tax the
computer if they buy a computer that isn't just barely powerful
enough to do what they want.

Also, technology continues to become more powerful and cost less.
So, in five years, the projected reliable life of a computer, you
will be able to buy one to meet your needs then for less money than
you are paying now. In addition, though it’s a gamble, many
computers last more than five years, many significantly more. Every
dollar you overspend to be future proofed that you didn't need
because your needs didn't change and all the extra power of your
computer remains unused is increasingly wasted, the longer your computer lasts.

It makes much more sense to buy a computer that is powerful enough
to meet your current needs well if you don't anticipate major
changes in how you will use your computer and are reasonably
confident that you won't do things in future that will exceed the ability of the computer.

Spending one-thousand dollars to future proof a machine, just in
case, maybe you use your machine much differently in the future,
when you could spend five hundred dollars today and three hundred
dollars in fived or seven or eight years for another machine that
you would probably use in similar ways as you do now or not much, is a bad idea.

Gene
-----Original Message----- From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Wednesday, October 14, 2020 9:27 PM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me



Hi Brian,

Just for clerification, I have confirmed 5g signals do exist in my
area for my network. Even without the massive bandwidth, the lower
latency itself will probably result in better quality improvements.
Also, all versions of the IPhone by default include 5g.


On 10/14/2020 9:18 PM, Brian Vogel wrote:
On Wed, Oct 14, 2020 at 10:11 PM, enes sarıbaş wrote:
One reason, future proofing, I want to get the highest end version
of the IPhone 12, though 5g isn't very wiedespread now, it will be
in three years or so.- I am at a loss as to how doing this, now,
squares with your own earlier assertion, "I think 5g is more
significant for fixed wireless than smartphones."

Going to a 5G device now, when it is obscenely expensive, and where
the ability to exploit 5G is limited to a very few locations, seems
to me to be a supreme waste.

And 3 years is an eternity in the world of technology, and
smartphones in particular, and what's Apple's flagship now, will be
mid-range in 3 years, and much cheaper.

Going to a 5G smartphone now, unless you live in a major
metropolitan area, is locking your money up in a frozen asset you
cannot even use for its intended purpose.

-----Original Message-----
From: main@TechTalk.groups.io [mailto:main@TechTalk.groups.io] On Behalf Of Gene
Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2020 7:29 PM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

That simply is not true. A lot of people have machines in the five hundred dollar range and they work fine.

And five hundred dollar machines aren't just barely competent machines.

Gene
-----Original Message-----
From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2020 4:14 PM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

No, I would not buy a 500 dollar machine. In fact, I would exclude machines below a certain build quality as a matter of principle. Is saving every little penny really worth it for a device people use 12 hours a day or more? possibly? Those machines usually have more than one major flaw, and have barebone specs. I think a power user should get a pc above the 1000 dollar range, and a regular user, if they can aford it should go around 700-800. The difference between an entry level, and even midrange computer is very apparent in build quality, as well as components. A midrange system will probably have one or two important flaws, but a budget system will have three or more, iether bad keyboard, cheap material, poor cooling, etc.

On 10/15/2020 7:15 AM, Gene wrote:

And I suspect you spent over a thousand dollars to do what a five
hundred dollar computer can do, less if on sale ormanufacturer
refurbished. I don't know enough technically to discuss some of your
technical points, but I'll say the following:
The advice I see from computer advisors is that for the majority of
people, purchasing a machine somewhere in the five hundred dollar
range will meet their needs. And even if memory requirements have
gone up for some programs, they haven't gone up nearly enough that
more than 8GB of ram is recommended for the majority of users. That
is the recommendation and it has been for years.

A little money here, a little money there, a more powerful processor,
and pretty soon, you are spending five hundred dollars or more than
you need to and gambling that your machine will last far longer than
the generally agreed on length for reliable service, five years. I
think it is a very bad gamble, not because the machine won't last
longer, it may well do so, but you are spending a lot more money now
for performance parameters that will be much less expensive when you
replace the computer. And the typical user, buying a machine around
the five hundred dollar range today, unless their uses change
radically, won't have problems that will require a new machine probably for the life of the current one.

And what about technological changes itself? If you bought a machine
in the Windows 7 days that was future proofed, in your opinion at that
time, it might not run Windows 10 now. My understanding is, and if
I'm wrong, I'm sure I will be corrected, that a lot of Windows 7
machines won't run Windows 10 because Microsoft now requires that
different processors be used.

While I don't think that sort of thing will happen if one buys a
machine now for use seven or ten years into the future and are
attempting to future proof it, you are again gambling that newer
technologies wohn't come along that will render your computer less
useable, no matter how you future proof it now.

Gene.
-----Original Message----- From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2020 6:27 AM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

This isn't correct. Browsers, and other day to day applications even,
dramatically have increased ram usage, as well as CPU power. For
example, Zoom will only let you blur the background of video if you
have a quad core processor. If you buy a dual core as opposed to a
quad core processor for example, it will struggle at even the most
basic of tasks, and in 5 years, or even in a few years, programas even
screen readers will begin to lag. This happened with my core I5 4200M.
I thought a dual core was ok, though this was a system gifted to me.
Had I been choosing my own system then, I would've gone for an I7, and
now, this dual core is not even good enough for browsing. Large
websites will freeze it and even when I had it, intensive apps like
finereader will lag significantly independant of ram. This is exactly
I future proofed my next laptop, with a 1tb SSD, 32 gb of ram, and an
r7 4800H processor from AMD, with a 4.2 GHZ boost across all cores.
This should be powerful enough to run anything conceivable in the next
5 or so years, except maybe AI workloads.
On 10/15/2020 6:07 AM, Gene wrote:

I've seen others, and I believe you, too, make the future proof
argument for buying a more powerful computer than the person's
anticipated needs because it will be useful longer because you never
know when your needs will change. I've always thought such arguments
were not good ones. For one thing, a lot of people will continue to
use computers in about the same ways as now and if they do use them
in more demanding ways, those will not likely tax the computer if
they buy a computer that isn't just barely powerful enough to do what they want.

Also, technology continues to become more powerful and cost less. So,
in five years, the projected reliable life of a computer, you will be
able to buy one to meet your needs then for less money than you are
paying now. In addition, though it’s a gamble, many computers last
more than five years, many significantly more. Every dollar you
overspend to be future proofed that you didn't need because your
needs didn't change and all the extra power of your computer remains
unused is increasingly wasted, the longer your computer lasts.

It makes much more sense to buy a computer that is powerful enough to
meet your current needs well if you don't anticipate major changes in
how you will use your computer and are reasonably confident that you
won't do things in future that will exceed the ability of the computer.

Spending one-thousand dollars to future proof a machine, just in
case, maybe you use your machine much differently in the future, when
you could spend five hundred dollars today and three hundred dollars
in fived or seven or eight years for another machine that you would
probably use in similar ways as you do now or not much, is a bad idea.

Gene
-----Original Message----- From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Wednesday, October 14, 2020 9:27 PM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me



Hi Brian,

Just for clerification, I have confirmed 5g signals do exist in my
area for my network. Even without the massive bandwidth, the lower
latency itself will probably result in better quality improvements.
Also, all versions of the IPhone by default include 5g.


On 10/14/2020 9:18 PM, Brian Vogel wrote:
On Wed, Oct 14, 2020 at 10:11 PM, enes sarıbaş wrote:
One reason, future proofing, I want to get the highest end version of
the IPhone 12, though 5g isn't very wiedespread now, it will be in
three years or so.- I am at a loss as to how doing this, now, squares
with your own earlier assertion, "I think 5g is more significant for
fixed wireless than smartphones."

Going to a 5G device now, when it is obscenely expensive, and where
the ability to exploit 5G is limited to a very few locations, seems
to me to be a supreme waste.

And 3 years is an eternity in the world of technology, and
smartphones in particular, and what's Apple's flagship now, will be
mid-range in 3 years, and much cheaper.

Going to a 5G smartphone now, unless you live in a major metropolitan
area, is locking your money up in a frozen asset you cannot even use
for its intended purpose.

From: main@TechTalk.groups.io <main@TechTalk.groups.io> On Behalf Of DAVID GLOBE
Sent: Friday, October 16, 2020 7:40 AM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: [TechTalk] instagram, twitter, and facebook

 

Hello all

Is it possible to have an instagram or twitter account on my computer, or is this just a cell phone thing?  I'm asking just because I don't know.

David

-----Original Message-----
From: Norman
Sent: Friday, October 16, 2020 8:07 AM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

I will disagree with your points on a solid state drive. To me it is
manditory, and i have the exact opposite reaction to yours. If an extra
$50 gets me an ssd i'll do it every time.

For word docs like you gave in your example, it's not an issue. Where it
really shines is when booting your machine, unzipping files, copying
data around, etc.

Being able to unzip a 2 GB file in under 5 minutes is really nice if the
particular task you're working on requires you wait for the file to unzip.


JMT.


On 10/16/2020 8:07 AM, Gene wrote:

The article proves my point about future proofing. It says here and there that this has been a problem but that things are changing, such as regarding battery life. Also, a battery that lasts six hours for me would be more than enough time, the day long battery capacity that is rare now among less expensive laptops wouldn't matter to me and I don't think to a lot of other people either. Display issues are irrelevant to blind users so that eliminates one source of objection.

Also, the article says something like that a solid state drive should be considered mandatory. By whom and for whom does it matter? This is arbitrary and not well supported. I think it is just plain wrong as a generalization.

Consider the following:
When I first open a program in my very reasonably fast nine year old laptop, with of course a mechanical drive, it may take perhaps three to five seconds to open the first time. Then, because of caching, when I open it again during that session, it tends to open in perhaps one or two seconds. Does having a solid state drive and having programs open in perhaps half a second really matter?

If you do a lot of things that you would benefit from, such as some sort of work that requires a lot of hard drive activity, that's one thing. For surfing, working with a word processor, e-mail, Zooming, in short, the things most people will use a computer for, an SSD doesn't matter enough to worry about.

I strongly contend that authors who make such claims suffer from the gee whiz speed compulsion of our age. If someone is going to spend half an hour working on a word processor document, does it matter if it takes five seconds to open the program? If five seconds matters in a twenty minute work session, then the person had better not take any short breaks, yawn, stretch, walk around for a minut or two to relax and loosen his/her joints, in short, the person would be a nervous wreck. So why are a few seconds considered so vital when it comes to computer use for the majority of people. I don't know the differences in cost between getting a machine with a solid state or a mechanical drive. If I can get the same machine that I want or a similar one and save fifty dollars, if that tends to be what I'll save, I'll save the fifty dollars and have a word processor open in five seconds instead of one the first time I open it during a session.

Music doesn't take less time to listen to, the player may open more quickly, an article on the Internet can't be read any faster, I don't know if the page opens faster, though I doubt it does to any meaningful extent, and so forth.

Gene
-----Original Message----- From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Friday, October 16, 2020 6:11 AM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

Hi Gene,

I am not an ordinary user. When I purchase a computer, I will not settle
for anything less than the best. This system, while still able to run
browsers and regular websites ok, struggles and crashes freezes when
running large websites. The difference in processor technology reached
a critically dramatic point when I thhought replacing this was a good
option. Every component on my new machine should at least provide a 100%
improvement or more, even ram speeds, 1600 vs 3200.

Flaws on laptops on that price range are usually intolerable. A cheap
case will not cool properly, and will bend or warp easily. For example,
my laptop's plastic yields under the DVD drive. Cooling isn't fixable
with a cooling pad. Unfortunately with the focus on portability cooling
is taking a back seat with laptops. If fans are too small for the
thermals, or if vents are too small, that throttles down the processor.
For sighted people, the screens of such machines are terrible in
quality. And a USB keyboard adds unneeded bulk to laptops. Look at a
list of best laptops on any sight, and you won't see any machines in
your price range that make those lists. Here is an article which
describes why it makes sense to pay for a better laptop.

https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/dont-be-so-cheap-five-reasons-you-should-spend-more-on-your-next-laptop/


On 10/16/2020 5:53 AM, Gene wrote:

Few ports won't matter with hubs available and many people may well not need more than the ports offered. Keyboards, I don't know how serious a problem that is. My lapptop, I don't know if it is in the minority, as a very nice keyboard with large keys and a nice feel. While a keyboard that is more difficult or unpleasant to use than it should be would be an annoyance, at least when used at home, and laptops these days often replace desktops, its easy enough to use a USB keyboard. If this is a problem with many laptops, it is hardly a major flaw and hardly rises to the level justifying spending hundreds of dollars more to solve unless you use the laptop portably some or much of the time and you can't find a portable keyboard that satisfies your needs. Cooling? If you are talking about laptops, the person can use a cooling pad. Not a serious problem at all.

I don't know what problems you are referring to by material design. I'll look at the page, but the objections you have discussed don't justify spending more on a machine unless you want to use the laptop while away from home and a solution to a flaw makes its use unreasonably inconvenient, something I think won't happen with most of the flaws you have discussed. Then, too, people who live anywhere near a computer store or Walmart or Best Buy or other such stores can inspect computers in person. And there are always user reviews and reviews in computer magazines such as the best laptops for 2020 and other reviews such as the best laptops for 2020 costing under this or that amount of money. And there are lists like this, good places to ask what machines people are using and for evaluations or to ask about a specific machine or machines you are interested in.

In short, you can pick the flaw that either won't matter to you or will be easy to work around, given how you use the computer or you can try to find one without such flaws and I would think some computers without them perhaps many, if you look, can be found.

While your objection is interesting because it leads to a discussion of the ways to find a good computer, it doesn't justify spending more money for the majority of users.

Gene
-----Original Message----- From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Friday, October 16, 2020 3:10 AM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

Hi Gene,

Systems in that price range today have major flaws, iether few ports,
cooling, keyboard, mouse, material design. You can view notebookcheck
and similar technology sites, and read reviews for systems in different
price brackets, and all of those systems will have their flaws
mentioned. Whether these flaws matter though depends on the flaw or person.

On 10/15/2020 9:04 PM, Gene wrote:

And so are laptops. Your information is wrong. I bought a laptop about nine years ago, and certainly you would get more power for the same price now, for about 480 dollars. It has worked very well. It is not compromised. It doesn't have defects.

And no one said a 500 dollar computer is good for everyone. I'm not talking about gamers or power users. I'm talking about the majority of Internet users who stream, surf, use a word processor, record audio, and do other tasks that are not particularly demanding.


Gene
-----Original Message----- From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2020 8:44 PM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

Just because you may consider a system adequate for your own needs
doesn't mean it is for is for everyone. A system like that would have
major compremises. For clerification, I am talking about laptop prices,
desktops in that price range may in fact be midrange. What I am saying
is a minimum system for anyone should have a 6 core or so CPU, 8 gb or
16 gb of dual channel ram, an I5processor etc.

On 10/15/2020 7:08 PM, Monte Single wrote:

Hi list,
: enes sarıbaş thinks a 500 dollar computer/laptop is less than adequate for the average user.
He is not the first person on the list to express such thoughts.
The one time I spent more than that for a computer was for the first one I purchased; that was in the last millennium.
If I spent 500 u s dollars on a computer today, it would be built with quality parts and be more than adequate for the average computer user's needs.
: enes sarıbaş go forth and conquer, spend the big bucks.
Hopefully it will stimulate the economy.



-----Original Message-----
From: main@TechTalk.groups.io <main@TechTalk.groups.io> On Behalf Of Gene
Sent: October 15, 2020 5:29 PM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

That simply is not true. A lot of people have machines in the five hundred dollar range and they work fine.

And five hundred dollar machines aren't just barely competent machines.

Gene
-----Original Message-----
From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2020 4:14 PM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

No, I would not buy a 500 dollar machine. In fact, I would exclude machines below a certain build quality as a matter of principle. Is saving every little penny really worth it for a device people use 12 hours a day or more? possibly? Those machines usually have more than one major flaw, and have barebone specs. I think a power user should get a pc above the 1000 dollar range, and a regular user, if they can aford it should go around 700-800. The difference between an entry level, and even midrange computer is very apparent in build quality, as well as components. A midrange system will probably have one or two important flaws, but a budget system will have three or more, iether bad keyboard, cheap material, poor cooling, etc.

On 10/15/2020 7:15 AM, Gene wrote:

And I suspect you spent over a thousand dollars to do what a five
hundred dollar computer can do, less if on sale ormanufacturer
refurbished. I don't know enough technically to discuss some of your
technical points, but I'll say the following:
The advice I see from computer advisors is that for the majority of
people, purchasing a machine somewhere in the five hundred dollar
range will meet their needs. And even if memory requirements have
gone up for some programs, they haven't gone up nearly enough that
more than 8GB of ram is recommended for the majority of users. That
is the recommendation and it has been for years.

A little money here, a little money there, a more powerful processor,
and pretty soon, you are spending five hundred dollars or more than
you need to and gambling that your machine will last far longer than
the generally agreed on length for reliable service, five years. I
think it is a very bad gamble, not because the machine won't last
longer, it may well do so, but you are spending a lot more money now
for performance parameters that will be much less expensive when you
replace the computer. And the typical user, buying a machine around
the five hundred dollar range today, unless their uses change
radically, won't have problems that will require a new machine probably for the life of the current one.

And what about technological changes itself? If you bought a machine
in the Windows 7 days that was future proofed, in your opinion at that
time, it might not run Windows 10 now. My understanding is, and if
I'm wrong, I'm sure I will be corrected, that a lot of Windows 7
machines won't run Windows 10 because Microsoft now requires that
different processors be used.

While I don't think that sort of thing will happen if one buys a
machine now for use seven or ten years into the future and are
attempting to future proof it, you are again gambling that newer
technologies wohn't come along that will render your computer less
useable, no matter how you future proof it now.

Gene.
-----Original Message----- From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2020 6:27 AM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

This isn't correct. Browsers, and other day to day applications even,
dramatically have increased ram usage, as well as CPU power. For
example, Zoom will only let you blur the background of video if you
have a quad core processor. If you buy a dual core as opposed to a
quad core processor for example, it will struggle at even the most
basic of tasks, and in 5 years, or even in a few years, programas even
screen readers will begin to lag. This happened with my core I5 4200M.
I thought a dual core was ok, though this was a system gifted to me.
Had I been choosing my own system then, I would've gone for an I7, and
now, this dual core is not even good enough for browsing. Large
websites will freeze it and even when I had it, intensive apps like
finereader will lag significantly independant of ram. This is exactly
I future proofed my next laptop, with a 1tb SSD, 32 gb of ram, and an
r7 4800H processor from AMD, with a 4.2 GHZ boost across all cores.
This should be powerful enough to run anything conceivable in the next
5 or so years, except maybe AI workloads.
On 10/15/2020 6:07 AM, Gene wrote:

I've seen others, and I believe you, too, make the future proof
argument for buying a more powerful computer than the person's
anticipated needs because it will be useful longer because you never
know when your needs will change. I've always thought such arguments
were not good ones. For one thing, a lot of people will continue to
use computers in about the same ways as now and if they do use them
in more demanding ways, those will not likely tax the computer if
they buy a computer that isn't just barely powerful enough to do what they want.

Also, technology continues to become more powerful and cost less. So,
in five years, the projected reliable life of a computer, you will be
able to buy one to meet your needs then for less money than you are
paying now. In addition, though it’s a gamble, many computers last
more than five years, many significantly more. Every dollar you
overspend to be future proofed that you didn't need because your
needs didn't change and all the extra power of your computer remains
unused is increasingly wasted, the longer your computer lasts.

It makes much more sense to buy a computer that is powerful enough to
meet your current needs well if you don't anticipate major changes in
how you will use your computer and are reasonably confident that you
won't do things in future that will exceed the ability of the computer.

Spending one-thousand dollars to future proof a machine, just in
case, maybe you use your machine much differently in the future, when
you could spend five hundred dollars today and three hundred dollars
in fived or seven or eight years for another machine that you would
probably use in similar ways as you do now or not much, is a bad idea.

Gene
-----Original Message----- From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Wednesday, October 14, 2020 9:27 PM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me



Hi Brian,

Just for clerification, I have confirmed 5g signals do exist in my
area for my network. Even without the massive bandwidth, the lower
latency itself will probably result in better quality improvements.
Also, all versions of the IPhone by default include 5g.


On 10/14/2020 9:18 PM, Brian Vogel wrote:
On Wed, Oct 14, 2020 at 10:11 PM, enes sarıbaş wrote:
One reason, future proofing, I want to get the highest end version of
the IPhone 12, though 5g isn't very wiedespread now, it will be in
three years or so.- I am at a loss as to how doing this, now, squares
with your own earlier assertion, "I think 5g is more significant for
fixed wireless than smartphones."

Going to a 5G device now, when it is obscenely expensive, and where
the ability to exploit 5G is limited to a very few locations, seems
to me to be a supreme waste.

And 3 years is an eternity in the world of technology, and
smartphones in particular, and what's Apple's flagship now, will be
mid-range in 3 years, and much cheaper.

Going to a 5G smartphone now, unless you live in a major metropolitan
area, is locking your money up in a frozen asset you cannot even use
for its intended purpose.

On 10/16/2020 8:07 AM, Gene wrote:

The article proves my point about future proofing.  It says here and there that this has been a problem but that things are changing, such as regarding battery life.  Also, a battery that lasts six hours for me would be more than enough time, the day long battery capacity that is rare now among less expensive laptops wouldn't matter to me and I don't think to a lot of other people either.  Display issues are irrelevant to blind users so that eliminates one source of objection.

Also, the article says something like that a solid state drive should be considered mandatory.  By whom and for whom does it matter?  This is arbitrary and not well supported.  I think it is just plain wrong as a generalization.

Consider the following:
When I first open a program in my very reasonably fast nine year old laptop, with of course a mechanical drive, it may take perhaps three to five seconds to open the first time.  Then, because of caching, when I open it again during that session, it tends to open in perhaps one or two seconds.  Does having a solid state drive and having programs open in perhaps half a second really matter?

If you do a lot of things that you would benefit from, such as some sort of work that requires a lot of hard drive activity, that's one thing.  For surfing, working with a word processor, e-mail, Zooming, in short, the things most people will use a computer for, an SSD doesn't matter enough to worry about.

I strongly contend that authors who make such claims suffer from the gee whiz speed compulsion of our age.  If someone is going to spend half an hour working on a word processor document, does it matter if it takes five seconds to open the program?  If five seconds matters in a twenty minute work session, then the person had better not take any short breaks, yawn, stretch, walk around for a minut or two to relax and loosen his/her joints, in short, the person would be a nervous wreck.  So why are a few seconds considered so vital when it comes to computer use for the majority of people.  I don't know the differences in cost between getting a machine with a solid state or a mechanical drive.  If I can get the same machine that I want or a similar one and save fifty dollars, if that tends to be what I'll save, I'll save the fifty dollars and have a word processor open in five seconds instead of one the first time I open it during a session.

Music doesn't take less time to listen to, the player may open more quickly, an article on the Internet can't be read any faster, I don't know if the page opens faster, though I doubt it does to any meaningful extent, and so forth.

Gene
-----Original Message----- From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Friday, October 16, 2020 6:11 AM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

Hi Gene,

I am not an ordinary user. When I purchase a computer, I will not settle
for anything less than the best. This system, while still able to run
browsers and regular websites ok, struggles and crashes freezes when
running large websites.  The difference in processor technology reached
a critically dramatic point when I thhought replacing this was a good
option. Every component on my new machine should at least provide a 100%
improvement or more, even ram speeds, 1600 vs 3200.

Flaws on laptops on that price range are usually intolerable. A cheap
case will not cool properly, and  will bend or warp easily. For example,
my laptop's plastic yields under the DVD drive. Cooling isn't fixable
with a cooling pad. Unfortunately with the focus on portability cooling
is taking a back seat with laptops. If fans are too small for the
thermals, or if vents are too small, that throttles down the processor.
For sighted people, the screens of such machines are terrible in
quality. And a USB keyboard adds unneeded bulk to laptops.  Look at a
list of best laptops on any sight, and you won't see any machines in
your price range that make those lists. Here is an article  which
describes why  it makes sense to pay for a better laptop.

https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/dont-be-so-cheap-five-reasons-you-should-spend-more-on-your-next-laptop/


On 10/16/2020 5:53 AM, Gene wrote:

Few ports won't matter with hubs available and many people may well not need more than the ports offered. Keyboards, I don't know how serious a problem that is.  My lapptop, I don't know if it is in the minority, as a very nice keyboard with large keys and a nice feel.  While a keyboard that is more difficult or unpleasant to use than it should be would be an annoyance, at least when used at home, and laptops these days often replace desktops, its easy enough to use a USB keyboard.  If this is a problem with many laptops, it is hardly a major flaw and hardly rises to the level justifying spending hundreds of dollars more to solve unless you use the laptop portably some or much of the time and you can't find a portable keyboard that satisfies your needs.  Cooling?  If you are talking about laptops, the person can use a cooling pad. Not a serious problem at all.

I don't know what problems you are referring to by material design.  I'll look at the page, but the objections you have discussed don't justify spending more on a machine unless you want to use the laptop while away from home and a solution to a flaw makes its use unreasonably inconvenient, something I think won't happen with most of the flaws you have discussed. Then, too, people who live anywhere near a computer store or Walmart or Best Buy or other such stores can inspect computers in person.  And there are always user reviews and reviews in computer magazines such as the best laptops for 2020 and other reviews such as the best laptops for 2020 costing under this or that amount of money. And there are lists like this, good places to ask what machines people are using and for evaluations or to ask about a specific machine or machines you are interested in.

In short, you can pick the flaw that either won't matter to you or will be easy to work around, given how you use the computer or you can try to find one without such flaws and I would think some computers without them perhaps many, if you look, can be found.

While your objection is interesting because it leads to a discussion of the ways to find a good computer, it doesn't justify spending more money for the majority of users.

Gene
-----Original Message----- From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Friday, October 16, 2020 3:10 AM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

Hi Gene,

Systems in that price range today have major flaws, iether few ports,
cooling, keyboard, mouse, material design. You can view notebookcheck
and similar technology sites, and read reviews for systems in different
price brackets, and all of those systems will have their flaws
mentioned. Whether these flaws matter though depends on the flaw or person.

On 10/15/2020 9:04 PM, Gene wrote:

And so are laptops.  Your information is wrong.  I bought a laptop about nine years ago, and certainly you would get more power for the same price now, for about 480 dollars.  It has worked very well.  It is not compromised.  It doesn't have defects.

And no one said a 500 dollar computer is good for everyone. I'm not talking about gamers or power users.  I'm talking about the majority of Internet users who stream, surf, use a word processor, record audio, and do other tasks that are not particularly demanding.


Gene
-----Original Message----- From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2020 8:44 PM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

Just because you may consider a system adequate for your own needs
doesn't mean it is for  is for everyone. A system like that would have
major compremises. For clerification, I am talking about laptop prices,
desktops in that price range may in fact be midrange. What I am saying
is a minimum system for anyone should have a 6 core or so CPU, 8 gb or
16 gb of dual channel ram, an I5processor etc.

On 10/15/2020 7:08 PM, Monte Single wrote:

Hi list,
: enes sarıbaş  thinks a 500 dollar computer/laptop is less than adequate for the average user.
He is not the first person on the list to express such thoughts.
The  one time I spent more than that for a computer was for the first one I purchased;  that was in the last millennium.
If I spent 500 u s dollars on a computer today,  it would be built with quality parts and be more than adequate for the average computer user's needs.
: enes sarıbaş   go forth and conquer, spend the big bucks.
Hopefully it will stimulate the economy.



-----Original Message-----
From: main@TechTalk.groups.io <main@TechTalk.groups.io> On Behalf Of Gene
Sent: October 15, 2020 5:29 PM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

That simply is not true.  A lot of people have machines in the five hundred dollar range and they work fine.

And five hundred dollar machines aren't just barely competent machines.

Gene
-----Original Message-----
From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2020 4:14 PM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

No, I would not buy a 500 dollar machine. In fact, I would exclude machines below a certain build quality as a matter of principle. Is saving every little penny really worth it for a device people use 12 hours a day or more? possibly? Those machines usually have more than one major flaw, and have barebone specs. I think a power user should get a pc above the 1000 dollar range, and a regular user, if they can aford it should go around 700-800. The difference between an entry level, and even midrange computer is very apparent in build quality, as well as components. A midrange system will probably have one or two important flaws, but a budget system will have three or more, iether bad keyboard, cheap material, poor cooling, etc.

On 10/15/2020 7:15 AM, Gene wrote:

And I suspect you spent over a thousand dollars to do what a five
hundred dollar computer can do, less if on sale ormanufacturer
refurbished.  I don't know enough technically to discuss some of your
technical points, but I'll say the following:
The advice I see from computer advisors is that for the majority of
people, purchasing a machine somewhere in the five hundred dollar
range will meet their needs.  And even if memory requirements have
gone up for some programs, they haven't gone up nearly enough that
more than 8GB of ram is recommended for the majority of users.  That
is the recommendation and it has been for years.

A little money here, a little money there, a more powerful processor,
and pretty soon, you are spending five hundred dollars or more than
you need to and gambling that your machine will last far longer than
the generally agreed on length for reliable service, five years.  I
think it is a very bad gamble, not because the machine won't last
longer, it may well do so, but you are spending a lot more money now
for performance parameters that will be much less expensive when you
replace the computer.  And the typical user, buying a machine around
the five hundred dollar range today, unless their uses change
radically, won't have problems that will require a new machine probably for the life of the current one.

And what about technological changes itself?  If you bought a machine
in the Windows 7 days that was future proofed, in your opinion at that
time, it might not run Windows 10 now.  My understanding is, and if
I'm wrong, I'm sure I will be corrected, that a lot of Windows 7
machines won't run Windows 10 because Microsoft now requires that
different processors be used.

While I don't think that sort of thing will happen if one buys a
machine now for use seven or ten years into the future and are
attempting to future proof it, you are again gambling that newer
technologies wohn't come along that will render your computer less
useable, no matter how you future proof it now.

Gene.
-----Original Message----- From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2020 6:27 AM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

This isn't correct. Browsers, and other day to day applications even,
dramatically have increased ram usage, as well as CPU power. For
example, Zoom will only let you blur the background of video if you
have a quad core processor. If you buy a dual core as opposed to a
quad core processor for example, it will struggle at even the most
basic of tasks, and in 5 years, or even in a few years, programas even
screen readers will begin to lag. This happened with my core I5 4200M.
I thought a dual core was ok, though this was a system gifted to me.
Had I been choosing my own system then, I would've gone for an I7, and
now, this dual core is not even good enough for browsing. Large
websites will freeze it and even when I had it, intensive apps like
finereader will lag significantly independant of ram. This is exactly
I future proofed my next laptop, with a 1tb SSD, 32 gb of ram, and an
r7 4800H processor from AMD, with a 4.2 GHZ boost across all cores.
This should be powerful enough to run anything conceivable in the next
5 or so years, except maybe AI workloads.
On 10/15/2020 6:07 AM, Gene wrote:

I've seen others, and I believe you, too, make the future proof
argument for buying a more powerful computer than the person's
anticipated needs because it will be useful longer because you never
know when your needs will change. I've always thought such arguments
were not good ones. For one thing, a lot of people will continue to
use computers in about the same ways as now and if they do use them
in more demanding ways, those will not likely tax the computer if
they buy a computer that isn't just barely powerful enough to do what they want.

Also, technology continues to become more powerful and cost less. So,
in five years, the projected reliable life of a computer, you will be
able to buy one to meet your needs then for less money than you are
paying now. In addition, though it’s a gamble, many computers last
more than five years, many significantly more. Every dollar you
overspend to be future proofed that you didn't need because your
needs didn't change and all the extra power of your computer remains
unused is increasingly wasted, the longer your computer lasts.

It makes much more sense to buy a computer that is powerful enough to
meet your current needs well if you don't anticipate major changes in
how you will use your computer and are reasonably confident that you
won't do things in future that will exceed the ability of the computer.

Spending one-thousand dollars to future proof a machine, just in
case, maybe you use your machine much differently in the future, when
you could spend five hundred dollars today and three hundred dollars
in fived or seven or eight years for another machine that you would
probably use in similar ways as you do now or not much, is a bad idea.

Gene
-----Original Message----- From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Wednesday, October 14, 2020 9:27 PM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me



Hi Brian,

Just for clerification, I have confirmed 5g signals do exist in my
area for my network. Even without the massive bandwidth, the lower
latency itself will probably result in better quality improvements.
Also, all versions of the IPhone by default include 5g.


On 10/14/2020 9:18 PM, Brian Vogel wrote:
On Wed, Oct 14, 2020 at 10:11 PM, enes sarıbaş wrote:
One reason, future proofing, I want to get the highest end version of
the IPhone 12, though 5g isn't very wiedespread now, it will be in
three years or so.- I am at a loss as to how doing this, now, squares
with your own earlier assertion, "I think 5g is more significant for
fixed wireless than smartphones."

Going to a 5G device now, when it is obscenely expensive, and where
the ability to exploit 5G is limited to a very few locations, seems
to me to be a supreme waste.

And 3 years is an eternity in the world of technology, and
smartphones in particular, and what's Apple's flagship now, will be
mid-range in 3 years, and much cheaper.

Going to a 5G smartphone now, unless you live in a major metropolitan
area, is locking your money up in a frozen asset you cannot even use
for its intended purpose.

-----Original Message-----
From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Friday, October 16, 2020 6:11 AM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

Hi Gene,

I am not an ordinary user. When I purchase a computer, I will not settle
for anything less than the best. This system, while still able to run
browsers and regular websites ok, struggles and crashes freezes when
running large websites. The difference in processor technology reached
a critically dramatic point when I thhought replacing this was a good
option. Every component on my new machine should at least provide a 100%
improvement or more, even ram speeds, 1600 vs 3200.

Flaws on laptops on that price range are usually intolerable. A cheap
case will not cool properly, and will bend or warp easily. For example,
my laptop's plastic yields under the DVD drive. Cooling isn't fixable
with a cooling pad. Unfortunately with the focus on portability cooling
is taking a back seat with laptops. If fans are too small for the
thermals, or if vents are too small, that throttles down the processor.
For sighted people, the screens of such machines are terrible in
quality. And a USB keyboard adds unneeded bulk to laptops. Look at a
list of best laptops on any sight, and you won't see any machines in
your price range that make those lists. Here is an article which
describes why it makes sense to pay for a better laptop.

https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/dont-be-so-cheap-five-reasons-you-should-spend-more-on-your-next-laptop/


On 10/16/2020 5:53 AM, Gene wrote:

Few ports won't matter with hubs available and many people may well not need more than the ports offered. Keyboards, I don't know how serious a problem that is. My lapptop, I don't know if it is in the minority, as a very nice keyboard with large keys and a nice feel. While a keyboard that is more difficult or unpleasant to use than it should be would be an annoyance, at least when used at home, and laptops these days often replace desktops, its easy enough to use a USB keyboard. If this is a problem with many laptops, it is hardly a major flaw and hardly rises to the level justifying spending hundreds of dollars more to solve unless you use the laptop portably some or much of the time and you can't find a portable keyboard that satisfies your needs. Cooling? If you are talking about laptops, the person can use a cooling pad. Not a serious problem at all.

I don't know what problems you are referring to by material design. I'll look at the page, but the objections you have discussed don't justify spending more on a machine unless you want to use the laptop while away from home and a solution to a flaw makes its use unreasonably inconvenient, something I think won't happen with most of the flaws you have discussed. Then, too, people who live anywhere near a computer store or Walmart or Best Buy or other such stores can inspect computers in person. And there are always user reviews and reviews in computer magazines such as the best laptops for 2020 and other reviews such as the best laptops for 2020 costing under this or that amount of money. And there are lists like this, good places to ask what machines people are using and for evaluations or to ask about a specific machine or machines you are interested in.

In short, you can pick the flaw that either won't matter to you or will be easy to work around, given how you use the computer or you can try to find one without such flaws and I would think some computers without them perhaps many, if you look, can be found.

While your objection is interesting because it leads to a discussion of the ways to find a good computer, it doesn't justify spending more money for the majority of users.

Gene
-----Original Message----- From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Friday, October 16, 2020 3:10 AM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

Hi Gene,

Systems in that price range today have major flaws, iether few ports,
cooling, keyboard, mouse, material design. You can view notebookcheck
and similar technology sites, and read reviews for systems in different
price brackets, and all of those systems will have their flaws
mentioned. Whether these flaws matter though depends on the flaw or person.

On 10/15/2020 9:04 PM, Gene wrote:

And so are laptops. Your information is wrong. I bought a laptop about nine years ago, and certainly you would get more power for the same price now, for about 480 dollars. It has worked very well. It is not compromised. It doesn't have defects.

And no one said a 500 dollar computer is good for everyone. I'm not talking about gamers or power users. I'm talking about the majority of Internet users who stream, surf, use a word processor, record audio, and do other tasks that are not particularly demanding.


Gene
-----Original Message----- From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2020 8:44 PM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

Just because you may consider a system adequate for your own needs
doesn't mean it is for is for everyone. A system like that would have
major compremises. For clerification, I am talking about laptop prices,
desktops in that price range may in fact be midrange. What I am saying
is a minimum system for anyone should have a 6 core or so CPU, 8 gb or
16 gb of dual channel ram, an I5processor etc.

On 10/15/2020 7:08 PM, Monte Single wrote:

Hi list,
: enes sarıbaş thinks a 500 dollar computer/laptop is less than adequate for the average user.
He is not the first person on the list to express such thoughts.
The one time I spent more than that for a computer was for the first one I purchased; that was in the last millennium.
If I spent 500 u s dollars on a computer today, it would be built with quality parts and be more than adequate for the average computer user's needs.
: enes sarıbaş go forth and conquer, spend the big bucks.
Hopefully it will stimulate the economy.



-----Original Message-----
From: main@TechTalk.groups.io <main@TechTalk.groups.io> On Behalf Of Gene
Sent: October 15, 2020 5:29 PM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

That simply is not true. A lot of people have machines in the five hundred dollar range and they work fine.

And five hundred dollar machines aren't just barely competent machines.

Gene
-----Original Message-----
From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2020 4:14 PM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

No, I would not buy a 500 dollar machine. In fact, I would exclude machines below a certain build quality as a matter of principle. Is saving every little penny really worth it for a device people use 12 hours a day or more? possibly? Those machines usually have more than one major flaw, and have barebone specs. I think a power user should get a pc above the 1000 dollar range, and a regular user, if they can aford it should go around 700-800. The difference between an entry level, and even midrange computer is very apparent in build quality, as well as components. A midrange system will probably have one or two important flaws, but a budget system will have three or more, iether bad keyboard, cheap material, poor cooling, etc.

On 10/15/2020 7:15 AM, Gene wrote:

And I suspect you spent over a thousand dollars to do what a five
hundred dollar computer can do, less if on sale ormanufacturer
refurbished. I don't know enough technically to discuss some of your
technical points, but I'll say the following:
The advice I see from computer advisors is that for the majority of
people, purchasing a machine somewhere in the five hundred dollar
range will meet their needs. And even if memory requirements have
gone up for some programs, they haven't gone up nearly enough that
more than 8GB of ram is recommended for the majority of users. That
is the recommendation and it has been for years.

A little money here, a little money there, a more powerful processor,
and pretty soon, you are spending five hundred dollars or more than
you need to and gambling that your machine will last far longer than
the generally agreed on length for reliable service, five years. I
think it is a very bad gamble, not because the machine won't last
longer, it may well do so, but you are spending a lot more money now
for performance parameters that will be much less expensive when you
replace the computer. And the typical user, buying a machine around
the five hundred dollar range today, unless their uses change
radically, won't have problems that will require a new machine probably for the life of the current one.

And what about technological changes itself? If you bought a machine
in the Windows 7 days that was future proofed, in your opinion at that
time, it might not run Windows 10 now. My understanding is, and if
I'm wrong, I'm sure I will be corrected, that a lot of Windows 7
machines won't run Windows 10 because Microsoft now requires that
different processors be used.

While I don't think that sort of thing will happen if one buys a
machine now for use seven or ten years into the future and are
attempting to future proof it, you are again gambling that newer
technologies wohn't come along that will render your computer less
useable, no matter how you future proof it now.

Gene.
-----Original Message----- From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2020 6:27 AM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

This isn't correct. Browsers, and other day to day applications even,
dramatically have increased ram usage, as well as CPU power. For
example, Zoom will only let you blur the background of video if you
have a quad core processor. If you buy a dual core as opposed to a
quad core processor for example, it will struggle at even the most
basic of tasks, and in 5 years, or even in a few years, programas even
screen readers will begin to lag. This happened with my core I5 4200M.
I thought a dual core was ok, though this was a system gifted to me.
Had I been choosing my own system then, I would've gone for an I7, and
now, this dual core is not even good enough for browsing. Large
websites will freeze it and even when I had it, intensive apps like
finereader will lag significantly independant of ram. This is exactly
I future proofed my next laptop, with a 1tb SSD, 32 gb of ram, and an
r7 4800H processor from AMD, with a 4.2 GHZ boost across all cores.
This should be powerful enough to run anything conceivable in the next
5 or so years, except maybe AI workloads.
On 10/15/2020 6:07 AM, Gene wrote:

I've seen others, and I believe you, too, make the future proof
argument for buying a more powerful computer than the person's
anticipated needs because it will be useful longer because you never
know when your needs will change. I've always thought such arguments
were not good ones. For one thing, a lot of people will continue to
use computers in about the same ways as now and if they do use them
in more demanding ways, those will not likely tax the computer if
they buy a computer that isn't just barely powerful enough to do what they want.

Also, technology continues to become more powerful and cost less. So,
in five years, the projected reliable life of a computer, you will be
able to buy one to meet your needs then for less money than you are
paying now. In addition, though it’s a gamble, many computers last
more than five years, many significantly more. Every dollar you
overspend to be future proofed that you didn't need because your
needs didn't change and all the extra power of your computer remains
unused is increasingly wasted, the longer your computer lasts.

It makes much more sense to buy a computer that is powerful enough to
meet your current needs well if you don't anticipate major changes in
how you will use your computer and are reasonably confident that you
won't do things in future that will exceed the ability of the computer.

Spending one-thousand dollars to future proof a machine, just in
case, maybe you use your machine much differently in the future, when
you could spend five hundred dollars today and three hundred dollars
in fived or seven or eight years for another machine that you would
probably use in similar ways as you do now or not much, is a bad idea.

Gene
-----Original Message----- From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Wednesday, October 14, 2020 9:27 PM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me



Hi Brian,

Just for clerification, I have confirmed 5g signals do exist in my
area for my network. Even without the massive bandwidth, the lower
latency itself will probably result in better quality improvements.
Also, all versions of the IPhone by default include 5g.


On 10/14/2020 9:18 PM, Brian Vogel wrote:
On Wed, Oct 14, 2020 at 10:11 PM, enes sarıbaş wrote:
One reason, future proofing, I want to get the highest end version of
the IPhone 12, though 5g isn't very wiedespread now, it will be in
three years or so.- I am at a loss as to how doing this, now, squares
with your own earlier assertion, "I think 5g is more significant for
fixed wireless than smartphones."

Going to a 5G device now, when it is obscenely expensive, and where
the ability to exploit 5G is limited to a very few locations, seems
to me to be a supreme waste.

And 3 years is an eternity in the world of technology, and
smartphones in particular, and what's Apple's flagship now, will be
mid-range in 3 years, and much cheaper.

Going to a 5G smartphone now, unless you live in a major metropolitan
area, is locking your money up in a frozen asset you cannot even use
for its intended purpose.

-----Original Message-----
From: main@TechTalk.groups.io <main@TechTalk.groups.io> On Behalf Of Ann
Parsons
Sent: Friday, October 16, 2020 5:59 AM
To: main@techtalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] Odd changes from m.facebook

Hi all,

David, this link for FaceBook works just great!

Ann P.

--
Ann K. Parsons
Portal Tutoring
EMAIL: akp@sero.email
Author of The Demmies: http://www.dldbooks.com/annparsons/
Portal Tutoring web site: http://www.portaltutoring.info
Skype: Putertutor

"All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost."







--
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
https://www.avg.com

On 10/16/2020 7:37 AM, Gene wrote:

Also, I didn't mean to imply that other reviewed products aren't worth considering or are inferior.  I mean that as an example of getting a satisfactory machine, the first review is one.  The other reviews are interesting and give many options for different machines.

Gene
-----Original Message----- From: Gene
Sent: Friday, October 16, 2020 6:35 AM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

Even though I said I would leave the under seven hundred dollar search to
the reader, I was curious so I did it.  See this article.  The first laptop
reviewed is about six hundred dollars and is well reviewed.  And the article
states limitations in the introduction, such limitations as you would
expect.  These aren't gaming or power computers, but you can find many
computers in this price range that the article says will be satisfactory for
a lot of people.
https://www.wired.com/gallery/best-cheap-laptops/

Gene
-----Original Message----- From: Gene
Sent: Friday, October 16, 2020 6:24 AM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

I'll add that my guess of five hundred dollars for a laptop was a guess.  I
haven't priced computers for a long time.  I have just done a little looking
around and it may be that better or much better laptops can be had for
something like six or seven hundred dollars.  But you appear to be able to
get a machine that would meet a lot of users' needs for around six hundred
dollars, and then, such a machine would be on sale off and on, here and
there.  This review is an example.  How representative is it in the six
hundred dollar price range?  I haven't looked at other machines in that
price range but I suspect that between six and seven hundred dollars, there
are many machines that will do.

See the review of this laptop on this page:
Microsoft Surface Go 2
https://www.tomsguide.com/best-picks/best-laptops-under-500

I specified five hundred dollars in my Google search that showed this page
in the results.  I haven't done a search for something ;like best laptops
for six hundred dollars or best laptops under seven hundred dollars.  As the
text books may say at times, that is left as an exercise for the reader.


Gene
-----Original Message----- From: Gene
Sent: Friday, October 16, 2020 5:53 AM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

Few ports won't matter with hubs available and many people may well not need
more than the ports offered.  Keyboards, I don't know how serious a problem
that is.  My lapptop, I don't know if it is in the minority, as a very nice
keyboard with large keys and a nice feel.  While a keyboard that is more
difficult or unpleasant to use than it should be would be an annoyance, at
least when used at home, and laptops these days often replace desktops, its
easy enough to use a USB keyboard.  If this is a problem with many laptops,
it is hardly a major flaw and hardly rises to the level justifying spending
hundreds of dollars more to solve unless you use the laptop portably some or
much of the time and you can't find a portable keyboard that satisfies your
needs.  Cooling?  If you are talking about laptops, the person can use a
cooling pad.  Not a serious problem at all.

I don't know what problems you are referring to by material design.  I'll
look at the page, but the objections you have discussed don't justify
spending more on a machine unless you want to use the laptop while away from
home and a solution to a flaw makes its use unreasonably inconvenient,
something I think won't happen with most of the flaws you have discussed.
Then, too, people who live anywhere near a computer store or Walmart or Best
Buy or other such stores can inspect computers in person.  And there are
always user reviews and reviews in computer magazines such as the best
laptops for 2020 and other reviews such as the best laptops for 2020 costing
under this or that amount of money.  And there are lists like this, good
places to ask what machines people are using and for evaluations or to ask
about a specific machine or machines you are interested in.

In short, you can pick the flaw that either won't matter to you or will be
easy to work around, given how you use the computer or you can try to find
one without such flaws and I would think some computers without them perhaps
many, if you look, can be found.

While your objection is interesting because it leads to a discussion of the
ways to find a good computer, it doesn't justify spending more money for the
majority of users.

Gene
-----Original Message----- From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Friday, October 16, 2020 3:10 AM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

Hi Gene,

Systems in that price range today have major flaws, iether few ports,
cooling, keyboard, mouse, material design. You can view notebookcheck
and similar technology sites, and read reviews for systems in different
price brackets, and all of those systems will have their flaws
mentioned. Whether these flaws matter though depends on the flaw or person.

On 10/15/2020 9:04 PM, Gene wrote:

And so are laptops.  Your information is wrong.  I bought a laptop about nine years ago, and certainly you would get more power for the same price now, for about 480 dollars.  It has worked very well.  It is not compromised.  It doesn't have defects.

And no one said a 500 dollar computer is good for everyone.  I'm not talking about gamers or power users.  I'm talking about the majority of Internet users who stream, surf, use a word processor, record audio, and do other tasks that are not particularly demanding.


Gene
-----Original Message----- From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2020 8:44 PM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

Just because you may consider a system adequate for your own needs
doesn't mean it is for  is for everyone. A system like that would have
major compremises. For clerification, I am talking about laptop prices,
desktops in that price range may in fact be midrange. What I am saying
is a minimum system for anyone should have a 6 core or so CPU, 8 gb or
16 gb of dual channel ram, an I5processor etc.

On 10/15/2020 7:08 PM, Monte Single wrote:

Hi list,
: enes sarıbaş  thinks a 500 dollar computer/laptop is less than adequate for the average user.
He is not the first person on the list to express such thoughts.
The  one time I spent more than that for a computer was for the first one I purchased;  that was in the last millennium.
If I spent 500 u s dollars on a computer today,  it would be built with quality parts and be more than adequate for the average computer user's needs.
: enes sarıbaş   go forth and conquer, spend the big bucks.
Hopefully it will stimulate the economy.



-----Original Message-----
From: main@TechTalk.groups.io <main@TechTalk.groups.io> On Behalf Of Gene
Sent: October 15, 2020 5:29 PM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

That simply is not true.  A lot of people have machines in the five hundred dollar range and they work fine.

And five hundred dollar machines aren't just barely competent machines.

Gene
-----Original Message-----
From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2020 4:14 PM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

No, I would not buy a 500 dollar machine. In fact, I would exclude machines below a certain build quality as a matter of principle. Is saving every little penny really worth it for a device people use 12 hours a day or more? possibly? Those machines usually have more than one major flaw, and have barebone specs. I think a power user should get a pc above the 1000 dollar range, and a regular user, if they can aford it should go around 700-800. The difference between an entry level, and even midrange computer is very apparent in build quality, as well as components. A midrange system will probably have one or two important flaws, but a budget system will have three or more, iether bad keyboard, cheap material, poor cooling, etc.

On 10/15/2020 7:15 AM, Gene wrote:

And I suspect you spent over a thousand dollars to do what a five
hundred dollar computer can do, less if on sale ormanufacturer
refurbished.  I don't know enough technically to discuss some of your
technical points, but I'll say the following:
The advice I see from computer advisors is that for the majority of
people, purchasing a machine somewhere in the five hundred dollar
range will meet their needs.  And even if memory requirements have
gone up for some programs, they haven't gone up nearly enough that
more than 8GB of ram is recommended for the majority of users.  That
is the recommendation and it has been for years.

A little money here, a little money there, a more powerful processor,
and pretty soon, you are spending five hundred dollars or more than
you need to and gambling that your machine will last far longer than
the generally agreed on length for reliable service, five years.  I
think it is a very bad gamble, not because the machine won't last
longer, it may well do so, but you are spending a lot more money now
for performance parameters that will be much less expensive when you
replace the computer.  And the typical user, buying a machine around
the five hundred dollar range today, unless their uses change
radically, won't have problems that will require a new machine probably for the life of the current one.

And what about technological changes itself?  If you bought a machine
in the Windows 7 days that was future proofed, in your opinion at that
time, it might not run Windows 10 now.  My understanding is, and if
I'm wrong, I'm sure I will be corrected, that a lot of Windows 7
machines won't run Windows 10 because Microsoft now requires that
different processors be used.

While I don't think that sort of thing will happen if one buys a
machine now for use seven or ten years into the future and are
attempting to future proof it, you are again gambling that newer
technologies wohn't come along that will render your computer less
useable, no matter how you future proof it now.

Gene.
-----Original Message----- From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2020 6:27 AM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

This isn't correct. Browsers, and other day to day applications even,
dramatically have increased ram usage, as well as CPU power. For
example, Zoom will only let you blur the background of video if you
have a quad core processor. If you buy a dual core as opposed to a
quad core processor for example, it will struggle at even the most
basic of tasks, and in 5 years, or even in a few years, programas even
screen readers will begin to lag. This happened with my core I5 4200M.
I thought a dual core was ok, though this was a system gifted to me.
Had I been choosing my own system then, I would've gone for an I7, and
now, this dual core is not even good enough for browsing. Large
websites will freeze it and even when I had it, intensive apps like
finereader will lag significantly independant of ram. This is exactly
I future proofed my next laptop, with a 1tb SSD, 32 gb of ram, and an
r7 4800H processor from AMD, with a 4.2 GHZ boost across all cores.
This should be powerful enough to run anything conceivable in the next
5 or so years, except maybe AI workloads.
On 10/15/2020 6:07 AM, Gene wrote:

I've seen others, and I believe you, too, make the future proof
argument for buying a more powerful computer than the person's
anticipated needs because it will be useful longer because you never
know when your needs will change. I've always thought such arguments
were not good ones. For one thing, a lot of people will continue to
use computers in about the same ways as now and if they do use them
in more demanding ways, those will not likely tax the computer if
they buy a computer that isn't just barely powerful enough to do what they want.

Also, technology continues to become more powerful and cost less. So,
in five years, the projected reliable life of a computer, you will be
able to buy one to meet your needs then for less money than you are
paying now. In addition, though it’s a gamble, many computers last
more than five years, many significantly more. Every dollar you
overspend to be future proofed that you didn't need because your
needs didn't change and all the extra power of your computer remains
unused is increasingly wasted, the longer your computer lasts.

It makes much more sense to buy a computer that is powerful enough to
meet your current needs well if you don't anticipate major changes in
how you will use your computer and are reasonably confident that you
won't do things in future that will exceed the ability of the computer.

Spending one-thousand dollars to future proof a machine, just in
case, maybe you use your machine much differently in the future, when
you could spend five hundred dollars today and three hundred dollars
in fived or seven or eight years for another machine that you would
probably use in similar ways as you do now or not much, is a bad idea.

Gene
-----Original Message----- From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Wednesday, October 14, 2020 9:27 PM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me



Hi Brian,

Just for clerification, I have confirmed 5g signals do exist in my
area for my network. Even without the massive bandwidth, the lower
latency itself will probably result in better quality improvements.
Also, all versions of the IPhone by default include 5g.


On 10/14/2020 9:18 PM, Brian Vogel wrote:
On Wed, Oct 14, 2020 at 10:11 PM, enes sarıbaş wrote:
One reason, future proofing, I want to get the highest end version of
the IPhone 12, though 5g isn't very wiedespread now, it will be in
three years or so.- I am at a loss as to how doing this, now, squares
with your own earlier assertion, "I think 5g is more significant for
fixed wireless than smartphones."

Going to a 5G device now, when it is obscenely expensive, and where
the ability to exploit 5G is limited to a very few locations, seems
to me to be a supreme waste.

And 3 years is an eternity in the world of technology, and
smartphones in particular, and what's Apple's flagship now, will be
mid-range in 3 years, and much cheaper.

Going to a 5G smartphone now, unless you live in a major metropolitan
area, is locking your money up in a frozen asset you cannot even use
for its intended purpose.

-----Original Message-----
From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Friday, October 16, 2020 6:11 AM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

Hi Gene,

I am not an ordinary user. When I purchase a computer, I will not settle
for anything less than the best. This system, while still able to run
browsers and regular websites ok, struggles and crashes freezes when
running large websites. The difference in processor technology reached
a critically dramatic point when I thhought replacing this was a good
option. Every component on my new machine should at least provide a 100%
improvement or more, even ram speeds, 1600 vs 3200.

Flaws on laptops on that price range are usually intolerable. A cheap
case will not cool properly, and will bend or warp easily. For example,
my laptop's plastic yields under the DVD drive. Cooling isn't fixable
with a cooling pad. Unfortunately with the focus on portability cooling
is taking a back seat with laptops. If fans are too small for the
thermals, or if vents are too small, that throttles down the processor.
For sighted people, the screens of such machines are terrible in
quality. And a USB keyboard adds unneeded bulk to laptops. Look at a
list of best laptops on any sight, and you won't see any machines in
your price range that make those lists. Here is an article which
describes why it makes sense to pay for a better laptop.

https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/dont-be-so-cheap-five-reasons-you-should-spend-more-on-your-next-laptop/


On 10/16/2020 5:53 AM, Gene wrote:

Few ports won't matter with hubs available and many people may well not need more than the ports offered. Keyboards, I don't know how serious a problem that is. My lapptop, I don't know if it is in the minority, as a very nice keyboard with large keys and a nice feel. While a keyboard that is more difficult or unpleasant to use than it should be would be an annoyance, at least when used at home, and laptops these days often replace desktops, its easy enough to use a USB keyboard. If this is a problem with many laptops, it is hardly a major flaw and hardly rises to the level justifying spending hundreds of dollars more to solve unless you use the laptop portably some or much of the time and you can't find a portable keyboard that satisfies your needs. Cooling? If you are talking about laptops, the person can use a cooling pad. Not a serious problem at all.

I don't know what problems you are referring to by material design. I'll look at the page, but the objections you have discussed don't justify spending more on a machine unless you want to use the laptop while away from home and a solution to a flaw makes its use unreasonably inconvenient, something I think won't happen with most of the flaws you have discussed. Then, too, people who live anywhere near a computer store or Walmart or Best Buy or other such stores can inspect computers in person. And there are always user reviews and reviews in computer magazines such as the best laptops for 2020 and other reviews such as the best laptops for 2020 costing under this or that amount of money. And there are lists like this, good places to ask what machines people are using and for evaluations or to ask about a specific machine or machines you are interested in.

In short, you can pick the flaw that either won't matter to you or will be easy to work around, given how you use the computer or you can try to find one without such flaws and I would think some computers without them perhaps many, if you look, can be found.

While your objection is interesting because it leads to a discussion of the ways to find a good computer, it doesn't justify spending more money for the majority of users.

Gene
-----Original Message----- From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Friday, October 16, 2020 3:10 AM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

Hi Gene,

Systems in that price range today have major flaws, iether few ports,
cooling, keyboard, mouse, material design. You can view notebookcheck
and similar technology sites, and read reviews for systems in different
price brackets, and all of those systems will have their flaws
mentioned. Whether these flaws matter though depends on the flaw or person.

On 10/15/2020 9:04 PM, Gene wrote:

And so are laptops. Your information is wrong. I bought a laptop about nine years ago, and certainly you would get more power for the same price now, for about 480 dollars. It has worked very well. It is not compromised. It doesn't have defects.

And no one said a 500 dollar computer is good for everyone. I'm not talking about gamers or power users. I'm talking about the majority of Internet users who stream, surf, use a word processor, record audio, and do other tasks that are not particularly demanding.


Gene
-----Original Message----- From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2020 8:44 PM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

Just because you may consider a system adequate for your own needs
doesn't mean it is for is for everyone. A system like that would have
major compremises. For clerification, I am talking about laptop prices,
desktops in that price range may in fact be midrange. What I am saying
is a minimum system for anyone should have a 6 core or so CPU, 8 gb or
16 gb of dual channel ram, an I5processor etc.

On 10/15/2020 7:08 PM, Monte Single wrote:

Hi list,
: enes sarıbaş thinks a 500 dollar computer/laptop is less than adequate for the average user.
He is not the first person on the list to express such thoughts.
The one time I spent more than that for a computer was for the first one I purchased; that was in the last millennium.
If I spent 500 u s dollars on a computer today, it would be built with quality parts and be more than adequate for the average computer user's needs.
: enes sarıbaş go forth and conquer, spend the big bucks.
Hopefully it will stimulate the economy.



-----Original Message-----
From: main@TechTalk.groups.io <main@TechTalk.groups.io> On Behalf Of Gene
Sent: October 15, 2020 5:29 PM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

That simply is not true. A lot of people have machines in the five hundred dollar range and they work fine.

And five hundred dollar machines aren't just barely competent machines.

Gene
-----Original Message-----
From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2020 4:14 PM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

No, I would not buy a 500 dollar machine. In fact, I would exclude machines below a certain build quality as a matter of principle. Is saving every little penny really worth it for a device people use 12 hours a day or more? possibly? Those machines usually have more than one major flaw, and have barebone specs. I think a power user should get a pc above the 1000 dollar range, and a regular user, if they can aford it should go around 700-800. The difference between an entry level, and even midrange computer is very apparent in build quality, as well as components. A midrange system will probably have one or two important flaws, but a budget system will have three or more, iether bad keyboard, cheap material, poor cooling, etc.

On 10/15/2020 7:15 AM, Gene wrote:

And I suspect you spent over a thousand dollars to do what a five
hundred dollar computer can do, less if on sale ormanufacturer
refurbished. I don't know enough technically to discuss some of your
technical points, but I'll say the following:
The advice I see from computer advisors is that for the majority of
people, purchasing a machine somewhere in the five hundred dollar
range will meet their needs. And even if memory requirements have
gone up for some programs, they haven't gone up nearly enough that
more than 8GB of ram is recommended for the majority of users. That
is the recommendation and it has been for years.

A little money here, a little money there, a more powerful processor,
and pretty soon, you are spending five hundred dollars or more than
you need to and gambling that your machine will last far longer than
the generally agreed on length for reliable service, five years. I
think it is a very bad gamble, not because the machine won't last
longer, it may well do so, but you are spending a lot more money now
for performance parameters that will be much less expensive when you
replace the computer. And the typical user, buying a machine around
the five hundred dollar range today, unless their uses change
radically, won't have problems that will require a new machine probably for the life of the current one.

And what about technological changes itself? If you bought a machine
in the Windows 7 days that was future proofed, in your opinion at that
time, it might not run Windows 10 now. My understanding is, and if
I'm wrong, I'm sure I will be corrected, that a lot of Windows 7
machines won't run Windows 10 because Microsoft now requires that
different processors be used.

While I don't think that sort of thing will happen if one buys a
machine now for use seven or ten years into the future and are
attempting to future proof it, you are again gambling that newer
technologies wohn't come along that will render your computer less
useable, no matter how you future proof it now.

Gene.
-----Original Message----- From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2020 6:27 AM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

This isn't correct. Browsers, and other day to day applications even,
dramatically have increased ram usage, as well as CPU power. For
example, Zoom will only let you blur the background of video if you
have a quad core processor. If you buy a dual core as opposed to a
quad core processor for example, it will struggle at even the most
basic of tasks, and in 5 years, or even in a few years, programas even
screen readers will begin to lag. This happened with my core I5 4200M.
I thought a dual core was ok, though this was a system gifted to me.
Had I been choosing my own system then, I would've gone for an I7, and
now, this dual core is not even good enough for browsing. Large
websites will freeze it and even when I had it, intensive apps like
finereader will lag significantly independant of ram. This is exactly
I future proofed my next laptop, with a 1tb SSD, 32 gb of ram, and an
r7 4800H processor from AMD, with a 4.2 GHZ boost across all cores.
This should be powerful enough to run anything conceivable in the next
5 or so years, except maybe AI workloads.
On 10/15/2020 6:07 AM, Gene wrote:

I've seen others, and I believe you, too, make the future proof
argument for buying a more powerful computer than the person's
anticipated needs because it will be useful longer because you never
know when your needs will change. I've always thought such arguments
were not good ones. For one thing, a lot of people will continue to
use computers in about the same ways as now and if they do use them
in more demanding ways, those will not likely tax the computer if
they buy a computer that isn't just barely powerful enough to do what they want.

Also, technology continues to become more powerful and cost less. So,
in five years, the projected reliable life of a computer, you will be
able to buy one to meet your needs then for less money than you are
paying now. In addition, though it’s a gamble, many computers last
more than five years, many significantly more. Every dollar you
overspend to be future proofed that you didn't need because your
needs didn't change and all the extra power of your computer remains
unused is increasingly wasted, the longer your computer lasts.

It makes much more sense to buy a computer that is powerful enough to
meet your current needs well if you don't anticipate major changes in
how you will use your computer and are reasonably confident that you
won't do things in future that will exceed the ability of the computer.

Spending one-thousand dollars to future proof a machine, just in
case, maybe you use your machine much differently in the future, when
you could spend five hundred dollars today and three hundred dollars
in fived or seven or eight years for another machine that you would
probably use in similar ways as you do now or not much, is a bad idea.

Gene
-----Original Message----- From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Wednesday, October 14, 2020 9:27 PM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me



Hi Brian,

Just for clerification, I have confirmed 5g signals do exist in my
area for my network. Even without the massive bandwidth, the lower
latency itself will probably result in better quality improvements.
Also, all versions of the IPhone by default include 5g.


On 10/14/2020 9:18 PM, Brian Vogel wrote:
On Wed, Oct 14, 2020 at 10:11 PM, enes sarıbaş wrote:
One reason, future proofing, I want to get the highest end version of
the IPhone 12, though 5g isn't very wiedespread now, it will be in
three years or so.- I am at a loss as to how doing this, now, squares
with your own earlier assertion, "I think 5g is more significant for
fixed wireless than smartphones."

Going to a 5G device now, when it is obscenely expensive, and where
the ability to exploit 5G is limited to a very few locations, seems
to me to be a supreme waste.

And 3 years is an eternity in the world of technology, and
smartphones in particular, and what's Apple's flagship now, will be
mid-range in 3 years, and much cheaper.

Going to a 5G smartphone now, unless you live in a major metropolitan
area, is locking your money up in a frozen asset you cannot even use
for its intended purpose.

-----Original Message-----
From: Gene
Sent: Friday, October 16, 2020 6:35 AM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

Even though I said I would leave the under seven hundred dollar search to
the reader, I was curious so I did it. See this article. The first laptop
reviewed is about six hundred dollars and is well reviewed. And the article
states limitations in the introduction, such limitations as you would
expect. These aren't gaming or power computers, but you can find many
computers in this price range that the article says will be satisfactory for
a lot of people.
https://www.wired.com/gallery/best-cheap-laptops/

Gene
-----Original Message-----
From: Gene
Sent: Friday, October 16, 2020 6:24 AM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

I'll add that my guess of five hundred dollars for a laptop was a guess. I
haven't priced computers for a long time. I have just done a little looking
around and it may be that better or much better laptops can be had for
something like six or seven hundred dollars. But you appear to be able to
get a machine that would meet a lot of users' needs for around six hundred
dollars, and then, such a machine would be on sale off and on, here and
there. This review is an example. How representative is it in the six
hundred dollar price range? I haven't looked at other machines in that
price range but I suspect that between six and seven hundred dollars, there
are many machines that will do.

See the review of this laptop on this page:
Microsoft Surface Go 2
https://www.tomsguide.com/best-picks/best-laptops-under-500

I specified five hundred dollars in my Google search that showed this page
in the results. I haven't done a search for something ;like best laptops
for six hundred dollars or best laptops under seven hundred dollars. As the
text books may say at times, that is left as an exercise for the reader.


Gene
-----Original Message-----
From: Gene
Sent: Friday, October 16, 2020 5:53 AM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

Few ports won't matter with hubs available and many people may well not need
more than the ports offered. Keyboards, I don't know how serious a problem
that is. My lapptop, I don't know if it is in the minority, as a very nice
keyboard with large keys and a nice feel. While a keyboard that is more
difficult or unpleasant to use than it should be would be an annoyance, at
least when used at home, and laptops these days often replace desktops, its
easy enough to use a USB keyboard. If this is a problem with many laptops,
it is hardly a major flaw and hardly rises to the level justifying spending
hundreds of dollars more to solve unless you use the laptop portably some or
much of the time and you can't find a portable keyboard that satisfies your
needs. Cooling? If you are talking about laptops, the person can use a
cooling pad. Not a serious problem at all.

I don't know what problems you are referring to by material design. I'll
look at the page, but the objections you have discussed don't justify
spending more on a machine unless you want to use the laptop while away from
home and a solution to a flaw makes its use unreasonably inconvenient,
something I think won't happen with most of the flaws you have discussed.
Then, too, people who live anywhere near a computer store or Walmart or Best
Buy or other such stores can inspect computers in person. And there are
always user reviews and reviews in computer magazines such as the best
laptops for 2020 and other reviews such as the best laptops for 2020 costing
under this or that amount of money. And there are lists like this, good
places to ask what machines people are using and for evaluations or to ask
about a specific machine or machines you are interested in.

In short, you can pick the flaw that either won't matter to you or will be
easy to work around, given how you use the computer or you can try to find
one without such flaws and I would think some computers without them perhaps
many, if you look, can be found.

While your objection is interesting because it leads to a discussion of the
ways to find a good computer, it doesn't justify spending more money for the
majority of users.

Gene
-----Original Message-----
From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Friday, October 16, 2020 3:10 AM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

Hi Gene,

Systems in that price range today have major flaws, iether few ports,
cooling, keyboard, mouse, material design. You can view notebookcheck
and similar technology sites, and read reviews for systems in different
price brackets, and all of those systems will have their flaws
mentioned. Whether these flaws matter though depends on the flaw or person.

On 10/15/2020 9:04 PM, Gene wrote:

And so are laptops. Your information is wrong. I bought a laptop about nine years ago, and certainly you would get more power for the same price now, for about 480 dollars. It has worked very well. It is not compromised. It doesn't have defects.

And no one said a 500 dollar computer is good for everyone. I'm not talking about gamers or power users. I'm talking about the majority of Internet users who stream, surf, use a word processor, record audio, and do other tasks that are not particularly demanding.


Gene
-----Original Message----- From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2020 8:44 PM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

Just because you may consider a system adequate for your own needs
doesn't mean it is for is for everyone. A system like that would have
major compremises. For clerification, I am talking about laptop prices,
desktops in that price range may in fact be midrange. What I am saying
is a minimum system for anyone should have a 6 core or so CPU, 8 gb or
16 gb of dual channel ram, an I5processor etc.

On 10/15/2020 7:08 PM, Monte Single wrote:

Hi list,
: enes sarıbaş thinks a 500 dollar computer/laptop is less than adequate for the average user.
He is not the first person on the list to express such thoughts.
The one time I spent more than that for a computer was for the first one I purchased; that was in the last millennium.
If I spent 500 u s dollars on a computer today, it would be built with quality parts and be more than adequate for the average computer user's needs.
: enes sarıbaş go forth and conquer, spend the big bucks.
Hopefully it will stimulate the economy.



-----Original Message-----
From: main@TechTalk.groups.io <main@TechTalk.groups.io> On Behalf Of Gene
Sent: October 15, 2020 5:29 PM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

That simply is not true. A lot of people have machines in the five hundred dollar range and they work fine.

And five hundred dollar machines aren't just barely competent machines.

Gene
-----Original Message-----
From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2020 4:14 PM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

No, I would not buy a 500 dollar machine. In fact, I would exclude machines below a certain build quality as a matter of principle. Is saving every little penny really worth it for a device people use 12 hours a day or more? possibly? Those machines usually have more than one major flaw, and have barebone specs. I think a power user should get a pc above the 1000 dollar range, and a regular user, if they can aford it should go around 700-800. The difference between an entry level, and even midrange computer is very apparent in build quality, as well as components. A midrange system will probably have one or two important flaws, but a budget system will have three or more, iether bad keyboard, cheap material, poor cooling, etc.

On 10/15/2020 7:15 AM, Gene wrote:

And I suspect you spent over a thousand dollars to do what a five
hundred dollar computer can do, less if on sale ormanufacturer
refurbished. I don't know enough technically to discuss some of your
technical points, but I'll say the following:
The advice I see from computer advisors is that for the majority of
people, purchasing a machine somewhere in the five hundred dollar
range will meet their needs. And even if memory requirements have
gone up for some programs, they haven't gone up nearly enough that
more than 8GB of ram is recommended for the majority of users. That
is the recommendation and it has been for years.

A little money here, a little money there, a more powerful processor,
and pretty soon, you are spending five hundred dollars or more than
you need to and gambling that your machine will last far longer than
the generally agreed on length for reliable service, five years. I
think it is a very bad gamble, not because the machine won't last
longer, it may well do so, but you are spending a lot more money now
for performance parameters that will be much less expensive when you
replace the computer. And the typical user, buying a machine around
the five hundred dollar range today, unless their uses change
radically, won't have problems that will require a new machine probably for the life of the current one.

And what about technological changes itself? If you bought a machine
in the Windows 7 days that was future proofed, in your opinion at that
time, it might not run Windows 10 now. My understanding is, and if
I'm wrong, I'm sure I will be corrected, that a lot of Windows 7
machines won't run Windows 10 because Microsoft now requires that
different processors be used.

While I don't think that sort of thing will happen if one buys a
machine now for use seven or ten years into the future and are
attempting to future proof it, you are again gambling that newer
technologies wohn't come along that will render your computer less
useable, no matter how you future proof it now.

Gene.
-----Original Message----- From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2020 6:27 AM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me

This isn't correct. Browsers, and other day to day applications even,
dramatically have increased ram usage, as well as CPU power. For
example, Zoom will only let you blur the background of video if you
have a quad core processor. If you buy a dual core as opposed to a
quad core processor for example, it will struggle at even the most
basic of tasks, and in 5 years, or even in a few years, programas even
screen readers will begin to lag. This happened with my core I5 4200M.
I thought a dual core was ok, though this was a system gifted to me.
Had I been choosing my own system then, I would've gone for an I7, and
now, this dual core is not even good enough for browsing. Large
websites will freeze it and even when I had it, intensive apps like
finereader will lag significantly independant of ram. This is exactly
I future proofed my next laptop, with a 1tb SSD, 32 gb of ram, and an
r7 4800H processor from AMD, with a 4.2 GHZ boost across all cores.
This should be powerful enough to run anything conceivable in the next
5 or so years, except maybe AI workloads.
On 10/15/2020 6:07 AM, Gene wrote:

I've seen others, and I believe you, too, make the future proof
argument for buying a more powerful computer than the person's
anticipated needs because it will be useful longer because you never
know when your needs will change. I've always thought such arguments
were not good ones. For one thing, a lot of people will continue to
use computers in about the same ways as now and if they do use them
in more demanding ways, those will not likely tax the computer if
they buy a computer that isn't just barely powerful enough to do what they want.

Also, technology continues to become more powerful and cost less. So,
in five years, the projected reliable life of a computer, you will be
able to buy one to meet your needs then for less money than you are
paying now. In addition, though it’s a gamble, many computers last
more than five years, many significantly more. Every dollar you
overspend to be future proofed that you didn't need because your
needs didn't change and all the extra power of your computer remains
unused is increasingly wasted, the longer your computer lasts.

It makes much more sense to buy a computer that is powerful enough to
meet your current needs well if you don't anticipate major changes in
how you will use your computer and are reasonably confident that you
won't do things in future that will exceed the ability of the computer.

Spending one-thousand dollars to future proof a machine, just in
case, maybe you use your machine much differently in the future, when
you could spend five hundred dollars today and three hundred dollars
in fived or seven or eight years for another machine that you would
probably use in similar ways as you do now or not much, is a bad idea.

Gene
-----Original Message----- From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Wednesday, October 14, 2020 9:27 PM
To: main@TechTalk.groups.io
Subject: Re: [TechTalk] 5g and me



Hi Brian,

Just for clerification, I have confirmed 5g signals do exist in my
area for my network. Even without the massive bandwidth, the lower
latency itself will probably result in better quality improvements.
Also, all versions of the IPhone by default include 5g.


On 10/14/2020 9:18 PM, Brian Vogel wrote:
On Wed, Oct 14, 2020 at 10:11 PM, enes sarıbaş wrote:
One reason, future proofing, I want to get the highest end version of
the IPhone 12, though 5g isn't very wiedespread now, it will be in
three years or so.- I am at a loss as to how doing this, now, squares
with your own earlier assertion, "I think 5g is more significant for
fixed wireless than smartphones."

Going to a 5G device now, when it is obscenely expensive, and where
the ability to exploit 5G is limited to a very few locations, seems
to me to be a supreme waste.

And 3 years is an eternity in the world of technology, and
smartphones in particular, and what's Apple's flagship now, will be
mid-range in 3 years, and much cheaper.

Going to a 5G smartphone now, unless you live in a major metropolitan
area, is locking your money up in a frozen asset you cannot even use
for its intended purpose.