A computer for life

It's easy to think about computers today as always present on our person, the smartphone. They're useful for many things, but addictive in equal measures.

Strangely alonside this new addiction side-effect computers today have another side-effect we don't notice: price.

Price is a proxy for value and if we get more value I'm all for increased price. Sadly the trend today is to get less value, less use out of a computer that somehow asks for a higher price.

AI has now made this worse. As an industry AI is vastly a service business, rent what compute you need vs a DIY gig, and so it follows that computers with AI cost more.

But they don't just have a higher outlay, they also have a higher recurring expense via subscriptions - a topic I might write on later.

For the sake of the argument I wanted to outline the marketing reasons for computers and why they are unnecesary.

Design

Design is valuable and design is important. I'm a huge fan of nice looking and functioning objects, but neither I not Deiter Rams would disagree that good design is a synonim to expensive design.

Soviet design for example is somewhat brutal, stark, bold, yet cheap and easy to mass produce.

Yet today in 2025, computer designs warrant a high price tag.

Why? Because... we buy it and buying gives businesses the signal that this is what we want and that they can charge more.

Repairability

We've all had computers fail and require repairs. Repairs are not chear, the computer itself was not cheap and we're constantly worried about what happens with our device once it's at a service. What happens to our data?

Sadly, the newer the computer and the "better" the less repairable it is.

The cause for this is tied to design:

Business wants nicer design -> They posit that "nice" = "small" -> Smaller devices means less space inside for accessible mounts, more use of tape and glue, less room for device saving features like (liquid draining)

But therein lies the problem, a company design is subjective. Over time it can become a universal looks for the object, but initially it's a choice we're given. So I ask myself why would I want a device that is harder to repair?

UX

We all remember the Apple butterfly keyboard incident from a few years back? The summary is that Apple in their chase for smaller, redesign the keyboard switches, the new design felt weird and was prone to dust damage. Yes you read that right, the if tiniest bit of dust would get under the key you're done for.

Yet millions of these buterfly keyboard computers sold at a minimum price of ~800 GBP.

The public will bought them even though you were getting a laptop that was not as nice to use day to day.

The removal of headphone jacks and ports is another UX faux pas, leaving the public stuck with dongles and somehow prices are going up.

Software

Windows is the classic culprit for the idea of bad software that sells well. But lately we see more and more companies "skin" the os or loading up new computer with pre-packaged software and in some cases pre-packaged malware.

Apple for example has a trained skill in producing new versions of Mac OS that are locked in step with the newest hardware, leaving a customer with an older device with a noticeably slower device.

They incentives with software is to make more money, whether from forcing more future purchases or from data collection.

Android is no exception to this with Google services being know to send user data to Google in support of their ad delivery platform.

Today's computer

In other words today's computer is not a computer for life. We've grown acustomed to believing and buying into the idea that a computer is both a high-price item and an item that you should replace at regular intervals.

A computer is not a stable platform for work, but a source of change because big manufacturers want to experiment, cut manufacturing costs, increase ad revenue. But to all this negativity there's a potential solution

Alternatives

Before I describe the alternatives I need to start with the software. Software is what allows us that stable platform, that universal common denominator across hardware. Although not perfect by any means Linux is the best option we have right now for a stable software base.

Core features like browing the web, word processing, playing games is available across all flavours of Linux and the experience of using 1 flavour vs the other is relatively unchanged.

On the mobile software side iOS is locked and Android is not, so the option is clear. But stock Android comes with Google services so we only have 2 options: either a De-Googled Android, or mobile Linux.

Mobile Linux is sadly still being developed on and is only stable on a handful of phones. You also loose out on any Android apps and have to depend on the browser for banking etc.

Of the De-Googled Android flavours, GrapheneOS is the best example of a simple os that mimicks Android whilst kicking out Google services and still maintaining security.

With the software in place we can now consider some hardware.

To a degree the software will have an impact on the hardware. Linux is largely supported, but newer hardware is more likely to cause issues. Equally really old hardware can become unsupported by the kernels.

Thinkpads are by far the best computer for the money.

Thinkpads are cheap on the used market. They feature good hardware that is usually upgradeable. They feature easy to repair designs and detailed manuals on how to replace and troubleshoot any issue.

Thinkpads also offer the best keyboards on the market. Keyboards that have largely remained unchanged and constant.

You're computer will always be a stable unchanging tool with a Thinkpad.

As for phones, the Pixel phones are the best option because most of security updates are made in the open and GrapheOS can use these to maintain the security of their OS.