Newer Laptop Design Irritations

[MichaelBits]

Alright...
So we're all irritated by the ongoing trend of making Laptops more difficult to access internal components.

We no longer have access panels on the back for the HDD, Ram, WiFi.
Even more irritating when you not only have to remove the entire bottom case to get to the HDD, but also have to pull the motherboard.

Which brings me to the latest trend I've noticed that irritates the crap outta me...
No indicator lights of any kind!!!
No HDD activity light?! No battery charging light!!! Not even a power on led!

I just worked on a Laptop that had no indicator lights whatsoever....
I really like having the HDD indicator light especially.

Well, what's next I wonder...
What design factors irritate y'all?

 

[fincoder]

I just worked on a Laptop that had no indicator lights whatsoever....

Was it a HP? These seem to have very tiny LEDs in places you can't see. Charge light on the left at the rear next to the DC jack, power and HDD lights on the right. When using the laptop in the normal position, you can't see these lights!

 

[MichaelBits]

Was it a HP?

That it was.

I checked all those areas, could not find a single indicator light. Not even the tiny one for charging by the adapter port.
I was in disbelief. I actually picked it up and spun it around in my hands, checked all sides, bottom, top.... couldn't find a single indicator light.

 

[coffee]

Ive noticed this on a few laptops that came in the door. I dont remember which manufacturer the were from though. How stupid. Like others here Im sure I want to watch the HD activity when troubleshooting issues.

I guess its time to buy some LED's and drill some holes - lol.

 

[johnrobert]

This is something I have always hated
no indicator lights to monitor HD
Apple started it off, typical of what they would do

 

[Big Jim]

I've found newer laptops much easier to get in to generally.
Although i am talking specifically about ones that are less than 3 years old.

Latest trend is a keyboard that is plastic welded to the top part of the chassis.
Which means either a bodge repair to replace keyboard or trying to find used (working) parts on ebay,etc

 

[carmen617]

Capacitive screws that strip.
MacBooks with no other holes in them except ONE GODDAM USB-C PORT
Dell telling me that my Dell 90 watt power adapter is not recognized because it's not a Dell 65 watt power adapter

 

[HCHTech]

Where do you even start?

• Crap touchpads
• No separate buttons by the crap touchpads
• Why are they still selling laptops with spinning disks?
• poorly-made power adapters
• why aren't ALL power jacks on replaceable daughterboards?
• hinges with operational lifetimes of about 100 open/closes
• Combination: horrible sounding speakers + 3x3 sticker proclaiming Bose HD Audio!!! Feel the power!!
• Shift and Enter keys with non-standard shapes (touch typists *love* this)
• Shift and Enter keys in non-standard locations (touch typists *love* this even more)
• No lights to signal capslock or numlock
• too-thin case clips (do those barbed plastic bits have a proper name?) that have a 50/50 chance of breaking at the first attempt of separating the top and bottom plates, and a 80% chance if you're unlucky enough to be the second one to take it apart.
• one RAM slot on the top of the motherboard, one on the bottom
• complete disassembly required to get at those last two screws holding the display on
• many have too few screws holding them together making the whole thing "wobbly" right out of the box
• 10 different sizes and lengths of screws used in assembly when it could have just-as-easily been designed with 2 or 3.

Phew - I'm tired. What was the question again?

 

[sapphirescales]

Where do you even start?

• Crap touchpads
• No separate buttons by the crap touchpads
• Why are they still selling laptops with spinning disks?
• poorly-made power adapters
• why aren't ALL power jacks on replaceable daughterboards?
• hinges with operational lifetimes of about 100 open/closes
• Combination: horrible sounding speakers + 3x3 sticker proclaiming Bose HD Audio!!! Feel the power!!
• Shift and Enter keys with non-standard shapes (touch typists *love* this)
• Shift and Enter keys in non-standard locations (touch typists *love* this even more)
• No lights to signal capslock or numlock
• too-thin case clips (do those barbed plastic bits have a proper name?) that have a 50/50 chance of breaking at the first attempt of separating the top and bottom plates, and a 80% chance if you're unlucky enough to be the second one to take it apart.
• one RAM slot on the top of the motherboard, one on the bottom
• complete disassembly required to get at those last two screws holding the display on
• many have too few screws holding them together making the whole thing "wobbly" right out of the box
• 10 different sizes and lengths of screws used in assembly when it could have just-as-easily been designed with 2 or 3.

Phew - I'm tired. What was the question again?

Laptops these days are designed to be as cheap as possible to manufacturer. It's cheaper to have less parts than all these separate pieces, hence one of the main reasons for the integrated keyboard/trackpad/palm rest and the trackpad having no actual buttons.

Some laptops are made with such cheapo plastic that the hinges break after only a few times of opening and closing the laptop. Then when you go to take it apart, you can't help but physically booger it up because the plastic literally melts under the stress of using a nylon opening tool. And of course, broken clips abound.

I wouldn't be surprised if they started making laptops made of cardboard. They've gone so cheapo now, there's really no cheaper material available other than cardboard.

 

[GTP]

Which brings me to the latest trend I've noticed that irritates the crap outta me...
No indicator lights of any kind!!!
No HDD activity light?! No battery charging light!!! Not even a power on led!

This ^^

Where do you even start?

• Crap touchpads
• No separate buttons by the crap touchpads
• Why are they still selling laptops with spinning disks?
• poorly-made power adapters
• why aren't ALL power jacks on replaceable daughterboards?
• hinges with operational lifetimes of about 100 open/closes
• Combination: horrible sounding speakers + 3x3 sticker proclaiming Bose HD Audio!!! Feel the power!!
• Shift and Enter keys with non-standard shapes (touch typists *love* this)
• Shift and Enter keys in non-standard locations (touch typists *love* this even more)
• No lights to signal capslock or numlock
• too-thin case clips (do those barbed plastic bits have a proper name?) that have a 50/50 chance of breaking at the first attempt of separating the top and bottom plates, and a 80% chance if you're unlucky enough to be the second one to take it apart.
• one RAM slot on the top of the motherboard, one on the bottom
• complete disassembly required to get at those last two screws holding the display on
• many have too few screws holding them together making the whole thing "wobbly" right out of the box
• 10 different sizes and lengths of screws used in assembly when it could have just-as-easily been designed with 2 or 3.

Phew - I'm tired. What was the question again?

...and this! ^^
Plus 32GB ssd's, that cannot be upgraded!
Celeron and Pentuim processors that people think should work as well as an i9 9900K because "we paid $300 for that laptop!"

 

[lan101]

This ^^

...and this! ^^
Plus 32GB ssd's, that cannot be upgraded!
Celeron and Pentuim processors that people think should work as well as an i9 9900K because "we paid $300 for that laptop!"

Yeah that one is super annoying. I think walmart just wants to keep selling that low end junk in hopes that people keep coming back for more low end junk. With ssd prices falling etc. there's no reason at this point that every laptop shouldn't have at least a 250gb ssd.

But let's face it, if they did that people wouldn't have to replace these junk laptops nearly as often because the speed would hold up pretty well for most of the basic tasks.

 

[coffee]

The totally flat keys on the keyboard. Kinda gone are the chicklet type keys. I see a lot of crap laptops with these flat keys and no ridges for the F and J keys. So, Your constantly looking to make sure your fingers are resting on the right keys. Besides, This flat design of keyboard and keys is just uncomfortable as all get out.

 

[nerd2u]

Worked on a Toshiba last week that had something like 20 screws holding the bottom cover on.

I find actual business class models still have access ports. I love working on older Lenovo ThinkPad T series everything is easily accessible

Sent from my SM-G870W using Tapatalk

 

[carmen617]

Worked on a Toshiba last week that had something like 20 screws holding the bottom cover on.

I find actual business class models still have access ports. I love working on older Lenovo ThinkPad T series everything is easily accessible

Sent from my SM-G870W using Tapatalk

I'm swapping out a hard drive on one of those right now. Have to say, as annoying as those screws holding the bottom on are (even two holding the battery in place instead of battery release clips, for crying out loud), and as nerve wracking as it is to try to release the bottom's plastic clips without breaking any of them, it's still better than the Dells that make you remove the motherboard to access the hard drive, or the HP that makes you remove the keyboard, the top of the machine, and the USB ports.

Truthfully, what was so hard about creating access panels?

 

[pcpete]

looking at it in a positive way, we charge $50 extra for swapping an HD to an SSD if it does not have an easy access panel

 

[Porthos]

Model # and google images.

 

[Diggs]

looking at it in a positive way, we charge $50 extra for swapping an HD to an SSD if it does not have an easy access panel

I need to look at doing this. The amount of time difference is substantial between an access hatch and splitting the laptop in half.

 

[MichaelBits]

Why are they still selling laptops with spinning disks?

Actually one step further.... why are they gimping good systems with crap HDD's?

2 newer laptops I worked recently (yes one of them was the one with no leds), had nice specs until you got to the HDD. The one was a nice 17" 1980 screen, newer i7 and 8G of ram. Yet it had a 1TB 5400rpm craptastic HDD. The HDD was literally bottle necking the entire system.

 

[pcpete]

Actually one step further.... why are they gimping good systems with crap HDD's?

2 newer laptops I worked recently (yes one of them was the one with no leds), had nice specs until you got to the HDD. The one was a nice 17" 1980 screen, newer i7 and 8G of ram. Yet it had a 1TB 5400rpm craptastic HDD. The HDD was literally bottle necking the entire system.

it is insanity

 

[HCHTech]

it is insanity

Agreed. For almost any laptop we order for the residential side of the business, you can get well-specced models with a spinning disk for way cheaper than their lowest priced SSD-equipped model, so we just order those and swap in an SSD before delivery. We charge a fixed rate for this depending on the size of the SSD. We also offer the original drive in an enclosure as a backup drive, but most folks don't want them (sigh). In that event, the disk goes into the "New Pull" pile to be used theoretically when we're replacing a disk and folks turn down the upgrade-to-SSD offer. Doesn't happen often, so we're getting quite a stock of the new-pulls.