My current laptop is rapidly approaching its fourth birthday. Overall, it’s still running very well. True, its days as platform for running brand new games is numbered, but it still does everything else just fine (and I still have a nice tidy game backlog that could, in theory, tide me over for at least a few more years if I really wanted to squeeze as much life out of the device as possible).
And yet last month I still caught the “I want to buy a new device” bug. Specifically, I wanted to buy another laptop. Not as a replacement, but as a supplement. Something smaller and lighter, with better battery life, that I could more easily take downstairs or into bed.
In the end, I didn’t get anything. As usual, my desire for something shiny and new was overridden by my crippling resistance to replacing electronics that are perfectly usable and functional. Buying a new device just so that I can more easily type in certain parts of my house feels like the very definition of overindulgence.
Instead, I tried to repurpose my wife’s old 2015 Macbook Pro, which had long been left unused and unloved. It was certainly small enough and light enough for my needs, and I figured the battery life couldn’t be any worse than my main laptop. The only lingering question was whether it would be fast enough.
I knew it was (and is) a pretty old device, but I also knew that all I intended to use it for is writing blog posts. Surely there was enough horsepower to do that.
Right?
So far the answer is “yes”, though there was a bit of a scare at one point. The reformatting and reinstallation process was relatively quick, and once it was all updated, it seemed as if the device was still sufficiently snappy and responsive. Even better, it was able to run the Big Sur version of Mac OS, which is at least still being supported.
But then I installed Visual Studio Code with two - just two! - plugins, and found that there was a noticeable lag after every key press. It was enough to dissuade me from using the laptop for my intended purposes, but thankfully I found a solution. Per a Github issue on the VSCode repo, running the following command on the terminal did the trick:
codesign --remove-signature \
/Applications/Visual\ Studio\ Code.app/Contents/Frameworks/Code\
\ Helper\ \(Renderer\).app
Now VSCode and my Hugo server run smooth as butter, and I can easily use this device for blogging. I got my wish, and I didn’t have to spend a dime to do so. And I didn’t have to spend a dime to do so!
Other Stuff
- I almost ended up putting Linux on this laptop, but then I read a bit about the process, and it seemed like a pain in the butt. I still may end up doing it once Big Sur stops getting security updates, but only because then I’d have to.
- It’s been a while since I regularly used Mac OS, but it doesn’t feel like all that much has changed in the meantime. I cannot overstate how nice it is to feel comfortable using all the major desktop environments, including Gnome and KDE.
- I don’t intend to do all my blogging on this little thing; the screen is a little too small and too low resolution. My intention is that I’ll use it when I have to/want to do some writing somewhere other than my office, when I need the portability. But in cases where the office is fine and/or preferable - or if I simply need to take a close look at Gunpla photos - I’ll use the main laptop instead.
- The first computer I got for myself lasted me eight years. By the time I got rid of it, it was ungodly slow. The second computer I got for myself lasted me another eight years. By the time I got rid of it, it was ungodly slow. This MBP is now almost eight years old, and while it isn’t going to run anything heavy duty, it isn’t anywhere close to being ungodly slow for basic tasks. The lesson here is that SSDs really and truly are the greatest difference maker in regards to PC performance.
- I have a feeling that my current main laptop won’t last me the same amount of time. In addition to the fact that it won’t play newer PC games, I’m also worried that it’s not going to have enough storage for my needs. But even if I get five years out of it, that’s still a pretty good lifespan (especially since I didn’t break the bank to buy it). We’ll have to wait and see.
- This laptop will work fine provided that I continue to only use it for blogging. With only 128GB of total space on its SSD, I can’t afford to really load it up with much of anything else.
- Speaking of Gunpla, I’m working on a new build, but it’s taking a while. You’ll understand why once it’s finally finished.
- That being said, I’m not sure if it will be finished this month. This may be a case where I wrap it up in the first week of February, and then chase it with another, smaller build that’s done at the end of Feb. It’ll look like two builds in one month, even though it’s really not.