Hey, recently I’ve been browsing r/thinkpad alot and have been a part of the ThinkPad craze. I’ve noticed that lots of people, especially on that subreddit, still use Dual-Core CPUs, and deem them as more than capable, or enough.
I’ve been in the US for almost 5 years now, but I used to live in Brazil back in 2019. I’ve never owned a laptop with a quad-core CPU if I’m not mistaken, and I don’t think I’ve ever had more than 8GB of RAM (except on a Desktop) before moving here. I’ve grown accustomed to having a decent laptop, and desktop while living here, as well as a up-to-date phone, etc.

I’m curious to know what are people’s thought on older CPUs and usability of older hardware. I currently own a laptop with an i7 6th gen, which is Dual-Core and 8gbs and it really doesn’t get any attention, be it for watching youtube or doing online, browser-related study or just reddit browsing.

I couldn’t really picture myself using anything that doesn’t have 16GB Ram, and 4 cores, and preferably not freezing or having slowdowns, but after considering moving back to Brasil, and knowing the situation, especially for tech, since everything is harder to obtain and wayy more expensive, I’ve started question myself how many people are still using dual-core systems, that are happy with it and don’t see anything wrong with that.

I’d like to give the old X1 Carbon 4th gen another try and see how much my view could change. I know hardware has been getting a little cheaper in some ways and quad-core and higher CPUs have been popular for a few years, but I’m not sure that it’s still accessible to everyone as I’d like to think.

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Thanks in advance!

  • Technical_Mission339@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    My laptop is a Lenovo 12-inch Thinkpad X270. It was only bought last year because I desperately needed a laptop and didn’t have much money for it. The CPU is a Core i5-6300U, 8 GB of RAM, two 256 GB SSDs and the FHD touchscreen. At home it is connected to a Lenovo Ultra Dock and a 29" widescreen. Ubuntu / Windows 10 dual boot.

    I’m using one for watching videos, mails, studying and coding (just basic webdev stuff). The apps I’m mostly using right now besides the usual stuff are Pro Tools, IntelliJ IDEA and Webstorm, so not just super light stuff, I’d say. The fans are pretty much always running, which doesn’t really bother me. For watching videos…Anything beyond 1080p gets choppy.

    Ubuntu generally feels a bit more responsive than Windows, but Windows is perfectly usable IMO.

    Is it perfect? No. I’d rather have a current gen Lifebook if I had the choice. But it’s definitely not as bad and unusable as I’ve read in other posts. I might have to upgrade eventually, but at this point in time I see little reason to get anything better.