Greener Laptops

My 4yr old Dell Inspiron recently fell apart, much like the car in the Blues Brothers movie. Bits and pieces had been falling off for years. But the last straw was when I removed the old Intel Inside sticker on the front. The sticker itself has been worn smooth of any color years ago, polished to a mirror sheen.

But somehow, this was the magic holding the the thing together. The next day, the screen hinges broke, making the screen angle float freely to any position, usually wherever gravity took it, including down on my hands. And then the case broke altogether.

I "fixed" it with my trusty glue gun. But alas, some of the glue migrated to one of the fans and now the thing overheats and runs in slow motion. It’s seen its last days.

So I’ve been looking for a new laptop. Price is certainly a consideration. But subtler issues surround the laptop choice. I tried a MacBook pro back in January. But it also had "screen hinge issues" that I described earlier. Apparently, they only tested using the laptop on a level surface. My wooden frame to hold the screen open when you tilt the laptop more than 20 degrees worked, but proved too much of a pain to use. So I gave the laptop to my brother, who needed a new mac anyway.

And so I’m still looking. One of the more recent considerations I’ve realized, sitting with a pile of laptop parts near my nightstand, is recyclability and greenness. So I found this ranking you might find interesting:

How the companies line up | Greenpeace International

Apple comes out near the bottom of the list, both for toxic parts used and for recycling of junked parts. So I might just stick with Dell, if they return to some sort of competitive pricing. Even with the 20% coupons you can typically find, the deals aren’t so great lately.

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