The Rise of "Disposable" computing?

[VirtualLarry]

Well, I figured I might as well be the one to bring this up. But it's been happening for a while. Apple really spearheaded it.

Now (last year or maybe two?), most entry-level devices (actually, "UltraBooks" too), have non-removable / upgradable / replaceable batteries. Which is bad for the environment. At least, some of those devices, may be able to be mfg'er-replaced, or possibly by third parties.

But even worse than that, now, is the rise of eMMC main storage that is soldered on. Non-removable, non-upgradable, non-replacable, and worse yet, non-destroyable and non-recoverable.

At least, some batteries, though internal and "non-replaceable" by users, might actually be able to replaced by a tech.

But eMMC, being likely BGA and soldered-on, is a much harder replacement, and likely not worth it, given the price of the device.

That makes these newer devices TRULY "disposable", which is sad. You would think that perhaps, just perhaps, these companies might have though of using some sort of socket for eMMC chips, like a PCGG (or whatever they've called?), that would allow replacement, or possibly even upgrades.

Yes, feel free to blame me too, for purchasing some of these (the $60 Winbook TW700 tablets, and an HP Stream 7). But I place the primary responsibility on the mfg's. At least, the back of the HP Stream 7 is removable (has to be, to access the microSD slot), and the battery pack looks like it could be replaced by a tech.

It seems bizarre, really, that the tech industry, with the rise of increasing amounts of "e-waste", are taking this path, just to save $2-5 a unit on their devices. I guess they decided to de-facto forcibly enforce "planned obsolescence", by creating devices that intentionally fail after a certain lifespan.

Or maybe eMMC wearout is not as big a factor as I think it is. I don't know if most eMMC is MLC or TLC. If it's MLC it may not be as big a factor, but the smaller sizes of it are still an issue.

Edit: Some workarounds, for internal battery failure, are getting one of those external Li-Ion / Li-Poly battery packs, with a 2.1A 5V output, which would work. I suppose if the device with eMMC, supports microSD/HC/XC, AND supports booting off of it (many may not), then you could always put Windows, or at least, some flavor of Linux on a bootable microSD card, and continue to use the device if the internal storage won't boot. (Speaking of recent x86 / Windows 8.1 tablets, I don't know enough about Android devices with eMMC, if their bootloader will allow booting Linux / Android off of a microSD.)

Edit: I downloaded and ran HDTune on my Winbook TW700. It reports a "Kingston S10016 (15GB)"
http://media.kingston.com/pdfs/emmc/eMMC_Product_flyer.pdf

It appears to be eMMC 5.0, which I believe is the newest standard, which is a good thing. It supposedly supports TRIM, and secure erase too, although I'm curious how you would send those commands to it. I don't believe eMMC shows up as a SATA interface, or perhaps it does. I'm not sure. (I'm talking hardware-level, not OS-level.)

 

[OlyAR15]

Pure BS. Since when has personal computing not been disposable? All those computer upgrades in the past, where did the old and obsolete parts go? How often were they upgraded? I know personally that my PCs were upgraded often,usually annually if not sooner. The parts still worked of course, just that they were obsolete. And then there are smartphones that are upgraded well before they ever wear out. So what is the incentive for making parts last when they will most likely be disposed of well before they actually break. And the reason for non-user replaceable parts is size reduction rather than planned obsolescence.

 

[NTMBK]

Show the manufacturers what you want, and only buy user-repairable devices. On my Venue 11 Pro the following components are all user replaceable and upgradeable:

-SSD
-WiFi modem
-HSPA/LTE modem
-battery

Unfortunately the memory is soldered down and non-upgradeable, but this is necessary for the short traces required by LPDDR3- and obviously the SoC is soldered down.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Pure BS. Since when has personal computing not been disposable?

How is this BS? Laptops ALWAYS used to have REMOVABLE HDDs and BATTERIES, since those are the two components that fail most often. Most used to also have removable RAM, Wifi card, and even a socketed CPU, for CPU upgrades, or configuration flexibility for the OEM.

All those computer upgrades in the past, where did the old and obsolete parts go? How often were they upgraded? I know personally that my PCs were upgraded often,usually annually if not sooner. The parts still worked of course, just that they were obsolete.

If nothing else, you can always give away parts to someone that could use them. Not everyone is on a every-year upgrade cycle like you.

And then there are smartphones that are upgraded well before they ever wear out. So what is the incentive for making parts last when they will most likely be disposed of well before they actually break. And the reason for non-user replaceable parts is size reduction rather than planned obsolescence.

Not everyone upgrades their phone every year. I'm thankful that my entry-level smartphone, was built before this disposable computing took off, so the battery is replaceable. Good thing too, because I was losing capacity on my battery, so guess what, I replaced it.

Modern devices don't even give you that option.

 

[cbn]

Edit: I downloaded and ran HDTune on my Winbook TW700. It reports a "Kingston S10016 (15GB)"
http://media.kingston.com/pdfs/emmc/eMMC_Product_flyer.pdf

It appears to be eMMC 5.0, which I believe is the newest standard, which is a good thing. It supposedly supports TRIM, and secure erase too, although I'm curious how you would send those commands to it. I don't believe eMMC shows up as a SATA interface, or perhaps it does. I'm not sure. (I'm talking hardware-level, not OS-level.)

I didn't know Bay Trail supported eMMC 5.0?

I do know that trim is supported on eMMC 4.51 though.

 

[KingFatty]

Consider how people vote with their wallets:

Device #1 = user replaceable/upgradeable parts, costs $500
Device #2 = nothing upgradeable, but costs $299

Both devices have the same performance, so everyone buys device #2.

That's the thing I think missing here - the hidden cost savings by making things non-upgradeable and soldered in - you can avoid needing the extra robust constructions and interconnects and all the other issues that raise costs for allowing upgradeability.

My numbers may be off, but I just think maybe economic forces are moving things toward disposable - they are just more desirable and affordable so people naturally want them.

When was the last time you complained about buying a radio where you couldn't upgrade the vacuum tubes and transformer? Or buying a TV where you couldn't upgrade the backlight and audio amplifier?

Just as we don't care about upgrading other commodity electronics, we are arriving at a time where we won't care about upgrading tablets and laptops. We consume on those devices, so don't need to upgrade them. The experience of watching a movie or surfing the internet is just as good years ago as today, and the experience is the same so I don't need to upgrade.

 

[fleshconsumed]

It's intentional. Part of it is because customers demand smaller and thinner devices that are much easier to make when everything is soldered. Part of it is because the payoff is a a lot more than $2-4, by making everything as hard as possible upgrade/repair manufacturers get a) faster upgrade cycles when customer realizes that 4GB/128GB is not enough and is forced to buy a whole new machine to get 8GB/256GB configuration, and b) more service money because nothing is easy to fix now, in some cases the snap-on tabs that hold a case together are one use only, the back case cannot be removed without breaking the tabs so customer would have to buy new back case just to be able to put his device back together (this is the case with some of the seagate/hitachi external hard drive enclosures).

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Your basic, 8088 IBM-PC came with 64MB of RAM, a clock-speed of about 5Mhz, and a handful of ISA expansion ports. They could easily envision a need for additional functionality, the use of sensor controllers, video cards and other areas not at the center of their own enterprise.

For hobbyists -- who really spearheaded the micro-computer paradigm's emerging market (pre-Trash-80, with different competing companies) -- it was ideal. It was no less ideal than for GM to build subsidiaries where there was a common compatibility among subsystems and parts.

So the micro-computer became the "PC," and the PC continued to follow a standard of modularity.

What has happened derives from a highly competitive market for "beam-me-up Scotty" devices -- cellphones and tablets. Unless used within a wireless LAN, these devices require subscription access for their main purpose: communication with scratch-pad features.

The micro-wave communication industry had its own regulatory evolution and technological evolution. I remember a time when cell-phones were major status symbols that complemented the "solid-gold Cadillac." A handheld cellphone was just a bit smaller than a military field radio.

Miniaturization and cost of production have taken their toll of modularity.

An assumption I want to make is that eliminating the number of repair-and-replacement options means that the life-span of the device is limited to the first damaged sub-component. So they integrate cell-phone replacement with expanding subscription options. Instead of buying occasional expansion cards and peripherals, software and operating systems, the subscription is a guaranteed continuous time-stream of money, maybe an annual contract of automatic renewal with terms.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

I've noticed this as well... Horrible.
And yes, I blame Apple for starting this whole madness...

 

[jhu]

I've noticed this as well... Horrible.
And yes, I blame Apple for starting this whole madness...

Apple was just filling demand. Blame people for wanting cheaper, thinner computing devices.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

This has been going on for a long time. And it is part of the reason that, as I mentioned in your other thread, VL, the money to be made is in support, training, and consulting - not hardware.

 

[scannall]

iPad, iPhone and MacBook batteries can be replaced by Apple for $99 or less. With the added bonus of the old batteries actually being recycled instead of ending up in a landfill.

 

[Piroko]

Imho there's also another side of that coin. Back in the 90s battery swapping was very common and needed, because many batteries went bad within two years tops. NIMHs and the early LI-ions were terrible...
But about ten years ago battery tech improved dramatically. Stuff like my PSP Slim, old Sony flip phone, old Dell Vostro 1500... - all of them still have their original batteries and run just fine. Especially LI-Polymer batteries have been an absolute charm for me.

Storage as well, the old USB sticks were hit-and-miss, few survived more than a year with me until they had corruption issues. But in the past five years? I have a cheap 8GB one plugged into my car stereo for about 3 years now and it shows no sign of fatigue.

Just look around, at least I still see lots of 2011/2012 business notebooks and iphone 4's and I doubt that all of them had to be refurbed. Electronics might be harder to repair by yourself now, but life expectancy is a lot longer now even for high performance products.

 

[gmaster456]

Less user replaceable parts is where the industry has been heading for years now. For hobbyists and geeks the sky might as well be falling but for general users, most will neither notice or care.

Say I have an HP Stream 14 and after 2 years or so the battery craps out for whatever reason, I no longer have a use for it etc. I'm not going to go bury it in my back yard or throw it in the river. There's recycling centers all over for the express purpose of properly disposing of used electronics in an environmentally safe manner.

 

[escrow4]

Why would I bother to upgrade a $200 tablet? Chuck it and replace. Some things there is no point replacing. I have a cheapo Lenovo Edge laptop which you can yank the back out and replace the CPU fan, add an mSATA SSD, swap out the HDD, and adjust the RAM. That I do like though.

 

[gmaster456]

Why would I bother to upgrade a $200 tablet? Chuck it and replace. Some things there is no point replacing. I have a cheapo Lenovo Edge laptop which you can yank the back out and replace the CPU fan, add an mSATA SSD, swap out the HDD, and adjust the RAM. That I do like though.

Exactly. Buy a $200 device, get your use out of it, recycle it and buy the new version. In this price range upgrading them would achieve very little anyway.

Expandable notebooks still exist in the form of business grade machines and higher end consumer models.

 

[Cerb]

Disposable computing? Look at the water tables around Iran, and California. Look at the islands of plastic in the ocean. This is nothing new or unusual. Just that it used to be people threw away dumbphones, watches, PDAs, and calculators, while they now do so to smartphones, tablet, and whole PCs.

 

[ninaholic37]

I know personally that my PCs were upgraded often,usually annually if not sooner. The parts still worked of course, just that they were obsolete.

I think you highly overestimate how long "normal" people keep their computers around for. My dad still uses an Athlon 1100 to print documents and do our taxes every year because it works. Do you upgrade your TV every year too?

Apple was just filling demand. Blame people for wanting cheaper, thinner computing devices.

Wouldn't that be like saying: "Don't blame Hitler! Blame the people who joined his crusade."? Without Hitler, the nazi problem may have never become so prominent at the time.

 

[OlyAR15]

I think you highly overestimate how long "normal" people keep their computers around for. My dad still uses an Athlon 1100 to print documents and do our taxes every year because it works. Do you upgrade your TV every year too?

It's not about how frequent one upgrades, it's that for a lot of people, they upgrade before the computer is actually broken. I've purchased many TVs in the past, but all of them were working fine when I upgraded. So yeah, disposable has been around forever.

Wouldn't that be like saying: "Don't blame Hitler! Blame the people who joined his crusade."? Without Hitler, the nazi problem may have never become so prominent at the time.

Didn't take long before someone brought up Nazis. Congrats on sinking the conversation. Do you really think a company is to blame? How about that many people still lack computer skills and are unable or unwilling to do basic hardware upgrading? How about people want smaller and lighter equipment, and companies are obliging them? If you want a computer that you can continue to upgrade, then get a desktop. After all, why is nobody complaining that all the laptops in the past had their CPUs soldered onto the board? Or the graphics were not upgradeable? Everything is getting integrated because it frees up the manufacturer to make ever more slimmer products. If you don't like it, don't buy it and send a message to them that you want big and bulky products that are upgradeable or have user serviceable parts. Of course, do you know how often such parts were actually replaced? How many of the millions of laptops actually got upgraded hard drives? How many times their batteries were replaced vs. just buying an entirely new laptop? Same for cell phones?

 

[cbn]

Now (last year or maybe two?), most entry-level devices (actually, "UltraBooks" too), have non-removable / upgradable / replaceable batteries. Which is bad for the environment. At least, some of those devices, may be able to be mfg'er-replaced, or possibly by third parties.

But even worse than that, now, is the rise of eMMC main storage that is soldered on. Non-removable, non-upgradable, non-replacable, and worse yet, non-destroyable and non-recoverable.

At least, some batteries, though internal and "non-replaceable" by users, might actually be able to replaced by a tech.

But eMMC, being likely BGA and soldered-on, is a much harder replacement, and likely not worth it, given the price of the device.

That makes these newer devices TRULY "disposable", which is sad. You would think that perhaps, just perhaps, these companies might have though of using some sort of socket for eMMC chips, like a PCGG (or whatever they've called?), that would allow replacement, or possibly even upgrades.

Yes, feel free to blame me too, for purchasing some of these (the $60 Winbook TW700 tablets, and an HP Stream 7). But I place the primary responsibility on the mfg's. At least, the back of the HP Stream 7 is removable (has to be, to access the microSD slot), and the battery pack looks like it could be replaced by a tech.

It seems bizarre, really, that the tech industry, with the rise of increasing amounts of "e-waste", are taking this path, just to save $2-5 a unit on their devices. I guess they decided to de-facto forcibly enforce "planned obsolescence", by creating devices that intentionally fail after a certain lifespan.

I am not against the integration provided it makes the device more compact and lower cost.

However, with that mentioned I would assume being able to make a cicuit board more compact and integrated means the device as a whole could be more green in other ways?

Example: Maybe there could exist a very small compute device, possibly a HDMI stick computer, that could be swapped amongst various form factors? This would allow the user to replace only the HDMI stick form factor while retaining the screen, battery etc for future usage.

 

[ninaholic37]

@OlyAR15: You raise some good points there, about reaching new audiences and manufacturing. Your second post definitely articulates your views in a way that's easier for me to relate to than the your original "Pure BS" reply. :awe:

 

[VirtualLarry]

Example: Maybe there could exist a very small compute device, possibly a HDMI stick computer, that could be swapped amongst various form factors? This would allow the user to replace only the HDMI stick form factor while retaining the screen, battery etc for future usage.

I would be happier, if the OS / data was on some sort of removable memory card / device, and could be swapped between hardware platforms. It seems that both hardware mfg's (soldered-on eMMC) as well as software (MS's licensing, being oriented towards "one per PC hardware" approach) conspire against that vision.

I don't understand why the storage device can't have some sort of crypto key or otherwise unique identifier, that would allow software licenses (including OS) to be tied to the storage card, rather than the motherboard.

unRAID server does that, it uses the serial number of the flash drive the OS is installed to, and hashes it to create a GUID, which is used for the licensing. So if your server hardware dies, you just pop out the USB stick and stick it in the backup server.

If Windows did that, you could pop out your microSDXC card, out of one tablet, and into another, if the tablet ever died (battery died, screen got cracked, etc.). You could also potentially pop it into a "desktop" PC, and keep your files / apps / settings.

In that case, I wouldn't mind so much if the tablet itself was disposable, as long as your data could be kept safe, seperate from the physical tablet device. This is currently impossible with soldered-on eMMC.

And in the case of the memory card wearing out, there would be a way to transfer your OS license from one card to another, deactivating the previous memory card in the process.

To me, that just makes so much more sense. But the extreme greed of the tech companies of today prevents that sort of vision.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I guess it's about market trends. Is it possible that some folks don't track their subscription expenses for multiple devices? Would the market trend differently in some respects if they did, or if they disciplined their usage?

There's a solid argument that desktops offer the widest range of doing various types of work. You wouldn't use a tablet as a rendering machine. You might use it as an HDTV supplementary device. So desktops won't just become obsolete.

People have different habits. Some work at desks; others are in the field. Work applications supplement sub-markets.

I'm guessing some successful businesses have prospered as recyclers. And I suppose that's no worse than anything else if the reclamation factor is high for metals or components. But the issue to me is more a matter of subscription costs.

The construction supervisor I met who used an Apple IPad in the field and swore by its value also told me that his family's wireless bill was pushing $600/month. This was about three years ago that he told me this, and subscription plans keep changing. I know as a single person with a separate account that I probably shell out $60/month in subscription fees for cellphone and mobile internet. Under my previous plan, I could have $50 worth of tacked-on long-distance charges.

Perhaps the key to this is the level of competition. There might be more to worry about with home cable or FIOS internet, because the providers seem to get a locational monopoly or franchise. I might be able to choose among providers, but they will add up to something just in excess of the alternative options: DSL, dialup(?!), cable, FIOS. Possibly -- satellite -- I haven't kept up with all of it.

 

[Lepton87]

I have an LG G2 and non upgradable storage and battery is its biggest drawback. Battery is going to wear out, if I want to keep the phone for longer than 2 years replacing the battery is a must for me. The battery is bound to noticeably lose its capacity by that time and if I could replace it I would by the time it lost 30% of its capacity. As for the storage, the reason is profits, the companies charge ridiculous prices for additional NAND storage, many times more than its BOM.

 

[jhu]

I have an LG G2 and non upgradable storage and battery is its biggest drawback. Battery is going to wear out, if I want to keep the phone for longer than 2 years replacing the battery is a must for me. The battery is bound to noticeably lose its capacity by that time and if I could replace it I would by the time it lost 30% of its capacity. As for the storage, the reason is profits, the companies charge ridiculous prices for additional NAND storage, many times more than its BOM.

If that was so important to you, why didn't you get a Samsung Galaxy S4 or S5 instead? They both have SD card slots and removable batteries.