things have not improved.

Too many folks here do not understand or care to appreciate the constraints of the real world. Heat pumps are excellent and relatively cheap but have limitations. One of the biggest limitations is that a heat pump's efficiency drops as ambient temperature drops. This is the worst possible situation for heating as the conditions when the risks of losing heat are the highest, are precisely the conditions when these devices are least efficient.

As long as they remain more efficient than resistive heaters down to the lowest temperatures you experience, it's a win. Heat pump efficiency is still improving. You can get heat pumps that can handle down to -35°C now with even better ones in the works.

I'm not questioning the merit of heat pumps. I should know because i have two in Ontario, Canada, one rated to -35 C and the other rated to - 25 C.

What i remain opposed to is this persistent idea that heat pumps work in all situations, for all people and for all time. They do not, and heat pumps create a unique set of problems that we might not be fully prepared for.

I will offer you a realistic answer - the uncertainty and need for planning are the killers.

An EV dropped my transportation fuel bills by 90% but even i will admit that an EV is a hassle. On any trip that exceeds the range of the car, we must identify EV chargers, then determine whether they are working and only then can we start counting the additional minutes.

In the winter, seeing the range of you car drop by 26% and not knowing where the next working charger is, is the #1 reason why we still have two cars. If i could eliminate one with access to better transit, it would be the EV, not the combustion car.

Legit question (and one that I need to answer for myself as well):

Would it be cheaper to keep the EV and rent a car for when you need to do longer trips? (also taking into account the additional hassle of renting a petrol/diesel car)

Only speaking for myself, I'd seriously consider renting a (combustion) car for an interstate driving holiday if it's a rare occurrence, like once a year or once every two years. It will become an exercise in accounting[0].

My silly-ish analogy is: I don't own a plane because I fly rarely enough that it's not worth buying a plane to allow me to fly wherever, whenever I want.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQPIdZvoV4g&t=137

Chevy Volt. Perfect car. I can consistently squeeze about 60 miles electric city driving, and 400+ on a trip. Soooo disappointed GM canceled the program. No one ever understood how great this car was…

The problem with the Volt is that it's a nerd's car, and they don't have enough political clout inside GM to have kept it going.

the short answer is that it depends.

I did the maths on my situation and it did not work out. It is currently cheaper to pay the $120 / month or so on insurance and maintenance for the second car as opposed to renting a car for the once a month that we actually use the second car.

The trouble is that renting a car is expensive and public transit is an even bigger hassle.

Sure, but this is just a temporary infrastructure issue that will be solved thoroughly as EVs become more popular. If you take long trips often, maybe it's not for you, but I personally only take trips longer than 200km or so once a year, if that, so I absolutely adore my EV and would never go back to ICE.

that is beside the point.

The reality is that operating an EV is a hassle unless you can deal with the hassle or have sufficient privilege (e.g. live in a detached home) to be able to offset some of the hassle.

And an ICE isn't a hassle just because you've gotten used to it? They're loud, they smell bad, their torque is terrible and uneven, they're inefficient, they have tons of moving parts that are liable to break and are hard to service, and they're expensive and susceptible to fuel price hikes, like now.

How that gets turned into "yeah but EVs can't drive for 500km on one charge, so they're a hassle", I don't know.

A screen is cheaper to design and easier to modify. That’s the motivation for auto companies.

Does this mean it is now possible to run OS X on an ipad? Those also tend to use phone processors.

Technically possible yes. It will have been for years at this point. But Apple hasn't released a build for ipad.

I have.

Plastic is great, until your laptop falls and the plastic shell shatters. That's the weakness of plastic - it's brittle. I have a ten year old macbook with a dinged aluminium chassis. The structure of the shell is still intact despite a few falls.

Not all plastics are brittle, even after time. It is highly dependent on the plastic used.

ok, now please explain whether any plastic is more or less brittle than aluminium.

It's not.

That being said, aluminum will suffer from dents and scratches. Every material is a trade off. You're not going to pull a "gotcha" comment, here.

The best platform, provided the games you want to play actually work and work well. Many do not, even some popular ones.

I own a steam deck and love it, but please, let’s temper the enthusiasm with realism.

sure "best" is subjectively true for my criteria: it plays the largest number of games with about zero annoyance / friction. maybe desktop windows plays more games, but it certainly has a bazillion more frictions and annoyances

Not really. Both AMD and intel have several models where the names are similar but differ in an important way such as one being pervious generation.

I'll just get a Pentium Gold CPU, with a name like that I bet it will be the best model!

Fine, but how is anyone supposed to divine all that nuance from a single letter?

As much as I hate Apple, they really do have product names down to a science.

that ifixit article is an AI slop puff piece.

Thinkpads have good repairability, few people would debate that. They are not perfect and the ifixit "review" itself acknowledges that the wifi antenna is soldered, hence not repairable.

Do internal WiFi antennas fail often?

the form factor is a problem. Have you ACTUALLY tried using an ipad as a laptop for more than a few minutes? It is top-heavy and falls over all the time. Even if you solve that problem, you now have multiple devices that you must keep charged and with you at all time.

At that point, an actual laptop is simpler.

That form factor exists on the windows side for about a decade now, so yes people do actually use it day to day for their work.

It's easy to forget that many laptops are used 99% plugged to a hub and an external monitor. I have a keyboard and mouse I like a lot, and having a tablet floating on an arm next to my other screen instead of half open clam with a useless keyboard pointing at me is incredibly freeing.

Even on the go, bringing a bluetooth (trackpoint II）keyboard is just better overall IMHO. It's up to people's taste, but tablet form factors are not some unsolved mistery. Commercial success would of course be another discussion.

Tablets will need to become a great deal lighter than they currently are before the awkwardness you describe will dissipate. Maybe after some kind of breakthrough in battery tech that allows for a much lighter and thinner battery?

Until then, I would agree that the old 12" MacBook still has a big leg up over an iPad + keyboard due to its clamshell form factor. It's so much less fussy for any use case where a keyboard matters.

I've seen people use their (non-Apple) tablet in the kitchen for recipes. Can't imagine taking my laptop to the kitchen.

I have a kickstand case with a magnetic Bluetooth keyboard and integrated 3rd party pen holder and it works just like a laptop but supports the pen, plus I can leave the keyboard behind and prop it on my treadmill to watch movies, etc. It's actually a lot more convenient than a laptop in a lot of circumstances.

>Have you ACTUALLY tried using an ipad as a laptop for more than a few minutes? It is top-heavy and falls over all the time.

Not even sure what you mean. Get a keyboard stand or a regular stand + keyboard. Never "falls over" for me.

Do you try to balance it on its side or something?