this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2026
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Stolen from BSKY
Weirdly dell always seems to understand what normal users want.
The problem is normal users have beyond low expectations, no standards and are ignorant of most everything tech related.
They want cheap and easy to use computers that require no service and if there is a problem a simple phone number to call for help.
Dell has optimized for that. So hate em or not, while their goods have gone to shit quality wise. They understand their market and have done extremely well in servicing it.
Thus I am not surprised at all dell understood this. If anything I would have been more surprised if they didn't.
I think they all understand what we want (broadly), they just don't care, because what they want is more important, and they know consumers will tolerate it.
They care, they just care differently. What they want is money, so they're trying to find what the maximum price is they can sell the minimum amount of product for.
If they can dress that up as "caring for the consumer" it's a bonus.
You're not thinking about the bigger picture. They can sell you an irrepairable device, design it to fail after a short time so you have to buy another one, upsell you on useless AI shit to pump up investments, and load it with a bunch of invasive software so they can collect and sell information about you. None of this has anything to do with what you, the consumer, want, and they know that, but they don't care, because it's not what makes them money.
What companies actually make decent mid-range laptops these days?
Framework makes some very high quality laptops. Have one myself.
I've got a framework 13 but I wouldn't suggest them for casual users. They're very expensive for the specs.
How is their site (and product) as an option for your non-techy mum? Also does shipping end up being exorbitant if you're not in the same country they're based in?
They have a fully prebuilt option for every computer. Which works well for non-techy people.
No clue what shipping is like in your country. Was fine for me in the US.
Seconded on Framework. I've got the more performant (but more heavy, large, and expensive) 16, but for most people the 13 will be perfectly usable. The newer 12 model also seems pretty decent and is a bit cheaper.
They've kept their RAM prices relatively stable too, but if you already have other RAM lying around you can just bring your own and save yourself the money. Same for the SSD.
The main downside is they're gonna be quite expensive upfront compared to alternatives, so I wouldn't recommend them to someone price-sensitive, especially in the current economy.
The main benefit is that since they're so modular and upgradable, you'll save money down the line on repair services, replacement parts, or just the cost of buying a whole new device because one component broke that they don't sell replacements for.
And yet just before looking at Lemmy I got an ad for the Dell AI laptop on YouTube (on my TV, still need to get a piHole up and running).
Unfortunately that won't help. The Youtube ads are served from the same domains as the videos, so a DNS based blocker is inherently powerless.
FWIW, Linux + FireFox + Ublock still blocks 100% of YouTube ads for me.
Can confirm, Firefox with uBlock Origin works. The OS doesn't seem to matter. I use that combination on Linux (Fedora 43), Windows (10), macOS (15) and Android (16), no YouTube ads anywhere.
Just stop using the TV like that. Hook up a small Linux computer via hdmi and use that instead.
Not good for the WAF
I have an older MacBook with standard hdmi, but there are some creators I really like on YouTube and we have an ancient Roku stick that still works. The remote is convenient and I usually go pee during the ads.
Jesus, is that how long youtube ads are these days?
Yeah but the decent thing is that they show you how long before you can skip. So you know how long you have.
This is extra funny to me since I just re-watched this episode the other day
That is gold