Just a quick post about my own experience with older laptops. So this is not a professional review (disclaimer), but it does point out some possibilities.
In my last post along these lines, I was able to utilize an almost 10-year old laptop that had not booted up in years and convert it to a Linux laptop following some very easy online guidelines. Well I never thought I would be writing again so soon on this topic but just this morning comparing “apples to apples” (not iOS mind you) I found the Linux operating system giving PC hardware performance it had never seen in it’s lifetime.
Above, you will see that using Speedtest site as the standard:
- almost 10-year old Linux laptop, a Dell Inspiron 1545, on the right proudly displaying results of > 20Mbps WiFi speed
- a 6+ – year old Windows 1o laptop, a HP Beats Special Edition Model 15 P030NR Pavillion on the left struggling to obtain a result of 5Mbps.
Thinking somehow, as a scientific engineer does, that this is only an “n of 1” I decided to compare this Linux laptop to another Windows laptop side by side:
- On the left is the 10-year old Linux Mint 19.0 laptop again showing > 20Mbps (this time in the same room as the Xfinity Cable Modem/WiFi)
- on the right is the 4-year old Lenovo G510 laptop running Windows 10 struggling to maintain (and it doesn’t really do that) an average of 10Mbps.
[NOTE: This 2nd test is in a different room and so the two Windows 10 laptops probably perform about the same in the WiFi department.]
Now all three of these PCs utilize the 2.4Ghz WiFi from Xfinity and are not capable of the 5.0Ghz comms. Newer laptops can connect to the 5.0Ghz WiFi which has shorter range BUT in my experience, but a faster connection (short of a direct Ethernet connection to the cable modem)
My Motorola Z2 Force Smartphone (using the 5.0Ghz as well) performs like this:
Just to compare, same Windows 10 Lenovo on direct Ethernet from cable modem gives this kind of performance:
So there you have it. Linux brings out the best in PC hardware performance, at least in the WiFi department. In the weeks and months to come I may have more experiences that show what Linux can do with old Windows PCs.
That said, I am seriously considering installing Linux Mint as the OS on the 6-year old HP laptop since the battery in that is still in good shape (unlike the 10-year old Dell’s battery which is long gone).
I do hope that this inspires you to re-purpose some of those old computers that could easily have a 2nd life ..
-SF1