Today I am binning Microsoft

I've had 2 dells, both of which have lasted well (in terms of hardware reliability) and also operating system longevity.

A D820 (released 2006), had a battery mid life, and was replaced by an E7450 (released 2015) which lost a keyboard backlight I had replaced in maybe 2019.

So both have lasted over 9 years. The former was still working when donated elsewhere and the latter is still working as my primary laptop.

My missus runs apple hardware and though they are generally pretty nice pieces of kit, they are overpriced and you need more dongles and cables than the laptops I buy do. They have less ports and more limitations.

I may be a bit more competent than the average person at buying and maintaining computers (hardware and software) but it's just hardware. All makers make good ones and bad ones.

The irony though is with Office 365 and OneCloud, the device it running makes almost no difference. I can work on documents as easily on a phone, iPad, laptop, desktop machine. The physical device these days are getting less and less relevant as long as you can run Office 365.

I tend to buy mid to high end laptops.
The last two have been HP business models (previously Toshiba) - I'm happy to pay extra for the 2 year, next day on-premesis repair warranty.

The silly thing is that I've only used that once in 10 years*, while my work colleagues have had multiple failures of cheap laptops in that time.

• The tech turned up at work next day (as advertised), opened my lappy up, and noticed that a cable had come loose.

Then said "your screen's a bit tired, I've brought a spare, may as well fit it now I'm here"

Then again, this was my first "portable" computer (stock photo):

On the topic of the Mac Apple mouse as previously discussed in this thread….

Losing the plot with it again today - bought a mouse pad, the rubber underside grips it too much so useless.

Grabbed my wife’s cheap work mouse and plugged it in - it’s like a new computer, it’s perfect!!!! Everything about it is better.

My Logitech gets delivered later today and I’m now wondering if the reason I didn’t get on with my last Logitech was because it was connected via Bluetooth. As I mentioned the movement speed was so slow it was unusable.

I will try the new Logitech with the dongle as I have this cheap one and report back later , but has genuinely saved me getting a new computer as I couldn’t put up with it any longer

You've reminded me of the old Microsoft Basic Optical Mouse, best bit of kit MS ever made.

I had one for 15 years until I lost it travelling.

Thats the one, except mine was black.

Those MS mice felt like such an enormous shift from the old ball and roller. The term "Game changer" is banded around Willy Nilly these days but they were genuinely game changing.

I use the Logi MX Master on all my computers (home Mac, home gaming PC, work laptop, work Mac), and always make sure I have a couple spare for when one dies or I offer one to a family member to enable the to dump their e-waste one provided by their PC maker.

I just by 3 at a time whenever the price drops to very low levels (lowest I've got them for is about £35 each).

Down to my last 3 now though, so will rebuild my stocks once another Amazon Lightning / Black Friday offer comes around.

Yeah that mouse was incredible for its time. Still probably awesome now if you don't need a billion DPI settings and all that crap.

Oh yes and Norton Commander, but then Norton Desktop was around and it was a bit of a game changer until Windows caught up.