It used to be easy to build a PC that was double the performance of a console for the same price. And it was even easier if you sourced slightly used current hardware. Now you’re lucky to get last gen hardware for a decent price used. The market is garbage.

Back in 2014 you could get brand new motherboards for ~$50, where it’s difficult to find any under $150 that provide decent features. I think the most expensive thing at the time was NAND due to flooded factories but everything else was super cheap.

It was removable, but used Dells weird connection. I just had to solder the connections of the new battery on instead of paying Dell $20 for a watch battery haha.

I had one of the Alienware Alphas with the 860m and desktop haswell 4130t. You could swap in a 4160 but your big enemy would be heat.

I swapped the steam OS for windows and threw in some cheap 240gb adata ssd. Ran it for years.

Only problem was the cmos battery would fail every now and again and I’d have to solder a new one in because Dell……

Anyways, I was in it ~$400 and it was a great htpc. Only real problem was haswell couldn’t decode 4k YouTube.

The steam controller I still have, and it’s quirky. But I like it for the mouse function.

I thought the steam deck already had this. Admittedly, I’ve only had mine for about a month, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it charge to 100%. I think 95% was the highest I’ve seen. It seemed like it had something similar to smart charge like Windows has.

They’re features, not bugs in Bethesda games.

I’ve worked at a couple of Mom & Pop places in the south during my youth, and generally they were terrible with money, racist, and tried avoiding taxes any way they could.

Small sample size with a sprinkle of confirmation bias on my end, but there are usually signs.

Always need help? Discount on cash purchases? Making the customer pay the credit card transaction fee?

There are many others, but those are generally the biggest ones where management is just interested in customer sympathy and the bottom line.

That’s disheartening to hear. At least Tesla has to sell cars to even stick around and it doesn’t look good for them in Europe so far.

I was about to say, this seems pretty slam dunk for them.

Sorry, I meant to say for your current phone. Otherwise you’ll have some sort of road block if the carrier sees your current phone as locked. I had that issue with Sprint years ago.

You can verify by going to Settings->General->About.

Towards the bottom there should be “Carrier Lock” and it should say/list “No SIM Restrictions”.

If it doesn’t, you’ll need to call your provider to have them unlock the phone.

IIHS lists a rotating list of safest used cars for teens.

This may be better for some folk.

I had a 2015 golf and 2018 GTI. The gti was hands down my favorite vehicle I ever owned. That being said I did not get a MK8 when it got totaled.

I went with a Mazda3 awd turbo. Reason being physical buttons. I could not comfortably use the controls on all the test drives I did and the infotainment was terrible. Mazda has the superior infotainment of the two.

The golf r is literally just a budget Audi. All the parts are stamped Audi because it’s an MQB Evo platform. They’re all the same.

I wouldn’t say Vw isn’t quality, but I could not justify the expense. I paid less for a 2024 turbo premium plus awd Mazda than the dealer was asking for an SE GTI.

Ah I must have been one of the only people that liked that styling haha.