IMO in a raid config, used drives are fine, especially if you have backups.

I bought a few before the prices were crazy and they havnt been on for a while but never had issues with them. Funny enough, I had more issues with the used motherboard than I did with those drives lol.

Hell even if you want some kind of cable service, IP TV exists.

IMO no real reason to use android TV or a smart TV right now.

Me personally, I just use a Linux distro (ive used Ubuntu and popos, both have been fine) and use whatever flavor of streaming service I can access. Sometimes you’re hit with lower resolution but I’d rather that than get spied on and be fed ads by my hardware.

Ive also gone back to physical media and use a DVD player. I’m just buying series I like one by one.

This video used a combination of physical media and streaming services. They relied on waydroid and with some workarounds, it worked well for them:

https://youtu.be/nROKp0BpFek?is=GFhDrr82dCCFGcVT

Thats true of most products that companies make I think, but they made it to serve a certain segment of the market and I think given how excited people were to see something like this, doesnt seem like it was a bad idea.

And after watching the teardown, I don’t really see what you mean about reparability being bad. The video is even titled “Excellent Reparability: Steam Machine tear-down and Accessing RAM & SSD”. Seems to come apart just fine. You can replace a part if it breaks and put it back together.

I will say that proprietary parts aren’t great, I’d rather have a cpu, ram, and motherboard I can take out and replace individually but for what this is designed to be, that being, a “console”, I’d say its much better than a PlayStation or Xbox in terms of reparability. Definitely more akin to a laptop than a PC in my opinion. And certainly not perfect, but I’m glad that Valve gave it a try and gave more options for people to game on. Not only that, might even get more people on Linux if they’re shown a good experience.

I think you may be looking at it wrong. Its less of a “pc” in the traditional sense and more of a console that you can tinker with/repair. Thats more what demographic its trying to appeal to.

I dont disagree that its overpriced, but that’s all computer parts or PC’s right now. Its certainly not perfect, but I don’t think its a step backwards at all. I think having more options for gamers to game on their couch is a good thing.

Agreed. The internet is a utility at this point. Its required for many things included services the government runs already.

While they are sandboxed, there is still potential for them to cause harm. Its in theory a safer system, but nothing is full proof. I’d agree that its likely fine but best to be cautious

I feel that man. Right now I load balance between tmobile and starlink cause the towers near me suck. I work from home so having consistent internet is really important and in my area, the fiber build out is really slow and expensive. Luckily I’m moving here soon but its been a pain in the ass to say the least.

Starlink is great for what it is. Very important tech but yea, I’m sure most everyone would be happier with fiber.

I say this as someone who actively pays for starlink out of necessity.

Fuck you, no. Fiber is much better for everyone. Eat shit muskrat.