My old MacBook's starting to show signs of it's age, so I'm keeping an eye on what to do once it goes to the big Apple Store in the sky.
Given it's nine years old and performance is still adequate for my needs, obviously I don't need a lot. However, that got me thinking.
I'll be likely reverting to a PC desktop next (probably Linux, but I'm open to Windows 10), and of course I don't want to go crazy spending truckloads of cash for a simple machine that won't be doing anything hugely intensive.
I could go and build a nice machine using lower-end desktop hardware (either an Intel i3 or the Pentium G series CPUs or the AMD equivalent, or even the cheap boards with the built in Celeron J3455) or buying an Intel NUC and adding bits to it.
For a fair bit less cash, one could pick up a used ex-business desktop that would run an Intel Core i5 or i7 from the Sandy Bridge/Ivy Bridge era (2012-13). Pop an SSD in one of those (maybe a bit more RAM too) and it'd still fly with either Windows 10 or Linux.
There's a bit of an interesting Mustachian conundrum that results. Buying the used desktop means that you're saving something from becoming e-waste by repurposing hardware, at the cost of higher power consumption. Buying the lower-end new hardware means you've got something that'll use less power (and of course be new with all that entails), but you're buying something new rather than recycling a perfectly good machine, and it's more expensive to buy.
What would a Mustachian do? I've over-simplified this obviously, but it's food for thought :)