Hardware

Buy the wrong laptop and someone fights it every day: the spinning cursor, the battery that dies by lunch, the port that was never there. Buy the right one and it disappears into the work. Getting that right is mostly knowing what to ignore. The spec sheet is long, but only three or four numbers actually touch how your day feels.

The bigger cost hides in the fleet. Machines bought in a panic, warranties nobody tracked, five slightly different setups that each break in their own way. We treat hardware as a lifecycle: sourced well, maintained on a schedule, replaced before it fails. The physical layer stops being the thing that surprises you.