Your rant is rather incoherent so it's hard to be sure what you're saying, but it seems to me that you're missing several different points.
> the poor Intel Duo Core CPU
Do you mean an Intel Core Duo? You both mangled the chip model number and didn't give the Dell model number at all, so I can't check.
If so, there's point #1. A Core Duo is a 32-bit chip. It maxes out at 3-and-a-bit GB of RAM. That's not much use in 2023 and it can't run common apps such as Google Chrome, which is 64-bit only.
Point #2 is not that these elderly Thinkpads still work, it's that they are still useful. I don't know what Dell you have but I own two Thinkpad T420 machines, as mentioned in this post. Both are still in use. Here is why:
They were high-end devices when new. That means no cheap crappy hardware like "Pentium Dual Core" or Celeron chips, but full-spec Core 2 Duos. They are 64-bit bit CPUs, so my i5 T420 has 8GB of RAM and dual-boots FreeBSD 13.2 and ChromeOS Flex. My i7 T420 has 16GB of RAM and USB3, and it runs the latest Win10, the latest Fedora, and the latest Ubuntu, in multiboot.
Point #3: they are expandable with cheap bits.
My i7 one has a discrete GPU. That helps: they're still quite quick. Mine can run 2 VMs side-by-side and remain useful, or 1 usefully-big VM and a few bloated Electron apps on the host and still remain responsive.
That's why people go on about them. They are still useful in a way a 12YO Core Duo can never be.
They also have great expansion, so my machines both have dual SSDs, as well as optical drives, as well as lots of ports. DisplayPort, which can drive HDMI (while HDMI can't drive DisplayPort) and SVGA. Mine have $5 USB3 ExpressCards in them, because why not? You can't have too many USB ports, or too fast.
Point #4: great keyboards, and 3 physical mouse buttons.
I am a writer. I demand a good keyboard. I am a heavy Linux user. I need 3 mouse buttons. I don't care much about trackpads and I don't want gestures, but I need that middle mouse button.
Now none of those might matter to you, but they do matter to some of us and that's why we use them and keep going on about them.
Just accept that other people like things you don't and move on.
> the poor Intel Duo Core CPU
Do you mean an Intel Core Duo? You both mangled the chip model number and didn't give the Dell model number at all, so I can't check.
If so, there's point #1. A Core Duo is a 32-bit chip. It maxes out at 3-and-a-bit GB of RAM. That's not much use in 2023 and it can't run common apps such as Google Chrome, which is 64-bit only.
Point #2 is not that these elderly Thinkpads still work, it's that they are still useful. I don't know what Dell you have but I own two Thinkpad T420 machines, as mentioned in this post. Both are still in use. Here is why:
They were high-end devices when new. That means no cheap crappy hardware like "Pentium Dual Core" or Celeron chips, but full-spec Core 2 Duos. They are 64-bit bit CPUs, so my i5 T420 has 8GB of RAM and dual-boots FreeBSD 13.2 and ChromeOS Flex. My i7 T420 has 16GB of RAM and USB3, and it runs the latest Win10, the latest Fedora, and the latest Ubuntu, in multiboot.
Point #3: they are expandable with cheap bits.
My i7 one has a discrete GPU. That helps: they're still quite quick. Mine can run 2 VMs side-by-side and remain useful, or 1 usefully-big VM and a few bloated Electron apps on the host and still remain responsive.
That's why people go on about them. They are still useful in a way a 12YO Core Duo can never be.
They also have great expansion, so my machines both have dual SSDs, as well as optical drives, as well as lots of ports. DisplayPort, which can drive HDMI (while HDMI can't drive DisplayPort) and SVGA. Mine have $5 USB3 ExpressCards in them, because why not? You can't have too many USB ports, or too fast.
Point #4: great keyboards, and 3 physical mouse buttons.
I am a writer. I demand a good keyboard. I am a heavy Linux user. I need 3 mouse buttons. I don't care much about trackpads and I don't want gestures, but I need that middle mouse button.
Now none of those might matter to you, but they do matter to some of us and that's why we use them and keep going on about them.
Just accept that other people like things you don't and move on.