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WHERE MY HAT IS AT
Jan 7, 2011
Seems to me you can upgrade the RAM in most Dells, unless they very recently changed that.

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Naffer
Oct 26, 2004

Not a good chemist
It looks like the X1 carbon doesn't ship with a chip >15W. I guess a 28W GT3 Haswell dual core is kind of out of the question for light ultrabooks isn't it?

Hadlock
Nov 9, 2004

Bob Morales posted:

Nice eBay daily deal for $225

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Inspir...=item58a0b94891

Inspiron 11Z
2GB RAM :(

$225 sounds mediocre at best. medicore screen, keyboard, average quality case, awful touchpad. Get what you pay for etc etc, probably not a bad buy for someone who is going to connect a mouse to it and maybe an external monitor. i3 these days is nothing to sneeze at.

notebook review posted:

The chassis feels reasonably durable thanks to strong internal support under most surfaces. The palmrest and keyboard showed very few signs of flex under strong pressure, but the area just above the keyboard does suffer from a little bit of loose fitting plastics when pressed. Additionally, the slightest bit of pressure will cause the scree lid to bend and flex,

panel offers good color saturation and the LED-backlighting frovides even coverage and helps extend battery life. Contrast is average, and varied depending on the vertical viewing angle. The vertical viewing sweet spot is quite small, meaning colors quickly look washed out when you view the screen from above and look distorted or inverted when viewed from below.

keyboard on the 11z is basically full-size and very comfortable to type on

In fact, we went as far as to call the touchpad on the 11z the worst touchpad ever.

Srebrenica Surprise
Aug 23, 2008

"L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

Naffer posted:

There's an HD5100 dual core part at 28 W (i7-4558U). That might be a decent option if you can forgo having a quadcore. I imagine the lack of bigger GPUs on lower power quad-core CPUs has everything to do with how much wattage the GPU takes.
"Is this going to ship in anything that isn't in every respect a piece of poo poo" is my worry. The T series certainly isn't perfect, but an Ultrabook that isn't user-serviceable, has a sealed battery, has relatively poor build quality, etc is a dealbreaker, personally, and I'd hate to splash out on a high-end part in something that's not going to be built to last. We'll see within the month what's offered, I guess.

micron
Nov 15, 2005


dissss posted:

What's your actual usage? How often are you at your desk vs travelling? When you travel how do you do it?

Personally I'm using a 2560p (which is only a dual core but that's plenty for most tasks) + docking station + dual monitors. This combination gives a decent experience when I'm at my desk but is sufficiently small and compact to travel with while having great battery life.

The serious downside is using the laptop display is somewhat painful, its a 1366x768 panel and not a good one either.

I also have a docking station and run dual monitors, so this is more or less my desktop as well. Most of engineering has those retardedly expensive HP towers which is why I can justify the workstation.

When traveling I'll be plugged in at the hotel etc. I haven't pulled my laptop out on a flight in years so battery life isn't really an issue.

The newer docking stations run right though USB it seems? My old one was a pain anyway.

:edit: I didn't think about the 2 27" monitors I push with it. I think I'm stuck into a work station. Even the FirePro 4000 might not be enough to get any decent resolution while the laptop is docked at my desk. This is going to get very expensive very quickly. I maybe better off getting a separate desktop and laptop but my IT guy will sure to frown on that. Looks like a 4000 dollar laptop maybe on its way. Welp.

The workstations use my old docking station though :downs:

micron fucked around with this message at 03:10 on Jun 5, 2013

Bob Morales
Aug 18, 2006


Just wear the fucking mask, Bob

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

Hadlock posted:

$225 sounds mediocre at best. medicore screen, keyboard, average quality case, awful touchpad. Get what you pay for etc etc, probably not a bad buy for someone who is going to connect a mouse to it and maybe an external monitor. i3 these days is nothing to sneeze at.

Remember that it's a brand new $225 and some people are still buying the last of the netbooks for that much.

TwoKnives
Dec 25, 2004

Horrible, horrible shoes!

Hadlock posted:

$225 sounds mediocre at best. medicore screen, keyboard, average quality case, awful touchpad.

Why are Dell touchpads so bad? I was looking at an Anandtech review for the XPS13 earlier and they listed the touchpad as one of the negatives. How can be it so hard to get right?

butt dickus
Jul 7, 2007

top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

Bob Morales posted:

Remember that it's a brand new $225 and some people are still buying the last of the netbooks for that much.
A brand-new 3-year-old laptop.

V for Vegas
Sep 1, 2004

THUNDERDOME LOSER

Naffer posted:

It looks like the X1 carbon doesn't ship with a chip >15W. I guess a 28W GT3 Haswell dual core is kind of out of the question for light ultrabooks isn't it?

The Asus Zenbook Infinity will reportedly be shipping with a GT3 chip,

Spaz Medicine
Feb 22, 2008

I'm in the market for a new laptop and I'm seriously considering grabbing a Thinkpad T-440 or whatever the Haswell version will be called when it comes out. However, I'm pretty worried about heat. I like to use laptops in my lap and I'd prefer if my computer couldn't melt my pants into my skin. Is that something I might have to worry about, or is it impossible to predict how hot a computer will get until people get their grubby hands on it?

I'm trying real hard to resist buying a T-430S right this second.

InstantInfidel
Jan 9, 2010

BEST :10bux: I EVER SPENT
Thinkpad thermals are really good on every model. They move all of the heat to a vent that disposes of it inobtrusuvely. You'll have no problems.

teagone
Jun 10, 2003

That was pretty intense, huh?

So according to one of the images in the OP, it looks like the GT3e isn't go to make way its make into ultraportable notebooks, right? Like, we won't be seeing GT3e graphics in a MacBook Air style chassis.

Avant Gardening
Jul 24, 2007
"...And if you wondered what Time sounded like it sounded like water running in a dark cave and voices crying and dirt dropping down upon hollow box lids, and rain."
I've been reading this thread for the last week, and I'm planning on getting a new laptop to replace my 2007 macbook. I know that Haswell has just arrived, but I'm not convinced that getting a Haswell suits my needs, especially since my laptop will serve more as a mobile desktop. Also, it seems like Haswell will not drive current prices down, and I want a laptop with dedicated graphics.

I'm currently undecided between a Thinkpad T-430S for about $800, or a customized HP Envy dv6t with an i5 3210m, 6GB ddr3, 750gb 7200rpm hard drive and 650m 2gb gddr5 with a 1080p screen for $750. There are a few games that I want to play, such as Skyrim, and this is why I'm leaning towards a consumer grade laptop than a Thinkpad.

I have been out of the market for laptops for quite some time, and want my next laptop to last as long as my macbook has (5-6 years). However, InstantInfidel's constant derision of consumer grade laptops makes me wary, especially since there is a lack of laptop reviews 6 months to a year down the road. What should I do? Will prices drop any further? Am I making a bad decision?

InstantInfidel
Jan 9, 2010

BEST :10bux: I EVER SPENT

Avant Gardening posted:

I've been reading this thread for the last week, and I'm planning on getting a new laptop to replace my 2007 macbook. I know that Haswell has just arrived, but I'm not convinced that getting a Haswell suits my needs, especially since my laptop will serve more as a mobile desktop. Also, it seems like Haswell will not drive current prices down, and I want a laptop with dedicated graphics.

I'm currently undecided between a Thinkpad T-430S for about $800, or a customized HP Envy dv6t with an i5 3210m, 6GB ddr3, 750gb 7200rpm hard drive and 650m 2gb gddr5 with a 1080p screen for $750. There are a few games that I want to play, such as Skyrim, and this is why I'm leaning towards a consumer grade laptop than a Thinkpad.

I have been out of the market for laptops for quite some time, and want my next laptop to last as long as my macbook has (5-6 years). However, InstantInfidel's constant derision of consumer grade laptops makes me wary, especially since there is a lack of laptop reviews 6 months to a year down the road. What should I do? Will prices drop any further? Am I making a bad decision?

GT3e (aka HD5200) is on par with the 650M you're looking at and will hands-down beat any card that you can get in a Thinkpad at the moment (one, the K2000M, comes close). If you wait and get a large ultrabook or small regular laptop with the quad-core i7 that comes with the HD5200 GPU, you'll get better battery life and you'll pay less money for equivalent GPU performance. It's in your best interests to wait. Never count on price drops, assume that today's price +/- 5% is what you'll pay regardless of when you order.

Also is my anger towards consumer laptops really that constant? :saddowns:

dissss
Nov 10, 2007

I'm a terrible forums poster with terrible opinions.

Here's a cat fucking a squid.

InstantInfidel posted:

Thinkpad thermals are really good on every model. They move all of the heat to a vent that disposes of it inobtrusuvely. You'll have no problems.

I've been very impressed with my T430s with the dedicated GPU - copes with extended gaming sessions just fine and while the exhaust gets hot the actual casing doesn't really heat up at all.

Spaz Medicine
Feb 22, 2008

InstantInfidel posted:

Thinkpad thermals are really good on every model. They move all of the heat to a vent that disposes of it inobtrusuvely. You'll have no problems.

Cool, thanks, that sounds really nice.

fookolt
Mar 13, 2012

Where there is power
There is resistance
http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/05/fujitsu-intros-lifebook-uh90-ultrabook/

Jesus christ, I love that this year is finally the year everyone's catching up on the high resolution thing:

quote:

The 14-inch portable is ever-so-slightly thinner than its ancestor at 15.5mm (0.61 inches) thick, but upgrades to an extra-dense 3,200 x 1,800, IGZO-based touchscreen. The improvements are more than just skin-deep, of course. A Haswell-based, 1.6GHz Core i5 helps feed that monster display, and a 500GB hybrid hard drive strikes a balance between speed and storage.

Can that processor/IGP even power that well?

syntaxfunction
Oct 27, 2010
So I'm looking for an ultrabook since my netbook(s) decided to die. I bought them for the weight mainly. I don't game much any more but being able to run, say, Civ 5 would be good. Even though I'm looking at ultrabooks price is still important to me. And time. I need it basically within a month or so. From what I'm reading the main ones I like the look of (The new Acer S7 and ASUS Zenbook Infinity) aren't being released any time soon.

If my requirements are weight, nice enough screen and faster than a netbook while having not-horrific battery life, is it a terrible idea to get a Zenbook Prime (UX31A probably)? It seems to fit all my needs including battery life (I'm living with about 3 hours right now). It was basically between the UX31A (Non touch), Acer S7 and Macbook Air 13". I can't seem to easily get any others for a reasonable price or ease here in Australia. The 1920x1080 IPS panel is more than nice for me. Any reasons apart from "wait for Haswell"? I don't really want to wait too long as I need it more now than shiny and new. Hell, when I bought my netbooks they were a fair bit behind but they did the job well.

QuarkJets
Sep 8, 2008

Doctor rear end in a top hat posted:

That's fine if you're just playing games but you'll want to gouge your eyes out after trying to read a paragraph on a tv.

There are many people who use a large TV as a computer monitor without any problems. Having trouble reading text? No problem, pretty much every piece of software that displays text (such as Word or Chrome) has really easy to use text-zooming capabilities (typically this is ctrl + scroll wheel).

Get a wireless keyboard + mouse and do your computing from the couch instead of a desk chair

shrughes
Oct 11, 2008

(call/cc call/cc)

Hadlock posted:

So to clarify product differentiations:

i7 mobile - all quad core except one, all have HD5xxx graphics, all have turbo boost

Huh? A lot have HD4600 graphics.

secret volcano lair
Oct 23, 2005

The ultra-high resolution screens sound nice in concept, but what's the point when you have to blow up everything to double size just to get legible text?

Mu Zeta
Oct 17, 2002

Me crush ass to dust

It works like smartphones. They have ultra high resolution and the text is easily read. I don't know if it's done as well on Windows 8 but I believe that specific programs have to be changed to support it.

Bob Morales
Aug 18, 2006


Just wear the fucking mask, Bob

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

Sony has released their Air competitors, the Vaio Pro

http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/4/4395926/sony-vaio-pro-review-were-going-to-war-with-the-macbook-air



Super thing and light design, great 1080p display on both the 13 and 11 models, great battery life. But Sony software stinking it up, Windows scaling not being very good, flimsy build, poo poo keyboard and trackpad keep it from being recommended.

shrughes
Oct 11, 2008

(call/cc call/cc)
It's just hilarious how the Engadget review is saying the Vaio Pro is better than the Vaio Z in every way.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/04/sony-vaio-pro-11-review/

engadget retard posted:

But there's an ergonomic benefit too: the wedge shape makes the keyboard a little more comfortable to type on.

Wat.

jeffreyw
Jan 20, 2013
Its a strange design decision. This laptop looks exactly like the old Vaio Z where it was too light and thin to try being rigid so it survives by being rather flexible. Expensive floppy laptops give people heart attacks but Sony's carbon fibre lineup has generally been pretty decent in terms of longevity.

Keyboard still looks awful though. Shame.

Avant Gardening
Jul 24, 2007
"...And if you wondered what Time sounded like it sounded like water running in a dark cave and voices crying and dirt dropping down upon hollow box lids, and rain."

InstantInfidel posted:

GT3e (aka HD5200) is on par with the 650M you're looking at and will hands-down beat any card that you can get in a Thinkpad at the moment (one, the K2000M, comes close). If you wait and get a large ultrabook or small regular laptop with the quad-core i7 that comes with the HD5200 GPU, you'll get better battery life and you'll pay less money for equivalent GPU performance. It's in your best interests to wait. Never count on price drops, assume that today's price +/- 5% is what you'll pay regardless of when you order.

Also is my anger towards consumer laptops really that constant? :saddowns:

From the benchmarks at Anandtech, the HD5200 performs as well as the 640m, while the 650m performs either slightly or much better, depending on the game. Also, the dv6t I've configured has is 1080p while the 430s Thinkpad is 720p, so having to configure the Thinkpad for 1080p would probably result in it being more than $800, which is the limit for what I want to spend.

What I'm worried about is getting a laptop that falls apart or breaks down in the first few months, and I find it so strange that an otherwise great laptop (in regards to specs) might be uncomfortably hot, too loud when under a full load, or just feel as if it's made of tupperware--and this is what I've been reading in the OP of this thread as well as your posts, and I trust SA more on this than the cursory reviews I find everywhere else. I'll take your advice and stick around for Haswell to become the standard.

OXBALLS DOT COM
Sep 11, 2005

by FactsAreUseless
Young Orc

Mu Zeta posted:

It works like smartphones. They have ultra high resolution and the text is easily read. I don't know if it's done as well on Windows 8 but I believe that specific programs have to be changed to support it.

Not really, though. Messing with dpi settings in windows still fucks up a lot of basic ui elements in a lot of programs. The only programs that are built to scale are metro programs, which usually have enormous touch-friendly UI anyway. Windows does not handle high-res screens well at all. If you have a separate monitor with a different DPI? One or the other can become almost unusable. Even OS X gets around it with what's basically a hack via pixel doubling.

Smartphones and tablets benefit from ultra high resolution because you hold them right up to your face, and their OS and all the programs are able to zoom and scale to fit the screen. If you used a smartphone from more than an arm's length away, you wouldn't need or even notice as high a resolution screen. Also because making a small high-res screen is nowhere near as expensive as making a large high-res screen.

OXBALLS DOT COM fucked around with this message at 15:07 on Jun 5, 2013

Bob Morales
Aug 18, 2006


Just wear the fucking mask, Bob

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

I like my screen not looking like a screen door. My vision is 20/40 but my imac looks like a pixelated mess compared to my rMBP. It makes fonts look so much more clear that it's worth it.

Plus, you can run a high res panel at a lower resolution than native and it still looks pretty good. You can run 1680x1050 on a 13" screen instead of 1280x800, for example.

You need something like 2560x1600 to do this though, 1920x1080 isn't quit enough for it to not look funny.

OXBALLS DOT COM
Sep 11, 2005

by FactsAreUseless
Young Orc
Except screen door isn't something that comes just from resolution - it also has to do with the construction of the screen. I have 20/20 vision uncorrected and am fine with most lower res displays. It also seems like part of your problem is that OS X has particularly bad font rendering. If you're scaling displays and still think it looks ok, then probably you're not using the full resolution of the screen anyway. I wouldn't pay the significant price premium for a high-res screen that doesn't work well with my software, especially since it also will reduce battery life and portability by needing a stronger backlight or having a less bright screen, etc.

Yeah, the retina macs are good high-end computers, but that's because they have software that's designed around them to take advantage of the hardware and they're good computers even ignoring just the screen.

butt dickus
Jul 7, 2007

top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

QuarkJets posted:

There are many people who use a large TV as a computer monitor without any problems. Having trouble reading text? No problem, pretty much every piece of software that displays text (such as Word or Chrome) has really easy to use text-zooming capabilities (typically this is ctrl + scroll wheel).

Get a wireless keyboard + mouse and do your computing from the couch instead of a desk chair
Some TVs are better than others. The problem isn't the size of the text.

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1381724/official-4-4-4-chroma-subsampling-thread

You don't have to worry about that poo poo with a monitor or laptop screen. In any case, I'd rather use a high-resolution display instead of a lovely TV with a terrible aspect ratio.

Speaking of high-resolution displays, I've been checking daily for news about a Haswell refresh of the Chromebook Pixel. Apparently Haswell has been referenced in Chrome OS code, but that doesn't mean much since Chrome OS can be run on other devices. The current one is tempting, but it only has 5 hours of battery life, which Haswell ought to improve. I shouldn't be this excited about a $1500 internet appliance. But it's the nicest internet appliance. And it can run Linux.

Bob Morales
Aug 18, 2006


Just wear the fucking mask, Bob

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

Cream_Filling posted:

Except screen door isn't something that comes just from resolution - it also has to do with the construction of the screen. I have 20/20 vision uncorrected and am fine with most lower res displays. It also seems like part of your problem is that OS X has particularly bad font rendering. If you're scaling displays and still think it looks ok, then probably you're not using the full resolution of the screen anyway. I wouldn't pay the significant price premium for a high-res screen that doesn't work well with my software, especially since it also will reduce battery life and portability by needing a stronger backlight or having a less bright screen, etc.
No, I've just been spoiled by hi-resolution text rendering on my phone, tablet, and now my laptop.

Bob Morales
Aug 18, 2006


Just wear the fucking mask, Bob

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

Doctor rear end in a top hat posted:

I shouldn't be this excited about a $1500 internet appliance. But it's the nicest internet appliance. And it can run Linux.

So can other laptops and they do a much better job of it.

butt dickus
Jul 7, 2007

top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

Bob Morales posted:

So can other laptops and they do a much better job of it.
But do they have a 2560x1700 screen and phenomenal build quality?

e: also my italics indicated a hint of sarcasm but I really do want the thing even though buying a rMBP is probably a better idea.

butt dickus fucked around with this message at 16:28 on Jun 5, 2013

bull3964
Nov 18, 2000

DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.


The thing is, if you are going to buy a Windows 8 notebook as primarily a media consumption device, you DO want the highest screen resolution possible. Yes, the only thing that scales properly are metro apps, but you are going to be much more inclined to use metro apps on a single display small screened notebook than you are a desktop.

I hardly spend any time in "metro" on my desktop, but I do see myself using it much more on a 11" or 13" notebook. So, a high DPI display would be a huge asset there.

OXBALLS DOT COM
Sep 11, 2005

by FactsAreUseless
Young Orc

bull3964 posted:

The thing is, if you are going to buy a Windows 8 notebook as primarily a media consumption device, you DO want the highest screen resolution possible. Yes, the only thing that scales properly are metro apps, but you are going to be much more inclined to use metro apps on a single display small screened notebook than you are a desktop.

I hardly spend any time in "metro" on my desktop, but I do see myself using it much more on a 11" or 13" notebook. So, a high DPI display would be a huge asset there.

But then you're entering the "why not just buy an iPad for a half to a quarter of the price?" zone.

bull3964
Nov 18, 2000

DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.


Cream_Filling posted:

But then you're entering the "why not just buy an iPad for a half to a quarter of the price?" zone.

You can't run steam games on an iPad.

I already have both a Nexus 10 and a Nexus 7 for the roles of a tablet. I want to replace my aging E1505 Core 2 duo 15" notebook that has a 1680x1050 screen. 1080p screens are hardly much of an upgrade at this point.

Give me a 13" chassis with a screen on par with my Nexus 10 and we'll be talking. Integrated Haswell graphics will be plenty to run all of the indy steam games I've gotten through humble bundle as well as some more demanding games at lower resolutions. Meanwhile, if I want to do a bit of web-browsing or watch an HDX vudu movie on the same device, I won't be let down by the display.

To put it another way, notebooks are 6-8 year purchases for me and I really don't want to lock myself into last gen DPIs when better ones are finally coming out.

InstantInfidel
Jan 9, 2010

BEST :10bux: I EVER SPENT

Avant Gardening posted:

From the benchmarks at Anandtech, the HD5200 performs as well as the 640m, while the 650m performs either slightly or much better, depending on the game. Also, the dv6t I've configured has is 1080p while the 430s Thinkpad is 720p, so having to configure the Thinkpad for 1080p would probably result in it being more than $800, which is the limit for what I want to spend.

What I'm worried about is getting a laptop that falls apart or breaks down in the first few months, and I find it so strange that an otherwise great laptop (in regards to specs) might be uncomfortably hot, too loud when under a full load, or just feel as if it's made of tupperware--and this is what I've been reading in the OP of this thread as well as your posts, and I trust SA more on this than the cursory reviews I find everywhere else. I'll take your advice and stick around for Haswell to become the standard.

HD5200 has been out for less than a week and is just getting drivers for most games. The 650M has been out for almost a year and has had numerous revisions and tweaks. Give it time to get its sea legs and the gap will close considerably.

Otherwise, can you be more specific with what you want to do with it? Unless you really want a big machine, get an X240 with the IPS display (hopefully it'll be standard) and the i7 that comes with GT3 (regular, not 5200). It should still handle AAA titles, no problem, at 768p on medium settings.

Deformed Church
May 12, 2012

5'5", IQ 81


What sort of price drops am I looking at if I wait another couple of weeks for haswell to be more generally available? I've found something which is basically exactly what I want for about £200 less than anything else similar to it, and this shitbox is getting more and more dead every day. If it's only gonna be a small drop, I'm considering going for it now since I'll have to wait six weeks if I don't jump within the next seven days or so.

InstantInfidel
Jan 9, 2010

BEST :10bux: I EVER SPENT
Never count on price drops. You might see 5%, you might see 25. It's a guessing game.

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Hadlock
Nov 9, 2004

They may get desperate towards the end of back to school season, but by the time Ivy Bridge came around, mfgs had a good idea of what tablets were going to do to their sales forecasts. The iPad and android tablets were still an unknown sales figure when mfgs made Sandy Bridge purchasing agreements with Intel, and probably why they're still trying to unload Sandy Bridge models. Now through the end of September is likely when you will see the biggest discounts as they burn through the rest of their stock. Expect to see Ivy Bridge chips in Lenovo's "lower end" builds until Intel ramps up production of their mid-range and i3 Haswell chips.

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