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z16bitsega
Nov 26, 2005

DrDork posted:

The "goofy small sized drive" you're talking about is a 1.8" drive, but pretty much every laptop above 13" these days uses 2.5" drives or the absolutely tiny mSATA drives. Which isn't a problem because no one bothers making consumer 3.5" SSDs anymore to begin with.

So which does the X230 use, 2.5 or mSATA?

DrDork posted:

The T430 is one of the best-built, most durable laptops you can buy under $1000, but the battery life on the standard battery still isn't amazing--about 3-4 hours. You can get an extended battery off Amazon for $70-$80 that'll go 6+ hours, though. The screen is, admittedly, mediocre at best and there's nothing you can do about it. Unless you need to replace your laptop NOW, you may be better off waiting for the Haswell refresh in a month or two and hoping that Lenovo bothers to pair the new T4xx with a monitor that doesn't suck.

Weren't they claiming up to 30 hours or something silly like that when the T420 came out? What happened with that?

Performance in terms of raw processing power really does not matter much to me. With my current Core 2 Duo, I don't think I've ever done anything that's been processor-limited. I have my doubts about Lenovo using a screen that doesn't suck, given their track record on such things.

DrDork posted:

I'm curious as to how your warranty experience has been poor. Every dealing I've had with IBM so far has been extremely easy and usually results in them sending whatever parts I ask for with only the most basic of questioning, most of which usually revolves around whether or not I want to pay for weekend shipping.

Well, since you asked...

My current laptop had a global next day onsite warranty package. In their own words, "This product is entitled to parts, labor and on-site repairservice (9x5 next business day) in approved locations." My first warranty claim was just a bit over a year ago, when the hinges came apart and broke through the screen bezel and the lcd back cover. They wouldn't honor the "onsite" part of the warranty service because it was physical damage, and I had to send it in. When I got it back, the indicator LEDs at the base of the screen weren't lined up properly (I think they left out the clear plastic bit that runs from the LEDs themselves to the holes in the case), my touchscreen wasn't re-connected, and the adhesive name badge strip fell off after about a day of using the computer. Since it was my only computer at the time, I re-connected the touch panel myself and just lived with the other problems.

Second experience was when the mainboard and/or CPU fried themselves. The system overheated and shut down one day while watching a netflix video (while sitting on a table, vents weren't blocked or anything). I let it cool off, then gave it my best effort cleaning with compressed air. About a week later, this time while doing nothing special, it shuts down, and won't turn back on even after sitting for a couple hours. So I call Lenovo. I still have this all saved in a text file, so here's an overly detailed account of what happened:

-Thursday afternoon: Called in, got a person with a thick foreign accent I couldn't understand, so I hung up and called back. Got a person who spoke clearly, told them my issue, and was told a tech would call me within 24 hours to set up a time to repair the computer.
-Friday: no call.
-Monday: no call.
-Tuesday: no call.
-Wednesday: I call back, and they give me a different phone number to try. I try this number, and of course wait on hold 20 minutes. They tell me they'll send out an urgent page, and a tech should be calling me within a few minutes. Two hours later, still no call from the tech. I call back, and they tell me someone should be calling me by the end of the day. I wait another two hours, by which point it's now 6 PM. I call in again, they "escalate it to Lenovo", and tell me I should be getting a call by noon Thursday.
-Thursday: Guy actually calls me! Says he has the part from Lenovo, but won't be able to make it out to me til Friday. Ok, whatever, my laptop will be functional again the next day, right?!
-Friday: Guy shows up at my door... holding a fan assembly. NOPE, that ain't gonna fix it. I tell him this; he insists on trying it anyway. NOPE, didn't fix it. He says he's gonna order a new CPU, and if that doesn't work, then a new mainboard. I tell him they should be the same piece, because the CPU is soldered in on the T400s. He insists this isn't true. He tries to look up the IBM part number for the CPU, and is puzzled when he can't find it listed. I tell him it's because it would be included with the mainboard. He again insists that this isn't true. Finally, he calls into IBM and asks for a new CPU for the computer. They tell him it's on backorder, and will be a couple days out. I've got no choice but to wait.
-The next Tuesday: He calls and sets up a time to come over. Shows up with a new CPU/mainboard assembly; I was right, they're soldered together and considered a single assembly. Installs it without issue, and the drat thing is finally repaired.

TL;DR: Next day onsite service took six calls to IBM and 12 days to get my laptop fixed.

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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:

Pretty much this. 99% of people who use credit cards lose money on them. People like you who use them to farm airline miles are loss leaders who do free advertising for them to people who can't afford your lifestyle.

Credit cards exist because most people use them to buy poo poo they can't afford. This is a fact and the reason why all american CC companies are headquartered in SD

This 10X. When I was 19-22 I bought a ton of computer poo poo on credit. Dell, Best Buy, whatever banks the other places used. I had like over $10,000 in computers purchased and after 3 years I didn't have anything to show for it. I had sold them or they were only worth $300. Hell I even bought a $2800 Mac and traded it to a guy for a motorcycle because I couldn't get a loan for a bike from my bank, but I could get credit from MacMall.

After a few years I figured out that was stupid and just started paying that poo poo off like a mad man but I'd never, ever buy a computer on credit again.

Unless, maybe you needed a computer to do contract work or something on and you were going to be paid enough where it made sense. Like you need a Mac to do some iOS programming but don't have $1500 laying round. And in that case I'd probably donate some plasma or sell some other random poo poo to come up with $700 for a used one.

Hadlock
Nov 9, 2004

z16bitsega posted:

So which does the X230 use, 2.5 or mSATA?

Both, it has one of each, although the mSATA is SATA1 and the 2.5" drive uses SATA2

shrughes
Oct 11, 2008

(call/cc call/cc)

sports posted:

There's really no point in getting a quad-core processor today when most dual cores virtualize 2 more cores themselves.

Good lord, stop posting.

(Megaman: He's wrong, obviously. A quad-core CPU will have twice the L3 cache and twice the number of cores. If you care about CPU performance or something... well, is quad-core that important? If you want a lightweight quad-core laptop, the best choices are probably the 15" retina MacBook Pro, the 15" Panasonic CF-B11, the 14" Dell Latitude E6430, and maybe the 14" Razor Blade, if its quality is good. They all come in at about 4 lbs. But the Clevo W110ER is the 11.6" that can be configured with a quad-core CPU. You'll have to read its reviews yourself.)

Edit: Here's a review comparing the Clevo W110ER against other machines: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2410891,00.asp

Note the benchmark list comparing the benchmarks against the similarly outfitted Alienware M14x. The cooling capabilities of the machine limit its performance.

shrughes fucked around with this message at 04:56 on Jun 26, 2013

FISHMANPET
Mar 3, 2007

Sweet 'N Sour
Can't
Melt
Steel Beams
I've got a Latitude E6430 with the quad core i7. It's everything you'd expect out of a quad core mobile CPU, the fan blows out a ton of hot air, it's not super light, and the battery is good for maybe 3-4 hours. Mine's also doing something where the GPU crashes the comptuer sometimes, but I'm not sure if it's a fault of the model or just mine.

DrDork
Dec 29, 2003
commanding officer of the Army of Dorkness

z16bitsega posted:

So which does the X230 use, 2.5 or mSATA?
As Hadlock notes, it has both. This is commonly causes people to order the laptop with the minimum HDD available and then add in an mSATA of their own afterwards, netting them substantial savings and the bonus of being able to use both a SSD and HDD at the same time.

z16bitsega posted:

Weren't they claiming up to 30 hours or something silly like that when the T420 came out? What happened with that?
You have to read the fine print where they say it's with the extended battery, slice battery, and ultrabay battery all installed. I don't know about 30 hours, but people certainly get 20+ with that slice battery.

z16bitsega posted:

Performance in terms of raw processing power really does not matter much to me. With my current Core 2 Duo, I don't think I've ever done anything that's been processor-limited. I have my doubts about Lenovo using a screen that doesn't suck, given their track record on such things.
Normally I'd agree, but everyone else seems to be taking the Haswell refresh as an opportunity to pump up the screens, so there's more hope than usual this time around.

z16bitsega posted:

Well, since you asked...
That's pretty bad--are you not in the US or something? IBM (US ThinkPad support) usually bends over backwards to make people happy, but Lenovo's support anywhere else is nothing special. You're right about your previous comment, though: experiences like that are par for the course from anyone else in the business except Apple, rather than the unusual case that it is for IBM.

Automata 10 Pack
Jun 21, 2007

Ten games published by Automata, on one cassette
So skip out on that IdeaPad y410p deal? Does the low build quality make the $800 for the Haswell and 750M not worth it?

FISHMANPET
Mar 3, 2007

Sweet 'N Sour
Can't
Melt
Steel Beams
I've got the Y500 and while it's certainly not a tank, it doesn't feel like it's going to fall apart in my hands.

shrughes
Oct 11, 2008

(call/cc call/cc)

DrDork posted:

Normally I'd agree, but everyone else seems to be taking the Haswell refresh as an opportunity to pump up the screens, so there's more hope than usual this time around.

On the other hand, the 14" Razer Blade has the typical bad 14" 1600x900 screen that has been typical for the past couple of years. We've seen one slide that mentioned 1080p on 14", and that was in some Dell presentation, and I think it said or implied that 14" Latitudes (or some other boring Dell laptop) would have 1920x1080 screens. Well, the Alienware 14 has a very nice 1920x1080 screen option, so it seems that other Dells have some hope in that department.

With Lenovo we've seen a quite good 1600x900 screen on the X1 Carbon, and recently the 1600x900 upgrade on the T430 was only $20. The T431s reporting has better contrast than the T430 and T430s (according to notebookcheck.net) but is still pretty bad in the viewing angle department. Maybe they're trying to burn out inventory or some other contract in order to make way for better screens, but if that is true, will it be T431s screens or X1 Carbon screens? My bet is the T431s and T440 or whatever will have T431s-type screens (with somewhat better contrast, still low quality) while the X1 Carbon will continue having its kind of screen. Remember that Lenovo is in the business of making business laptops for cheap, and a screen quality improvement on its low-end offerings (remember we're talking about a $600-700 laptop here) isn't going to show up on its spec sheet.

DrDork
Dec 29, 2003
commanding officer of the Army of Dorkness
Oh, I don't expect them to slap a high-quality screen on the T431 or whatever it'll be called as a default option--you're right, great viewing angles don't really sell business-class laptops at that price point. But it wouldn't kill them to offer a more expensive screen as an add-on option. poo poo, they already do that with the T430, why not make it a $60 upgrade instead of a $20 one and make it a screen that wouldn't disappoint everyone?

Automata 10 Pack
Jun 21, 2007

Ten games published by Automata, on one cassette
After searching I've decided to pass up on the y410p after hearing about possible overheating and black flickering issues.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ideapad-essential/722071-y410p-black-screen-flash-flicker.html
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ideapad-essential/721331-lenovo-ideapad-y410p-owners-information-thread.html

Found these two threads about the y410p, people don't seem happy with the product. A shame, if it was better put together it'd be perfect for me. :(

z16bitsega
Nov 26, 2005

DrDork posted:

That's pretty bad--are you not in the US or something? IBM (US ThinkPad support) usually bends over backwards to make people happy, but Lenovo's support anywhere else is nothing special. You're right about your previous comment, though: experiences like that are par for the course from anyone else in the business except Apple, rather than the unusual case that it is for IBM.

Columbus, Ohio.

When I had a MacBook, I had a magsafe adapter go bad. Called Apple about it on a Sunday afternoon, and there was a replacement sitting on my doorstep when I got home from class at 11 AM Monday. I don't know how shipping that fast is even possible, but they made it happen. They also replaced my battery twice- once under warranty, and once a year and a half after my warranty expired (had the computer with me and was near an Apple store, and figured it couldn't hurt to stop in and ask). It's a shame I hate their current hardware designs so much.

On the subject of screentalk, I very much prefer better viewing angles and black levels over higher resolution, and I think most people would probably agree with me. I'd personally rather have a 1366x768 IPS display than a 1080p TN display. I was hoping that actually using decent quality screens would be something that everyone would follow Apple's lead on, like horrible chiclet style keyboards and horrible buttonless trackpads, but it doesn't seem to have happened yet.

Char
Jan 5, 2013
What's the best place in Europe to look around for prices?
A T430 for 700$(=540€) isn't a realistic possibility, a new T430 with an i7 is 1500€ on Amazon, but I need a new pseudo-workstation and with these prices I'd rather get a MacBook.

EDIT: the needs: virtualization, networking, sysadmin stuff. Light programming / scripting, probably. Don't care about gaming, if it came for free or for a small premium it'd be considered. I *think* I need an i7, but I don't really know if I do.

Char fucked around with this message at 12:16 on Jun 26, 2013

knox_harrington
Feb 18, 2011

Running no point.

Char posted:

What's the best place in Europe to look around for prices?
A T430 for 700$(=540€) isn't a realistic possibility, a new T430 with an i7 is 1500€ on Amazon, but I need a new pseudo-workstation and with these prices I'd rather get a MacBook.

In the UK there's a Lenovo outlet which sells new laptops, where abouts are you? My x230 a couple of weeks ago was £550.

Char
Jan 5, 2013

knox_harrington posted:

In the UK there's a Lenovo outlet which sells new laptops, where abouts are you? My x230 a couple of weeks ago was £550.

Italy. Do Lenovo Outlets deliver internationally? I don't care about the keyboard layout (I actually prefer the UK/US layout). I wouldn't even care about the OS.

Vinlaen
Feb 19, 2008

What are the alternatives to the Macbook Air 11.6" ?

I'm looking for this:
  • 16:9 aspect ratio (for video)
  • 128GB or more storage
  • Close to MBA form-factor

I'm looking at some of the refurbished Macbook Airs and they have some decent deals but I'm wondering if anything else even exists.

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!

Vinlaen posted:

What are the alternatives to the Macbook Air 11.6" ?

I'm looking for this:
  • 16:9 aspect ratio (for video)
  • 128GB or more storage
  • Close to MBA form-factor

I'm looking at some of the refurbished Macbook Airs and they have some decent deals but I'm wondering if anything else even exists.

Acer S7, ASUS UX21

shrughes
Oct 11, 2008

(call/cc call/cc)
An ASUS UX21A perhaps. I'm not sure this model actually existed or if it was just a prank that ASUS played on reviewers.

sourdough
Apr 30, 2012

shrughes posted:

An ASUS UX21A perhaps. I'm not sure this model actually existed or if it was just a prank that ASUS played on reviewers.

I know the sandy bridge UX21E exists, but yeah I don't know if the ivy bridge refresh ever actually got released.

The Last Poet
Oct 9, 2001

Vinlaen posted:

What are the alternatives to the Macbook Air 11.6" ?

I'm looking for this:
  • 16:9 aspect ratio (for video)
  • 128GB or more storage
  • Close to MBA form-factor

I'm looking at some of the refurbished Macbook Airs and they have some decent deals but I'm wondering if anything else even exists.

The new Sony Vaio Pro is available in an 11" version and has a 1080p screen.

sports
Sep 1, 2012

shrughes posted:

Good lord, stop posting.

(Megaman: He's wrong, obviously. A quad-core CPU will have twice the L3 cache and twice the number of cores. If you care about CPU performance or something... well, is quad-core that important? If you want a lightweight quad-core laptop, the best choices are probably the 15" retina MacBook Pro, the 15" Panasonic CF-B11, the 14" Dell Latitude E6430, and maybe the 14" Razor Blade, if its quality is good. They all come in at about 4 lbs. But the Clevo W110ER is the 11.6" that can be configured with a quad-core CPU. You'll have to read its reviews yourself.)

Edit: Here's a review comparing the Clevo W110ER against other machines: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2410891,00.asp

Note the benchmark list comparing the benchmarks against the similarly outfitted Alienware M14x. The cooling capabilities of the machine limit its performance.

I mean, I understand you have to defend your purchase, but you should realize that most software outside of specialty applications aren't going to use 4 cores to their full extent. The virtualized 2 cores in a dual core processor will on average handle the same amount of load that hardware cores on a quad core would.

Naffer
Oct 26, 2004

Not a good chemist
Has anyone used the Dell Latitude 6430u Ultrabook? I know it hasn't been upgraded to Haswell yet, but it seems like it's a decent looking machine. There are a lot of 13.3" notebooks but fewer 14" ones besides the X1 carbon. Is it worth considering after it's upgraded?

Seamonster
Apr 30, 2007

IMMER SIEGREICH
If your're asking about 14'' machines, Lenovo u430 touch will be out later next month/early august. Ultrabook with 1080p and dedicated graphics too.

voltron
Nov 26, 2000
Zapf gave me this account because he's a friend of the Indian-American people.
I know this forum hates large laptops but please take my word that I can't find a place for a desktop in my house and a huge laptop on the dining table is what I'm looking for. I don't plan to remove DC power from the laptop and I don't plan to move it around, ever. So, I found this on Craigslist:

Alienware M17xR4 with:
-3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-3720QM (6MB Cache, up to 3.6GHz w/ Turbo Boost 2.0. Quad core with Hyperthreading)
-Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit, disc included
-12GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1600MHz
-750GB 7,200 RPM hard drive
-2GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon HD 7970M and Intel HD 4000 iGPU
-17.3-inch WideFHD 1920 x 1080 60Hz WLED
-Intel® Centrino-N 2230 a/g/n 2x2 MIMO Technology with WiMax and Bluetooth 4.0
-Slot-Loading Dual Layer DVD Burner (DVD+-RW, CD-RW)

BONUS: You'll get an extra power adapter for free! ($99 value) (Not sure I need this, though).
BONUS: You'll get a laptop cooling pad
Optional: Intel Ultimate-N 6300 for $40

Listed for $1600 but he offered it for $1500.

Whatdya think? I don't really care about Haswell since the battery is only in case my dog knocks the power cord out of the laptop. I plan to buy a Samsung SSD of some sort later, and I'm upgrading from an Asus U45 i3 with GT310M, this thing is going to be a huge upgrade.

The Notebookcheck review was glowing: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Alienware-M17x-R4-Notebook-Review.75292.0.html

Am I stupid for thinking about it or stupid for thinking about it this long??

Thought about it after I posted and checked ebay: http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR5.TRC1.A0.Xm17x+r4+7970&_nkw=m17x+r4+7970&_sacat=0&_from=R40 and seems to be about right, maybe a slight bit overpriced still if removing the cooling pad and extra power brick.

voltron fucked around with this message at 22:41 on Jun 26, 2013

InstantInfidel
Jan 9, 2010

BEST :10bux: I EVER SPENT
If you have room for that laptop, you have room for an mITX desktop that will outperform and outlast that laptop while running you about the same amount of money. If you buy that laptop, you're wasting money.

If you want to go ahead anyway, then yeah, I guess that's the best thing you can get, but only because everything else is worse. Added bonus, the glowing logo is a free contraceptive! But seriously, that logo is huge and gaudy, keep that in mind if you have judgemental friends.

Naffer
Oct 26, 2004

Not a good chemist

InstantInfidel posted:

If you have room for that laptop, you have room for an mITX desktop that will outperform and outlast that laptop while running you about the same amount of money. If you buy that laptop, you're wasting money.

If you want to go ahead anyway, then yeah, I guess that's the best thing you can get, but only because everything else is worse. Added bonus, the glowing logo is a free contraceptive! But seriously, that logo is huge and gaudy, keep that in mind if you have judgemental friends.

Put another way, the advantage of a small form-factor desktop over a laptop in a situation where you're never going to move it is that you can upgrade the video card in two years and keep playing all the brand new games. There are a lot of people in the Intel thread still using machines with C2Quad Q6600 chips that they've had for years. Since GPUs become obsolete so much faster than every other component, gaming laptops have a shorter usable lifespan simply because the GPUs get old really fast.

voltron
Nov 26, 2000
Zapf gave me this account because he's a friend of the Indian-American people.

InstantInfidel posted:

If you want to go ahead anyway, then yeah, I guess that's the best thing you can get, but only because everything else is worse.

Cool, thanks for the info.

voltron fucked around with this message at 00:03 on Jun 27, 2013

OXBALLS DOT COM
Sep 11, 2005

by FactsAreUseless
Young Orc

Naffer posted:

Put another way, the advantage of a small form-factor desktop over a laptop in a situation where you're never going to move it is that you can upgrade the video card in two years and keep playing all the brand new games. There are a lot of people in the Intel thread still using machines with C2Quad Q6600 chips that they've had for years. Since GPUs become obsolete so much faster than every other component, gaming laptops have a shorter usable lifespan simply because the GPUs get old really fast.

I'd say the biggest advantage is that you can buy a big, high-quality screen that will probably last you several computers. Though I acknowledge that SFFs still aren't as portable as a laptop - that's really more the province of the AIO or VESA-mountable form factors. But then you can't really play games on it anymore except for a handful of ultracompact barebones that are way overpriced (though honestly all mobile GPU based systems are underpowered and overpriced for gaming).

the black husserl
Feb 25, 2005

Cream_Filling posted:

(though honestly all mobile GPU based systems are underpowered and overpriced for gaming).

Am I misreading this? My early 2010 Macbook pro runs Witcher 2 and Human Revolution on medium settings just fine. Surely the modern cards haven't gotten worse?

InstantInfidel
Jan 9, 2010

BEST :10bux: I EVER SPENT

the black husserl posted:

Am I misreading this? My early 2010' Macbook pro runs Witcher 2 and Human Revolution on medium settings just fine. Surely the modern cards haven't gotten worse?

The very highest-end cards are superb, but they require a massive cooling system and guzzle power. The mid and low range are pretty lovely, though.

edit: read another way, he's saying you're basically paying for less performance when compared with a desktop.

DrDork
Dec 29, 2003
commanding officer of the Army of Dorkness

the black husserl posted:

Am I misreading this? My early 2010 Macbook pro runs Witcher 2 and Human Revolution on medium settings just fine. Surely the modern cards haven't gotten worse?
Lots of people also like to play games at higher than 1440x900, like to be able to turn on all the pretties, and like to keep it running at a solid 60FPS, which is a troublesome thing to find in a laptop when trying to play current games, especially when you don't want the laptop to also weigh 10lbs and have a battery life of 30 minutes and still cost $1500.

OXBALLS DOT COM
Sep 11, 2005

by FactsAreUseless
Young Orc

the black husserl posted:

Am I misreading this? My early 2010 Macbook pro runs Witcher 2 and Human Revolution on medium settings just fine. Surely the modern cards haven't gotten worse?

Well by gaming I mean like ~pro gamer~ Crysis 3 max settings 60+ fps sort of gaming. Improvements in chips combined with a slow console cycle have gotten to the point where you can play basically everything at medium to low quality on even IGPs with no problem at all. But the benefits of a mid-range discrete GPU are really dropping compared to just getting the Intel IGP at this point. The top-end mobile GPUs give pretty good performance but it's really expensive and you sacrifice basically everything else on the laptop to have it due to the massive thermal output.

Switched.on
Apr 25, 2008
For the record, there are plenty of gaming laptops with user upgradeable GPUs now. There is a small subset of people for whom a gaming laptop is a good idea. I'm one of them, and I got the same load when I asked for advice here on which was a good buy. I never asked if I should buy one, because I'm savvy enough and know my situation better than anyone here. It was pretty frustrating to get blown off, but whatever. If you're sold on one, and price isn't a barrier you're worried about, don't let these guys talk you out of one. I'm leaning towards the new MSI GT60 myself, but still have another month to decide.

If price is something you're worried about, then their advice should definitely be considered. These guys really just wanna save you some cash, which is very nice of them.

voltron
Nov 26, 2000
Zapf gave me this account because he's a friend of the Indian-American people.

Switched.on posted:

For the record, there are plenty of gaming laptops with user upgradeable GPUs now. There is a small subset of people for whom a gaming laptop is a good idea. I'm one of them, and I got the same load when I asked for advice here on which was a good buy. I never asked if I should buy one, because I'm savvy enough and know my situation better than anyone here. It was pretty frustrating to get blown off, but whatever. If you're sold on one, and price isn't a barrier you're worried about, don't let these guys talk you out of one. I'm leaning towards the new MSI GT60 myself, but still have another month to decide.

If price is something you're worried about, then their advice should definitely be considered. These guys really just wanna save you some cash, which is very nice of them.

I considered the GT60 and GT70 as well, but it seems like the single fan for both the CPU and GPU can lead to CPU throttling. The Anandtech review (GT70 Dragon) was interesting as well as some comments in the Notebookreview forums.

Also, the G750 looked interesting for 1399 with a 765m, but the same 1399 gets you a 770m in the GT70 and equivalent Sager/Clevos. Anyway, I don't game all that often, but I get a computer once every 3-4 years, and I don't mind paying a little bit more to last me that time. I have a U45 right now and it was nice when I needed portability, but as I stated, now I'm table-locked; I'm not that interested in keeping a mini-ITX, monitor, and a gaggle of wires hanging on my dining table-- so I've kinda decided on a laptop that I that shut and stow away when it's time to lay a nice dinner out.

Proud Christian Mom
Dec 20, 2006
READING COMPREHENSION IS HARD
My Sager NP150 owns yall

Brut
Aug 21, 2007

Alright so seeing as Haswell thinkpads or Yogas are not really around the corner yet, I'm almost certainly gonna pull the trigger on a T530. I'd like to have an SSD as the main drive and a regular HDD for storage, I see that in the customization I can replace the optical drive with a 7200rpm 500gb for $110 including bay adapter, and I can add in an mSATA drive. What's my best option here? just get the bay thing and install an ssd as the primary drive myself? I don't know anything about mSATA so that's really what's confusing me here.

Can I get the bay adapter on it's own and put in my own hard drive to have it come out cheaper? (or more capacity)

DrDork
Dec 29, 2003
commanding officer of the Army of Dorkness

Brut posted:

Alright so seeing as Haswell thinkpads or Yogas are not really around the corner yet, I'm almost certainly gonna pull the trigger on a T530. I'd like to have an SSD as the main drive and a regular HDD for storage, I see that in the customization I can replace the optical drive with a 7200rpm 500gb for $110 including bay adapter, and I can add in an mSATA drive. What's my best option here? just get the bay thing and install an ssd as the primary drive myself? I don't know anything about mSATA so that's really what's confusing me here.

Can I get the bay adapter on it's own and put in my own hard drive to have it come out cheaper? (or more capacity)
mSATA is technically a type of connection port, but it has basically become a de-facto size standard, really, like 3.5" or 1.8".

Your best option is to decide what sized HDD you want and order the laptop with that--and only that. Then wander over to NewEgg or the like and buy a mSATA SSD drive of the appropriate size. Here's a long-time favorite of the SSD thread: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226226 (the SSD thread will happily assist you in picking one out if you want). You can then install the mSATA into a small slot under one of the plates on the bottom of the T530--no crazy adapter needed. This is far cheaper than opting for a factory installed mSATA/SSD of any sort.

InstantInfidel
Jan 9, 2010

BEST :10bux: I EVER SPENT

Switched.on posted:

For the record, there are plenty of gaming laptops with user upgradeable GPUs now. There is a small subset of people for whom a gaming laptop is a good idea. I'm one of them, and I got the same load when I asked for advice here on which was a good buy. I never asked if I should buy one, because I'm savvy enough and know my situation better than anyone here. It was pretty frustrating to get blown off, but whatever. If you're sold on one, and price isn't a barrier you're worried about, don't let these guys talk you out of one. I'm leaning towards the new MSI GT60 myself, but still have another month to decide.

If price is something you're worried about, then their advice should definitely be considered. These guys really just wanna save you some cash, which is very nice of them.

We're trying to talk people off of a cliff. The appeal of a gaming laptop is that you can game anywhere you want, any time. The reality is that you're carrying around a ten pound monster that has a tether with a brick that weighs a pound or two itself. Things are changing, though, but not very quickly. Hopefully Broadwell eliminates the necessity for a dGPU altogether (unlikely, but hey, massive gains from Intel GMA->HD3000->HD4000->HD5000!) and even better, Nvidia is licensing Kepler, which means that IGPs can use Kepler chips as their IGP.

If you absofuckinglutely must have a gaming laptop (and unless you're in the service, a travelling salesman, or something of the variety where you do not relax in the same place 300+ nights of the year, you don't and should get a desktop), then look at the 14" Razer Blade or any of the ultrabooks with dGPUs. Those solve the very worst problems with gaming laptops, namely weight, footprint, and the power brick. Even better, look at a 2013 13" MBA, whose GPU will play virtually any game you throw at it (except for Crysis 3, and you'll be getting lovely FPS anyway, desktop cards struggle with it) and whose battery life is 12 loving hours of light usage, 7 at heavy, and 5 for video playback :o: Your choices are numerous.

Brut
Aug 21, 2007

DrDork posted:

mSATA is technically a type of connection port, but it has basically become a de-facto size standard, really, like 3.5" or 1.8".

Your best option is to decide what sized HDD you want and order the laptop with that--and only that. Then wander over to NewEgg or the like and buy a mSATA SSD drive of the appropriate size. Here's a long-time favorite of the SSD thread: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226226 (the SSD thread will happily assist you in picking one out if you want). You can then install the mSATA into a small slot under one of the plates on the bottom of the T530--no crazy adapter needed. This is far cheaper than opting for a factory installed mSATA/SSD of any sort.

Yeah that does seem like the best option, since I'd get to actually keep an optical drive (which isn't a huge deal these days but can be handy). It won't have any trouble booting from mSATA, right? Thanks a lot for your help!

edit: If I just clone the drive it came with to the mSATA ssd I'll buy (using acronis or something) and then wipe the HDD, is it gonna handle that fine or will I have to do a fresh windows install myself?

Brut fucked around with this message at 05:52 on Jun 27, 2013

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DrDork
Dec 29, 2003
commanding officer of the Army of Dorkness
Booting from the mSATA is no problem--that's pretty much the exact setup I run in my T430. You can use Acronis or whatnot to clone the disk if you wish, or you can use install disks of your own (it'll ask you to burn a set the first time you boot) to "factory restore" to the mSATA. The only difficulty is if you want to use the disks, you have to pop out the HDD (easy--it's just one screw and a pull-tab) or it'll automatically set the restore point to the HDD and not let you change it to the mSATA. But yes, you can easily clone/restore to the mSATA and run it that way, or you can do a clean install of Windows if that's your preference (just ensure you have the network drivers on a USB drive or something). The ThinkPad doesn't come with a whole lot of bloatware, but it still has a small selection of odds and ends that most people are just going to delete (or should delete) anyhow.

Also, once you get everything up and running and have burned a set of restore disks, you can wander in and delete the restore partition that Lenovo automatically makes--it'll save you quite a bit of space on your pricy SSD.

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