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shrughes
Oct 11, 2008

(call/cc call/cc)

Killer-of-Lawyers posted:

Yeah, that makes sense, really. I might want something a little beefier than a Chromebook, but I know a few people who have raved about their utility. They use their own OS, don't they? I may want to stick with a windows machine just for compatibility and all. What about a good durable business style laptop? Thinkpads still a thing like mentioned in the OP?

edit: And to clarify, light and durable are a thing with me, but I'm not totally concerned with cost. I'd rather get more than I need out of a laptop than less, for convenience purposes.

edit2: Ahh, the thinkpads won't be out with the newer intel chips until the end of october, which is a bit of a wait to get something I could be using now.

You could also instead go the route of getting a cheap Windows netbook for like $250 or $300, some 11.6" Acer or ASUS thing with a Celeron 847 inside. It won't be beefy and durable, but they'll be lighter, and after the first one breaks completely, you can just get another. The main plausible reason not to do this is if the Celeron 847 is too slow -- 1/7th to 1/8th the performance of a top mobile CPU. You could also get something a bit more expensive, a bit better, like the X202E-DB21T http://www.amazon.com/ASUS-X202E-DB21T-11-6-Inch-Touchscreen-Laptop/dp/B00CWISC5I/ , which has a touch screen, better CPU -- more like 1/4th to 1/3rd the CPU performance of a top mobile CPU. That's way more than what I had in 2007. A Lenovo T430 or T430s that is generally recommended here would have about 1/2 the CPU performance.

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Longbike
Sep 7, 2011

always be closing posted:

Looking for a laptop around, but preferably under 12", to surf the web and run engine management software. Going to be getting used in the garage so a durable unit would be beneficial. Looking at used lenovo x120's like in the op, are these horribly slow or unusable? The price point is nice. Trying to stay ~$300

edit- something like this? http://www.ebay.com/itm/130980603225?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649

I'm posting this from an x60 with a core duo @1.66 gHz and 2 GB of memory, and it does web pages just fine. Can't imagine that your engine management software is very resource-intensive, so you'd probably be fine there too. I take mine out into the shop pretty regularly and its held up like a champ. Picked it up for something like $140 on ebay early this year and its been flawless except that the digitizer stopped working so now I can't use tablet mode for anything productive.

I'd say you are definitely on the right track for a cheap and durable work laptop.

Calidus
Oct 31, 2011

Stand back I'm going to try science!

Killer-of-Lawyers posted:

Alright, I'm terrible at picking out laptops, but I need one. I just transferred into a University, which means more time on a more distant and much larger campus than I had to deal with before. Being in the Engineering program means that not only do I have more and larger books to lug about, but I have to carry a tool box too some days. Also, they just started bus service, and I can't beat the student rate for that over driving, so that means more time walking and carrying lots of stuff.

I've pretty much decided that getting a laptop should be a priority. I'm trying to find something easy to use and versatile. I need to be able to read on it and type well so I can use it for e-books instead of carrying around 10 lbs of paper books with me each day. I'm looking at the ultrabook end of things, because I'm not terrible strapped for cash, and I would like to get something versatile and beefy. Also, I think the touch screens should be more natural to read a text book off of. I'm not concerned about gaming, I've got a serviceable gaming PC at home. Most importantly though, I'm a bit of a klutz, and theres going to be a lot of walking and heat (Texas is hot.). Anything out there that's to be recommended that's good for the job? What about that new Yoga coming out? October is a bit of a wait, and I'm not sure if I really need the updated specs, although I'd expect this laptop to last me till I get my undergraduate degree in a couple years, so getting a recent device should be a priority.

Any advice? Either on laptops, or ways I might have made misassumptions, such as wanting a touch pad for reading e-texts?

If you are in engineering at university just use the engineering computer labs, trying to setup and run engineering software that you are going to use for a semester or two on a personal laptop is a pain in the rear end from my experience. If you want something now I would just a chromebook then come backfriday or the holidays see if you really need more power, between sales and more haswell options it should be a nice time to buy a laptop.

No Butt Stuff
Jun 10, 2004

Cross-posting this from Coupons/Deals:

http://www.woot.com/offers/asus-15-6-core-i5-vivobook-touch#read-more

Asus S550CARF-ESI5T20 VivoBook, 15.6" Touchscreen LED, 6GB DDR3, 750GB SATA, 24GB SSD, USB 3.0, 802.11n, Win 8 for 499.

Is this a good deal for a decent PC? My wife is going back to school and I need something she can do school work on that isn't going to poo poo out on her in the next 3 years. I have an extra stick of 4 GB DDR3, so I can upgrade it to 8GB as soon as we get it.

E: I will probably also steal this to hook streaming video up to the TV on occasion, but not all the time.

e: Not Haswell, I think? So does that just make it a no go automatically?

No Butt Stuff fucked around with this message at 18:55 on Sep 6, 2013

Naffer
Oct 26, 2004

Not a good chemist

No Butt Stuff posted:

Cross-posting this from Coupons/Deals:

http://www.woot.com/offers/asus-15-6-core-i5-vivobook-touch#read-more

Asus S550CARF-ESI5T20 VivoBook, 15.6" Touchscreen LED, 6GB DDR3, 750GB SATA, 24GB SSD, USB 3.0, 802.11n, Win 8 for 499.

Is this a good deal for a decent PC? My wife is going back to school and I need something she can do school work on that isn't going to poo poo out on her in the next 3 years. I have an extra stick of 4 GB DDR3, so I can upgrade it to 8GB as soon as we get it.

E: I will probably also steal this to hook streaming video up to the TV on occasion, but not all the time.

e: Not Haswell, I think? So does that just make it a no go automatically?

I wouldn't rule it out based on not having Haswell, but I would based on that low resolution 15.6 inch screen and the non-SSD hard drive. Is the 15 inch screen a must or would you be ok with a 13.3"?

No Butt Stuff
Jun 10, 2004

I think a 13.3" would be fine.

Koth
Jul 1, 2005
Do any of you do any photo editing in Lightroom on your laptops? Is this something I would need a gaming laptop with a video card for, or would a home use laptop suffice?

No Butt Stuff
Jun 10, 2004

Home use. It's for my wife, the most photo editing she might do is touching up pictures of our kids. I just don't want to buy a super low end piece of poo poo and have it become useless in a year like the last emachine I got her for 300 bucks.

Koth
Jul 1, 2005

No Butt Stuff posted:

Home use. It's for my wife, the most photo editing she might do is touching up pictures of our kids. I just don't want to buy a super low end piece of poo poo and have it become useless in a year like the last emachine I got her for 300 bucks.

Sorry, I wasn't asking the question of you, I was asking it for myself. I'm looking for a laptop and I use Lightroom to edit all my photos.

SplitSoul
Dec 31, 2000

Edit: Nevermind.

Twerk from Home
Jan 17, 2009

This avatar brought to you by the 'save our dead gay forums' foundation.

Koth posted:

Do any of you do any photo editing in Lightroom on your laptops? Is this something I would need a gaming laptop with a video card for, or would a home use laptop suffice?

As of Lightroom 4, it's not GPU accelerated at all. If Lightroom performance is a priority, just spring for the fastest CPU available in the laptop of your choice. For example, if you're looking at Macbook Airs be sure to get the CPU upgrade.

A home use laptop would be fine, and lots of Lightroom work is one of those cases where a quad-core CPU would actually provide sigificant benefit. You'll be looking at the 14"+ space at minimum for that, though.

No Butt Stuff
Jun 10, 2004

Koth posted:

Sorry, I wasn't asking the question of you, I was asking it for myself. I'm looking for a laptop and I use Lightroom to edit all my photos.

Sorry, I misread. I'm still looking, so any ideas would be appreciated.

Naffer
Oct 26, 2004

Not a good chemist

No Butt Stuff posted:

Sorry, I misread. I'm still looking, so any ideas would be appreciated.

Ok, I sort of overestimated what's available for <$700 in the high-quality laptop with SSD and decent screen range. Lenovo has some "Scratch and Dent" Yoga 13 convertible ultrabooks in their outlet for $605 with a 3rd Gen i5, 4 GB of RAM, and a 128 GB SSD. That might not be bad, but it's not a stellar deal.
If you're not in a big rush you might want to wait and see if Haswell's increase in availability in October drives prices down a bit on last-year's models.

always be closing
Jul 16, 2005

Longbike posted:

I'm posting this from an x60 with a core duo @1.66 gHz and 2 GB of memory, and it does web pages just fine. Can't imagine that your engine management software is very resource-intensive, so you'd probably be fine there too. I take mine out into the shop pretty regularly and its held up like a champ. Picked it up for something like $140 on ebay early this year and its been flawless except that the digitizer stopped working so now I can't use tablet mode for anything productive.

I'd say you are definitely on the right track for a cheap and durable work laptop.

Keeping this going, I saw some T410's on ebay, which come with the i5 for under $300, quite a few actually, except theyre all 14". Now I wantd to get as small as i could, but I think i can sacrifice some mobility for the large jump in power. 14" seems like a nice middle ground, I am kind of looking for some posters who have experience with these particular machines, to push me over the edge. I might actually buy one for my girlfriend as well since her current laptop is just loving garbage.

Plenty of systems on there with these specs:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-Thin...=item565ae8d9c3

edit- according to the OP these are quite easy to find parts for and work on? I have no fears or reservations about cracking open and replacing any component that breaks down the line, also, easy to add ram to?

always be closing fucked around with this message at 22:28 on Sep 6, 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!

You can swap hd and ram in a t series in like 5 minutes

Killer-of-Lawyers
Apr 22, 2008

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2020

Calidus posted:

If you are in engineering at university just use the engineering computer labs, trying to setup and run engineering software that you are going to use for a semester or two on a personal laptop is a pain in the rear end from my experience. If you want something now I would just a chromebook then come backfriday or the holidays see if you really need more power, between sales and more haswell options it should be a nice time to buy a laptop.

Yeah. I pretty much use the engineering library anyway, so this is a pretty good point. I think I'll look for at those chromebooks.

Thanks for moderating my insatiable urge to get the most expensive thing I can afford, guys!

skeevy achievements
Feb 25, 2008

by merry exmarx

Alereon posted:

:siren:No more arguing about Apple laptops:siren:

You are allowed to recommend Apple laptops where appropriate. That is a helpful post. Recommending Apple laptops to everyone regardless of their needs is being a fanboy and is NOT making helpful posts. If someone is making posts that are not helpful, report them and do not reply.

In the spirit of this post I have something to contribute:

If you're concerned about cost, don't need a hotrod 3D machine, and don't mind a bit of Craigslist, I'd say consider Apple laptops as for the past 4 years I've been buying a new ~$2000-$2500 MBPs and then selling them a year later for a $200-300 loss.

Instead of looking at a Mac as a huge shitload of money up front, consider it in this light where it becomes a $200 annual fee for the latest and greatest $2k machine every year. Food for thought!

hotsauce
Jan 14, 2007

Hadlock posted:

Lenovo: We won't sell you a black Thinkpad, but Ideapads still come in black!

Yoga 2, laptop of the year; calling it now

I think you are right. drat, the Thinkpad Yoga w/Wacom looks...amazing...:stare:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqB1ZgBoMA0

Mu Zeta
Oct 17, 2002

Me crush ass to dust

Dub Step for a laptop commercial. Kill me now.

hotsauce
Jan 14, 2007

Mu Zeta posted:

Dub Step for a laptop commercial. Kill me now.

Just look at the trendy fella in first class, spreadsheeting it up. He's very important and makes a lot of money.

This could be you.

-Lenovo

Hey, they are getting all trendy, trying to compete with Apple. I'm a fan of this angle. Death to 1366.

Hadlock
Nov 9, 2004

That's sleeper class, which IIRC starts at about $8k but averages over $10k

I was wondering why they didn't market the Yoga as a Thinkpad, as it had the materials/design of one, and kind of felt like it was rebranded as an Ideapad at the last minute.

Retractable keyboard is pretty nice, that seemed to be the most common complaint. Nobody, not even Apple has a convertable keyboard. Not quite butterfly keyboard cool, but pretty close.

"Thinkpad Yoga, so awesome we literally knock it out of the park in our video (0:45) :smug:"

Hadlock fucked around with this message at 03:51 on Sep 7, 2013

Naturally Selected
Nov 28, 2007

by Cyrano4747
So has anyone heard anything on the T440s release date? My laptop's gonna kick it any day and I'd rather not go without for another 3-4 months while Lenovo gets their poo poo together.

Alternately, any other recommendations in the $750-800 range that'll be durable and aren't ASUS?

Magic Underwear
May 14, 2003


Young Orc

hotsauce posted:

I think you are right. drat, the Thinkpad Yoga w/Wacom looks...amazing...:stare:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqB1ZgBoMA0

It strikes me that this commercial, dubstep and all, is about 1000x better than any of the surface commercials, since this commercial actually shows people using it, instead of just dancing with it.

Looks pretty good too, as long as it stays in a reasonable price range. Although, from what I can tell only the consumer version has the 3200x1800 screen, bummer.

Sendo
Jul 26, 2011

I'm almost sold on either the Thinkpad Yoga or the Yoga Pro 2, going to wait and see how the wifi turns out because that was a massive issue with the first one.

hotsauce
Jan 14, 2007

Magic Underwear posted:

Although, from what I can tell only the consumer version has the 3200x1800 screen, bummer.
So the Thinkpad version w/Wacom (i.e. not consumer junk) isn't 3200x1800? If so, damnit Lenovo. Please make this unicorn hardware.

mugrim
Mar 2, 2007

The same eye cannot both look up to heaven and down to earth.

Internaut! posted:

In the spirit of this post I have something to contribute:

If you're concerned about cost, don't need a hotrod 3D machine, and don't mind a bit of Craigslist, I'd say consider Apple laptops as for the past 4 years I've been buying a new ~$2000-$2500 MBPs and then selling them a year later for a $200-300 loss.

Instead of looking at a Mac as a huge shitload of money up front, consider it in this light where it becomes a $200 annual fee for the latest and greatest $2k machine every year. Food for thought!

That's a pretty big risk, did you do that in 2005? I remember the price plummeted dramatically the moment they began using intel chips, which is the reason I bfinally switched to apple (I liked the OS but they felt many generations behind under the hood).

I'm still looking at the y410p. What Ultraportables do people seem to like in the 800 or less dollar range?

Big wants (in order) would be SSD, touchscreen, and battery.

mugrim fucked around with this message at 04:30 on Sep 7, 2013

shrughes
Oct 11, 2008

(call/cc call/cc)

hotsauce posted:

So the Thinkpad version w/Wacom (i.e. not consumer junk) isn't 3200x1800? If so, damnit Lenovo. Please make this unicorn hardware.

The Thinkpad Yoga has a 12.5" screen, and presumably nobody wants to make anything more than 1920x1080 in the relatively unusual 12.5" size. Also I'm not sure if there are many wacom digitizers rolling around in that size -- Sony's Duo and Flip have digitizers, but I'm not sure if they're Wacom (the Duo 11 was not Wacom). The Thinkpad Yoga also has much less battery life than the IdeaPad Yoga (according to some spec list I saw).

Knitting Beetles
Feb 4, 2006

Fallen Rib

hotsauce posted:

Just look at the trendy fella in first class, spreadsheeting it up. He's very important and makes a lot of money.

This could be you.

-Lenovo

Hey, they are getting all trendy, trying to compete with Apple. I'm a fan of this angle. Death to 1366.

I always wanted to know what kind of email the VIPs read



It's the ghacks.net newsletter, he's got like 6 of them in his inbox and nothing else. Ghacks.net is apparantly a real thing so I signed up for the newsletter, I'm bound to be a rich dude soon.

jokes
Dec 20, 2012

Uh... Kupo?

Pvt Dancer posted:

I always wanted to know what kind of email the VIPs read



It's the ghacks.net newsletter, he's got like 6 of them in his inbox and nothing else. Ghacks.net is apparantly a real thing so I signed up for the newsletter, I'm bound to be a rich dude soon.

Do you call phone numbers that you see/hear in movies?

Loucks
May 21, 2007

It's incwedibwe easy to suck my own dick.

WHAT A GOOD DOG posted:

Do you call phone numbers that you see/hear in movies?

Only if they air on Channel 37.

jeffreyw
Jan 20, 2013

shrughes posted:

The Thinkpad Yoga has a 12.5" screen, and presumably nobody wants to make anything more than 1920x1080 in the relatively unusual 12.5" size. Also I'm not sure if there are many wacom digitizers rolling around in that size -- Sony's Duo and Flip have digitizers, but I'm not sure if they're Wacom (the Duo 11 was not Wacom). The Thinkpad Yoga also has much less battery life than the IdeaPad Yoga (according to some spec list I saw).

Sony uses N Trig or whatever its called. Its not Wacom though.

QuarkJets
Sep 8, 2008

Internaut! posted:

In the spirit of this post I have something to contribute:

If you're concerned about cost, don't need a hotrod 3D machine, and don't mind a bit of Craigslist, I'd say consider Apple laptops as for the past 4 years I've been buying a new ~$2000-$2500 MBPs and then selling them a year later for a $200-300 loss.

Instead of looking at a Mac as a huge shitload of money up front, consider it in this light where it becomes a $200 annual fee for the latest and greatest $2k machine every year. Food for thought!

You can do that with pretty much any laptop. I've seen people say in this thread that Macbooks keep their value better, but I've never actually seen real proof of this

skeevy achievements
Feb 25, 2008

by merry exmarx
It hardly constitutes proof but there's lots of evidence in the Sold auctions section of eBay. It's not a laptop but hell I just sold a 2 year old $600 iPhone 4S literally yesterday for $400, less than a week until Apple reveals their new models!

Take a look if you're interested!

Scrub-Niggurath
Nov 27, 2007

Can I get some opinions on the MSI GS70? I travel a lot so the lightweight and thinness of the model is pretty appealing, and it looks cheaper and faster than a Razer Blade.

The Iron Rose
May 12, 2012

:minnie: Cat Army :minnie:
So uh, I need some help. I just got my lenovo y410p in the mail today, and I'm trying to transfer the OS to a SSD drive I want to manually install. The only problem is, I'm having a lot of trouble trying to figure out how to actually get the OS onto the USB drive which I can then use to boot it up. I already formatted it, but for the life of me can't figure out how to transfer the operating system itself onto the USB. If I can figure out how to get it onto the bootable media I should be set.

The other problem is that on the left of my screen the display is a bit borked. There's a series of multicoloured lines that are all glitchy that appear on the display itself - is that something I can fix myself? (crossed wires or something - it might have been something I did, I was dumb and didn't turn on the computer before opening it up) Or do I have to call a guy?

agarjogger
May 16, 2011

The Iron Rose posted:

The other problem is that on the left of my screen the display is a bit borked. There's a series of multicoloured lines that are all glitchy that appear on the display itself - is that something I can fix myself? (crossed wires or something - it might have been something I did, I was dumb and didn't turn on the computer before opening it up) Or do I have to call a guy?

You didn't do this. Lenovo has serious quality control issues lately. Tell them you want a new one and will send back the old one when it arrives. Their support for the premium lines is still quite good and they'll oblige (and hopefully shoot off a few e-mails to Beijing about how much more expensive it is to keep doing this than it is to QC a screen).

On the off chance you did do this, what did you do with the machine still on?

There is a MS tool for making a Windows 7/8 USB bootable. It's for Win 7 but is the same on Win 8.

agarjogger fucked around with this message at 22:53 on Sep 7, 2013

The Iron Rose
May 12, 2012

:minnie: Cat Army :minnie:

agarjogger posted:

You didn't do this. Lenovo has serious quality control issues lately. Tell them you want a new one and will send back the old one when it arrives. Their support for the premium lines is still quite good and they'll oblige (and hopefully shoot off a few e-mails to Beijing about how much more expensive it is to keep doing this than it is to QC a screen).

On the off chance you did do this, what did you do with the machine still on?

There is a MS tool for making a Windows 7/8 USB bootable. It's for Win 7 but is the same on Win 8.



Nothing with the computer on. Got them to send a guy to fix it though.

I created a system recovery drive, which is the only thing I could think of doing. What's the tool to make windows USB bootable? I don't have the system ISO file, and when I tried to download one the produc key I got from the bios didn't work. I'm dumb at this, what's the tool I use to make windows 8 USB bootable so I can transfer the OS onto the USB and then to my new ssd?

agarjogger
May 16, 2011

The Iron Rose posted:

Nothing with the computer on. Got them to send a guy to fix it though.

I created a system recovery drive, which is the only thing I could think of doing. What's the tool to make windows USB bootable? I don't have the system ISO file, and when I tried to download one the produc key I got from the bios didn't work. I'm dumb at this, what's the tool I use to make windows 8 USB bootable so I can transfer the OS onto the USB and then to my new ssd?

According to this, a USB installer can be created from Windows with the tool, or from within the Windows 8 installer disc/iso itself.
http://lifehacker.com/how-to-create-a-windows-8-installation-dvd-or-usb-drive-505769939
http://images2.store.microsoft.com/prod/clustera/framework/w7udt/1.0/en-us/Windows7-USB-DVD-tool.exe

The isos are available from Microsoft.com.

The Iron Rose
May 12, 2012

:minnie: Cat Army :minnie:

agarjogger posted:

According to this, a USB installer can be created from Windows with the tool, or from within the Windows 8 installer disc/iso itself.
http://lifehacker.com/how-to-create-a-windows-8-installation-dvd-or-usb-drive-505769939
http://images2.store.microsoft.com/prod/clustera/framework/w7udt/1.0/en-us/Windows7-USB-DVD-tool.exe

The isos are available from Microsoft.com.

Sorry to be an idiot about this; I tried that, but I wasn't given the product key on the computer or in the packaging or the like. I did use Belarc to get the product key from the bios, but when I try and download the iso from microsoft, it says the product key doesn't work. Should I just call microsoft directly, or?

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agarjogger
May 16, 2011

The Iron Rose posted:

Sorry to be an idiot about this; I tried that, but I wasn't given the product key on the computer or in the packaging or the like. I did use Belarc to get the product key from the bios, but when I try and download the iso from microsoft, it says the product key doesn't work. Should I just call microsoft directly, or?

edited
I thought I had some idea, but now this site says Windows 8 picks up the key from the BIOS, so I clearly don't.
Sorry.

agarjogger fucked around with this message at 23:38 on Sep 7, 2013

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