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I am beginning to shop for a new "laptop" and I have basically two requirements. I want to play BF3 on it and watch blu rays. I work a job that leaves me with a fiber connection and 12 boring hours to kill with no "supervision" as far as playing games and such. My last gaming laptop I bought in 2008 so it is long in the tooth but I got 5 years out of it. I was thinking about the GX60 or 70, still undecided what screen size I want, with the 8970m but I don't know how to feel about the A10-5750m processor. Price wise it seems like the best way to go about it though. Any ideas?
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Sep 8, 2013 01:45
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EX250 Type R posted:I am beginning to shop for a new "laptop" and I have basically two requirements. I want to play BF3 on it and watch blu rays. I work a job that leaves me with a fiber connection and 12 boring hours to kill with no "supervision" as far as playing games and such. My last gaming laptop I bought in 2008 so it is long in the tooth but I got 5 years out of it. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gx60-gaming-laptop-radeon-hd-7970m,3478-8.html seems to run BF3 fine. But note that the A10-5750m is about as fast as a last gen i3 mobile chip. If I were you I'd probably go for a lenovo y500.
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Sep 8, 2013 02:58
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Internaut! posted: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! I sold a three year old Galaxy S2 for 75% of its original value, but that doesn't mean that Samsung phones necessarily hold their value any better than HTC or Apple or whatever phones. Don't new Apple products come at a much higher price, so it's not surprising that used versions of these also tend to be more expensive?
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Sep 8, 2013 07:53
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QuarkJets posted:I sold a three year old Galaxy S2 for 75% of its original value, but that doesn't mean that Samsung phones necessarily hold their value any better than HTC or Apple or whatever phones. Don't new Apple products come at a much higher price, so it's not surprising that used versions of these also tend to be more expensive? Well the S2 didn't come out in the States until September 2011 which is only 2 years ago and not 3, and the prices I'm seeing on eBay today for used models are around $150 for a phone that cost $600 2 years ago, so I'm not sure you're remembering things correctly? Using Best Buy as a proxy for resale value you can see they'll give you up to $231 for a used 4S but only $78 for a used S2. But of course this thread is about laptops, so if you're hesitant re Apple pricing you can use the Best Buy trade-in calculator as well as auction sites to get an idea of how much lower your TCO can be with an Apple laptop!
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Sep 8, 2013 14:30
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Internaut! posted:Well the S2 didn't come out in the States until September 2011 which is only 2 years ago and not 3, and the prices I'm seeing on eBay today for used models are around $150 for a phone that cost $600 2 years ago, so I'm not sure you're remembering things correctly? The prices fluctuate too much to hope that trend goes forever. Apple does huge feature updates that occassionally make older models virtually obsolete (see the transition to using intel and how a mbp and powerbook from the same year sold at vastly different prices the next). When apple finally makes a touch integrated OS I can imagine it will make a huge hit, and potentially knock down the price of a used mbp. As of right now Haswell seems to be boosting the battery life of cheaper windows laptops dramatically and I'm not sure the average user cares about having a computer run for 12 to 14 hours instead of 7 to 8, especially as ssd increases to boot time make on/off lag that much more bearable. I actually like apple products for the record. Pre intel I loved the OS but it felt sluggish, like a hot rod with a moped engine. My next but won't be apple mostly due to pricing/gaming/a need to run a lot of windows files for various projects. That said if I won the lottery I would probably go out and get an air.
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Sep 8, 2013 15:05
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Not having to talk to people from craigslist is worth at least a few hundred dollars to me.
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Sep 8, 2013 18:26
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So my y410p order just magically changed itself from estimated shipping date 11th to estimated shipping date 16th, what's the best number to call about this and are there some magic words to get them to hurry it up (or just give me some money for the delay I guess if they do that kind of thing)?
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Sep 8, 2013 19:03
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Brut posted:So my y410p order just magically changed itself from estimated shipping date 11th to estimated shipping date 16th, what's the best number to call about this and are there some magic words to get them to hurry it up (or just give me some money for the delay I guess if they do that kind of thing)? My y410p order arrival date shifted randomly between september the third, september the 9th, and september the 30th. Ended up coming on the 6th. Besides, it's only a few days either which way, and mine arrived earlier than my expected arrival date. Incidentally! If you wanna do the HDD/SSD swap you're gonna have to call up lenovo and get them to do it. Make sure to get transfered to their software department, because apparently in the licensing it states that you can't transfer the OS. Which is stupid loving bullshit mind, but there you have it. Just waiting for them to call me back, so we'll see how it goes.
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Sep 8, 2013 19:24
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Cat Army 
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Can you not connect the HDD and SSD at the same time? Because if you can, Achronis or a variety of other transfer tools will do the job with no phone call necessary.
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Sep 8, 2013 19:29
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DrDork posted:Can you not connect the HDD and SSD at the same time? Because if you can, Achronis or a variety of other transfer tools will do the job with no phone call necessary. Oh, you can. I just don't have the hardware for it and it's an extra 30-40 bucks + ship time (no computer stores nearby). If you don't have it though, it's a nightmare and a half.
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Sep 8, 2013 19:53
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The Iron Rose posted:My y410p order arrival date shifted randomly between september the third, september the 9th, and september the 30th. Ended up coming on the 6th. Wait if I want to unscrew the HDD, put in the SSD, and install windows 8 on the SSD fresh I have to loving call them? what the hell? edit: Is it just "licensing" bullshit that I can realistically ignore (ie: EULAs) or is there actually something preventing me from doing this? Brut fucked around with this message at 20:02 on Sep 8, 2013 |
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Sep 8, 2013 19:59
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The Iron Rose posted:Oh, you can. I just don't have the hardware for it and it's an extra 30-40 bucks + ship time (no computer stores nearby). If you don't have it though, it's a nightmare and a half. What costs 30-40 bucks? The caddy is $10 on Amazon and is all you need to connect both drives simultaneously E: You don't need to call Lenovo, you can do this yourself. I'm not sure whether you'd need to call them for a fresh install, but I seriously doubt it QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 21:48 on Sep 8, 2013 |
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Sep 8, 2013 21:40
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QuarkJets posted:What costs 30-40 bucks? The caddy is $10 on Amazon and is all you need to connect both drives simultaneously I can't see anything on there that says it'll fit a y410p or a y510p.
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Sep 8, 2013 22:19
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They use a standard connector/mounting point. Mobile optical drive form factor was standardized years ago. The only custom thing is the external aesthetic plate that mounts flush with the rest of the external body... that connection between the form factor and the plate, too, is standardized.
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Sep 8, 2013 22:27
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Superterranean posted:Are you talking about something like this amazon thing? http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004Y8SGXW/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 I bought this one since it had reviews specifically stating it works with the y410p. My laptop hasn't arrived so I can't give firsthand testimony, but I doubt that guy is just lieing or doesn't know his own model laptop. Hadlock posted:They use a standard connector/mounting point. Mobile optical drive form factor was standardized years ago. The only custom thing is the external aesthetic plate that mounts flush with the rest of the external body... that connection between the form factor and the plate, too, is standardized. There appear to be two major different kinds of caddies being sold, 9.5mm and 12.7mm, I've been seeing reports about the 12.7 ones not fitting in some laptops that require 9.5, such as this review. Brut fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Sep 8, 2013 |
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Sep 8, 2013 22:43
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QuarkJets posted:What costs 30-40 bucks? The caddy is $10 on Amazon and is all you need to connect both drives simultaneously I tried to do this myself, but unfortunately I apparently need their approval or something to create a bootable drive from the installed OS since it's a "nontransferable" license. I might've just gotten screwed over by the Canadian site, but it's annoying as poo poo either way. E: christ their customer support isn't great. Trying to install the, uh, installed OS onto a piece of bootable media. First I hear from microsoft that I need to talk to lenovo, since the product key in the bios won't work. Then I hear from lenovo that it's possible, but I need to buy a software warranty. Now I'm hearing from their software team that there's no way to transfer the OS onto a piece of bootable media, but I can pay for a new copy of windows 8 and get it on a bootable media disk that way. Christ almighty. EE: apparently you can't install windows 8 on an SSD without having a special edition? The hell? The Iron Rose fucked around with this message at 00:13 on Sep 9, 2013 |
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Sep 8, 2013 23:28
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Microsoft and Lenovo are both pretty aggressively dumb but I would be surprised if they were "hard drives never need replacement/ never fail" dumb.
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Sep 8, 2013 23:33
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I'm about to order a Macbook Air. Should I get the Applecare, or do without? I remember someone mentioning extended warranties weren't worth it earlier in the thread and applecare is pretty expensive.
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Sep 8, 2013 23:41
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Go without. You've already got a 1-year warranty. The only way AppleCare would make financial sense is if you'd be in financial ruin if the laptop died. In which case, the purchase of an MBA itself doesn't make financial sense.
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Sep 9, 2013 00:07
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Get the Applecare if you plan to use it for more than a year.
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Sep 9, 2013 00:16
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No, don't, it's a completely idiotic thing to do. Apple certainly makes money off the AppleCare plan (look at 3 year failure rates of laptops, look at the $249 cost of AppleCare), so it's a bad decision unless you're not just more of a klutz than the average person that decides to get AppleCare, but more klutzy by a large enough amount to cancel out Apple's profit margin. edit: Never mind, AppleCare doesn't cover accidental damage. There's no way to justify getting it (unless you'd literally die from the financial shock of your MBA dying, which is a virtually impossible situation to be in). shrughes fucked around with this message at 00:32 on Sep 9, 2013 |
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Sep 9, 2013 00:29
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For reference, I'm not planning on using it heavily. Its going to get used for light personal app development/objective-c practice and learning, and for taking home with me so as to not require taking my massive desktop to my folks' home just so I can play games more demanding than Peggle.
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Sep 9, 2013 00:35
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precedence posted:http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gx60-gaming-laptop-radeon-hd-7970m,3478-8.html Looking at the models, the only one with the blu ray drive is the y510p with the 750m for $1050. This puts the 750m pretty low on the list. I was playing with some online customizer websites and iBuyPower can configure an i7 4700mq, blu ray player, and the 780m with the shipped price about 1700 dollars. Would the extra money over the GX6/70 (~$400) be worth the extra performance of the i7 and the 780m?
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Sep 9, 2013 00:38
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PiCroft posted:For reference, I'm not planning on using it heavily. Its going to get used for light personal app development/objective-c practice and learning, and for taking home with me so as to not require taking my massive desktop to my folks' home just so I can play games more demanding than Peggle. Well, AppleCare costs $249 for year 2 and 3 of warranty coverage. Suppose you get a $1200 MBA. Is there a 21% chance of it having problems in year 2 or 3, and not year 1? Apple's laptops were more reliable than that (lower than 21% even if you include the first year of use) even back when they had the non-Pro "MacBook", CCFL backlighting, and spinning hard drives. One cheaper option than AppleCare would be to throw out your MBA once it has any kind of malfunction and buy a new one.
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Sep 9, 2013 00:49
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I'm looking for a pair of cheap & durable older laptops that can handle rigorous living as stage lighting controllers. Need the following system specs to be operable: Operating System: Windows® XP 32-bit (SP3 or greater) Windows Vista 32 or 64-bit (SP2 or greater) Windows 7 32 or 64-bit (SP1 or greater) Windows 8 32 or 64-bit CPU: Dual Core 1.7Ghz or faster RAM: 1GB minimum (2GB recommended) Hard Drive: 5GB of free hard drive space Program: http://www.highend.com/products/controllers/Hog4PCSoftware.asp The bigger the resolution the better! Trying to spend $400 total on the pair. It's kind of hard to tell what's usable trash and what's just trash at this price point.
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Sep 9, 2013 00:54
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Superterranean posted:Are you talking about something like this amazon thing? That one won't fit because it's too big, but the smaller ones (9.5mm, not 12.7) are widely reported to work great
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Sep 9, 2013 00:58
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PiCroft posted:For reference, I'm not planning on using it heavily. Its going to get used for light personal app development/objective-c practice and learning, and for taking home with me so as to not require taking my massive desktop to my folks' home just so I can play games more demanding than Peggle. Keep your files backed up with Google Drive or Dropbox and don't pay anything extra for warranties
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Sep 9, 2013 01:03
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Mu Zeta posted:Get the Applecare if you plan to use it for more than a year. shrughes posted:No, don't, AppleCare doesn't cover accidental damage. This, Also accidental coverage: If you've never had need for accidental damage insurance on a personal electronic by age 22-30, you probably won't need it for this laptop However, if you've broken three screens on your iPhone in the last 2 years, accidental damage insurance is probably money well spent. People are wildly different and while I'd never buy it because I'd never use it, my friend who likes to go out to bars a lot is on his phone third screen this year. He's a better cannidate for laptop coverage. But yeah in general if it doesn't specifically cover accidental damage, you're probably best off just buying a decent name brand laptop and keep your fingers crossed that it lasts longer than the warranty does.
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Sep 9, 2013 01:40
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Can anyone with a ~14" 1080p laptop weigh in on how font/icons sizes are? Looking at the T440p and wondering if the 14" 1080p screen might make things a little too small.
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Sep 9, 2013 01:45
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From the OPcode:Hadlock fucked around with this message at 01:59 on Sep 9, 2013 |
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Sep 9, 2013 01:57
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mmm11105 posted:Can anyone with a ~14" 1080p laptop weigh in on how font/icons sizes are? Looking at the T440p and wondering if the 14" 1080p screen might make things a little too small. Another thing to keep in mind is Windows 8.1 is suppose to improve high resolution support and be released October 17/18th.
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Sep 9, 2013 02:00
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mmm11105 posted:Can anyone with a ~14" 1080p laptop weigh in on how font/icons sizes are? Looking at the T440p and wondering if the 14" 1080p screen might make things a little too small. Things are a little small. Windows 8 is set to 150% in control panel > display, some things support it and some things get visibly stretched and blurred because they don't support the scaling natively. Chrome in metro mode uses the scaling, in desktop mode it gets blurred, so I had to modify properties of the shortcut to launch without display scaling, and then set chrome's internal zoom. It's kinda weird.
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Sep 9, 2013 02:47
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Hadlock posted:From the OP I think it would be nice if the OP (or rather, the subsequent post) had the decimal point in screen sizes, with 15.6", 14.0", 13.3", 12.5", 11.6", instead of the truncated numbers it has. 12 is closer to 11.6 than 12.5, after all.
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Sep 9, 2013 05:31
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Oh god laptop reviewers. Decreeing that wider screens are better is one thing, but this really takes the cake: http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptops/dell-latitude-e6420.aspx quote:Cons: Somewhat heavy; Not much software quote:Dell doesn't even include any touch-friendly software.  shrughes fucked around with this message at 06:11 on Sep 9, 2013 |
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Sep 9, 2013 06:09
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It's a totally valid point - what good is a touch screen if there is no way of sensibly using it? Remember this was pre-Windows 8 and the situation was even worse back then (even now I'd say touchscreens are a worthless gimmick on conventional laptops)
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Sep 9, 2013 07:12
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Hadlock posted:From the OP That's not quite right, the 4/4s is 3.5" and the 5 is 4" with identical pixel densities
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Sep 9, 2013 07:14
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My favorite will always be the consumer electronics journalists who seem fully convinced that aluminum is this super strong indestructible wonder-material. Aluminum has a lot of great properties that may suit a laptop/phone chassis, especially its weight, but you can literally cut through aluminum engine blocks with hand tools. It feels like creme cheese.
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Sep 9, 2013 07:19
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mmm11105 posted:Can anyone with a ~14" 1080p laptop weigh in on how font/icons sizes are? Looking at the T440p and wondering if the 14" 1080p screen might make things a little too small. A 14" screen at 1920x1080 is going to be over 150 PPI. Very small text at default zoom levels. So you'll want razor-sharp eyesight, or the ability to turn the scaling up to at least 125 or 150% and hope there aren't any artifacts or programs that don't behave properly with those settings.
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Sep 9, 2013 13:21
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God drat, that picture of the W540 with a 10key numberpad keyboard is driving me to some really irrational nerd rage. The board on my current W520 is the best one I've ever used in terms of both layout and key feel, and getting rid of the nice double size delete key + traditional layout home/end/pgup/pgdn is just a huge pile of crap. Couple that with no clitmouse buttons and it's just an awful price to pay in exchange for finally, *finally* getting good screen options on Thinkpads.
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Sep 9, 2013 15:27
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Gwaihir posted:God drat, that picture of the W540 with a 10key numberpad keyboard is driving me to some really irrational nerd rage. The board on my current W520 is the best one I've ever used in terms of both layout and key feel, and getting rid of the nice double size delete key + traditional layout home/end/pgup/pgdn is just a huge pile of crap. Couple that with no clitmouse buttons and it's just an awful price to pay in exchange for finally, *finally* getting good screen options on Thinkpads. Just curve your hands uncomfortably to the left! Offset keyboards are loving stupid.
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Sep 9, 2013 15:32
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