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Grundulum posted:I feel like the last few times I've contributed in this thread have all been the same thing, but wouldn't it be cheaper to get a cheap Chromebook, a separate desktop, and just remotely log in to the desktop whenever you need to do work from outside the house? I already am working with them to see if I can conjure up some split in my budget that produces a nice gaming desktop and a good productivity laptop. I'm unsure if I have stated it before in this thread, although I'm fairly certain I have, but there are notebook / laptop requirements laid out by my grad school and I'm pretty sure a chromebook doesn't cut it. Of course there are probably plenty of other cheap options.
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Jun 30, 2015 21:42
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I have a an old T420 that has served me well but is starting to wear down. It hitches up when I try to use an IDE (Pycharm) and play Spotify at the same time. Is worth upgrading my RAM (2 GBs currently) or should I cut my losses and get a new laptop? I only use my laptop to code and I run Ubuntu, so the overhead is a little bit less than normal.
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Jul 1, 2015 00:59
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RAM is your limiting factor, probably. Your typical new laptop today, such as the oft-recommended T450s, will have about the same CPU performance, maybe a little bit more or less, but consume less power. You could benefit from upgrading to a machine with a quad-core processor, since that'll double your CPU headway (or a bit more, since it's not a low-voltage CPU). (I think more cores would help because a quick internet search suggests that PyCharm is using all the cores when it gets slow.) However, if your computer "hitches up," it's because it's running out of memory and swapping. You can check your memory usage and CPU usage to verify these guesses. Probably your best performance upgrade is more memory. Even non-technical users are recommended 4GB nowadays. I suggest getting one or two compatible 4 GB SO-DIMMs and upgrading to 5 GB or 8 GB. After that's done, the best choice is typically an SSD in place of the hard drive.
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Jul 1, 2015 01:19
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sarehu posted:RAM is your limiting factor, probably. Your typical new laptop today, such as the oft-recommended T450s, will have about the same CPU performance, maybe a little bit more or less, but consume less power. You could benefit from upgrading to a machine with a quad-core processor, since that'll double your CPU headway (or a bit more, since it's not a low-voltage CPU). (I think more cores would help because a quick internet search suggests that PyCharm is using all the cores when it gets slow.) However, if your computer "hitches up," it's because it's running out of memory and swapping. Very helpful, thank you.
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Jul 1, 2015 01:40
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The huge gaming laptops are still expensive relative to their performance for gaming. There are middleground laptops like the y40-80 that have 4+ hour battery life and decent portability, but a 5th gen cpu and a dedicated video card. I would see if the games you want to play would run well on a computer like this first.
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Jul 1, 2015 02:06
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Liking the GE62 Pro after a few days of use, with some reservations. Pros •Amazing screen. Sharp, colourful, nice dark blacks and incredible viewing angles •256GB SanDisk SSD plus 1TB HGST HDD feels like the best of both worlds. •Keyboard is really solid. •i7-5700HQ, 16GB Ram, and GTX970 are unstoppable. I actually need to buy more games that can really push the thing. •Option to add a BD if I so desire. •I actually really like Win 8.1 (especially with Classic Shell -no Metro) Cons: •CPU fan is clearly audible during light use (though it occasionally shuts off). I guess this is pretty much expected when you put a 47watt quad core in a laptop. •Speakers aren't very good (worse than my 5 year old Lenovo gaming machine). •Audible hiss on the headphone jack is mildly annoying. This can be mitigated by having the amp shut down after a few seconds of inactivity. •Trackpad buttons are loud and clicky, but this can be avoided using the gestures of the trackpad. •Speaking of the trackpad, the brushed metal feels awkward at times. Feels smooth when moving up and down, rough left-to-right. My Lenovo had a butter smooth golf ball like texture, which was amazing. The only other machine that can compare is the Sager NP8651. Which I might have purchased but the MSI felt like a great deal on Amazon. Mental Hospitality fucked around with this message at 03:31 on Jul 1, 2015 |
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Jul 1, 2015 03:12
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Zodack posted:I already am working with them to see if I can conjure up some split in my budget that produces a nice gaming desktop and a good productivity laptop. Given how much money you're planning on spending, it might be worth dropping GA Tech an email asking what they think of the split laptop/desktop strategy. If the point of the laptop is to be a mobile presentation/note taking device, with the occasional light lifting of compiling or running code, I'm not sure those requirements really apply. And, frankly, some of those requirements seem like they're trying to push you towards their own more expensive in-house models.
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Jul 1, 2015 03:12
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Zodack posted:I already am working with them to see if I can conjure up some split in my budget that produces a nice gaming desktop and a good productivity laptop. Desktop + T430 refurb that was posted last page would be a good deal.
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Jul 1, 2015 03:53
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Hadlock posted:Desktop + T430 refurb that was posted last page would be a good deal. Yep, that's currently what I'm looking at. Grundulum posted:Given how much money you're planning on spending, it might be worth dropping GA Tech an email asking what they think of the split laptop/desktop strategy. If the point of the laptop is to be a mobile presentation/note taking device, with the occasional light lifting of compiling or running code, I'm not sure those requirements really apply. And, frankly, some of those requirements seem like they're trying to push you towards their own more expensive in-house models. Instead of going through the university I asked on the GATech subreddit, it has a pretty quick turnaround and I get honest answers from students. I ended up making a Reddit account solely to interact with that subreddit back when I was trying to decide where to attend. I can't imagine that I would need anything over $300. I spent four years studying computer science and physics for my undergrad and never did anything intensive. Anything really demanding we could just queue on the cluster, and even then the code we wrote didn't really warrant a cluster.
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Jul 1, 2015 04:04
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Wilford Cutlery posted:Rakuten (formerly buy.com) is having sales on cheap refurb laptops. They're probably all 1366x768, but you get what you pay for and if you need a cheap machine, have a look: This one is 1366x768, but in that configuration they usually go for ~$450. Hell of a deal if you don't need the extra resolution.
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Jul 1, 2015 05:15
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DrDork posted:This one is 1366x768, but in that configuration they usually go for ~$450. Hell of a deal if you don't need the extra resolution. Worst case scenario, you order the T430, swap in a 1080p display for $80 + 20 minutes of your time.
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Jul 1, 2015 05:32
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Too bad the T430 still has kinda poo poo battery life compared to more recent laptops. Oh, Haswell, why can't you back-port yourself into $300 refurbs for me?
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Jul 1, 2015 05:42
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It's about an hour better than the T420, and there's always the 9 cell battery.
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Jul 1, 2015 05:53
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Hadlock posted:Worst case scenario, you order the T430, swap in a 1080p display for $80 + 20 minutes of your time. Speaking of that T430, how long does the sale last? I see the $100 coupon ends "today" but there's no indication on the laptop itself.
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Jul 1, 2015 06:08
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Zodack posted:Speaking of that T430, how long does the sale last? I see the $100 coupon ends "today" but there's no indication on the laptop itself. It says the $300 price is valid 6/25-30. So presumably tomorrow it'll go back up to $400.
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Jul 1, 2015 06:27
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DrDork posted:It says the $300 price is valid 6/25-30. So presumably tomorrow it'll go back up to $400. Oh, so the $100 off is the sale and the $399 is just the pricetag for refurbished? I thought the
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Jul 1, 2015 06:31
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The T430 was $640 new for an i5 model, $799 for a refurb (used) i7 is a bit steep, don't you think? Check out the Lenovo outlet store, they have screaming deals for newer laptops in the same price range, especially on Mondays.
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Jul 1, 2015 06:34
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SouthLAnd posted:
Granted, my only comparison is a 5 year old Gateway laptop, but I'm liking the speakers on mine. If I'm just browsing, it seems like I'll get 3-4 hours on the battery, which I'm comfortable with. It's weird having a laptop that's faster than my desktop, but I'm enjoying it so far.
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Jul 1, 2015 06:40
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Hadlock posted:The T430 was $640 new for an i5 model, $799 for a refurb (used) i7 is a bit steep, don't you think? I'm clueless when it comes to laptop prices. I just purchased the T430 at $299 as per your earlier advice. I was just trying to make sure I would get the best deal (I was going to wait it out if the sale was longer to try and make a good decision) but given that the $100 off ends tomorrow I scooped it up. My folks offered me around $250 for my four-year old giant gaming laptop (probably worth more but hard as hell to sell), so worst case scenario I just blew $50 on a good deal. Thanks for the heads up and the advice. Now I've got a $1500 budget to spend on a desktop. Time to go back to nettling the guys in the other megathread.
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Jul 1, 2015 06:43
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Zodack posted:I'm clueless when it comes to laptop prices. I just purchased the T430 at $299 as per your earlier advice. I was just trying to make sure I would get the best deal (I was going to wait it out if the sale was longer to try and make a good decision) but given that the $100 off ends tomorrow I scooped it up. $300 is a good deal. $799 is a fake price--it's just there so they can say "50% savings!" and sell it to you for $400 like you'd pay at most other retailers. If you've got money to burn on a desktop, the answer is an i5, 8GB RAM, a 980Ti, and some form of >60Hz IPS 1440p monitor.
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Jul 1, 2015 07:14
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So, laptop time. It's for work mostly. No coding or anything, mostly web browsing type stuff. I'm pretty spoiled by my 27" IPS monitors so nice display is a must. I will probably be doing some video encoding on it when I'm on trips (hobby, motorcycle videos on youtube). Gaming isn't really a thing I plan to do on it, maybe some minecraft, HoTS, or something to pass the time but no Skyrim or anything. I have an excellent desktop for gaming already. So something with a quadcore, decent amount of ram, 1080p IPS display, integrated graphics would probably be fine. Should be durable, it will be spending some time in the bags on my bike. Budget around 1k, I'm flexible. I'd prefer from Newegg since I can get a (small) discount. Looking at refurb y50's right now, they look pretty decent, though the panel isn't all that great supposedly, battery life is a little low, don't know if it's doable. Hmm. Tanbo fucked around with this message at 13:55 on Jul 1, 2015 |
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Jul 1, 2015 13:05
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TheOtherContraGuy posted:I have a an old T420 that has served me well but is starting to wear down. It hitches up when I try to use an IDE (Pycharm) and play Spotify at the same time. Is worth upgrading my RAM (2 GBs currently) or should I cut my losses and get a new laptop? I only use my laptop to code and I run Ubuntu, so the overhead is a little bit less than normal. I have always found Pycharm to be slow and annoying even on more powerful computers. Do you need some features from Pycharm or are you open to trying other software? I've liked WingIDE, it's fairly lightweight and much more responsive than Pycharm. That's about the only other good Python IDE for Linux that I've tried, unless you want to sperg out configuring vim/Emacs.
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Jul 1, 2015 13:26
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Longer-term trip report on the T450s: the trackpoint and buttons have issues. Scrolling with the trackpoint is very frustrating. In some programs, such as Windows Explorer, the scrolling doesn't happen until you release the blue button, at which point the entirety of what you've stored gets scrolled (I guess). In Chrome, the command prompt, and a handful of other programs, scrolling is slow to start, and then occasionally the feed will jump by an entire screen's worth of vertical space. But at least the scrolling works in those cases. In my code editor the Trackpoint cannot be used at all for scrolling until the Trackpad has been used for scrolling. It works until you click the mouse outside the window, at which point you need to use the Trackpad again if you want Trackpoint scrolling.  The buttons themselves are frequently non-responsive. I sometimes find myself pressing the left click button four or five times before the push registers. This may also be related to the program, because I don't recall any issues in Chrome selecting text or following links. Lenovo seems to be aware of the problem, but have not yet released drivers that correct this. If the Trackpoint is mission-critical to your using the Thinkpad, consider holding off for the moment.
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Jul 1, 2015 14:48
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DNK posted:This is an understatement though. Any gaming laptop will have max of 2 hours of battery life even if you're doing extremely lightweight work. The batteries in these things are meant for the 2 minutes it takes to move from plug to plug. This isn't true at all anymore in the age of Optimus graphics btw. Even extremely beefy gaming laptops with quad core 47watt+ chips can do 4-5 hours on light web browsing type workloads with the screen at less than max brightness. Obviously yes if you have the GPU fired up you're going to be lucky to get 2 hours, but that's the exception when on the go, not the rule. Obviously they're not going to come close to 15watt and under ultraportables but big doesn't guarantee no battery at all.
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Jul 1, 2015 17:46
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Gwaihir posted:This isn't true at all anymore in the age of Optimus graphics btw.
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Jul 1, 2015 19:02
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For sure, if you only have a 40whr battery you're not going to get a ton of runtime. Usually 15" stuff should have at least a 75-90whr battery at least.
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Jul 1, 2015 19:38
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My wife's company has been gifted a $1,500 grant for the purchase of a laptop. I have been given the husbandly duty as her personal tech support to recommend a laptop that she should buy. I have asked if it can be two laptops as $1500 is a decent amount of money, and I have been told no. This is for general office use, mostly workstation/MS Office/note taking. I'm more of an Apple guy so I don't know much about the Windows laptop market. Is the T550 and W550 still the ~$1000 recommended laptop? I'm hoping they can get 3-4 years out of it with regular office use with occasional trips out of the office for focus groups and that sort of thing. The W550s looks like it might fit all of the requirements. Is the warranty worth picking up through Lenovo? Thanks for any and all help you guys can give!
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Jul 1, 2015 20:22
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El Jebus posted:The W550s looks like it might fit all of the requirements. Is the warranty worth picking up through Lenovo? Thanks for any and all help you guys can give! Same thing goes with the warranty: if they're paying for it, why wouldn't you get it?
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Jul 1, 2015 20:25
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If it's going out of the office at all you don't want anything as bulky as a W550 Personally I'd go for a 14" model like the hp 840 G2 + dock + two screens (assuming accessories can be included in the price). Gives you a more compact system and also a bunch of screen real estate for when in the office.
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Jul 1, 2015 20:44
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Yeah you want a dock + a second screen. You can get a junky screen on a laptop that's going to live most of it's life on a dock as desktop displays are generally pretty good. Most people I've seen just run Outlook on their laptop screen.
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Jul 1, 2015 21:03
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TopherCStone posted:I have always found Pycharm to be slow and annoying even on more powerful computers. Do you need some features from Pycharm or are you open to trying other software? I've liked WingIDE, it's fairly lightweight and much more responsive than Pycharm. That's about the only other good Python IDE for Linux that I've tried, unless you want to sperg out configuring vim/Emacs. Pycharm works fine on my office computer and desktop, but I could give wing a try. I would like to actually learn vim or emacs but I'm not sure if the time saved would be greater than the time spent learning to use then.
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Jul 1, 2015 21:12
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dissss posted:If it's going out of the office at all you don't want anything as bulky as a W550 I've asked if she will be using it at a permanent work station in their small office or if it will be used as a flex space kind of thing wherever they can set it up at the time. I don't think they get to keep any excess but hopefully I'm wrong. I don't know if bulky is really an issue but I'll ask about that as well. That 840 G2 looks good, but would i5s and i7s have more longevity? They just hired a new researcher so I think my wife is training her instead of answering my texts so I can't see what she thinks about any of this. El Jebus fucked around with this message at 21:26 on Jul 1, 2015 |
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Jul 1, 2015 21:19
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Hi friends, I'm trying to help my girlfriend pick out a new, highly-portable laptop for ~300-400 USD. Needs:
She's neither an idiot nor an expert at technology, I'm pretty good with tech but am not currently up on what laptops are good. I read the OP (very nice, thank you OP!) and all. So I played around on newegg and found this guy: Acer Aspire V5 V5-131-2680 that seems to be the best compromise between price and what she wants. But she, uh, has some particular opinions that make this tough, namely: 1. someone once told her to avoid all Acer laptops 2. she doesn't want refurb. Personally I love refurb stuff but she's resistant to it  Other maybes I came across: Acer Aspire E3-111-C5GL Refurb Acer Aspire One AO756-2840 Asus X200MA A different kind of [url=http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834314349]Acer Aspire V5 I guess what I'm looking for is a) any criticisms of the ones I posted? b) any recommendations in general? c) I know the OP says generally not to condemn a brand as a whole, but somebody has convinced her Acer sucks. Is it true? I have no experience with Acer myself but I don't imagine it's necessarily true. d) The OP recommends a few good Lenovos that you can get real cheap refurbished, but she's iffy about that idea. I guess if anyone knows some inside info about the quality of refurb laptops, that could be helpful in possibly changing her mind.
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Jul 1, 2015 21:31
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El Jebus posted:I've asked if she will be using it at a permanent work station in their small office or if it will be used as a flex space kind of thing wherever they can set it up at the time. I don't think they get to keep any excess but hopefully I'm wrong. I don't know if bulky is really an issue but I'll ask about that as well. That 840 G2 looks good, but would i5s and i7s have more longevity? They just hired a new researcher so I think my wife is training her instead of answering my texts so I can't see what she thinks about any of this. They're all ULV dual core CPUs so there isn't a lot if difference between the i5 and i7 models.
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Jul 1, 2015 21:34
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Any thoughts on ebay refurb'ed Lenovo x250/x240? I'm looking for a sturdy, reliable, fast and compact laptop for academic use (word, spreadsheets, etc) as well as a laptop I could bring into the boardroom later in the future. I really dig the Thinkpads, especially the x250.
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Jul 2, 2015 02:13
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Need some advice on a new computer for work. I am currently using a 13" Dell Vostro that is about 5 years old: i7 M640 @ 2.80GHz 4gb RAM Win 7 500gb HDD The majority of my work is word processing and maintaining website content, however I also do a small amount of image editing (bulk resizing images and then uploading). I also attend numerous think-tank meetings and also do the occasional powerpoint presentation. I will be travelling nationwide (Australia) shortly where I will need to collect data from numerous stores (products, sales figures, etc.). I have been looking at both the Surface Pro 3 and also the Dell XPS 13 as I like the portability that both offer. Probably more so the Surface as I can use it as a tablet to jot stuff down. With a rough budget of around AUD$2000 is there anything else I should be looking at?
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Jul 2, 2015 02:31
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mad_Thick posted:Any thoughts on ebay refurb'ed Lenovo x250/x240? The x250 has a dramatically better trackpad and uses Lenovo's new standard external battery, faster graphics. President Evil posted:Need some advice on a new computer for work. The Thinkpad Yoga 12 or 12.5" model has a built in digitizer pen of some sort and isn't much larger than the XPS 13. All three are really good choices.
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Jul 2, 2015 02:43
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El Jebus posted:My wife's company has been gifted a $1,500 grant for the purchase of a laptop. I have been given the husbandly duty as her personal tech support to recommend a laptop that she should buy. I have asked if it can be two laptops as $1500 is a decent amount of money, and I have been told no. This is for general office use, mostly workstation/MS Office/note taking. I'm more of an Apple guy so I don't know much about the Windows laptop market. Is the T550 and W550 still the ~$1000 recommended laptop? I'm hoping they can get 3-4 years out of it with regular office use with occasional trips out of the office for focus groups and that sort of thing. The W550s looks like it might fit all of the requirements. Is the warranty worth picking up through Lenovo? Thanks for any and all help you guys can give! E7450 is nice and xps13 is amazing if you do not need an ethernet port or use a dock.
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Jul 2, 2015 03:22
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mad_Thick posted:Any thoughts on ebay refurb'ed Lenovo x250/x240? I've always done well with eBay Thinkpads, though I haven't bought an x250 yet. Just take a close look at the auction to make sure it's in good shape and I say go for it. Those are recent enough that they may very well still have Lenovo warranty on them which is nice.
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Jul 2, 2015 12:25
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Anyone have any experience with X1 Carbon? Seems like a think pad build but sexy- I'm really interested in one. There was a deal earlier this month where they were priced in the high 600s, there back up to 900$ for decent stats now. I'm wanting a 14 inch ultra book, 13.3 is too small for me to work on, I love the xps13 (my gf has one) but it's too small for graphic design, and i often do not have ability to dock and use monitor b/c of my job. I was also looking at the y40, I am confused about this one. There is a y40 with i7broadwell, a ssd, and 8 gigs of ram for 650$ right now. It seems like a 'too good' deal and you never hear about y40s so I am unsure. I do want to be able to play games on my free time, but I don't need that much, I hear modern laptops can play games now, my 3 year old 1000$ Thinkpad T420 cant even play mine craft or dwarf fortress. TLDR: X1 Carbon opinions and is the y40 lovely? I want a 14 inch ultrabook that I can play simple games on and work for 900 bucks, and I am tired of the classic standard thinkpad styling, I'm tired of looking at this boring rear end thinkpad all day. I also saw a deal for a yoga 2 pro for 700$ with every upgrade. Umph fucked around with this message at 17:36 on Jul 2, 2015 |
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Jul 2, 2015 17:32
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