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Sulla-Marius 88 posted:I won't be in the market for one for a number of months, but what's the best bet for a low-power, high-battery typing device at absolute bargain value? So, a laptop or a bluetooth-keyboard tablet that will see many thousands of words typed onto it (and not used for anything else, barely even email) for bare minimum price. Is the Samsung chromebook the best bet still, or a Nexus 7 with a full-sized bluetooth keyboard..? Thinkpad x120e if you can find one. They stopped making them a few years ago, but they've got probably the best netbook keyboard and go for <$200 used. Or really any used older Thinkpad.
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Jun 7, 2013 01:44
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Unfortunately the market is very restricted as I'm moving to Rome on Tuesday and everything I buy will have to be available there. You Americans don't know how good you have it in terms of cheap computer parts and general availability, I've been comparing EU prices to stuff even here (AU) and it's remarkable how bad the computer world has it there. Not a single Thinkpad x120e in sight on any website, 1st or 2nd hand. Brand new laptops from several generations ago are still running at like 300-500 euro.
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Jun 7, 2013 01:52
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Sulla-Marius 88 posted:I won't be in the market for one for a number of months, but what's the best bet for a low-power, high-battery typing device at absolute bargain value? So, a laptop or a bluetooth-keyboard tablet that will see many thousands of words typed onto it (and not used for anything else, barely even email) for bare minimum price. Is the Samsung chromebook the best bet still, or a Nexus 7 with a full-sized bluetooth keyboard..?
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Jun 7, 2013 01:53
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That Zenbook is exactly what I want. Now I only hope I don't have to wait half the year for it to come out.
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Jun 7, 2013 02:11
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V for Vegas posted:Man that new zenbook is one sexy machine Thing will break like the back of an iPhone.
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Jun 7, 2013 02:25
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sports posted:Thing will break like the back of an iPhone.
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Jun 7, 2013 02:44
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Sulla-Marius 88 posted:I won't be in the market for one for a number of months, but what's the best bet for a low-power, high-battery typing device at absolute bargain value? So, a laptop or a bluetooth-keyboard tablet that will see many thousands of words typed onto it (and not used for anything else, barely even email) for bare minimum price. Is the Samsung chromebook the best bet still, or a Nexus 7 with a full-sized bluetooth keyboard..? Disregard this post, I mentioned my dilemma to my colleague and he whips out an old lenovo ideapad s10e netbook with 6-8h battery life and starts registering me new Win 7 and Office keys. It's my very last day today, too. What a guy! Sulla Faex fucked around with this message at 05:01 on Jun 7, 2013 |
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Jun 7, 2013 03:35
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Doctor rear end in a top hat posted:It's Gorilla Glass 3, which Corning claims is harder than sapphire. I guess that doesn't really matter if you drop it on the corner, though. I didn't know sapphire is actually rated a 9 on Moh's hardness scale - the same as tungsten carbide!
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Jun 7, 2013 03:41
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Do they have GT3 benchmarks out yet? I want to see how it compares to the GT3e, because that Zenbook is pure sex.
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Jun 7, 2013 03:52
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In a couple weeks I'm leaving for a loooooong work trip where I'll be living out of a hotel for quite a while, and I'm thinking about getting a laptop that can play some games to preserve my sanity. (and I don't have a laptop at all right now, anyway) I know nothing about laptops, so for clarification: Thinkpads are good, Ideapads are... bad? Just "less good?" Should I be staying away from something like this? http://shop.lenovo.com/barnesnoblegold/us/en/laptops/ideapad/y-series/y410p/#customize
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Jun 7, 2013 06:16
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QuarkJets posted:Putting a huge TV on your desk and treating it like a normal monitor is pretty dumb, yes. However, TVs at a normal couch distance are not particularly "too bright" (alternatively, if you have one that is too bright then you can just adjust the settings until it looks good) and won't "burn your eyes out of your skull" if you're in a well-lit room like a normal person It's pretty satisfying saying "like a normal person" but in reality people are different and you just seem like an rear end in a top hat. Not everyone can tolerate using TVs as monitors. They are different. Hopefully one day you'll understand that people at different.
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Jun 7, 2013 06:38
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^^^ It's a pretty common trope that nerds sit in dark rooms staring at really bright computer monitors, I just wanted to make sure that we weren't dealing with that kind of situation. "Burn your eyes out of your skull" suggests brightness being the cause of irritation, so I was suggesting a more brightly lit room in order to fix that problem. There's no need for you to get your knickers in a twist over that, I'm trying to helpunpronounceable posted:I can attest to text being absolutely terrible on a TV. It wasn't because that the TV is too bright or that I was sitting too close to it. It's just that TVs are that bad at displaying text. The edges of each letter were horrible to look at. But why do you think that they're bad? Was it really just that single-pixel border on the edges of some of the letters? This caused a huge source of irritation? How close were you to the screen, and how large was it? e: Also, were you using a VGA or DVI/HDMI connection (please don't say that it was S-Video or something)? A digital video connection from my laptop produces a pretty crisp and clear picture, but a VGA connection on my older laptop definitely resulted in a noticeable degradation in quality. QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 08:14 on Jun 7, 2013 |
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Jun 7, 2013 08:08
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I'm looking for a new laptop soonish, and I may just end up going with a Thinkpad T440 whenever that drops, but what are some alternatives to Thinkpads when it comes to very durable and reasonably priced laptops? I'd prefer something with a metal or very good composite body, and indestructable hinges. Spill-proof keyboards are a plus, as is a good warranty. I'm hoping to get some kind of a new Haswell model from a reputable brand and keep it for the foreseeable future, at least 4 years or so.
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Jun 7, 2013 09:08
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I quite liked the psudo mechanical looking keyboard on my thinkpad W520. Are the new apple style key-in-body keyboards on the thinkpads better/worse than those?
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Jun 7, 2013 11:02
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QuarkJets posted:How close were you to the screen, and how large was it? I don't remember exactly how big the room was, but probably around 8' away from a 40" screen connected to his computer via HDMI.
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Jun 7, 2013 11:54
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QuarkJets posted:^^^ It's a pretty common trope that nerds sit in dark rooms staring at really bright computer monitors, I just wanted to make sure that we weren't dealing with that kind of situation. "Burn your eyes out of your skull" suggests brightness being the cause of irritation, so I was suggesting a more brightly lit room in order to fix that problem. There's no need for you to get your knickers in a twist over that, I'm trying to help Yes I can see how you automatically assuming the worst and being condescending is you 'trying to help.' Why would someone ever be annoyed by you, I wonder?
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Jun 7, 2013 12:40
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Manifest Dynasty posted:In a couple weeks I'm leaving for a loooooong work trip where I'll be living out of a hotel for quite a while, and I'm thinking about getting a laptop that can play some games to preserve my sanity. (and I don't have a laptop at all right now, anyway) I know nothing about laptops, so for clarification: Thinkpads are good, Ideapads are... bad? Just "less good?" Should I be staying away from something like this? I'm surprised nobody addressed this yet. Generally, the Ideapads are almost as bad as Dell or HP's consumer lines. If you can't afford a Thinkpad or the corporate lines from Dell (Latitude 6xxx) or HP (Elitebook) then your best bet is heading for ASUS or Acer and finding whichever fits your budget and looks like the best design and build quality.
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Jun 7, 2013 13:08
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Anti-Derivative posted:I quite liked the psudo mechanical looking keyboard on my thinkpad W520. Are the new apple style key-in-body keyboards on the thinkpads better/worse than those? Check the reviews - they made a big stink when that keyboard first came out but it's supposedly very, very similar mechanics underneath
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Jun 7, 2013 13:35
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I'm also interested in the lenovo Y410p so if anyone has first-hand experience with the build quality of the Y400/Y480 that would be nice. I've read about the trackpad on the Y500 being bad.
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Jun 7, 2013 13:46
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I badly want the Zenbook Infinity but they've used a glossy screen! Is there any hope that there'll be a non glossy variant somewhere in the lineup of ultrabooks now they are all forced to have touchscreens?
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Jun 7, 2013 15:26
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Bob Morales posted:Check the reviews - they made a big stink when that keyboard first came out but it's supposedly very, very similar mechanics underneath I found this: http://blog.lenovo.com/products/why-you-should-give-in-to-the-new-thinkpad-keyboard and it looks very promising, so i'm far less concerned about it now. I do want to wait to see what Haswell offerings they produce.
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Jun 7, 2013 15:31
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Anti-Derivative posted:I do want to wait to see what Haswell offerings they produce. Any idea of when Lenovo will start announcing Thinkpad whatnot?
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Jun 7, 2013 19:06
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T-Shaped posted:Any idea of when Lenovo will start announcing Thinkpad whatnot? I think I saw someone throw out the date June 13th in either this thread or the Intel CPU thread recently. I don't know for certain.
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Jun 7, 2013 19:29
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Anti-Derivative posted:I quite liked the psudo mechanical looking keyboard on my thinkpad W520. Are the new apple style key-in-body keyboards on the thinkpads better/worse than those? There are a couple of people who swear that the new thinkpad keyboards are worse, but the overwhelming opinion is that the new keyboards are as good or better than the old ones, and they're certainly still in the top two, right up there with macbook keyboards. My buddy has a T400 (old style, 2008 era) and a x120 (new style (2010 era), he has no preference. Compared with my x230 (new style, 2012 era) they are all equally good in general.
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Jun 7, 2013 21:24
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Hadlock posted:There are a couple of people who swear that the new thinkpad keyboards are worse, but the overwhelming opinion is that the new keyboards are as good or better than the old ones, and they're certainly still in the top two, right up there with macbook keyboards. For me its the layout changes that bring out my nerd rage. I can adjust to a slightly different key feel without too much effort, but going from 7 rows to 6 rows on the new layout drives me bonkers when I've been using the same layout for 15 years or so. I'm sure I'll get used to it eventually, but years of muscle memory is hard to retrain, for me at least.
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Jun 8, 2013 03:29
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The layout change is godawful, yeah. The individual keys are fine, and in my opinion, better because there's a lot more surface area.
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Jun 8, 2013 03:56
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I EVER SPENT
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Checking in to say the Y500 trackpad is truly abysmal, but I love everything else about the computer.
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Jun 8, 2013 06:35
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What companies other than Apple have really nailed the touchpad?
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Jun 8, 2013 08:23
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fookolt posted:What companies other than Apple have really nailed the touchpad? This is second- or third-hand, but I've heard and read that the X1 Carbon has one of the best Windows trackpads you can buy. Other than that, no one comes close, it's a one-horse race and Apple is way out in front.
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Jun 8, 2013 08:37
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fookolt posted:What companies other than Apple have really nailed the touchpad? Panasonic's tiny circular touchpads are better.
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Jun 8, 2013 11:34
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Four years ago I got a crappy Asus laptop. It's a huge 17 inch brick with a bad screen, noisy fans and I'd like to ditch it. I'm after something that is good for multimedia, 15", quiet, has a 1080 screen, bluray drive, SSD, maybe a reasonable graphics card but if I ever played a game on it then it would be something like League Of Legends and it sounds like Haswell can do that. After looking around the only real contender I have found for that is Sony, with their new Vaoi Fit. It has the Nvidia 735M as a cheap upgrade option as well as an SSD and can play Blurays. IntelŽ CoreTM i5-3337U, 1.8GHz Windows 8 39.5cm LED 1920 x 1080 +webcam NVIDIAŽ GeForceŽ GT 735M 2 GB 128 GB SATA Flash SSD 8 GB 1600 MT/s DDR3L-SDRAM Blu-ray Disc(TM) writer Have to wait and see what they do with Haswell but are there any contenders for these kind of specs without price tags over $1200? I've considered ditching the bluray and 1080 screen but then we are getting close to a point where I could just buy a $200 Nexus 7.
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Jun 8, 2013 14:09
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I haven't found a Sony screen I liked because they all seem like flimsy LCD screens, even on their business-class models. You should really really wait for Haswell and avoid getting a dedicated graphics card unless you wanna play Battlefield 3 or something. Instead of getting a graphics card, why not get a bigger badder processor? Plus, what do you need the Blu-Ray drive for? Unless you wanna watch a bunch of movies on the go, you could just buy a USB drive or something. That's what I do for DVDs. e: So, what do you really want out of this thing? Do you want to be able to play video games on it? If so, which ones? Looking around, with those specs, you could get a really good ultrabook at 13 inches for less than $1200 without the graphics card. DO you want portability or performance? jokes fucked around with this message at 15:48 on Jun 8, 2013 |
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Jun 8, 2013 15:35
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I don't get what Lenovo's thinking, launching the Yoga 11S and Thinkpad Helix without Haswell... I want one of their laptops, but I'm not paying over a thousand dollars for a machine with a last-gen processor.
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Jun 8, 2013 15:46
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PaulC posted:I don't get what Lenovo's thinking, launching the Yoga 11S and Thinkpad Helix without Haswell... Allegedly, their haswell refreshes are coming on the 13th
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Jun 8, 2013 15:54
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InstantInfidel posted:This is second- or third-hand, but I've heard and read that the X1 Carbon has one of the best Windows trackpads you can buy. Other than that, no one comes close, it's a one-horse race and Apple is way out in front. I don't understand why it's so hard for laptop OEMs to make laptops of similar quality for similar prices. It seems like it took ages for them to start making some nice looking chassis but there's still usually something wrong with each model like a mushy keyboard, poor trackpad, crappy screen, flimsy body, etc. Are high end ThinkPads the only thing that compete? I guess it looks like that new Zenbook from Asus could fill that space too? (If you haven't already guessed, I'm looking for a good quality laptop this summer that isn't an Apple)
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Jun 8, 2013 17:27
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Shofixti posted:I don't understand why it's so hard for laptop OEMs to make laptops of similar quality for similar prices. It seems like it took ages for them to start making some nice looking chassis but there's still usually something wrong with each model like a mushy keyboard, poor trackpad, crappy screen, flimsy body, etc. Are high end ThinkPads the only thing that compete? I guess it looks like that new Zenbook from Asus could fill that space too? (If you haven't already guessed, I'm looking for a good quality laptop this summer that isn't an Apple) You get what you pay for.
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Jun 8, 2013 17:47
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go3 posted:You get what you pay for. I know. And I'm willing to pay. That's why I was asking why OEMs have trouble making "laptops of similar quality for similar prices [to Apple]." People were just mentioning, for example, how the high end Sony laptops aren't great despite their price. Or how non-Apple trackpads are generally inferior regardless of price (except maybe the X1 Carbon mentioned). Shofixti fucked around with this message at 18:32 on Jun 8, 2013 |
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Jun 8, 2013 18:24
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The reason is that people keep buying the lovely ones anyways, so why fix it?
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Jun 8, 2013 18:44
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Also because Apple's sales volume on just a few different models lets them take advantage of volume to lower prices, versus a whole bunch of manufacturers all making a full line-up of models. The other part is software - a big part of the reason Apple's trackpad is better is because the trackpad drivers and the supporting interface is very well tuned. Part of the reason Sony is bad because they have a lot of badly written drivers and really poor driver support afterwards.
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Jun 8, 2013 18:58
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Shofixti posted:I don't understand why it's so hard for laptop OEMs to make laptops of similar quality for similar prices. It seems like it took ages for them to start making some nice looking chassis but there's still usually something wrong with each model like a mushy keyboard, poor trackpad, crappy screen, flimsy body, etc. Are high end ThinkPads the only thing that compete? I guess it looks like that new Zenbook from Asus could fill that space too? (If you haven't already guessed, I'm looking for a good quality laptop this summer that isn't an Apple) I've been watching mobile computing pretty closely since the Core series processors started to take off, and it's been like that for a long time. People will buy whatever is cheap, so the incentive is to make a bargain-basement product with as many large, flashy numbers as possible while combining it with cheap garbage to keep the margins wide. Basically, PC companies are all shitpiles with a few exceptions and Apple has the right idea. I'm not a fanboy, really, they just make a better product that has its own shortcomings that are much, much less glaring.
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Jun 8, 2013 19:08
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