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Astian posted:It's bizarre, I know. I'll try the new WiFi module since I'm out of other options, though. If all else fails that is a very decent-looking budget laptop! It was only available for 24 hours, though; that's how most items on Woot work. It'll probably be around again though. sout posted:Lenovo Ideapad 510s has got my eye because of its IPS screen but there's a few things weird about its design/keyboard layout. This is what I normally recommend for a cheap Windows laptop although as you can read above Astian is having problem with his, possibly the wifi card, possibly his network though. Mine works perfectly, so YMMV.  It's cheap with nice features like the backlit keyboard and FHD display; you'd just have to add the SSD yourself.Dr. Fishopolis posted:Honestly, that display should be a dealbreaker. For general computing and web stuff, I would rather have something with at least a 1080p IPS display but a cheapo Celeron with 4GB of ram and an eMMC drive than a faster computer with a dumpster display. There's no point getting a machine with the horsepower to run Photoshop, watch Netflix and open a dozen chrome tabs if you don't even have the real estate to see what the gently caress you're doing, let alone trust the colors on the screen. Yeah, this is pretty much how I feel about displays. It was like $200 though, and manufacturers still put WXGA/HD displays on new laptops with large panels, so there's not a lot I can do about that. I recommend a $350 FHD laptop to everyone who doesn't want a Chromebook, so I'm doing my part at least. RandomPauI posted:I need a laptop for occasional work use. https://www.amazon.com/Amazons-Choice-E5-575-33BM-15-6-Inch-Generation/dp/B01K1IO3QW/ Same recommendation as above. Just expect to add a $50 m.2 SATA SSD and probably 4 GB of RAM for $25. RandomPauI posted:It'd mostly be used a few times a month at most in an indoor setting, but not necessarily an office. You work with the Red Cross or some other humanitarian group IIRC, right? There's not a whole lot of laptops you can just casually use in the rain, or um, at an active volcano, but the Panasonic Toughbooks are what you'd need. They're chunky and somewhat expensive, but durable, and you could get an older one for a reasonable price. I'd still recommend going with a cheap laptop and not getting it wet.... Luneshot posted:I'm just starting grad school with no laptop, and it looks like I'm really going to need one. I do want a decent amount of RAM (8GB) and moderate processing power, as I'll probably be writing some programs on here. I'll need to be dual booting Linux and Windows. My main problem is that looking at the T470 line, trying to include an SSD with a reasonable amount of capacity (ideally 512GB) bumps the price up several hundred dollars. https://www.amazon.com/Amazons-Choice-E5-575-33BM-15-6-Inch-Generation/dp/B01K1IO3QW/ Ditto. You can add the RAM and SSD yourself very easily. As far as laptop CPUs go, basically any Intel Core CPU will be fine. The xxxxU models are dual-core with hyperthreading, but are ULV and power-efficient.
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Aug 30, 2017 08:53
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Bob Morales posted:240 has the horrible touchpad Why would you ever use the touchpad on a Thinkpad? It's got the Trackpoint for your cursor controlling needs.
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Aug 30, 2017 17:55
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Twerk from Home posted:Why would you ever use the touchpad on a Thinkpad? It's got the Trackpoint for your cursor controlling needs. Sure, but some people like it and the model below and above it have perfectly usable trackpads. I forgot how bad the x240 one was, dude was right to point it out. poo poo's awful, and the x250 is worth spending a little more for that reason.
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Aug 30, 2017 18:58
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I got my Yoga 720 and I love it. I've always wanted a laptop I could draw on, and the dedicated graphics card seems to really help with being able to draw smoothly. I had a few annoying issues with BSODs until I updated some drivers. I had one issue today where I used the laptop for about an hour while it was charging, and then packed it up and put it in the case. I came back to it about four hours later and noticed that the fans were blowing on high and the computer was really hot to the touch. It wouldn't turn on, but once I held the power button down it booted up. And once I started using it, the computer cooled down immensely and the fans went back to their usual quiet state. Is this something I should be concerned about? I just changed the power options when the lid is closed from sleep to hibernate to see if that stops it from happening again. Sorry if this belongs in Haus of Tech Support.
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Aug 30, 2017 19:00
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For laptops with both an SSD and HDD, which tends to be the boot drive? Because if it's the HDD that seems a bit pointless, right? It's a shame I can't seem to find laptops with more than 256gb SSDs without also introducing a dedicated GPU which I don't really need to bring the price/weight up.
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Aug 30, 2017 20:06
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:Sure, but some people like it and the model below and above it have perfectly usable trackpads. I forgot how bad the x240 one was, dude was right to point it out. poo poo's awful, and the x250 is worth spending a little more for that reason. I'm not sure on the X250 as we've long switched to HP but the X230 absolutely doesn't have a usable trackpad
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Aug 30, 2017 20:18
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dissss posted:I'm not sure on the X250 as we've long switched to HP but the X230 absolutely doesn't have a usable trackpad The X230 isn't very good, but the X240 one is a cluster gently caress X230 is small and weird. Just like the X220 before it.  X240 is much larger, so they got that right. The problem is, they removed the buttons. So instead of tap to click that some users prefer, the whole thing moves up and down like a quarter inch.  You can swap it out with the X250 and newer style touchpad fairly easily. The same size, but there's physical buttons on it. It's still no Mac Touchpad but it's a big improvement.
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Aug 30, 2017 20:48
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I've mostly learned to live with the x230 trackpad. I don't use it much, I've converted to using the trackpoint. Win10 does a pretty good job of recognizing you don't use the trackpad and ignores it unless you start using it. x240 is indeed a piece of hot garbage, and is easily user-replaceable with a $20 x250 trackpad off of ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Thinkpad-X2...n4AAOSw0HVWD7AL the x250 trackpad is basically a required upgrade on top of the purchase price of $200-400. x250 already has the "good" trackpad, if you want to go that way, they're a little more pricey @ $350-500 Another big advantage of the x250 is it has a pretty modern CPU with realy good power consumption, meaning you won't have any trouble getting 6-8 hours of battery life out of the thing. x230 has ok power consumption but you're looking at 4.5 hours on a brand new battery (which you won't get on an refurbished model)
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Aug 30, 2017 21:20
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sout posted:For laptops with both an SSD and HDD, which tends to be the boot drive? The SSD is always the boot drive. If it isn't for some reason, switch it in the BIOS. Do you need a quad core cpu?
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Aug 30, 2017 21:37
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:The SSD is always the boot drive. If it isn't for some reason, switch it in the BIOS. Is it important for anything outside of gaming? At this point I still feel like there's a lot of stuff to consider like if I'd be comfortable with a 13 inch screen or if I'd rather have to carry a slightly larger/heavier 15.6. There's a lot of choice but at the same time it feels like any choice has a certain tradeoff. Where are all the super light, quiet, powerful and durable laptops that look amazing and feel amazing and are also inexplicably free!?
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Aug 30, 2017 21:45
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Dual core i5 is hyperthreaded which gives you 4 logical cores, if that's acceptable. Very rarely will you use a true quad core CPU, especially on a laptopsout posted:Where are all the super light, quiet, powerful and durable laptops that look amazing and feel amazing and are also inexplicably free!? Check out refurb XPS 13's on ebay for $400 Also see the 2012 Macbook Air 13" starting around $325 The x230 is super quiet, mostly as powerful as a modern computer, and hyper durable; I'm about to go on my third international backpacker trip this year with it, and it's been flawless now for five years, not as light as the XPS 13 and MBA though; they run for about $160-280 (get the IPS screen model though)
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Aug 30, 2017 21:58
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Hadlock posted:Dual core i5 is hyperthreaded which gives you 4 logical cores, if that's acceptable. Very rarely will you use a true quad core CPU, especially on a laptop Is this still the guideline now that there's 4C/8T 15W i5s? I'm pretty excited about the XPS 13s picking up hyperthreaded quad cores.
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Aug 30, 2017 22:20
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Whoa, 4 core i5 with hyperthreading? I missed that, where did you read that? I thought it was i7 only still. I've been a little preoccupied lately. That's probably worth finally upgrading my x230 for if true.
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Aug 30, 2017 22:40
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Hadlock posted:Whoa, 4 core i5 with hyperthreading? I missed that, where did you read that? I thought it was i7 only still. I've been a little preoccupied lately. Intel's 8th gen mobile processors are 4/8 now starting at i5's. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_Lake
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Aug 30, 2017 23:02
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Bob Morales posted:The X230 isn't very good, but the X240 one is a cluster gently caress The X230 trackpad was a buttonless clickpad too though and just as unusable. The difference is with the X240 they removed the trackpoint buttons too which also made that a problem. If you don’t want to use the track point then the X240 was actually an improvement.
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Aug 30, 2017 23:03
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Hadlock posted:Whoa, 4 core i5 with hyperthreading? I missed that, where did you read that? I thought it was i7 only still. I've been a little preoccupied lately. Check it out: https://ark.intel.com/products/124967/Intel-Core-i5-8250U-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_40-GHz
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Aug 30, 2017 23:11
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sout posted:Is it important for anything outside of gaming? If you don't know why you would need a quad core, you don't need one. Current gen quad core laptop cpus give you a shitload more power for VMs, video editing, compiling and working in heavy (bloated) IDEs. The tradeoffs are price, weight, battery, fan noise and heat.
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Aug 30, 2017 23:47
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dissss posted:If you don’t want to use the track point then the X240 was actually an improvement. Have you ever actually used the X240 trackpad? When we say "a quarter inch", we mean "a quarter inch". It's next to impossible to keep your finger on the thing you're trying to click on while pushing the assembly down that far. It's a torture device. edit: oh god and it wasn't levered like the older style Mac ones either, it just sort of floated around this vague point in the middle. the memories are flooding back, someone hold me
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Aug 30, 2017 23:49
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Sure. Have you used an X230?
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Aug 30, 2017 23:52
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[quote="“Dr. Fishopolis”" post="“475914302”"] If you don’t know why you would need a quad core, you don’t need one. Current gen quad core laptop cpus give you a shitload more power for VMs, video editing, compiling and working in heavy (bloated) IDEs. The tradeoffs are price, weight, battery, fan noise and heat. [/quote] The new Intel ULV chips should address all those concerns. I personally wouldn’t buy anything expensive until systems with them become available
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Aug 30, 2017 23:53
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dissss posted:The new Intel ULV chips should address all those concerns. I personally wouldn’t buy anything expensive until systems with them become available They're still 15w tdp. They'll be faster, but nobody's magically turning U series chips into HQs.
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Aug 30, 2017 23:56
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:Have you ever actually used the X240 trackpad? I think the secret to using it happily is to forget about clicking and embrace tapping (two fingers tap for right-click, three fingers for middle-click). That's what I've been doing for the past few years, and the touchpad seems serviceable to me (but I've never used a high end laptop so I have no basis of comparison).
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Aug 31, 2017 06:18
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https://sellout.woot.com/offers/dell-latitude-e7450-14-intel-i5-128gb-ultrabook Here's a decent-looking refurb if you need a cheap Windows laptop along the lines of that Acer I recommend but want it ready-to-go out-of-the-box without having to make any upgrades yourself; it's around the same price in the end. The downsides are the lack of a backlit keyboard and a smaller 14" display that's of course not FHD.  Keep in mind it's on Woot and is only available for <24 hours. sout posted:For laptops with both an SSD and HDD, which tends to be the boot drive? Generally if you have a device that comes with both drives and the SSD is "normal"-sized* the SSD will always be the system drive. Obviously if you get that Acer with an HDD and add your own SSD you have to do a little work to switch the system drive. *The only exception is that some systems come with a small (e.g. 16 or 32 GB) SSD in addition to an HDD where the latter is the system drive and the former is a cache enabled via Intel SRT. My Toshiba Ultrawide is like this, and it works (i.e. I noticed the difference when I temporarily disabled the cache) although it would still make more sense to drop in a larger SSD and make that the system drive. sout posted:Is it important for anything outside of gaming? You won't miss a "real" quad-core CPU over an Intel ULV. Nowadays 15" laptops do feel kind of big & bulky even though they aren't and never were the largest laptops by any stretch. You should seriously consider a 13-14" display unless you need as much screen real estate as possible and/or have vision issues. Bourricot posted:I think the secret to using it happily is to forget about clicking and embrace tapping (two fingers tap for right-click, three fingers for middle-click). This. There's no reason to "click" on any halfway-decent touchpad when you can just tap. The only time I have to use the click function is for dragging/band-boxing/etc. Also a lot of devices, Chrome or otherwise have multi-finger gestures that let you easily switch tasks/tabs, etc.
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Aug 31, 2017 08:04
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That Latitude is too expensive with that screen - it's not something you want to skimp on and there are always tonnes of similar off lease laptops available
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Aug 31, 2017 08:22
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I know, I'm not thrilled with it either, but I'm not the one buying it. Like I've said, that Acer with the FHD display is great for $350 + $~75 in upgrades. There's also the m3 HP CB 13 refurb'd on Woot for a good price with a great display.
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Aug 31, 2017 08:47
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Atomizer posted:Nowadays 15" laptops do feel kind of big & bulky even though they aren't and never were the largest laptops by any stretch. You should seriously consider a 13-14" display unless you need as much screen real estate as possible and/or have vision issues. Occasionally when traveling to work I kind of wish I'd gotten a 14-inch GTX 1060 laptop over my 15-inch one, and I've got like the smallest 15-inch laptop there is. I thought it wouldn't make much of a difference, but moving from 13.3 to 15 is definitely a big step in terms of bulk and footprint, and 14 might be a happier compromise between bigger screen and not too bulky. I can say for sure that as a first-time 15-incher, I underestimated it's size a little. My ideal laptop right now is probably a 14-inch laptop with thin bezels at the cost of a little more thickness (really, thinness is overrated) w/ a GTX 1060 in it, or a 13.3" with thin bezels, again at the cost of a little thickness, with a GTX 1050 in it. Don't think we'll see either of these, and the latter is probably not even feasible.
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Aug 31, 2017 09:19
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New Zenbook Flip 15 looks neat:quote:The nod here goes to its use of the same i7-8550U 4C/8T 1.8GHz-4GHz processor and NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1050 graphics http://www.anandtech.com/show/11788/asus-announces-zenbook-flip-14-and-flip-15
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Aug 31, 2017 11:11
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What the hell does "14 inch display in a 13 inch frame" mean?
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Aug 31, 2017 12:57
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It means it has a really thin bezel. The 13" Macbook Air has room for a 14" screen but it doesn't because the bezels are huge.
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Aug 31, 2017 13:08
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dissss posted:The X230 trackpad was a buttonless clickpad too though and just as unusable.
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Aug 31, 2017 13:46
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Is there a go-to chromebook lately? The OP is a little outdated on that front. I just need something that will let me use Adobe Connect for meetings. I'd like to be able to wait for the Flip 15, but alas, time is an issue.
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Aug 31, 2017 17:46
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For Chromebooks, quality and price scale linearly; you just need to figure out how much you want to spend. Generaly $250 and up gets you an ok Chromebook, $450 gets you a great one. Only specific models of Chromebooks come with backlit keyboards, sadly, which is something I really value, especially in the winter months. This sums them up, there might be newer ones since this was written: http://www.meetchrome.com/best-chromebooks-with-a-backlit-keyboard/
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Aug 31, 2017 17:57
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Oy. I was hoping to keep it below $200, but I assume I'm getting something that will die in a couple years if I aim that low. I'll try to hit the $300 level if I can. If I'm going to spend $450 on a chromebook, I figure I'll just hold out and spend $900-1000 on a full-featured gaming laptop instead of just getting a half-grand netflix/Office machine.
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Aug 31, 2017 18:36
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Shrimp or Shrimps posted:Occasionally when traveling to work I kind of wish I'd gotten a 14-inch GTX 1060 laptop over my 15-inch one, and I've got like the smallest 15-inch laptop there is. The Razer Blade is pretty close to what you describe, albeit at high cost and poor QC. The Aero 14 also gets good reviews.
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Aug 31, 2017 19:38
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Not a Children posted:Oy. I was hoping to keep it below $200, but I assume I'm getting something that will die in a couple years if I aim that low. I'll try to hit the $300 level if I can. If I'm going to spend $450 on a chromebook, I figure I'll just hold out and spend $900-1000 on a full-featured gaming laptop instead of just getting a half-grand netflix/Office machine. I ordered an ASUS C201 with 4GB ram for $169 last year off Amazon (this one to be exact) it's $199 now but other models exist too now, it gets about 11 hours of battery per charge. I love it, I use it more than my Win 10 i5 Thinkpad. Screen is mediocre, keyboard is servicable, trackpad is... well the trackpad is one of the best I've used actually. $200 chromebooks totally exist and they're totally servicable, if you want to lowball it you can and you'll be pretty happy with it, but you get a lot more chromebook as the price goes up. The only rule I'd make is to ensure your chromebook has at least 4GB of RAM as Chrome is a hog when it comes to memory. A lot of chromebooks only have 2GB RAM.
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Aug 31, 2017 19:46
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Bob Morales posted:There's a picture of the X230 touchpad, it's not a clickpad. It's just a regular style touchpad (small, because that's how they were at that point) with 3 physical buttons. The buttons are for the trackpoint - note how they're at the top. The trackpad itself is a clickpad.
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Aug 31, 2017 20:18
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Asus has a thin bezel 14'' convertible with MX150 coming out hmm...
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Aug 31, 2017 21:49
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How can you tell if a laptop can hook its own display to an external GPU? E.g. hooking the HP EliteBook 360 x2 up to a Razer Core or the upcoming HP Omen Accelerator.
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Aug 31, 2017 23:07
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In theory it will have dual channel PCI-e on the thunderbolt 3 port. Dual channel PCI-e isn't a guarantee that it will be compatible out of the box (due to drivers), but you'll at least know your laptop is technically capable of it. If the manufacturer advertises eGPU support, that's a strong signal, but ultimately you're going to have to dig through Reddit to find out if the model you want works out of the box or if driver tweaking is required.
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Aug 31, 2017 23:14
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Ynglaur posted:The Razer Blade is pretty close to what you describe, albeit at high cost and poor QC. The Aero 14 also gets good reviews. I picked up a late 2016 Blade with a 970m in it for a little over a grand, you can find good used deals if you hunt around. Had to do a bunch of driver shenanigans to get everything working to my liking but I haven't experienced any hardware issues so far, there's no bloatware at all and after tweaking with throttlestop I get an easy 6 hours off the (remarkably small for 165w) charger. And it's got good Linux support. It's a Good Computer. That said, I think next year we'll start to see a lot of competition for it. If Coffee Lake gives us a 28w quad core chip, that with a Max-Q 1060 or 1050ti could mean machines well under 4 pounds with real performance and fewer compromises. Who knows, Apple might even step back into the ring after they see the sales figures from their garbage redesign.
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Sep 1, 2017 00:06
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