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GreenNight posted:Anyone get a Surface 2? Work gave me one for "business" but all I'm gonna do is throw Steam on it. Any good Windows 8.1 touch enabled games? I heard Civ5 works pretty well with a touchscreen. This is from a couple pages ago, but I didn't really see an answer. I assume you mean a surface PRO 2 since you wouldn't be installing steam on an ARM device. I picked up a SP2 a few weeks ago, not really intending to use it for any games, but decided to try some games on it just out of curiosity. So I'll give you a rundown on some of the things I tried. -Payday 2, was just baaaaaarely playable for me on low settings and low resolution. If it was even slightly slower I would say its unplayable, but as it is its just good enough that I can reasonably play it if im desperate. -Fallout new Vegas, I bumped the settings down to medium, plugged in a 360 controller, and it runs silky smooth. Its a few years old but its extremely playable, and if I just grab a bluetooth clone xbox controller will be a really slick setup when I'm away at hotels or visiting family, since I never played it when it came out. -Skyrim, on low settings was also very playable. -Civ V is just fantastic with its touch enabled controls. I end up playing this most days on the train because it controls in tablet mode as slick and natural as any ipad, or android purpose built game. Also runs very smooth. So, not any machine I could recommend if you want to game, but it will do quite nice in a pinch (especially if you have a bluetooth gamepad). If you're really looking to game on it, i've heard installing updated drivers direct from intel will speed things up a little, but at the cost of heat/battery optimization as the drivers from microsoft update. All in all I'm amazingly impressed with the SP2 overall.
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Nov 13, 2013 12:05
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evilweasel posted:I read for the original surface pro it had problems with dpi scaling enabled - the touch controls would be off compared to the image, and you had to manually disable dpi scaling each time to make it work. I take it that's no longer the case? Must be, because i have dpi scaling on and its always been flawless. maybe this was something 8.1 fixed and the original SP wouldnt have the dpi issue anymore either after upgrading? vOv
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Nov 13, 2013 13:26
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Evil Vin posted:I'm in a similar situation with my girlfriend, except my max is $500. If this is going to replace a netbook for her, maybe you should look at the asus t100? Obviously there's not enough information to go on here, but would she *want* something with a 14" screen and far heavier to replace her netbook? The T100 is a small, light sucessor to the asus netbooks, it gets good battery life, can detach into a tablet if she just wants to lounge on the couch, and the new baytrail processors are at least powerful enough to do any and all basic tasks, and even run games like skyrim (though on dog low settings). On top of that its still a full windows machine so there's no sacrificing things like having to run flash or any old software she might have. As far as cost the 64GB versions are regularly on sale for $350, and you can always throw in micro sd cards to double the space on it. Of course you know way more than any of us about her wants, but so often I see more technical partners, friends, family, over-buying computers for gifts. Getting way more that that person really wants, or needs.
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Dec 14, 2013 14:23
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Evil Vin posted:This is definitely an interesting computer I really didn't know something like this existed. I'm just wary about since was (and still is) hitting the ceiling of what she wanted to do with netbook since at this point even wiped clean it was chugging with watching Youtube and such. That why I'm leaning towards the Acer Aspire V5-171-6471 since it's still netbook size at 11.6 inches but the processor itself is much better and it has a ton of ram to do poo poo with. The one thing I'd be really careful about with the Acer Aspire V5-171-6471 is that its using a last gen processor, and the battery life is pretty crummy, around 3-4 hours only. Battery life might not be an issue for her, but its definitely something to keep in mind, if she doesn't need i5 power for the kind of things shes doing. Intel's atom processors have really matured and if she's just web browsing, watching youtube, while facebooking and writing things or whatever, you're not going to find something using a baytrail processor getting bogged down like netbooks of old.
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Dec 15, 2013 02:30
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Fathis Munk posted:So the ASUS T100 doesn't get bogged down by normal internet/youtube/office usage ? I should say I don't own one, and i've only ever played around with a friend of mines a little bit, but it was really zippy. Some of the more extensive tests of it I've seen have placed its performance at equal to, or around 25% or so slower, depending on the test, than a last gen core i3 mobile processor. Play around with one some at a store. They cut some corners to be as cheap as they are, but on the whole I've been impressed enough that I kinda want to pick one up myself, and I already own a surface pro 2.
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Dec 16, 2013 10:26
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Sagebrush posted:What's a decent lightweight convertible (or tablet, I guess) right now that has a Wacom digitizer? I'm basically looking for a digital sketchbook and those capacitive pen things won't do. The only ones I can find are the Thinkpad Yoga and the Surface Pro 2, and of the two I'm leaning more towards the Thinkpad. Is that the best solution right now? What else is out there? I'm biased since I own a surface pro 2, but it is a really fantastic machine. I've been nothing but pleased with mine, and its small and light enough to easily slip in my purse and pull out on the train or wherever, as opposed to something like the thinkpad yoga which is a good pound and a half heavier (of course, it also has a bigger drawing surface). It really depends on your needs and requirements I guess. Heck if its not going to be doing photoshop work at 4k with 100 layers, ASUS is launching a 8" windows tablet with a wacom digitizer early January, or end of this month for $300, that might be just the thing. 
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Dec 19, 2013 12:42
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I'm typing this right now on a surface pro 2 and I think if you need full laptop power and want a 'hybrid', the sp2 is the best option out there. Mainly because I think the space for 'hybrid' devices has to hinge more on the tablet side than the laptop side, and that's what the sp2 is better at than any of the other convertibles, or even something like the helix that physically separates. This might just be personal preference speaking, however laptops can scale smaller and still be useable mostly, (enough people used netbooks as an example), but using something as a tablet RAPIDLY becomes useless past a certain size and weight. So while I really like something like the yoga 2 pro, and think it makes a great laptop, I'm not sure how actually useable as a tablet it is, beyond kind of gimmick to show off. I mean I can't imagine holding it with one hand or slipping it into a small bag and whipping it out on the train, or while bored in line somewhere. Things like the helix that detach also have the problem, not of size and weight so much since they physically become a tablet, but in the fact if you want to use it as a tablet you now have to shove this big base somewhere and hang onto it. Thus limiting its portability again. This is what I think makes the surface pro so good. Its a little small for a laptop, and slightly heavier than something like an iPad 4, but its still portable enough to hold with one hand while standing around, to slip it in your bag or relax on the couch with. The touch or type covers also solve the problem of convertibles "where do I put the keyboard base now that I want to use it quick?". I got the touch cover for this reason as well, its not as accurate and fast as the type cover, but its surprisingly good, its thinner and lighter, and when I just want to use the computer quick and I fold the cover back behind it, I don't have physical keys making it feel weird. It just feels like a cover. There's lots of keyboard cases out there for tablets to be sure, but all those cases add serious bulk and thickness compared to the surface covers. Christ this loving post sounds like the biggest god drat shill in the world, but I really just like this device and wanted to try and articulate what it is that I think makes it work so well.
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Dec 25, 2013 13:32
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Don't the thinkpad X240's also have docking connectors? They're pretty close to that size as well.
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Jan 8, 2014 17:49
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You could get a refurbished T430 for like $630 at lenovo's outlet store. Does it need to be haswell?
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Feb 15, 2014 16:46
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is there a size/resolution limit to what you're looking for? you could look at something baytrail based at that point like the Asus t100 or even yoga 2 11(not pro)
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Feb 28, 2014 09:00
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does anyone have any experience with the yoga 2 11"? My sisters laptop just died and while she really liked the yoga 2 pro, it was a little pricey for her. I was going to recommend the yoga 2 11 to her, but being that it has a baytrail (albeit the speedy version of the baytrail)and a lower 768 screen, I started wondering if it wouldn't be TOO much of a compromise for her. she's doesn't use her laptop for anything more than homework, browsing/chatting and watching movies so its not like she needs a gaming machine.
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Mar 6, 2014 10:27
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If you're really looking for a modern successor to netbooks, have you looked into the asus t100 yet? edit: even as far as light gaming goes, I think people underestimate how much better atom chips have gotten, see fallout: NV (yeah its several years old, but still should give some idea of the light gaming chops) running on one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjvkuHbrNLk Tom Guycot fucked around with this message at 00:09 on Mar 11, 2014 |
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Mar 10, 2014 23:59
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metro needed to be done and the interface for its intended purpose is fantastic, the best tablet os I've used. They made several boneheaded moves in its interaction with classic desktop mode though, but they're growing pains they needed to get out of the way, and couldn't really wait any longer.
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Mar 16, 2014 04:21
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I'm cross-posting this from the win tablet thread as theres a lot more people here with Lenovo experience so maybe someone will know: so I'm trying to get my friends thinkpad tablet 2 to stop eating so much battery (2% per hour) in connected standby since upgrading to win 8.1, but one item is coming up In powercfg /sleepstudy as red, on 100% during connected standby. this item is [Intel(R) Atom(TM) Processor Z2760 Security Engine (\_SB.CHAB)], but I can't find a single piece of information on the internet what the "security engine" is and its driving me mad. I can't disable it, and the drivers are up to date, does anyone know what this stupid security engine thing is??
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Mar 21, 2014 17:13
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Yeah, I was planning to try reinstalling the drivers, what's just frustrating me is I can't find out what the "security engine" actually is. is it some trusted computing thing? some sort of encryption hardware, or vpro stuff or- I dont know, and all I can find are links to drivers with no explanation of *what* it is which is driving me nuts.
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Mar 21, 2014 19:23
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My sister in law's laptop died and I was helping her look for a new one. She really liked the yoga 2 pro, but when I used the B&N link the yoga 2 pro now only shows 2 models available, the lowest $1400 or so, and no option to customize it. When I was looking a few months ago though they had a ton of options, and a base model that was around $900 or so. Has Lenovo scaled back on the yoga 2 pro options or is there something I'm doing wrong trying to find the less expensive base model?
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Apr 2, 2014 03:13
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Is there anyone here with a yoga 2 pro who could give me an idea on if that crazy high resolution is worth it, or a detriment to its usability? I'm still looking to get one for my sister in law, but I almost wonder if the slightly thicker yoga 2 non pro with a 1080p screen wouldn't actually be more usable.
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Apr 3, 2014 17:00
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Fart Car '97 posted:I'm looking at picking up a new laptop once tax season is over, the primary use will be Professional journalistic photo/video editing, with some light gaming on the side. Build quality/durability are important to me. My current laptop (an Acer) did not stand up to the tough environment I was working it in, and it's a generally terrible machine. You can get a refurbished T540p with a 1080p screen, 730m for $824 dollars at the outlet store right now. I only know this because i've been staking out the outlet for the past week looking for a yoga 2 pro.
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Apr 4, 2014 17:52
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Fart Car '97 posted:Unfortunately due to the nature of my work, at minimum I need the 1920x display. I'd prefer the IPS, but it sounds like Lenovo's 1920 TN displays are quite nice. I am a bit drunk so I might be misunderstanding what you're saying, but 1080p screen is 1920 though, right? and as far as dedicated, I've seen a couple in the past couple minutes at least after I read your post and decided to look that had a discrete geforce 730m Edit, yeah theres at least still one T540p with the nvidia there after I posted, so they definitely show up there if you don't mind hanging around refreshing until you see something that fits your bill showing up. vOv Tom Guycot fucked around with this message at 18:02 on Apr 4, 2014 |
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Apr 4, 2014 18:00
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Speaking of the outlet I've now brought up, does anyone have experience with the thinkpad yoga? Theres some refurbished ones for a good price but I don't know how they really compare to say the yoga 2 pro.
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Apr 4, 2014 18:29
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I'm really shocked how many devices still have 1366x768 screens.
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Apr 14, 2014 07:45
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how big was the screen on his last laptop? I would personally be a little worried about getting too small of a screen for someone in their mind 70's. Would this be his only/primary computer?
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Apr 15, 2014 08:31
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Sylink posted:Anyone here use a Surface Pro 2? I'm thinking of getting one and dual booting Ubuntu on it. It would be a great fit in for remote work and general tablet stuff. I don't like laptops really and a tablet that can do more than an Ipad sounds amazing and the reviews for it seem good. I can't speak to installing ubuntu, but for the rest I absolutely love my SP2. It's my favorite computer or tech gadget I've ever owned. Its completely replaced my old thinkpad x61 and ipad. Personally its really freeing to be able to replace my ipad for all my lounging in bed, couch or on the train use for, reading, watching videos, browsing etc. A lot is made about its weight, and it is heavy for a tablet, but really, its only about .5 lbs heavier than my ipad so its not exactly a lead weight, and it still fits into my purse just as well. The freeing part is while I may use it mostly as a tablet 90% of the time, that 10% of situations where i need to use usb, or access other computers on my network, view flash or other pages that don't work, and even playing some steam games, I can absolutely do it in a pinch and not wait until I'm at home, or drag a laptop with me. Recently I was overseas for some business, and having one little device to pack and use, where I used to need 2 was great. That said, Microsoft's vision for the convertible/hybrid system is something people seem to either love or hate, so I would be very sure you really want that kind of form factor for your work. I guess I would recommend it if your strictly tablet/metro type usage is going to be a majority over your traditional laptop/desktop use, but you still use desktop mode enough to justify not just having a tablet. Its an incredibly well built machine that does its job perfectly... you just have to be sure that job is what you want.
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Apr 16, 2014 00:39
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I know they say the hinge has been tested to x thousands of flips or whatever (and I don't doubt them), but every time I see that thing my brain can't figure out how it won't break after a month.
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May 1, 2014 14:22
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Hollow Talk posted:So it seems my old Dell Vostro 1510 just kicked the bucket, or rather, its graphics card died (again)... As far as how much you can push integrated graphics and ulv cpu, when I was overseas recently for work, all I had was my surface pro 2, and I hooked that up to the TV in my hotel and played fallout NV, civ 5, guildwars 2, warframe on some down time. The only game I had problems with was payday 2, and the everquest next beta. I've played skyrim on my surface before as well though while new vegas ran beautifully on mid-high graphics, skyrim had to have them turned to low to have smooth frame rates. Point is, thats on a 4200u with 4gb of ram. Integrated graphics have come a loooooong way. Obviously if you're really wanting to game, and not just as a casual side thing like it is for me, you're going to want dedicated graphics, but those ulv cpu's really aren't a dog.
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May 5, 2014 14:02
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Does anybody have more specific experience with either?
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do they mind refurbished? you could keep checking the Lenovo outlet store. when I was camping it out looking for a yoga 2 pro to show up, there were plenty of t440p's in the 700 range popping up here and there.
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May 7, 2014 04:47
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Infidel Castro posted:I haven't even bothered looking at refurbished ones. Saying "refurbished" to them is almost like saying it will give them AIDS. lol, well from my experience with refurbished Lenovo's I've gotten, unless it says "scratch and dent" its basically indistinguishable from new, and they would never know unless you said so. they even have a standard 1 year warranty through their outlet store as it is.
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May 7, 2014 09:09
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I don't know if you're willing or able to go over your $400 budget at all, but the lenovo outlet store has a mess of yoga 11s' with haswell for $476.00 at the moment.
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May 10, 2014 05:08
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-Blackadder- posted:Sorry, I should've specified that I'm looking for a windows machine. How about a yoga 2 pro/yoga 2 13"/11"?
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May 15, 2014 13:20
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mekkanare posted:I'm not sure whether to post this to the tablet thread or this one, as I'm torn between the two. What I'm looking for is a portable device that I could use to read through textbooks and with a good stylus response in order to take notes for mathematics courses. I like my friend's tablet, a samsung note, but seeing as it is $500 I feel that perhaps a touch-screen laptop could offer much more at that price point. I can't think of a lot of laptops with pens at all anymore. I suppose the thinkpad yoga, or maybe you could find a refurbished thinkpad x series tablet for your price range but... yeah. There is though a thinkpad tablet 3 coming out, or already out, it starts at 500 I believe, runs full 64 bit win 8, and has a Wacom pen. It also has a decent looking keyboard dock but... it sure ain't a laptop, even if it can run all the standard windows software.
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May 23, 2014 08:03
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As a counterpoint, I have a surface pro 2 and absolutely love the thing. Its a dream to carry around with me since I can just slip it in my purse like I used to with my ipad. The new one having a bigger screen, better keyboard (and useable trackpad), not to mention being barely heavier than an OG ipad would make it that much sweeter for portable use. That and it can serve double duty beyond laptop use and has already completely replaced my ipad for everything I used that for around the house, or in bed, or on the train.
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May 29, 2014 00:38
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why not get the sp3 since you already seem interested in it? The existing sp's are great and the sp3 looks like a fantastic leap over them as well.
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Jun 9, 2014 04:20
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depending on how intensive her use is, she might be just fine with a cheaper 4GB version. I currently have a 4gb Surface pro 2, and literally the only time i've run into any kind of issue was when I had a bunch of programs running and went to launch warframe it said I was low on ram and should close some applications first. Besides that its run everything I've thrown at it like a champ without worrying, photoshop processing large RAW files, video editing, etc. I have no doubt I would be better served with my work having that extra 4gb, but I haven't really felt limited. If shes just taking notes, web browsing, netflix, writing papers, light gaming, I can't imagine a situation where she would honestly have a problem. As far as the rest of it goes I love the surface line and think anyone who's interested in it should at least give it a go, its completely replaced my laptop and ipad, as hokey and marketing speak as that sounds.
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Jul 6, 2014 23:49
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Nodelphi posted:My daughter wants a laptop for her birthday. I'm looking in the 400-500 range. She's 10 and will only be using it for light schoolwork like book reports, web browsing, playing Roblox (a game that uses active X and is similar to minecraft) and what she most wants is something she can watch dvd's on when we go on long trips. I've been looking at getting a refurbished Dell like this Latitude E5420 http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=8969528&CatId=3984 I'm in a similar boat shopping around for a first computer for a 10 year old, for basically the same usage scenario, and I've been looking at the asus t100 refresh, and the acer switch 10 which you might want to look at too. They're both small, light, cheap, have good battery life (better in the t100 by most accounts), decent (if 1366x768) ips screens, and detach into tablets, which would be a really useful thing for a kid using it to watch movies and stuff. Admittedly they're small and don't have DVD drives but... dang... who doesn't have digital files of all their dvd's by now?
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Jul 23, 2014 23:14
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Gnumonic posted:I'm not really sure if I should be posting here or in the windows tablet thread, but here goes: I'm starting a Ph.D program in a month and need to get some variety of portable computer. What I'd like, in a nutshell, is something that is as light and cheap as possible, since I'll be doing a lot of traveling/commuting with it and I'm almost certainly going to lose/break/have it stolen at some point. All it really has to run is Office and Magic the Gathering Online (which a toaster could run) for my downtime - I looked into chromebooks but google docs just doesn't work with track changes/document comments the way I need it to (and doesn't run MTG:O). Is there anything half-decent with an IPS screen (10-11 inches is fine, I have a gaming desktop with multiple monitors for serious writing), a non-horrid keyboard, and a somewhat decent (5-7 hours) battery life in the sub $400 range? Currently looking at an ASUS transformer book, but the reviews on the keyboard have me worried; I have tiny hands and can cope with cramped keys, doubled keypresses would drive me insane. Cletus Van Damme posted:If you are interested in the 64 gb version of the acer switch 10 it is on sale for today at newegg for 350, after you enter the discount code AF826TEN. it gets pretty good reviews for what it is, and the keyboard seems a lot better than the t100
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Aug 28, 2014 09:46
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Do you mind refurbished? I picked up a yoga 2 pro with the nutso high res screen for 650 refurbished and it looks brand new. check the Lenovo outlet maybe and see what's available?
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Sep 23, 2014 09:19
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vandalism posted:I am thinking of getting an ultrabook--specifically, the kind that is a tablet that separates from the keyboard. Are there any good ones at that $600 range? I will not be using it for games. It will be for paperwork and classroom type stuff. I'm looking to use it for teaching, so there will be multimedia, but I won't be making or editing videos or anything like that. 3rding what other said, I don't think you will find a better true convertable in that price range than the helix (I love my surface pro 2, but I don't consider it a true convertable)
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Nov 14, 2014 02:39
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the guts inside an i5 surface pro are identical to any ultrabook you'll find, so if your work would run on something with a u processor, MacBook air, t440, yoga pro, etc, it will run fine on a sp3
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Nov 21, 2014 05:46
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Bro Nerd Alpha posted:I've been told by the parents that they want to get me a laptop for Christmas, as a polite thing I am keeping it under $500. tf2 runs on a baytrail 8" tablet these days, so I think quite literally any laptop you find will play games of that caliber.
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Dec 10, 2014 07:31
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Hi thread, my parents are looking for a new laptop. They would ideally like to get something with at least an i5, SSD, 15" (or larger) screen touch preferable, and under 1200. Though the lower the better. I've looked so far at configuring a lenovo 450s that meets that, and I've looked at the xps 15's but I can't figure out how to configure one of those to fit in that range. I'm wondering if there are some others to look at? There are so many brands out there, I know asus has a million different models, so beyond the easy names I know, I'm not sure where to look. They are also wouldn't mind if it was refurbished or not.
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Nov 27, 2015 02:35
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