Laptop Megathread: Your laptop doesn't have Haswell? More like Hasbeen~

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Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Hadlock posted:

With that explanation out of the way, the T430 is the default recommendation of this thread, you can get a basic i5 equipped T430 for about $660 USD shipped to your door on most days.

Meanwhile, in Belgium...

Thanks, but no thanks, Lenovo.

Arnold of Soissons posted:

I did see it in the opening posts, are there any good EU websites for ordering a laptop?

There's no real EU-wide option due to keyboard, software and power plug localisations mostly.

Dutch websites are going to be your best option, due to them mostly using US International keyboards. They'll also have a wider choice of more recent and cheaper stuff than what you'd find in Belgium. Most bigger webshops will deliver here as well.

You could start at Tweakers Pricewatch to get at least some basis for comparison.

This tiny-rear end Antwerp shop offers a wide range of stuff because just about everything is ordered and never kept in stock. It's worth checking if you prefer local pickup (and/or keyb be/dutch software); sometimes the prices are reasonable.

Other than that, you can check out promo flyers of Makro, Carrefour and VandenBorre's website for special offers.

Expect the minimal $640 from the OP to be around �750-�800 in any case, though.

# ¿ Sep 11, 2013 16:08

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 11:55

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Dangerous Mind posted:

How do I know which one will work for my laptop? And which one is better?

The SSD Megathread - Don't buy OCZ or Crucial drives, read the OP!

(Yes, that's literally the title of that thread.)

# ¿ Oct 16, 2013 01:59

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Fathis Munk posted:

I realize that but we're both students and have a limited budget and she's not that big on computers except browsing, watching videos and Microsoft Office, so I guess that should be doable on a 500� machine ?

The OP mentions 600$ as breaking point from which one up you can get a decent quality laptop and we are technically above that limit. Then again maybe they are pricier in euros ?

The E335 with AMD E2-2000 at 13" you were suggested is the spiritual successor of the top of the line netbooks of yore. I'm currently using an 11" one with the E-350 APU that is about three years old and even that's fine for all the things you suggest she might do with it. 1080p video works, but you'd notice it strains the machine a bit. The E2 is clocked higher and there probably are some advancements on the graphical front that make the entire proposal even more workable.

So in absolute terms it's nice enough. Relative to what your money buys you at a slightly higher price point, it's not as good, sadly. So I'd only recommend it if you either have a hard limit on what you're going to spend and it has to be Windows, or if a small form factor matters so much you'd want to deal with a worse price/performance situation.

# ¿ Dec 10, 2013 13:35

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Bob Morales posted:

The E-series are horribly slow and nobody should buy one ever.

If it wasn't clear from my post, I'm mostly agreeing with that. You'd need a very specific set of circumstances for it to be defensible in the slightest degree and even then, for the money, you're getting very little.

Thing I wanted to note is that if it had to be that, it's not as horrible in a way you'd want to kill yourself over it, like the first generation of Atoms was.

In the end that still adds up to "don't buy" for me.

# ¿ Dec 10, 2013 14:29

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

falcon2424 posted:

Do people have thoughts on this model:

That's a link to some timesharing poo poo or something, dude.

# ¿ Dec 20, 2013 16:25

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

ejstheman posted:

I assume a ThinkPad will support TRIM

It's your operating system that needs to support TRIM. This isn't as evident on OSX and maybe some Linux flavors or something, but if you're going with a modern-ish Windows on hardware you can connect the drive to (ie. has SATA) then you're going to be fine as far as that's concerned..

# ¿ Jan 9, 2014 18:55

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

hotsauce posted:

I would clone it, but other forums say that's not the best idea because of platter-SSD mappings or some poo poo being off.

I've been following the SSD thread for a while now and if we're talking about the same thing, that's something modern cloning software can fix for you now.

e. partition alignment, that is.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2014 01:46

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

uXs posted:

But rather more expensive.

You're overthinking this. In your first post about this subject you linked a couple of laptops that were cheaper and not all that bad. Pick one of them and the SSD comes back into the reasonable price range.

I'm the same; I can't really shop for someone else. Price begins to creep up as I start thinking "Non-fhd, are you kidding me", "Non-ips, wow!", "Previous generation processor, you can't be serious", "What? Only 4GB of RAM?" and so on. In the mean time your mom could have bought any �500 laptop, you could have stuck an SSD in there and she would very likely be completely happy.

You're not going to find anything that has it all under ~�1200 in Belgium. Also, the standards in this thread are arguably ridiculously high compared to what most people expect from a laptop. And that's ok for Americans who can get a lot more bang for their buck. Here you can't let yourself get distracted by a minor bit of flex in the keyboard or glossy screen edges or stuff like that.

The only real turnoff to me in the Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E530c you linked is the low screen resolution, which you actually called a plus first. I'm sure it'll be perfectly adequate for what your mom wants from it. Here is a video on how to add the SSD and maybe a stick of RAM to it.

uXs posted:

Anyway, after more investigation I'm now pretty much set on this: http://www.laptopshop.be/product/339240/acer-aspire-v5-573g-54208g50aii-azerty.html (acer-aspire-v5-573g-54208g50aii)

[...]

So, am I making a terrible mistake?

Nah, man, it's fine. If that price works out for you, that looks allright to me.

If you're worried, go to a brick and mortar store and check out if Acer's buld quality in general is something you'd worry about.

Flipperwaldt fucked around with this message at 14:02 on Feb 6, 2014

# ¿ Feb 6, 2014 13:56

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

uXs posted:

That ThinkPad does have some advantages:
* Is 100� cheaper
* I won't have to gently caress around with font scaling
* Anti-glare screen
* Optical disc reader which will probably make it easier to reinstall the OS if I put an SSD in there

* 6 cell battery vs 4 cell

It's got some things going for it. Then again so does the Acer.

EDIT

shrughes posted:

Regarding an optical disk reader, you can just use a USB optical disk drive, if a USB flash drive doesn't work for some reason.

I wouldn't listen to the hybrid drive haters, or at least filter out the latent vitriol from our communications -- they're not good SSDs but they're much better than non-hybrid rotational drives when it comes to bootup snappiness and application load snappiness.

If it was absolutely clear the Dell had a hybrid drive, yes, even that would work fine. But from the wording on the site he linked it's not clear at all. The tech specs say 1TB SSD, the general blurb speaks of 1TB HDD or up to 256GB SSD (presumably optional).

EDIT 2, I'm losing my main point here, which was: don't stress about it too much, man.

Flipperwaldt fucked around with this message at 14:37 on Feb 6, 2014

# ¿ Feb 6, 2014 14:26

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

WitchFetish posted:

Would ordering one on amazon.com work?

Do not forget about keyboard layouts, OS localisation and power plug differences.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2014 20:44

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Midnight City posted:

Are there any cons to having a touch screen ultrabook if you will never touch it?

The touch layer might take away a bit of the brightness (compared to the exact same screen without touch) and some people say they can see the grid overlayed on the screen. That's what I read anyway.

On the other hand, if the screen looks fine to you, it does look fine to you and there's not really any downside that I can think of :shrug:

Impact on battery life shouldn't be significant.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2014 18:18

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

In manufacturers' minds it's still a premium feature.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2014 23:24

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

RVProfootballer posted:

I'm just curious what browsing text-heavy websites looks like on a 17" with 1366x768.

...exactly the same as on a 11" screen at 1366x768?

In a screenshot anyway.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2014 00:35

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

El Mido posted:

Vaio Pro 13

My mom bought the Vaio Pro 11. It's got an i3 processor -not even an ultra low voltage version, 8gb of ram and a 256GB SSD. Yet it does not feel whole lot faster than my three year old AMD E-350 netbook with 3GB or ram and a 7200rpm hdd. I blame the SSD, which I think is the slowest-as-balls one they could find. Aftermarket would have been better probably, but you can't really open the thing up. Doesn't matter if the ram is soldered on or not either, there's just no access panel of any kind. Cpu benchmarks tell me that cpu is more than three times faster than the one I've got, but it certainly doesn't come across that way, which is such a shame when your coming from a three year old computer and you're all excited for something new.

It's got a dedicated 'assist' button to summon some of their shovelware that uselessly stares you in the face when you remove the software. That's just bonus stupid.

Had to do registry edits to get the McAfee poo poo off there -I don't necessarily blame Sony for that. The focus stealing poo poo that checks for new drivers every fifteen minutes and that you can't stop from starting up on boot without completely uninstalling it on the other hand.

And keyboard flex. drat. I didn't even realize that was something I cared about, but it's ridiculous for such a small computer.

The keyboard is backlit, but the letters on the keys are opaque, so all that does is shine in your eyes in the dark from underneath the sides of the keys. It doesn't really help you find keys, it just shows you where the keyboard is in general.

The whole thing feels pretty flimsy and because it's so thin, it's got the tiny-whiniest fan. Like someone is vacuuming in the next room. Don't even have to stress the thing for that.

Screen and touchpad are acceptable. Battery life is workable. Technically it all functions.

The only real upside to the Vaio Pros is that they weigh next to nothing. This was a major point in my mom's decision. Unless your brother wants to carry the thing everywhere in his handbag, just stay away from it (most of these points will go for the 13" version as well), it's pretty disappointing.

# ¿ Mar 25, 2014 13:33

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

I'm looking at this:

Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E540
Intel Core i7-4702MQ
8GB DDR3 RAM
1TB HDD
15.6 " FHD LED (1920x1080)
Nvidia GeForce GT 740M 2GB
WLAN 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 (not otherwise specified sadly)
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit/Windows 8 Pro

I'm intending to use this as a digital audio workstation and am hoping a four core i7 will let me use lots of vst plugins. I know the processor won't reach its maximum potential due to temperature restrictions, but then all laptops with top of the line i7s have that, apparently(?) I'm thinking it might still have more power than an i5 [y/n]?

It's about the only Lenovo I can find here in Euroland that costs about as much in Euro as it would cost in dollar (+/-10%) and not, well, about twice as much (all before currency conversion). I cannot reconfigure; it's this or some HP Envy for more money actually.
Pre-empting Macbook Pro: about 400� more expensive than this Lenovo here.

With search down, I have trouble finding relevant posts in this thread. Can someone shed some light on the E-series? Build quality? Touchpad without buttons? Some reviews say the screen might be a bit poo poo, but I'm never sure if they're talking about this specific panel. Is this Lenovo's shittiest line and if so, is it still bearable compared to, say HP's consumer stuff?

# ¿ May 8, 2014 01:03

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Wilford Cutlery posted:

I've been imaging and deploying an i5, 720p version of this for a client and it's a pretty solid machine. Generally ThinkPad Edge, while being a notch below ThinkPad proper, is a step up from IdeaPad in build quality. That said, definitely get a mouse, the clickable one-piece touchpad isn't much fun. The only HP models that get a nod in this thread are EliteBooks and some ProBooks.

On the whole that sounds pretty reassuring, thanks. Is that the touchpad that is one giant moving button? Hilarious. I already use a mouse because the touchpad on my HP DM1 sometimes registers right clicks on hovering over it.

As long as it's not absolutely bottom of the barrel for the price range I'll be fine.

# ¿ May 8, 2014 14:04

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

A Good Dog posted:

So this Thinkpad Edge http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834317106 would be more durable? No SSD unfortunately, and it's i5 instead of i7 and 4gb RAM instead of 12 (although that's upgradable of course).

Honestly I kind of like the larger screen on the HP and (although I know it's probably a bit of a gimmick) the Beats Audio speakers/woofer, since I don't have a TV and use my laptop as my media player. Again though I would probably just invest in some decent speakers if the Thinkpad's are garbage.

Another plus is that it comes with a year warranty (which I would have had to pay for on the HP) and an option for a 3yr one. I'm starting to lean towards that Lenovo...

I'm buying a E540 instead of the HP Envy 15 I was waffling over for weeks. The poo poo reviews of the Envy keyboard and touchpad are what swayed it. One review mentioned an annoying habit of regularly not registering keystrokes. That poo poo's not cool.

I have no access to the B&N configurator, but on the plain Lenovo site, you can configure the E540 with a 1920x1080 screen for $120 more than what you'd pay on Newegg. Which I'd really recommend, coming from three years of 1366x768. It's aggravating for anything but the most basic tasks. 15" at 1080p is about right. i5 is also okay.

Adding more memory yourself shouldn't be much of a problem and probably cheaper than the minimum $80 you'd pay Lenovo for the upgrade to 8GB.

I was assured in this thread that the Edge series is decent enough, although the trackpad is a joke. I'll find out later tonight when I go pick it up, if you can wait that long for first impressions.

And I came as close as possible to fairly comparing Beats and Non-Beats Audio laptops with my DM1-3xxx and my sister's DM1-4xxx. Both are built completely on the same framework, with the same innards as far as audio is concerned. Beats audio was just differently branded driver software and the logo printed on top. Conclusion was that the Beats Audio one sounded noticably worse out of the box. It's a marketing gimmick. There are also indications that switching off Beats Audio intentionally turns down the bass to look better in comparison (!) I can't tell you which speakers are better, but please don't conclude anything based on that label.

# ¿ May 15, 2014 18:59

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

I said I would give first impressions on the Thinkpad Edge E540 and I can't not turn it into a novella. I'll answer specific questions though.

# ¿ May 17, 2014 00:06

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Wilford Cutlery posted:

Can you give a summary?

Summarizing it is exactly what I have trouble with :v:

I wrote a couple of drafts already and I end up with paragraphs arguing with myself over every element, trying to explain how (apart from the keyboard) everthing is neither excellent nor terrible.

I paid 987� (for the i7/8GB/1080p version) and I'm over all pretty happy with it. It's cool and fairly quiet for normal stuff. It's not built like a tank; there's potential for some flex in the bottom plate and the screen, but not worryingly so. The screen could be brighter, more vidid and have better contrast for sure. Vertical viewing angles are the most disappointing part of it. It's perfectly adequate for the sort of productivity machine it is though. 5.5 hours of battery life seems realistic while surfing.

If you're going to throw this thing into a backpack and drag it everywhere, maybe this a bit too fragile. It's a bit too big for that too. As a stay-at-home, move-upstairs-move-downstairs computer it works, I think.

8GB cache SSD for the WD Blue 1TB drive seems to make a noticable difference. Touchpad is configured out of the box to not need depressing the whole thing. Tap to click and dual tap to rightclick works fine and predictably. Nub without buttons is useless. Wifi reception and speed are fantastic.

And then I had this weird incident where I brought it back from sleep and Windows started to install webcam drivers and the light next to the camera went on. I wonder if that was the anti theft software coming in action or something. I've disabled the camera in the bios for now.

Anyway, the savings are in the plastic case and the lower tier screen. Neither of them are prohibitively bad. For the right price this is a good machine. As I mentioned before in this thread, my only alternatives for a quad core i7 were an HP Envy 15 or paying 300-400� extra. The HP would probably have given me a glossy screen with better colors, but it would have run hotter and the keyboard and the touchpad would have sucked.

edit: sound of the speakers is fair enough with the Dolby optimizations on. With them off it's a bit quiet. Better than average, I'd say.

Flipperwaldt fucked around with this message at 03:37 on May 17, 2014

# ¿ May 17, 2014 03:11

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Trebuchet King posted:

Any suggestions?

I can't speak for other people's needs, experiences and expectations, but I have that same 7260 in my new Thinkpad E540 and it works way way better than anything I've had before - which I also had no complaints about at the time. It's consitent, faster, consistently faster, faster to recover from sleep and I can finally keep surfing on the crapper on the other end of the house. (Coming from a Ralink RT5390, if that even means anything to anyone -which was fine)

What I'm saying is that I don't care if it's got 1x1 antenna less or whatever. You might live in a concrete bunker though and have to scrape for every dB of signal you can get, I don't know.

Pretty happy having bluetooth as well.

# ¿ May 19, 2014 21:41

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Cmdrmonkey posted:

Also, who still uses function keys for anything?

, though I'm using Ctrl+R more and more.

F2 to rename in explorer.

And Alt+F4, which works on most keyboards with Fn both off and on, so no problem there.

I'll reiterate that I'm happy with keyboard and touchpad on my E540, if that is something that applies to the discussion. I've always hated all touchpads, but not this one.

# ¿ May 21, 2014 22:29

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

havenwaters posted:

So you can't just turn the keys back into function keys in the bios of the T440p?

I was leaning towards it but if that's the case I'm going to need to look elsewhere.

You press Fn+Esc and they are function keys until you should choose to press Fn+Esc again. This is remembered between boots and everything. It's not an actual problem for personal use in my opinion. Deployment, ok, I can see the occasional ticket coming in, maybe.

# ¿ May 22, 2014 02:37

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Flashing Twelve posted:

T440S question: if I order one with the regular platter HD (way cheaper), can I just rip it out and replace it with my own SSD? Also, what's the difference between the 3cell and the 6cell battery?

This review has pictures of the thing open under the heading "case". Looks like you need to take off the entire bottom, but yes.

A six cell battery has twice the capacity of a three cell battery. It's likely to be physically slightly bigger and heavier though.

# ¿ Jun 1, 2014 17:13

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Hadlock posted:

I'm not familiar with that wifi adapter, 7260AC

I give it this prestigious award:

It's more directional than the one in my old laptop though. I had some weird problems reaching my NAS in a certain spot in the house that I couldn't figure out until I turned around 180�.

# ¿ Jun 1, 2014 23:19

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Since I've been more or less raving about the Intel 7260ac Wifi chipset here, I'll give you an addendum: using the Bluetooth on the chipset for audio fucks the Wifi up something crazy. I was really confused about what was happening first, because there's no indication reception is worse or anything; you just get endless load times and time-outs. It even affects the wifi on a nearby laptop in the same way!

You'd think this was a router issue, but extensive troubleshooting says no. Everything instantly works again when I disable the Bluetooth radio. "Yeah, but your setup..." No. Never had that problem with the Ralink Bluetooth in the other laptop.

Pity. I was actually intending to use it.

Now I can probably avoid all this poo poo by buying a router that does 5GHz or even just anything better than g maybe, but I'm a bit pissed off because it "just worked to satisfaction"^TM before.

# ¿ Jun 7, 2014 00:13

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

SnakePlissken posted:

I remain eternally grateful to whichever of you goons sold me this nice old MSI Wind netbook a few years ago. With the SSD it is amazingly amazing.

Now that XP is unsupported, what OS would you recommend for it, anybody? Something nice and easy, might support use as a 4-track recorder with M-Audio gear, something like that maybe? And of course it has no optical drive.

I'm dumping ZorinOS on any old computer I come across. Pretty good for linuxphobic people, because in the context of a surfing and mailing machine it functions/looks/feel more or less the same way as XP. Wine for possibly running some Windows programs on it is installed and preconfigured, which may come in handy occasionally.

If you want to do some recording, there are several Ubuntu flavors aimed at artists, like Jambuntu or Ubuntu Studio. They have some software pre-installed and possibly some tweaks done, I don't know. There's also the KXStudio project; a couple of programs and plugins for Linux apparently.

You can easily test all these things out by downloading their isos and putting them on a usb stick with unetbootin. 9 out of 10 Linux things have a live mode where it runs from the usb stick without installing anything to a harddrive. This is good to check whether your soundcard and network hardware is properly supported.

# ¿ Jun 15, 2014 21:07

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

SlayVus posted:

So even if the CPU is a Haswell, if it isn't an i5 or above, don't get it? I'm trying to help a friend buy a new laptop, he really doesn't want to spend more than $400 because he has a wedding he is currently planning, but he needs a mobile computer now.

All he needs it for is Microsoft office and watching videos. Nothing else, not even a side of gaming.

See, on the one hand, I've done the last three years with a processor that is half as fast as the Celeron you were referring to and I was never unhappy with it while I wasn't asking too much from it (like photoshop or cubase). On the other hand, I have a laptop with an i7 now and I simply can't bear doing even something simple as webbrowsing on the old one anymore. And with video sizes growing on Youtube, it doesn't excel at that either anymore.

But yeah, at $400 what are you going to expect? Maybe look for something that doesn't specify ultra low voltage?

# ¿ Jun 17, 2014 19:10

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Hadlock posted:

No, integrated graphics have been Fast Enough for almost five years now which is why I assumed you were asking about games. HD4xxx is fine for dual 1080p desktop computing.

The 4200U he's asking about is the CPU called i5-4200U. So all your babbling about GPUs really gives a deranged impression.

# ¿ Jun 18, 2014 22:02

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

A Sometimes Food posted:

I'm looking at an ASUS n750jk at the moment, it's in my price range, available here and I haven't heard anything bad about it. Is there some major flaw with ASUS laptops I should know about or something specific to this model? It seems to outperform everything else I can find around here in the price range.

My main concern is a somewhat small hard drive.

I'm seeing some of these models listed with 250GB SSD + 1TB HDD, so there's at least room for both somehow and so technically you could remedy space shortage yourself. How practical and cost effective that is, I don't know. If the model you're looking at starts out with a full size SSD, you'd have to buy both a new harddisk and an MSATA or M.2 SSD. Plus I can't find pictures that tell me how difficult it is to open up the thing. But the models with both built in exist, so maybe look around a bit.

The prices I'm seeing also suggest you'd pay quite a premium for the better graphics card compared to laptops otherwise similarly specced, but I guess that is how the cookie crumbles. And depends on how what you're looking at is priced vs. what I see on Amazon.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2014 15:17

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Lelorox posted:

So here's what I'm looking at:

ThinkPad E540
No touch screen
15.6" FHD(1920x1080) AntiGlare - Black (+$110)
Intel Core i5-4200M Processor (3MB Cache, up to 3.10GHz) (+$100)
4GB RAM standard (Will upgrade with crucial, which should cost $40-80 less.)
500 GB HD (Upgrade later if necessary)
16GB Micro SSD (+$40)
No finger scanner (-$20)
6 cell Li-Ion Battery 62WH - 75+ (+$10)

Total: $778.05

I wonder if I should go with the E440 instead or the E545. What do you guys think?

I can't compare with the other Thinkpads, but I've got an E540. Screen isn't excellent. It's relatively low contrast and low brightness. I've seen a lot worse too, though. It can feel a bit wobbly. Wouldn't want to transport it in anything but a protective padded bag. The hinges feel like they might be worn out after a year or three of careful use. If you prod the underside, you get creaking plastic noises. Which isn't a problem, I know; it just doesn't give the best impression.

After singing the song of how great the intel 7260ac wifi chip was earlier, I now have a shitload of weird, intermittent slowdowns and connection problems that I haven't pinned down yet, so I take that back. Mostly because my mom has a Sony Vaio Pro 13 with the same wifi chip and the exact same problems that no other wifi device here has ever caused.

It does some good where it counts too though: keyboard is great, touchpad is good. Battery life is decent. Cooling seems to be set up ok without being very noisy. Access to the insides for basic upgrades is good.

I'm glad I got this and it's probably the best and best specced laptop I could have gotten for the price. It's just not completely free of compromises. It works for me because it's likely never to leave the house. If it would, I'd be worried about breaking the screen a lot.

If you were sure you'd upgrade to an SSD within the year, I wouldn't bother with the micro SSD. I'm sure it does neat things to make small things feel a bit snappier, but it's not large enough or smart enough to reduce startup times or anything and $40 saved towards a real SSD goes a long way too.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2014 12:18

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Lelorox posted:

Thanks for this. The screen issue is kind of a deal breaker for me. Just got a new kitten and I like to laptop in bed, and I think both of those things combined will lead to the screen breaking within two years if what you're saying is correct.

I'd be hesitant to say "Yes, definitely." and I'm not sure what else in the price range might do better without too many compromises on other fronts, but it definitely would be a worry.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2014 15:56

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

DrDork posted:

The bigger issue, though, is Sony has always been terrible about pushing out updates for its laptops, often trailing competitors by months.

What kind of updates though?

I mean, I've seen the same argument (or lore, maybe) repeated about Sony many times. I've also seen a couple of people say it wasn't as bad as all that (anymore), but I feel like I'm missing the point either way.

So, obviously you want updates to drivers if there's an actual problem with one. Which for the important bits (gpu, audio and wifi) you can get from the relevant chip manufacturer's websites. You've got your Windows updates... from Microsoft.

And then what else would you want updates from Sony for? The crapware? The webcam driver? What?

The only sensible thing I can think of is perhaps a BIOS update, but actually needing it would be a rare occurrence.

What I'm saying is that I definitely don't see it as a bigger issue than poor hinge design, to say the least.

Kevin Bacon posted:

I have been looking into Dell XPS 12 2013 and Sony Vaio Pro. Any thoughts on these? Build quality, reliability etc. Any known issues?

I wrote some words on a Sony Vaio Pro some time ago, which I guess you can find by clicking the question mark below this post. I think I said 13, but it's the 11 inch version my mom has. It's still not a speed demon, but I'm warming to it because it apparently completely fills my mom's laptop needs. Exceptionally low weight and good screen are both important factors in that. The other comments still stand, although some of them might not matter as much (like the stupid help button).

The Dell's got a better reputation for build quality though, so I'd mostly look at the Sony if the weight savings are really important to you.

# ¿ Jul 14, 2014 03:15

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

system protocol posted:

Probably not. The reason the power brick is so huge is because they most likely made the laptops internal power supply built into the AC adapter to cut the weight off of the laptop.

Is that ever not the case? Apart from some eighties and early nineties stuff, I mean.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2014 18:51

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Spacedad posted:

I'm curious about what the best tablet options for digital artists are out there. Anyone got any recommendations or stuff they can direct me to?

Definitely check here for additional opinions.

# ¿ Jul 21, 2014 19:47

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

KingKapalone posted:

Do people still use PC Decrapifier to get all the manufacturer stuff off their laptops?

I've run it a couple of times on new machines and it never seemed to find anything that it was sure it should remove. So what I ended up with was a list of "maybe this is crap, but I don't know", which is identical to what you get from going to Windows own "uninstall a program" list.

Now maybe it helps uninstalling stuff in batch; I didn't even try that. But the added value I thought there would be of a database with known useless programs I could not find a trace of. I had to google everything manually, which made batch uninstalling pointless anyway. It also can't distinguish beween full versions or trialware, so it hasn't got that going for it either.

So, no, I wouldn't bother trying it on a new machine anymore. On the other hand, it's harmless if you don't randomly click on things, so you can try if you have better luck.

# ¿ Aug 1, 2014 11:47

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

fuf posted:

Thanks but not sure how that would help with the clickety clackety.

I'm trying to see if I can get used to just doing 'light clicks' (where it registers a click just from a light finger touch) so I don't have to actually push it down. If I could jam something inside so it can't do a full click then it might be ok.

I think the E540 might have the same trackpad? Anyway, I loving hated tap to click all my life, but I actually got used to it pretty quickly now, because it's the first trackpad I own that doesn't randomly think I'm trying to click all the time. Two finger tap for right click. Works nicely.

Drag and drop is still hell though and what makes your plan to jam the trackpad permanently bad.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2014 20:16

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

SSJ Reeko posted:

E540

You're not saying what kind of work you're doing, but I got to tell you the 1920x1080 TN panel in the E540 is atrocious. Brightness is ok, but it has got a very low contrast. Really bad. Also has a serious problem doing audio over Bluetooth + 2.4GHz Wifi at the same time. You might not care about that. Had a couple of random instant power offs a few weeks ago, dunno what's up with that. Might just be my machine or config.

Apart from a decent-ish keyboard, there's not much to get excited about.

Also depending on what you're doing, upgrading the x120e with an SSD could help a lot or not. If that AMD is E-350/E-450 like I think it is.

# ¿ Aug 29, 2014 22:58

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

SSJ Reeko posted:

It's a job as a freelance salesman and most of it is handling chats in a browser. However I usually need to open lots of different ones to look up info and tend to have a lot open at once and need to be able to switch between them all quickly. Schoolwork is usually done in very flash-heavy websites that the x120 can't navigate due to the hardware load.

The SSD in the X120 might help, but it's been overheating very quickly lately and I can't reliably take it on and off the charger. It also can't really handle flash video, so I'm thinking it may be wearing down. I'd rather pick up something more powerful.

The poor screen on the E440/E540 is actually a bit of a big deterrent now that I think about it. I'll be spending a lot of time looking at it.

Fair enough on the flash thing. I mean, it would be different if you were a programmer complaining about long compile times or something. An SSD would help there.

And yeah the E540 screen... I'm adjusting the angle and the brightness constantly during the day. If you're looking at it straight, it's sort of okay and I can't say it tires my eyes or anything. It's just that even my dad's �400 Toshiba has an amazing screen compared to it (at 720p admittedly).

# ¿ Aug 29, 2014 23:48

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

SSJ Reeko posted:

Flipperwaldt warned of the iffy screens in the S440

No no no, E540. That's the one I have; I couldn't presume to know anything about any other Lenovo models.

Doesn't change much about the rest of your post though.

# ¿ Aug 31, 2014 11:30

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 11:55

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

dissss posted:

Yes its noticeable because it isn't usable at 100% scaling and a lot of apps still don't scale to other levels very well.

I've been wondering about this for a while now. I've been using Win 7 for like four years now and have had it set to 110%-125% scaling all this time. I've come across one program where the installer was hosed up visually and one where I lost a tiny sliver of text. And all other programs were fine.

Is there some threshold or something, where if you go to %200+ scaling everything goes to hell? Or are there super common programs bad at this that I just don't use? Steam or Chrome or something?

It's always "a lot of apps" and no one ever mentions any examples.

# ¿ Sep 1, 2014 20:32

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > Laptop Megathread: Your laptop doesn't have Haswell? More like Hasbeen~

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