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My girlfriend and I are looking to get a laptop soon but, even after reading the op, we're having a bit of a hard time narrowing things down. Essentially, our price cap is £600. I've taken a look at some of the Lenovo models listed in the OP (at approximately $600) and they've all jumped up to about £1000+ just now. For the most part we'd be using the laptop for entertainment purposes, such as watching videos, and it would be nice if it had the potential to play games released within the last year. We were discussing just getting a tablet, but I do a lot of work online (I use MS Office and various Google services a lot) and figured that if we were going to spend the money on a portable device it would be best to go for one that let us do all of these things. I've been trying to filter my search down to an i5 Ultrabook based somewhat on the recommendations of the OP, and ideally I'd be looking for a larger screen in order to work comfortably, but I'm not quite sure where to go from there. I know it's probably not much to go on but does anyone have a recommendation?
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# ¿ Sep 22, 2013 21:57 |
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# ¿ Apr 17, 2024 19:02 |
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Optiquest posted:I didn't want to spend a lot on something that wasn't IPS so I did this: Thanks for this, but I had to Google some of the things you referenced which might give you a bit of an indication on how little I know about laptops. With my level of experience with laptops I'm more looking for something that's essentially "out of the box". I did a little digging on Amazon with the specs i'm after (based on what i've used for my home rig) and it's come up with the following suggestions: Lenovo Z580 Acer Aspire I know poo poo all about Windows 8 too. Seeing as it's bundled in everything now i just figured it's the official "portable OS" and shouldn't bother looking for anything with Windows 7 right?
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# ¿ Sep 22, 2013 23:59 |
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I'm completely lost when it comes to laptops. I had a 'gaming' one for the last few years which ended up just being an unwieldy power hog incapable of running anything from 2015. Essentially, I'm now looking for a laptop that would function as a portable media player. Something that's powerful enough to play all modern 720/1080p media formats (including a Blu Ray drive) but being portable/light enough for me to easily take it somewhere and hook it up to a projector. As a bonus, being able to do work stuff on it (programing/adobe cc/excel/presentation based stuff) would be good too, but I'm a bit torn on what screen size would be the most practical for that. The excel stuff I work on in particular can often be a bit resource intensive too (think 50+MB files). Is there a particularly good model that could handle what I describe without breaking the bank?
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# ¿ Feb 21, 2016 01:17 |
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ItBurns posted:Defintitely save the money on getting an Asus over the XPS and spend the rest on a blue ray player and whatever adapters you need to hook up to a projector. Keep in mind that VGA is a rarity/nonexistent on newer models and that a lot of models won't even have full-size HDMI. Awesome, thanks for the advice guys. I'm in the UK though and some quick googling is showing me that it's either not available anymore or is a model with some m5Y10 cpu that i've no idea about. Edit: As an alternative, i came across this (x555LA?) https://www.scan.co.uk/products/156-asus-x555la-laptop-core-i5-5200u-27-ghz-full-hd-1080p-8gb-ram-1tb-hdd-dvdrw-ac-wifi-plus-bt-40-w I do plan on using the blu ray drive a lot as i'll be taking it round to places without blu ray players and having it integrated means less faff of carrying stuff about. That one i linked has a dvd instead of blu ray drive, but i'm not sure if it's easy or or to swap out drives in a laptop. and to clarify, is the ASUS one you guys are mentioning this one? http://www.amazon.co.uk/Zenbook-UX305FA-Notebook-Integrated-Graphics/dp/B0152QOTVW/ Kin fucked around with this message at 21:14 on Feb 21, 2016 |
# ¿ Feb 21, 2016 20:18 |
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Just wanted to say thanks for the UX305 recommendation. I was only able to get a model with a 128GB SSD but it's perfect so far. The only hassle I've had with it is getting software to play blu-rays on the external drive, (it seems like it's the early 2000's and it's powerdvd or nothing). I need to get a USB to VGA adapter for it though, are they all of fairly good quality or are there particular brands to avoid? There's a VicTsing one on amazon that's the same brand as the blu-ray drive so i figured i'd just grab that.
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# ¿ Feb 24, 2016 21:32 |
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A friend of mine has come to me for some advice for a new laptop after seeing the great one you guys recommended me a few months back (she's basically got no form of computer in her home). I've got a Zenbook UX305, but she doesn't need anything quite like that. Her main uses are just going to be media (video/music/internet/DVD's, etc) and general basic PC stuff. Portability isn't a huge requirement as it's mainly going to be for home use and I've convinced her that she can hook it up to her TV via HDMI (so it would be handy to have HDMI ports) but it would be nice to be somewhat portable if she ever had to take it anywhere. Being super speedy probably isn't going to be something she needs either so SSD's may be an unnecessary luxury. Her price range is in the £300-£400 bracket though so i don't know if that really limits the options, especially if we factor in extra peripherals like a wireless mouse/external Blu-ray drive, etc. Any suggestions?
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# ¿ Apr 2, 2016 09:31 |
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Hey guys, so i'm looking to replace a tower i currently have sitting in my living room and use as a media box. It just needs to be able to: Play 720/1080p media (via something like Kodi) Handle large 100MB+ excel files (i occasionally do work from the living room) Be small/slim (i'm looking to make my TV unit nice and tidy and tuck this thing away rather than have this tower taking up so much floor space). Most of my media is stored on external drives so it doesn't need to have a super huge HDD, though a SSD is desirable. Are there any fairly cheap laptops that fit the bill? I'm in the UK if that matters.
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# ¿ May 17, 2019 17:17 |
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Statutory Ape posted:Are you going to just use the laptop as a desktop plugged into the TV? Or would it be used as an actual laptop Plugged in all the time but I'd be using it on occasion for work stuff but using the TV as the main output with wireless kb/m and my arse on the sofa. What are the other options? Price range I was thinking £300 at most.
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# ¿ May 17, 2019 22:03 |
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Statutory Ape posted:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Intel-BLKS...ps%2C226&sr=1-2 Aha, I didn't know these were a thing. This might actually be perfect. I take it the gist is that when it's up and running it's indistinguishable from a using a desktop? edit: just went and grabbed this one https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01AZC4IKK/ref=psdc_428651031_t2_B01DQ3RLPO It mentioned a memory card slot, but i couldn't spot details of which type of card i uses on the page. Would it just be a micro SD card or something? Kin fucked around with this message at 10:38 on May 18, 2019 |
# ¿ May 18, 2019 09:53 |
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Statutory Ape posted:Yeah- it is a desktop computer, just in a small form factor. For your needs I think you can just consider it an extremely tiny PC. I'm pretty sure thats the same processor my chromebook uses- its snappy for this stuff. Aha, awesome, thanks for highlighting that. I'm quite looking forward to getting that now. The towers fan has been making a racket for weeks now, switching to that is going to seem like magic.
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# ¿ May 18, 2019 19:18 |
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Now i know they exist, i can kinda see the appeal of them for a number of situations (mainly, in turning any screen with an HDMI input into a computer). I guess the portable screen factor of a laptop kinda trumps it though. Like it's all well and good i could fit my office machine in my pocket and work remotely from home or in one of the other offices, but i can do the same thing on a laptop and work from obscure places like airports when there isn't a screen or power socket available.
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# ¿ May 19, 2019 00:48 |
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DrDork posted:Even for Kin's somewhat edge case, a NUC like the NUC8I3BEH would give him a CPU substantially more powerful, at about the same price after you slap in RAM and a SSD of some size or other (at least in the US, UK prices are a mystery to me). See this is where i'm not even sue how much power i need or how that stick i bought even compares to my current rig which is ok, but has a lot of little tedious things compared to the speed i'm used to having on more modern equipment (like copying files from the HDD to an external drive has me waiting 30 seconds for a browser to load on this thing). The main specs of my rig are as follows: Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E8400 @ 3.00GHz, 2667 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 2 Logical Processor(s) RAM: 4GB (presumably DDR3 given how old the machine is, but windows is coming back with 'unknown' as the type) Graphics: GTX 460 (this used to be my gaming rig way back when) I've got a small SSD for the OS and programs to sit on but everything else is stored and access from a 1TB standard HDD or via external drives which are connection via USB 2.0 ports :/). Edit: as an aside, i'm currently on an ASUS Zenbook UX305CA It's the version with: Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) m3-6Y30 CPU @ 0.90GHz, 1512 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s) Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 8.00 GB I've had it for a few years now and it's been a good little laptop but the battery is starting to go and it only really holds a charge for a couple of hours now. I had an XPS13 for work and it seemed like a good laptop outside of the really crappy webcam/sound feedback issue but a lot of it was locked down behind the IT deptartment's security so i wasn't really able to use it for much besides email/ms office. Is there a site out there that would let me compare the two? I'm fairly certain the Dell is gonna wipe the floor with it (especially with an I7 variant), but i'm just curious about how much. Kin fucked around with this message at 14:15 on May 19, 2019 |
# ¿ May 19, 2019 12:14 |
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So my Asus Zenbook UX305 is finally starting to give up and i'm pretty sure the battery is shot. It's been a fantastic laptop but it does have its limits and after almost 4 years now i think it's time for an upgrade that'll last a long time. My last job had my using an XPS 13 which was great (though it was locked down, so i could't really use it to its fullest), so i was leaning towards one of those. However, i've been mulling over an XPS 15 instead. Mainly this is down to not really taking the laptop out and about with me, so it would mainly be used at home. I also like gaming a lot and while I've got a decent enough machine upstairs for that, i also spend a lot of time in the living room with the family so it would be good to have the best of both. I think i had a 15" (it might have been 17") laptop before the UX305 but this was years ago and all i remember about it was it being this big weighty fucker that got way too hot in my lap when i was using it. Is the XPS 15 comfy to use in your lap or is it just that little bit unwieldy that it's preferable to use it on a table instead? Also, on the odd occasion in the next 5-7 years that i might want to be portable with it, does it still feel easy to lug around despite its extra weight over the XPS 13?
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# ¿ Aug 25, 2019 01:31 |
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Cheers, i'll see if i can pop into a store soon to find out. I just looked up the stats for my UX305 0.48 inches thick and a 12.8 x 8.9-inch footprint | 2.6lbs The XPS 15 is 0.66 inches thick and a 14.06 x 9.27-inch footprint | 4.6lbs So, size wise it's only, what, an extra 1.26 x 0.37 bigger from a footprint perspective than what i'm used to, so might not be that much of a dealbreaker after all. I don't actually think I compared the XPS13 i had with the UX305 but thinking about it, it was actually pretty small for a laptop.
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# ¿ Aug 25, 2019 01:56 |
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Cool, I just had a play around with one in a shop and it's a lot lighter than I was expecting. I think the big laptop I used to have was a 17" 'gaming' laptop of some description because it was a hell of a lot heavier than that. A lot thicker too. I did like the nimbleness of the XPS 13, but after thinking about what I use computers for, it makes more sense to me to get the bigger model to include gaming. Otherwise I've got a really expensive, well built, portable laptop that I use just for adhoc work/Internet in the living room. Kin fucked around with this message at 16:07 on Aug 25, 2019 |
# ¿ Aug 25, 2019 14:17 |
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AgentCow007 posted:For lap use, I personally think it's just a bit too big. I brought the 15 for my last hospital stay and it was kind of uncomfortable... I ended up setting it on the bed table thing. You also really don't want to block the bottom vents with fabric. Maybe get yourself a little folding table. Well, my XPS15 arrived early and i've been using it for most of this evening. It's a hell of a lot more comfortable than i anticiapted and weightwise, i barely notice it. I'm still installing updates and whatnot so havent had a chance to see how hot it runs with a game running but i expect it will heat up quite a bit. I've defintely heard the fan kick in though. This can definitely be audible when it wants to be. Super happy with it so far though,
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# ¿ Aug 29, 2019 21:39 |
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Hadlock posted:Thanks What's the registry battery thing? My old work XPS 13 had s battery issue initially but the it dept fixed it. Just got my own XPS 15 and wouldn't mind avoiding the same issue. I did notice it dropping down to just a few hours of estimated battery life last night during normal use even though it was fully charged.
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# ¿ Aug 30, 2019 08:09 |
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So i'm noticing a few little quirks of the XPS-15 i got a few weeks back. The biggest one is the system fan when playing games. Basically, when it's plugged in, the fan kicks into what sounds like maxium, but when it's not plugged in the fan doesn't really kick in at all. I've just been playing Starcraft HD so it's not anything that should be graphically intensive. The funny thing is that the laptop didn't feel like it was getting exceptionally hot when playing without the fan running, but did when the fan was. Also, the laptop cools down ridiculously quick once i stop playing the game with the fan running and it's making me wonder if it's the fan itself, running on full, that's heating up the laptop. Is that a thing that can happen?
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# ¿ Sep 18, 2019 09:08 |
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Not sure if this is the right place to ask this but, I'm using an XPS 15 9570 and I think it's starting to have some bad battery problems. I don't want to replace the laptop itself as it's doing a bang-up job for what I need it to do, but I was wondering what the best way to go about replacing the battery is if I've no real intention of opening it up myself (I'm a complete novice when it comes to laptop interiors). The reason I think there's a problem is that it seems to be just fine power-wise unplugged, with Windows saying it's got about 70% or whatever when I shut it down; but then the next time I boot it up it just jumps down to saying low power until I charge it again. It's not doing this consistently, but it probably shouldn't be doing that. The other (potentially more serious) issue is that the trackpad buttons are difficult to press and I've read that could be a sign of a swollen battery. The trackpad still looks flush and all that, but it takes a bit of effort to click it.
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# ¿ Sep 11, 2023 20:12 |
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Lockback posted:I'm not sure what your question is, but it's pretty easy to open up and swap. You need a small philips screwdriver and a torx #5 Yeah the whole "swollen battery be EXTRA CAREFUL" message on your link is what's putting me off opening it myself. I'm uk based so I'll see what options are available for me for battery replacement and repair shops.
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# ¿ Sep 11, 2023 22:08 |
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A few weeks back I posted about replacing a battery in my Dell XPS15 because it had some weird battery issues. Well, last week it completely died with the Dell software outright telling me it needed replacing. I took it to a local laptop repair shop today and yup, turns out it wasn't only swollen, but one of the cells had actually ruptured. Not sure how wrong it could have gone as Google says ruptured batteries can explode?
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# ¿ Oct 20, 2023 15:10 |
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Jeeze, I didn't realise it could be that bad at all. Was it only likely to do that if switched on? I don't use the laptop that much, but until the battery fully died it sat plugged in on the shelf. I dunno if it only burst recently (which would presumably be the reason the battery fully died). I have a hunch it's been swollen for a while now. It was at least a year or so ago that I noticed the touch pad buttons were a little harder to press, but thought nothing of it because I mainly used a mouse. It's rarely been used without being plugged in, so I dunno if that's what caused the issue. The only other thing I can think of is that I used to play some games on it isn't a gaming laptop but it can play some simple things on low settings. I played a lot of creeper world 4 on it, for example and the laptop would definitely run hot while I was doing so. Maybe that heat impacted the battery? Edit: also kinda has me thinking I need to hunt down the other 2 old laptops we have kicking about the house somewhere. They've not been used for years, but I dunno if they might be similar fire risks (neither had battery issues when they were used). Kin fucked around with this message at 19:37 on Oct 20, 2023 |
# ¿ Oct 20, 2023 19:17 |
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Geeze, how the hell didn't it go horribly wrong in all this time then? I mean I stopped playing any games on it about a year ago too, but I've still been using it generally since then (though maybe only for half an hour at a time every days). It was almost always plugged in if that somehow bypasses the battery getting used?
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# ¿ Oct 20, 2023 20:26 |
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Hmm, so my laptop battery on the XPS15 got replaced yesterday (with an official Dell battery) with the voltage checked for overcharging and everything seemed fine (laptop came back to me fully charged). I was using it last night (without it plugged in) and again everything looked grand. It did this weird little thing it always seems to do which is start saying the battery only has about 2 hours of life before it jumped up to say 7 hours. I then set the laptop aside and let it try to upgrade from Windows 10 to 11 (this might not be relevant, but I figure I should detail everything). This runs for a few hours before eventually hanging at a 94% install and I give up, restarting first and then shutting down the laptop for the night as the restart seemed to reset the entire upgrade process. The battery was down at about 56% when I shut it down (according to Windows). Just now, I booted the laptop back up and it had the same 56% message, but after a few seconds it instantly dropped to 6% and the low battery light came on. I plug in the charger and it seems to start charging again fine, but then I get a popup in the corner (I think it was a Dell popup) saying that the charger is incorrect and needs to be a minimum of 130V or something. I've never seen that message in Windows before but I unplugged and reinserted the charger and it seems to be charging fine now. It says 2 hours to full charge, so I dunno if that's also a sign of something if it can be fully charged that quickly. When my old battery was failing I did occasionally get a message during the bootup that mentioned an issue with the charger too. I can't recall the exact message but the indication was that the charger wasn't recognised and I could press F1 or something to continue. The laptop was running for a good 4 or so hours unplugged last night while it sat there trying to install Windows 11, so I'm not sure if that would have been consuming more power and if the battery status indicator in Windows 10 is so inaccurate that it would actually be almost fully drained rather than 50%. Does anyone have thoughts as to what might be happening before I go back to the repair shop with the situation? It is the Dell charger that came with the laptop, but can those break?
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# ¿ Oct 25, 2023 20:03 |
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Cheers for that. The Windows 11 upgrade thing is running again in the background (automatically) and presumably has bugger all to do with it but has stopped again at 94%. Not really sure what to do with that. I think i only gave it half an hour before shutting things down last night so I'll try giving it a bit longer this time. I'll try the charge/discharge route too, but when you say not to do that normally, do you mean i shouldn't let the laptop fully charge or run out of power? I think i read somewhere that batteries like to be between 20% and 80% charged or something. Lockback posted:Though one question: Did you get a Dell battery or "A battery that fits a Dell?" if its the latter is probably a chinese battery that has no/very little over charge protection so it would explain why your laptop is freaking out so much and also means it'll probably not last very long. Official Dell battery as far as i'm aware. I don't think the laptop repair guy would rip me off. I don't have the tools to open up the laptop and check, but is there a way to get battery details from within windows? Kin fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Oct 25, 2023 |
# ¿ Oct 25, 2023 20:34 |
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Thanks guys. I used to have Dell Power Manager installed but it seems to have uninstalled itself (or it's not on my system anymore for some reason). Google came back with some command line thing to get battery specs, though I don't know how reliable it is. It spat out the following. Installed batteries Information about each currently installed battery BATTERY 1 NAME DELL GPM0365 MANUFACTURER SMP SERIAL NUMBER 1283 CHEMISTRY LION DESIGN CAPACITY 97,003 mWh FULL CHARGE CAPACITY 97,003 mWh CYCLE COUNT - No idea who the SMP manufacturer is but I googled the GPM0365 and a bunch of Dell support forums came back so it's likely legit? I'll chalk it up to new battery teething issues just now though and keep an eye out for any irregularities in the next week or two. edit: Also, just finished the windows 11 upgrade and it doesn't seem to indicate how long it things is left until the battery is fully charged. Is that just a rubbish UI thing from Windows 11? It says it's plugged in and charging. Kin fucked around with this message at 21:47 on Oct 25, 2023 |
# ¿ Oct 25, 2023 21:44 |
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Stumiester posted:I travel constantly for work and spend 3-6 months of the year in hotels with various qualities of tvs and wifi. As such a good gaming laptop is a great thing to have. I know it's not quite as comparable to a proper gaming laptop, but in the last year I've actually found the Steam Deck to be a solid alternative. I had a 15" gaming laptop about a decade ago and it was great to be in the living room with my other half as we watched TV and hung out at the same time. However it was big, heavy, loud when it got going and loving hot. I had to get a cooling pad to stop my legs getting drenched in sweat. It's definitely not something I thought I'd take with me on long trips. The deck on the other hand, it plays most things on steam (barring maybe the most recent AAA stuff coming out now); Has a dock that hooks it up to pretty much any TV with an HDMI input; does emulation for pretty much every old console made: has Bluetooth peripheral support, etc. Long story short, it feels like a distilled, pure portable gaming computer that can turn into a full on console when I get a screen to myself. Again though, it won't have the same graphical output as a proper gaming laptop but I've definitely found it to be a much more enjoyable gaming experience.
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# ¿ Oct 30, 2023 22:38 |
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# ¿ Apr 17, 2024 19:02 |
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I got my Dell xps15 laptop battery replaced a month or two back, but things still aren't quite right. I've only fully charged it about twice since then (i don't use it much), but both times it's dropped from about 40% remaining power to <10% and both times it's been immediately after starting up the laptop. I'm also getting error messages for the charger with the top saying it's not recognised and I should plug in a 130w charger. It seems to be charging (looks like about 1% every 2 minutes or so, which would be a full charge in about 2 to 2.5 hours) so i dunno if the charger is actually broken. For replacing that though, would any Dell laptop charger from Amazon do?
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# ¿ Dec 11, 2023 22:34 |