We Need a Better PC • Hacker News Board

Re: We Need a Better PC

#41

Post by voltagex_ » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 2:30 AM UTC

vardump wrote: post #32

voltagex_ wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>2015 RMBP keeps resetting USB3 ports Do you know who OEMed those ports? I've had a horrible run of luck with crappy USB3 chipsets in desktops - with the same symptoms as you're having. Do you still get the resets in Windows 8.1/10?

> Do you know who OEMed those ports? Looks like Intel: PCI Device ID: 0x9cb1 PCI Revision ID: 0x0003 PCI Vendor ID: 0x8086 > Do you still get the resets in Windows 8.1/10? Just running latest OSX El Capitan.

That's a little scary, I recognised that Vendor ID without looking it up (Intel).

That's odd, Intel have been the ones that work the best in my experience (have also tried Renesas and Etron).

Re: We Need a Better PC

#42

Post by dnautics » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 2:31 AM UTC

voltagex_ wrote: post #9

jitl wrote: post #6

Did you look at Dell's line of XPS ultrabooks? I don't own one myself, but the ultra narrow bezels and industrial design look quite nice.

I looked at the 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, Skylake variant of the XPS 13. Amazing looking machine, fits my filter criteria of "has service manual available to mortals" except for one problem - Dell won't sell me one, and neither will Microsoft (Signature Edition). They only seem to be available in the US and even if I was willing to spend the nearly $4000AUD to import one they won't ship to a non-US address.

You're dodging a bullet. (See my response to op)

Re: We Need a Better PC

#43

Post by btilly » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 2:31 AM UTC

I just had a https://www.thinkpenguin.com/ arrive and so far it seems good.

See http://www.linux.org/threads/how-great-is-the-korora.5955/ for a sample review.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#44

Post by mingabunga » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 2:31 AM UTC

I've always found ASUS laptops well built, great screens and very reliable. Their Zen books are nice.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#45

Post by eropple » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 2:32 AM UTC

PaulHoule wrote: post #2

Don't get a a laptop. The pc industry is doomed with phone envy. Desktop machines are one place you can really do better.

Can I bring my desktop on a plane? To meetings at my client's offices? No?

Isn't that an interesting bit of nuance that you so blithely elide.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#46

Post by orionblastar » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 2:32 AM UTC

I have an Acer laptop I won from a church basket raffle. It only has a 1.5 Ghz AMD Dual core CPU and 3Gigs of RAM and 250 Gig hard drive. So it runs slow at first and takes a time to load everything.

It upgraded to Windows 10 Pro quite well.

It is one of those cheaper laptops and it has an AMD GPU as well. I don't know how user serviceable it is, but it hasn't needed any work yet.

I used to have Ubuntu on it, but my wife didn't like it so I had to put Windows back with it as we share the laptop. So I know it runs Ubuntu very well, and it runs Ubuntu faster than it does Windows.

But PC quality has gone down since they moved things to China. Motherboards, you are lucky if they last three years now. My son had an ATX custom system with an ATX motherboard for the Intel 1150 socket made by ASUS, and it went out and was replaced with an Intel brand motherboard that we had to buy from eBay because the socket is so old they don't make new motherboards for it anymore. Motherboard lasted maybe two years before it blew out. We got a Datavac to clean up dust from it and would replace the CPU resin every six months or so.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#47

Post by nottestuser » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 2:32 AM UTC

soared wrote: post #37

Why is a decent website relevant at all? Would it make buying a laptop easier? Sure. But 90% of consumers are going to do almost all of their research off-site and enter the lenovo looking for specific products or categories. Not everyone follows the Apple-Disney ethos of design every consumer facing thing to be flawless. I haven't done the research but I bet you could see lenovo pages ranking higher for long-tail ke…

Here is the only way to shop Lenovo:

http://psref.lenovo.com/

Every SKU, every option, every detail, in a PDF.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#48

Post by Avshalom » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 2:34 AM UTC

r-w wrote: post #30

That was a pretty quick dismissal of Lenovo, and a warped portrayal at that. As far as we can tell, Superfish was not intentionally installed by Lenovo, and any money it made didn’t go to them since it wasn’t their software. There’s nothing here to suggest that this is a sign of anything untrustworthy happening at Lenovo, any more than there is at any other major laptop seller. It seems like this was just a case of t…

wait I wasn't paying much attention because I don't have a thinkpad but how would they have accidentally installed superfish?

Re: We Need a Better PC

#49

Post by dcposch » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 2:34 AM UTC

whalesalad wrote: post #14

jolux wrote: post #7

Honestly if you get a Mac you can install rEFInd on it and boot Linux just fine, or run Linux in a VM. The hardware also almost never breaks and especially if you have AppleCare they frequently replace it for free. Yes, it may be difficult to upgrade yourself. That's entirely true and if it's a deal breaker there's not much else around. You might do well to look at https://puri.sm if you're a Linux user, they seem to…

Agreed. All of the points in this article that are against the PC makers are both valid and quite significant. The Apple ones are not practical problems. Sure you aren't encouraged to open it, but you can. I've replaced virtually every part on virtually every generation of Intel Mac just fine. Screens, memory, batteries, disk drives, etc... If you don't like the OS and the free software that's included, replace it. Y…

> If you don't like the OS and the free software that's included, replace it. You weren't gonna stick with the OEM bloatware Windows install on the Thinkpad anyway.

Fair point. I've heard mixed reviews from people dual booting Linux on a retina MBP because Ubuntu has bad high DPI support.

> The author is correct, we need more competition, but for the time being a Mac is truly the best piece of kit you can get. It'll run any OS and doesn't ship with an ssl mitm.

Yeah, I think there's an untapped market for a well built standard laptop (not a tablet crossover, not a Chromebook) that's not a Mac!

Re: We Need a Better PC

#50

Post by voltagex_ » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 2:35 AM UTC

narrator wrote: post #26

I have a Toshiba p835-z370. It's a few years old but it still runs like a champ and all the hardware is supported on Ubuntu. Toshiba build quality is pretty good. Here's the teardown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMH0r76zdt0 . It's only upgradeable to 6gb though. Would love it if they had a 16gb upgradeable version.

Aha! These seemed comparable with the Asus Zenbooks that came out at the same time. I've only seen one z370 in the wild though - what's the battery life like under Ubuntu?