261–270 of 330 posts
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My wife has an X240, something in that series is equivalent to the Air. To be honest I would just go for the Apple, we have had quite a few problems with the Lenovo.
What problems? I have the same computer and love it.
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It's funny that you wrote about Thinkpads, for example currently Thinkpad X1 Carbon (5 gen) is the best ultrabook on the market (including macbooks pro, yes nowadays macbooks pro are ultrabooks).
Does Thinkpad X1 Carbon 5th work well with Linux? Linux is pushing me towards the XPS 13 Also looks like the X1 is capped at 8GB ram? 16 GB is a minimum, and you can easily get on an XPS 13.
So many people here are suggesting the XPS 13, but there is so much Dell BS to put up with. There are many configurations and many redundant options, and silly coupons that work on some models and not others. The buying options are entirely unclear, I think intentionally so. Just like HP and some of the other major OEMs. Please don't read this wrong, I love options, but I dislike foolish inconsistency. When I build a…
> So where is the option for an XPS with Linux, any flavor (or even Freedos or no OS) pre-installed? The XPS 13 is available as a developer edition with Ubuntu instead of Windows preinstalled: http://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/productdetails/xps-13-93...
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Ok, I would assume this is something that might differ between countries. Here in Scandinavia I've met extremely few people running their desktops exclusively on WiFi since it's generally unreliable when having lot of devices talking to same AP/WiFi router in a noisy environment with lot of other networks taking up same frequencies. Actually, I would say running Powerline to desktops is more of a standard approach he…
Uhh.. Hi, I'm a Scandinavian (Swede). I got a desktop exclusively on WiFi. I've never seen an office or a home actually use "powerline" (Network over electricity network).. Oh well, one anecdata against another anecdata :-)
Powerline networks are mainly utilized by people living in concrete multi-story houses that either do not wish to install a proper Ethernet backbone to all rooms or take a gamble with WiFi due to higher cost, thickness of walls or other reasons that might seriously affect connectivity as mentioned before.
I used to run my own IT support company with several employees (think Geek Squad) having both enterprise customers aswell as private sector and people running Powerline is actually a lot more common than you might think (my parents for instance are running it along with WiFi in their house - deskop, IPTV and camera surveillance is on Powerline while tablets and phones are on WiFi).
During all my years in IT I've encountered two situations which I can remember where WiFi was used on a desktop machine instead of Ethernet or Powerline - one was a car dealership where they had a salesman sitting in a "glass box" and they were sharing building with another company (so, no Powerline) and other situation was a enthusiast that built himself a new computer and his new Asus motherboard came with 802.11n built-in..
Personally, I am running all my desktop machines on a 10Gbit CAT6a network I have at home (I do have a WiFi as well but it is on another VLAN with no access to network infrastructure - mainly used by kids) where I have possibility to stream multiple 4K streams from my FreeNAS server while downloading huge files of the Internet without even breaking a sweat - try to do that over a WiFi connection and you'll hit into a brick wall pretty fast.
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Ok, I would assume this is something that might differ between countries. Here in Scandinavia I've met extremely few people running their desktops exclusively on WiFi since it's generally unreliable when having lot of devices talking to same AP/WiFi router in a noisy environment with lot of other networks taking up same frequencies. Actually, I would say running Powerline to desktops is more of a standard approach he…
I'm in the US. I'm told houses are bigger and further spaced apart here. So perhaps that is why it's more common here.
Most people when buying a new house can stomach (not sure why, because it can't be a large portion of the overall cost of a new house) multi-line pulls from each room to a central wiring closet. Plus, you have to have that central closet (or panel at a minimum) somewhere out of the way, and most people just don't get that kind of tech (the idea of a central area for a home server, plus networking stuff, etc).
So - the lines aren't installed (at one time, houses were offered with the option, and if you are willing to pay today, you can still get it - but most people don't). After the fact retrofits aren't done because such an install is very difficult to do (especially in modern houses with horizontal firebreaks between the verticals, little to no attic with vaulted ceilings, etc) - which also means its expensive.
So instead, people go with wifi. It's cheap, no need for a dedicated wiring/network termination panel and/or closet, and can be taken down and taken with you if/when you move.
Personally, I prefer a wired system; when I moved into my house I installed a few drops myself where I knew there'd be some dedicated hardware (TV area, my office, library, and my shop); the other rooms I never installed anything because it didn't matter. For those, the wifi I have fills in those blanks adequately. I ran all the lines back to a custom wiring closet I built in my shop, and terminate everything there (plus a few of my servers live there too).
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Interestingly, in the last 10 years I've not met anyone who bothers with RJ45 in the home. Everyone in the UK gets a free wifi router with their broadband, and tends to just use that. Not saying you are wrong, just different areas are different.
My parents live in a 200-year-old house with Cat6 ethernet in the walls. They needed to replace the electrical wiring, and decided to get it installed at the same time. I don't think they've regretted it, especially as thick walls attenuate the wifi signal. I'm pretty sure this is unusual, though. More broadly, I think home desktops are getting rarer in the UK. Wifi is the obvious answer for portable devices with wif…
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It's funny that you wrote about Thinkpads, for example currently Thinkpad X1 Carbon (5 gen) is the best ultrabook on the market (including macbooks pro, yes nowadays macbooks pro are ultrabooks).
Does Thinkpad X1 Carbon 5th work well with Linux? Linux is pushing me towards the XPS 13 Also looks like the X1 is capped at 8GB ram? 16 GB is a minimum, and you can easily get on an XPS 13.
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The "build quality" means it looks nice, but it sure isn't durable. If you spill liquid on an Apple, it's a dead machine. If you drop an Apple, it's also dead. Thinkpads can survive a hell of a lot more abuse.
Every time a friend or colleague asks why I use "that" I simply thrown my laptop to the floor, pick it up and continue working on it. Then I ask them to try the same with their Apple laptop. That normally makes them never ask such questions again. I learned that from an IBM (and later a Lenovo) sales person when presenting the X series. It's designed and built to tolerate real use. And some abuse :-)
I've used laptops for the last 10-15 years, often 8+ hours a day. I have not once dropped a laptop during those years. I'm completely okay with having a laptop that disintegrates when dropped and is better in other ways (thinner, lighter, longer battery life) as a result of not focusing on resistance to drops.
> Today, we can’t design and manufacture our products. We outsource this work. It’s similar to how Tesla used a Lotus chassis for their first car. (Like their Roadster, the outside of our computers might look similar to others but it’s the inside that counts.) The strategy was cash efficient and allowed us to focus on developing high value areas of the company. However, knowing what we wanted to build but without the…
There were plenty of electric cars before the Model S. You might say that "electric cars" was a solved problem space. Around that time, Tesla was "selling rebadged European sports cars" in low quantities as a proof of concept. Of course there's no way they could beat GM and what their mountains of cash could put out. But Tesla steadily built out their Model S production, and rapidly became the poster child for the vi…