141–150 of 176 posts
what about an amazing 14" with the quality screen of a MacBook, a newer Ryzen 7 4800U/H, 32/64GB RAM and a PCIe 4.0 Drive. And no RAM/SSD is soldered
As much as I hate it, I think it makes business sense for vendors to solder. You can "upgrade" by buying new. I can't imagine the business value of such a laptop - esp now that hardware improvements are slowing down (for the typical use case)
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This might not be so true after CES is done. I was watching Linus Tech Tips[1] video yesterday, and Asus had a new array of nice laptops (albeit, gaming laptops) that were AMD based, including a 13" one with decent AMD CPUs [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGUESEq75ZI
About the only big shortcoming is good Thunderbolt support with AMD. I think that will gain parity eventually, but will probably be in the USB4 timeframe over the next couple years. I watched the same videos, and will be looking at laptops over the next few months, so may well go the AMD route myself.
When I bought my laptop a couple of years ago, I made sure that it had TB3 for future-proofing, but I have yet to use it, and I suspect that I'll never use it over the course of the laptop's lifetime (and I have a tendency to keep my laptops in use for a long time).
I think having USB-C is good enough for the majority of "normal" users, although I can appreciate that TB is probably a must have for some power users.
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There's really no conspiracy. Hardware builders just have other requirements. If AMD"s laptop chips were really better so far (this is actually very debatable), they were by a slim margin for some use cases. Not enough to offset existing business agreements with Intel, the more mature Intel laptop platform (it's more than a CPU, but also motherboards and wireless chipsets) and Intel's more mature - and already existi…
Users don't want to switch, either. I won't take a chance on an AMD machine to save a couple of dollars. Maybe I'm being rational, maybe I'm not, but I'm sure I'm not the only consumer who feels this way. I want to buy the "happy path" when I'm getting a product.
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Sounds like a Windows problem. Macs have had high DPI solved since 2012.
Sounds like a legacy software problem. Old Mac software is the same.
I will be not so easy. Big OEMs are bound by the supply chain. Small OEMs are dependent on solution providers. Intel pays to solution providers to not to work with AMD in China. That's pretty much on the record, and not a secret to anybody in the industry. And for big OEMs, the supply chain trumps everything. Idling assembly lines are extremely costly for them. One week idle can easily wipe out 1+ month of profits fo…
AMD is cooperating closely with Chinese firms and has them to thank in part for its resurgence in the desktop die space. I wouldn't be surprised if these partnerships lead to more AMD PC's from small OEM's in the near future, perhaps only for the Chinese market. Chinese home-grown fabrication is also at parity with AMD Bulldozer, and likely to accelerate with acquisitions of European chipmaker technology. Notably mea…
You can say Taiwanese ones. On mainland, AMD is almost unknown in OEM space
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About the only big shortcoming is good Thunderbolt support with AMD. I think that will gain parity eventually, but will probably be in the USB4 timeframe over the next couple years. I watched the same videos, and will be looking at laptops over the next few months, so may well go the AMD route myself.
While I hear what you're saying, I think YMMV with Thunderbolt as a hard requirement. When I bought my laptop a couple of years ago, I made sure that it had TB3 for future-proofing, but I have yet to use it, and I suspect that I'll never use it over the course of the laptop's lifetime (and I have a tendency to keep my laptops in use for a long time). I think having USB-C is good enough for the majority of "normal" us…
I was only pointing it out as pretty much the only thing that's likely to be a significant issue for many, especially if you're doing any kind of casual gaming while wanting to dock, vs plugin a few separate items. I use a desktop at home, so not as concerned personally.
I'm convinced there is a conspiracy that prevents laptop manufacturers from shipping AMD chips on 13" high end laptops. Almost every (every?) AMD laptop I find is some 14-15" clunker with a garbage screen. I've had to put off buying a new macbook because of the shitty keyboard situation and all laptops (mac/pc) because it appears Intel's newest CPUs are still vulnerable to Meltdown/Spectre. A highend 13" AMD based Li…
> I'm convinced there is a conspiracy that prevents laptop manufacturers from shipping AMD chips on 13" high end laptops. Based on the Anandtech review of a Surface Laptop with Intel and AMD versions ( https://www.anandtech.com/show/15213/the-microsoft-surface-l... ) I suspect the conspiracy in question is "the small batteries found in 13" laptops would make the power efficiency shortfall a bit too obvious".
I'm convinced there is a conspiracy that prevents laptop manufacturers from shipping AMD chips on 13" high end laptops. Almost every (every?) AMD laptop I find is some 14-15" clunker with a garbage screen. I've had to put off buying a new macbook because of the shitty keyboard situation and all laptops (mac/pc) because it appears Intel's newest CPUs are still vulnerable to Meltdown/Spectre. A highend 13" AMD based Li…
https://www.pcworld.com/article/3512246/asus-rog-zephyrus-g1...
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The T495 is available with dual channel memory. 8GB of soldered on ram is available on all models and the 3500u and 3700u models are available with 16GB soldered on. You can then add an additional 8GB or 16GB in the sodimm slot. If you want to save some money quality 3rd party sodimms are available for a fraction of the price Lenovo wants and it takes about 5 minutes to install one. This is what I chose to do.
The problem with that is you'd need to match to the soldered-on memory specs to gain all performance benefits, as opposed to just buying a matched set and plugging it in yourself. You're also stuck with whatever highest common clock speed all the RAM would support instead of whatever the maximum the memory controller would allow.
One of the great things about the T series of Thinkpads is that access to replace memory and storage is quick and easy unlike many modern laptops. Another advantage is that they are heavily documented and have a vibrant community around them. This means determining the memory specs needed to match the soldered-on memory is a rather trivial exercise. If any one is looking to purchase a T495 matching the soldered-on memory means using a PC4-19200 CL17 unbuffered non-ECC sodimm. You should be able to find a good brand module for about 1/5th of what Lenovo wants to factory install the additional memory.
AMD - I'm struggling to get them to return a call despite numerous chase messages for over 3 months now.
I want to sell AMD due to Ryzen demand but literally can't find anyone... even met an AMD rep at an industry event and he gave me his business card... non stop voicemail and just has never got back to me.
Again, I know I'm not huge - but, it's still over 1k units a year and I'm talking to a brick wall. When I started ~15 years ago and literally doing 1-2 a week, Intel were VERY supportive.