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ThinkPads 2020 - X13 AMD - X1 Nano?

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Re: ThinkPads 2020 - X13 AMD - X1 Nano?

#71

Post by oneplane »

speedgoose wrote: post #61
japhyr wrote: post #51

I was feeling pulled back towards non-mac laptops for a variety of reasons, but I think I just came up with a good strategy looking forward. If I were just doing my own dev work, I'd probably have a well-specced thinkpad running some version of linux. But I need to support people using all OSes, so I need a mac. If I need a mac, I'd like that to be my only computer, and just run windows and linux in VMs. I got a 13"…

The Mac mini is terribly overpriced. If you are going to replace your laptop by a desktop computer, get a descent GPU. That's nice.

How so? I have yet to find a cheaper system with that many Thunderbolt 3 ports.

If I didn't need macOS and Thunderbolt 3 then no, the Mac Mini makes no sense at all.

Re: ThinkPads 2020 - X13 AMD - X1 Nano?

#72

Post by aortega »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #52
SahAssar wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they still only have lackluster displays? Thinkpads maxed out at 1080p long after other premium laptops offered 4k.

They're not all gorgeous - 1080p displays with pretty poor color gamut are the default, and they still offer comically bad 1366x768 options for a base model. But some models do have 2560x1440 IPS glossy, 3480x2160 IPS anti-glare, or 3840x2160 OLED displays with 400/500 nit brightness and decent color gamut coverage (100% Adobe or 100% DCI, depending on the model). Check http://psref.lenovo.com/syspool/Sys/i_pdf/Think…

> they still offer comically bad 1366x768 options for a base model.

Believe it or not, there are still corporate legacy apps that run on DOS and looks great on 1366x768 and look like crap in 4k. In fact, Linux still look like crap in 4K today.

Re: ThinkPads 2020 - X13 AMD - X1 Nano?

#73

Post by simscitizen »

lostgame wrote: post #21

ThinkPads make better MacBook Pros than Apple-official products - by far and large. I’ve got a 2017 MacBook Pro and a 2016 Lenovo ThinkPad and the ThinkPad runs circles around it. It’s also literally a hybrid drawing tablet laptop running MacOS - so unimaginably useful as a creative - and something Apple doesn’t offer, unless you want half-baked iOS software (no Illustrator, no Animate, no Blender) on an iPad Pro. Ev…

What tablet do you have? My wife had a nearly top-spec X1 3rd gen tablet and the stylus lag is terrible compared to something like an iPad Pro with the pencil.

Re: ThinkPads 2020 - X13 AMD - X1 Nano?

#74

Post by mattmoose21 »

speedgoose wrote: post #61
japhyr wrote: post #51

I was feeling pulled back towards non-mac laptops for a variety of reasons, but I think I just came up with a good strategy looking forward. If I were just doing my own dev work, I'd probably have a well-specced thinkpad running some version of linux. But I need to support people using all OSes, so I need a mac. If I need a mac, I'd like that to be my only computer, and just run windows and linux in VMs. I got a 13"…

The Mac mini is terribly overpriced. If you are going to replace your laptop by a desktop computer, get a descent GPU. That's nice.

Yeah I would go with a Mac Pro.\s

Re: ThinkPads 2020 - X13 AMD - X1 Nano?

#75

Post by hef19898 »

basch wrote: post #58
SahAssar wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they still only have lackluster displays? Thinkpads maxed out at 1080p long after other premium laptops offered 4k.

Careful, the 4K X1 Extreme has half the battery life of the 1080p model. https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-X1-Extreme-Gen...

The reason I took the standard display, the graphic card is power hungry enough. Thankfully the machine charges really quick! And what do I have a second screen on my desk for anyway? But I'm either playing games or working, so I have no idea how graphic design would be affected by the display.

Re: ThinkPads 2020 - X13 AMD - X1 Nano?

#76

Post by izacus »

wyldfire wrote: post #22
6d6b73 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because I can lock my laptop to the docking station, because it can also transfer power, and gives me access to many more ports than regular usb based docking station has.. and back in the good ol' days you could have a docking station with such ancient devices like cdrom and floppy - something that I don't need to carry around, but would be nice if I could access while sitting at my desk.

These days, there are monitors with USB-C style ports that both deliver power to the laptop and accept display over the same cable. And they also connect that port with other downstream ports like HID/etc (presumably a USB optical or floppy drive would also work here). I'll admit it's not quite as satisfying to plug in the cable, but it's still very functional and stable.

And most importantly: it's compatible with multiple brands instead of being a vendor lock in.

Re: ThinkPads 2020 - X13 AMD - X1 Nano?

#77

Post by missjellyfish »

lostgame wrote: post #55
sail0rm00n wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you running macOS on your thinkpads? Do you have details on how to do so? Super curious if that’s the case.

Super, super easy. Linux-distro-install level easy. Since Catalina randomly decided to destroy access to about 1/3rd of my software (I rely on old-school music plugins that won’t be updated) - I’m gonna link you here to the Mojave tool: http://dosdude1.com/mojave/ This is not my tool, it does require a Mac to use, in order to create the USB boot key you put in your PC. I have successfully patched about a dozen ThinkP…

dosdudes Tool is for running macOS on Apple Hardware That is unsupported (e.g. too old). Still not that hard, check out /r/hackintosh.

And be prepared to swap your WiFi card, intel cards are unsupported, so are nvidia graphics.

Re: ThinkPads 2020 - X13 AMD - X1 Nano?

#78

Post by SahAssar »

aortega wrote: post #72
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not all gorgeous - 1080p displays with pretty poor color gamut are the default, and they still offer comically bad 1366x768 options for a base model. But some models do have 2560x1440 IPS glossy, 3480x2160 IPS anti-glare, or 3840x2160 OLED displays with 400/500 nit brightness and decent color gamut coverage (100% Adobe or 100% DCI, depending on the model). Check http://psref.lenovo.com/syspool/Sys/i_pdf/Think…

> they still offer comically bad 1366x768 options for a base model. Believe it or not, there are still corporate legacy apps that run on DOS and looks great on 1366x768 and look like crap in 4k. In fact, Linux still look like crap in 4K today.

I use a 4k 13" (an XPS 13) laptop for 8 hours everyday under linux, and as long as I use wayland with firefox and VScode (my two main apps) they look pretty good, even comparing to my macbook using colleagues.

Not sure if it is because of the apps or wayland or the laptop, but it works for me.

Re: ThinkPads 2020 - X13 AMD - X1 Nano?

#79

Post by SahAssar »

VibrantClarity wrote: post #53
raz32dust wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. I tried using a Dell XPS and a Thinkpad as replacement to Macbook. But had to return both because I just can't get used to any other display after using Retina display, specially because the laptop is my TV as well.

The XPS and Thinkpads have both offered 4k for a few gens now. The real question is when Apple will offer matte screens. I can't stand the glare on the Macbook screens.

I don't think the current XPS:es have a matte screen option, last I checked the only ones with matte and known brand names and professional specs where thinkpads with low-res screens.
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