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Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications

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Re: Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications

#231
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I've never encountered any ads in printed books. Edit because I can't be bothered to reply to all the comments below: excerpts from other books (often by the same author, or in a similar genre) are not ads IMO. They're not intrusive. They're pretty much always relevant. They're fun to read. They don't contain tracking cookies. They're as benign as it gets.

> Edit because I can't be bothered to reply to all the comments below: excerpts from other books (often by the same author, or in a similar genre) are not ads IMO.

Ah, so what you mean is you've never encountered an online ad in a printed book.

Re: Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications

#232
post #56
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ad bombardment will be the end of non-free software.

Weren't there ads in Ubuntu?

There were suggestions when you used the meta?(windows) key and then typed something in Ubuntu. Windows does this too, I forget who did it first. I went from xp x64 to win 7 ultimate to win10pro and managed to keep the telemetry to a minimum as much as I could.

IIRC the Ubuntu change was pushed in a non-LTS distribution.

As an aside I think 5 year LTS is too few, with the advances made in AI/ML in the last decade five years on os support means that 80% of all the tooling is broken now, at least without spending lots of time backporting or hacking fixes in.

Re: Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications

#233
post #229
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there? There's Thinkpads, and pretty much nothing else. Everything else either has awful specs, awful hardware, or awful support. And don't even get me started on awful keyboards, those are now almost universal.

Dell XPS and Surface

I'm always surprised that the XPS gets so much love. Everything about it felt sub-par to me.

I was pretty happy with my surface, while it lasted anyway. Ended up with a defective touch screen that couldn't be replaced, so I just got a full refund (thank you extended warranty).

Re: Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> will never purchase another Lenovo product again. Even a ThinkPad?

You mean a laptop in 2021 that still only supports 1920x1080 resolution without a docking station? Or did they finally fix that nonsense?

[deleted]

Re: Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications

#235
post #24

Lenovo left a sour taste for me after they pushed a BIOS update through Windows Update on my daughter's Flex that bricked the device (in the middle of a school-week, while she was doing online school). There were dozens of reports of the same problem from other owners of that model, yet they refused to acknowledge the issue was theirs or offer any self-serve option (I remember most laptops nowadays can re-flash the B…

> will never purchase another Lenovo product again. Even a ThinkPad?

Unfortunately ThinkPads have a design flaw. On mine, if I use the LAN adapter that came with the device, I won't be able to use the adjacent USB-C port!

Re: Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications

#236

With alternatives such as System76 and the modular Framework laptop emerging, as well as low-cost systems from Pine, Lenovo's claim as the default preferred choice of the Linux/*BSD and power-user set is very rapidly evaporating. I've bought Thinkpads personally and professionally for 20 years. Idiotic cunning stunts such as this and Superfish have removed it from any future consideration.

Until System76 moves beyond the branded Clevo's they will not be able to compete with Thinkpads. They've talked about an internally developed laptop before, but still no sign of it. The Framework laptops have the most potential right now IMO. I'm watching them to see how things go and will probably pick up a second gen of their laptops if they keep looking good.

>branded Clevo's

I think it's a bit unfair to simply say they are "branded Clevo's". There was an interview about "right to repair" that I can't find right now where one of the founders of System76 addressed this and it sounds like they put a bit more effort into their hardware (and specifically, the accompanying middleware/firmware) than slapping some stickers on a Clevo.

Edit: I still can't find the interview, which was a good one, but I found this [1] earlier comment from someone who works there.

[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/5umefi/system76_refr...

Re: Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications

#237
post #147
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I run Linux on them? Can I get them with keyboards that aren't awful? Can I get them with next-business-day-on-site warranty? Not trying to be snarky here, I haven't owned an Apple product since the iMac, so I literally don't know. But I suspect the answer is "no".

Yes, you can run the latest Linux. Linux now has native M1 support. Yes, Apple did finally fix the awful keyboards on its laptops from 2016-2020, and their keyboards are once again quite good. The trackpad is what it has always been: the best on any computer at any price. I'm not aware that Apple offers any kind of on-site warranty service, so that's a no, but the flipside is that you are much less likely to need it…

>Yes, you can run the latest Linux. Linux now has native M1 support.

Lets not promise the moon here. The M1's Linux support is far from complete and definitely not ready for general use.

Re: Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but it's up front and obvious, not hidden in legalese or added in a future update. That seems fine to me.

I agree. I have zero problems with my subsidized-by-ads Kindle, because I knew what I was getting when I bought it in the first place. And, to Amazon's credit, the ads are unobtrusive. You get an ad for another book on your lockscreen; not a big deal, and most importantly, you are never, ever interrupted once you've unlocked the device. If Amazon ever switched to an intrusive-ad model, I'd pitch the thing in the tras…

I bought a third gen Kindle I think, ad supported, no keyboard, for $30. This year I was charging it while reading and got up and kicked the cord, causing the kindle to smash into my heel, breaking the display.

I was able to get the latest Paperwhite, trading in the old, broken Kindle, for $58. If it lasts as long as my old one (8 years) I'll be fine with that. I don't use it often, I keep a lot of reference and old books (like Raymond Chandler), I stopped buying Kindle books after three consecutive books were missing the last chapter or so.

The kindle windows conversion program (Kindle preview 3) will handle nearly everything that the "email yourself a book @kindle.com" won't, and for everything else there's calibre.

I had a book and a couple of palm pilots and other portable LCD screened things over a decade ago, and the kindle is the best for the price I get them at.

Re: Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications

#239
post #207
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Digital TV in Belgium now includes unskippable ads, including in recordings of those shows. The reason why people switched to digital TV subscriptions, of course, was to be able to skip those ads in the first place. Apparently Netflix can afford to offer a wide variety of content for a small monthly fee, without any ads, and spend money on content creation; but digital TV stations somehow don't make enough money off…

Sorry but what is digital TV? Cable?

Digital TV is where the content is sent as a digital video stream, rather than an analogue stream. This allows it to:

- make better use of the available bandwidth, allowing for more channels to be broadcast or less radio spectrum to be used

- offer multiple audio and video streams per channel, eg: surround sound support and translations into other languages

- better picture quality through higher resolution and the ability to recover from some transmission/reception errors

Commonly referred to as DVB (Digital Video Broadcast), it can be supplied over different bearers: terrestrial (DVB-T), satellite (DVB-S) and cable (DVB-C).

DVB is often combined with internet functionality into things like Hbb-TV, which allows for consumers to easily move between live broadcast channels and on-demand content supplied via an internet connection. Freeview in New Zealand uses Hbb-TV, and is broadcast over both terrestrial and satellite bearers, with on-demand video available for the major channels.

Cable TV may or may not be digital depending on the provider.

Re: Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications

#240
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The thinkpad line is still pretty solid. Meh. The trackpoint and keypad on my X1 are far inferior to previous Thinkpads, like the X220, before they decided their overarching mission was to make things as thin as possible. The trackpoint is sometimes unusable and is a chore to use at all times whereas the older ones were fun.

You should choose X2xx or T4xx line over X1. X1 is designed to be.

Can you give me a pointer to an X2xx that has a comparable keyboard and trackpoint to the old ones?
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