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We Need a Better PC

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Re: We Need a Better PC

#391

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

touristtam wrote: post #280
rmm wrote: post #235

Microsoft Surface Book. Easily the best device i have used in a very long time. Expensive (especially the i7 dGPU option) but i am amazed at how good this machine is. Huge battery life, powerful when it needs to be. Connect to a dock and you have a powerful desktop. Currently use it when im working in the office doing design work (plugged into a couple of Dell U2715H) then when i am out on mine sites use it as a port…

But then you are using Microsoft OS.

It's standard PC hardware so you can install Linux on it if you'd like. I guess you're paying the "Microsoft Tax" for the OS license that won't be used but you could say the same about installing Linux on a MacBook too.

Also I'm not sure why you're being downvoted - I'm a .NET developer and spend all day in Windows but even I appreciate that others' workflows are built around Linux or OS X. Horses for courses and all that.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#392

Post by noisy_boy »

symmetricsaurus wrote: post #244
gcb0 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the article misses everything. lenovo is not even relevant anymore. Their new keyboards (since 2009!) are complete garbage. his "research" was probably asking some guy at the water cooler "what's a good PC laptop" "lenovo" "thanks"

I don't agree at all with the new Thinkpad keyboards being garbage. The old ones were nice (maybe even nicer than the new ones) but the new ones are still the best laptop keyboards in the market at the moment. The keyboard has no flex or mushiness. The keys have some resistance and a nice feel when depressing them. Finally the keys are slightly curved inwards so that the fingesrs easily find the centers of the keys.…

No dedicated function keys are the worst decision lenovo made. Kind of a pain in the ass when one is trying to avoid using the mouse (which most developers working for long periods tend to do).

Re: We Need a Better PC

#393

Post by jfb »

pjmlp wrote: post #243
ekianjo wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For developers OSX will almost always be worse than a Linux distro, if only because of package management.

Which developers? Not everyone is writing POSIX only code.

Of course, Darwin is a perfectly cromulent POSIX system.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#394

Post by lorenzhs »

symmetricsaurus wrote: post #244
gcb0 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the article misses everything. lenovo is not even relevant anymore. Their new keyboards (since 2009!) are complete garbage. his "research" was probably asking some guy at the water cooler "what's a good PC laptop" "lenovo" "thanks"

I don't agree at all with the new Thinkpad keyboards being garbage. The old ones were nice (maybe even nicer than the new ones) but the new ones are still the best laptop keyboards in the market at the moment. The keyboard has no flex or mushiness. The keys have some resistance and a nice feel when depressing them. Finally the keys are slightly curved inwards so that the fingesrs easily find the centers of the keys.…

Completely agree. I use the ThinkPad external keyboard as my main keyboard at work, mostly for the TrackPoint but also because it's just a really nice keyboard.

What bothers me about it is that it's a 6-row layout. I liked the 7 rows on the old keyboards, with double-height escape and delete keys.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#395

Post by ekianjo »

askafriend wrote: post #311
mbrock wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible to use HiDPI on Linux, but I guess it depends on what software you use. I've used it for almost a year. I set my DPI in X and GTK. I believe GNOME understands DPI, but I just use ratpoison so I don't know. After turning off hunting, fonts look very nice. Don't bother trying to connect an external monitor with a different DPI though, hehe. I've heard that problem is unsolvable with the X11 paradigm but w…

I want you to re-read the first paragraph you wrote. That's exactly why I don't use Linux. I don't mean this to be a condescending comment, but really, the contents of your entire first paragraph are just things that I don't want to deal with. It's all just bullshit, and I don't have time to deal with bullshit like that. I really just don't want to even think about stuff like that. Not even a tiny bit, not even for a…

Wow the word bullshit get thrown very easily by people who use OSX and dont want other people to disagree.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#397

Post by jensen123 »

nerdy wrote: post #99

I went through the same thought process in December, never owned an Apple computer but needed a new laptop. Despite trying to fend off the idea of getting a Macbook (due to some combination of price/not wanting to succumb to herd mentality/proprietary nature of Apple) I caved. It felt silly to spend a lot of time researching and configuring a custom laptop. I've never purchased a pre-built desktop but customizing a l…

I agree with you that Apple hardware is generally much better than the competition. However, there is one thing that really bugs me about Apple laptops - they don't open 180 degrees, which make them somewhat impractical to use with a stand. And simply using a laptop as-is is not very ergonomic.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#398

Post by franciscop »

will_hughes wrote: post #95

I've got an aging Asus Zenbook UX31A ultrabook which is amazingly thin and light, and still pretty decently fast. There was also very little crapware on it (was originally a Win7 machine with Win8 and then Win10 free upgrades). My one complaint is that the (small, light) power bricks are apparently made of unobtainium. They're near impossible to find, and the ones you can are extraordinarily expensive. Given my hate…

Same thing here, I just got one off ebay that we'll see if it kills my laptop. My complains about the laptop compared to macbook air:

- Battery life: with Ubuntu I'm getting ~2.5h, which really sucks. I'm still in Ivy Bridge though, I've read that newer ones double the life. Still ridiculously small

- The SSD is also proprietary (but I've read the ones from 2 years to now are standard). Same as Macbook

However, it also has some good advantages:

- Normal keyboard

- 1080p screen

- $900, which was around 700€ at the time I bought it

Re: We Need a Better PC

#399

Post by zapu »

emerongi wrote: post #288
ekianjo wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the Asus Zenbook UX305LA, how flexible is it ? Can you open and change the battery by yourself, for example ? You mentioned the battery life is not great, can you share some numbers on Ubuntu ? How much time do you get on a full charge?

I have the UX305LA. I had a clicky trackpad[1], so I opened it up and fixed it. It was too good in other aspects, so I couldn't bother sending it back. Battery is replaceable. Still though, with Asus you never know whether your laptop will be perfect out of the box or not. That's what sucks about PCs in general - if you want a hassle-free laptop, you either have to pay extra or invest a lot of time into research. I h…

How did you fix it? I just mapped caps-lock as left mouse button :| I hate clickpads.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#400

Post by lorenzhs »

bacongobbler wrote: post #195
nl wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any chance they'll update the version of Ubuntu? 12.04 is.. old.

12.04 is still under LTS support by Ubuntu for another 4 years (LTS releases are supported for 7 years), so even if it's "old" it's also receiving active support. That being said, there's nothing stopping you from upgrading to 14.04 yourself.

small correction, Ubuntu supports LTS releases for five years. Support for 12.04 ends in 14 months, in April 2017: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases
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