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We Need a Better PC

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Re: We Need a Better PC

#431

Post by kyriakos »

bkjelden wrote: post #137
habosa wrote: post #113

Not disagreeing with the premise, but just want to plug a machine I am very happy with. I was a lifetime mac owner (since OS 9) and my 2010 Macbook Pro finally broke down this year. It made it that long because I doubled the RAM, replaced the battery, and replaced the HDD with a hybrid drive. Finally the battery puffed up and exploded. I brought it to the Apple Store and they were beyond useless. The new MBPs are not…

+1 to this machine. I bought one for my wife last June and so far it's been great. As a side note: Asus's naming sure could use some help. If I search the Microsoft Store's website right now, there's a Zenbook UX305FA, 2 UX305CA's, UX303UB, and two Zenbook Pro UX501JW's. I'm sure if I searched Amazon I could find even more unique names. I consider myself a pretty savvy PC shopper and even I find that incredibly confu…

The worst part of their naming conventions is that the larger numbers don't always mean better / faster. And this would be ok if it was consistent but its not.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#432

Post by dit0a »

vatotemking wrote: post #117

How about MS Surface Book? Fits all the criteria that OP is looking for.

I had a Surface Book but sent it back as it is plagued with problems still. Just have a quick Google for issues and you will find some real show-stoppers, such a shame as it is a beautiful machine.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#433

Post by vacri »

pizza234 wrote: post #370
jhildings wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that sucks about the display is the "glossy glass"-style which makes it very sensitive to sunlight or strong indoor lightning

You can have professionally applied an anti-glare film on the screen. The application is perfect and resilient, and although it's "not the same", I will never ever go back to a glossy screen.

So, Apple used to ship the matte screen as standard, and upsold the glossy one as "movies! colours!". Then they shipped the glossy screen as standard, and upsold the matte one as "no glare!"...

Re: We Need a Better PC

#434

Post by icebraining »

jahnu wrote: post #424
icebraining wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YMMV; my Thinkpad and my HP DV2 before that both had side vents.

Without even passive vents? Which exact models? I might need an additional laptop soon and would love to know about anything comparable to a MBP 13 retina but doesn't have any vents on the bottom.

The Thinkpad is the X201, and the HP was a DV2, an old model. They might have some small bottom vents, but they didn't have any problems cooling while sitting on my bed. Neither are probably comparable to an MBP 13, though.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#435

Post by kyriakos »

perlgeek wrote: post #323
habosa wrote: post #113

Not disagreeing with the premise, but just want to plug a machine I am very happy with. I was a lifetime mac owner (since OS 9) and my 2010 Macbook Pro finally broke down this year. It made it that long because I doubled the RAM, replaced the battery, and replaced the HDD with a hybrid drive. Finally the battery puffed up and exploded. I brought it to the Apple Store and they were beyond useless. The new MBPs are not…

... and god help you if you ever need the Asus customer support for repairing that thing. A truely horrible experience. I can provide details of my "experience" with them, but the Internet is already full of horror stories that cover everything that is to say about that topic. And no, buying a new laptop after a year and a half simply isn't acceptable to me, even if it makes sense in your economic situation.

I had great experience with Asus service in EU. I called them up, they asked for a serial number and what was the problem, they sent UPS to pick it up (from Cyprus), a week later I had it back fixed. Considering how bad support for hardware is in this country and the fact that the service center is overseas I'd say they were one of my best after sales experiences.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#436

Post by vacri »

Meh, the author wants a better computer, but isn't willing to spend for it. The author runs linux, so the crapware from lenovo shouldn't matter, and the lenovo thinkpad line have excellent build quality (stay away from the ideapads). But the author complains that the cheap end of X1 town isn't retina. Sure, for the same price, a macbook air does retina, but that low-end X1 carbon has other features that the air does not have.

So by 'better PC', the author really means 'cheap PC filled with top-end gizmos and a top-end build quality'.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#437

Post by pmontra »

I've been happy with the first ZBook. 1080p, SDD or spinning disks, you can add replace the DVD with another disk, up to 32 GB RAM, apparently you can replace the CPU and the NVIDIA card too. The ZBook G2 specs are even better.

The only minus on your list would be the battery. It can reach maybe 4 hours (Linux) but not more. I knew that and it's not a problem, there is always a power plug nearby where I work.

The only minus in my list was the keyboard, because it has a number pad, but the keys are excellent. It's also definitely not a 1 kg laptop and the power brick is as heavy as a brick, but I don't care much.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#438

Post by wyclif »

tluyben2 wrote: post #343
Zarel wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I googled around and found this: http://www.trustedreviews.com/dell-xps-13-2015-review-batter... which gives a rated battery life of 18 hours and a real-world use battery life of 9-10 hours http://www.laptopmag.com/articles/dell-xps-13-battery-life-f... This article suggests a battery life of 12 hours. What kind of battery life are you expecting?

Ah my bad; I read somewhere it was much much less. Maybe that's outdated information. But when people say 9 hours, basically I get 3-4 out of them... Usually.

What are you doing, compiling a kernel or rendering graphics?

Re: We Need a Better PC

#439

Post by kriro »

chadzawistowski wrote: post #142
jolux wrote: post #7

Honestly if you get a Mac you can install rEFInd on it and boot Linux just fine, or run Linux in a VM. The hardware also almost never breaks and especially if you have AppleCare they frequently replace it for free. Yes, it may be difficult to upgrade yourself. That's entirely true and if it's a deal breaker there's not much else around. You might do well to look at https://puri.sm if you're a Linux user, they seem to…

> You might do well to look at https://puri.sm if you're a Linux user, they seem to make pretty good machines with free software down to the BIOS. Purism must have great marketing, because I keep seeing this fiction repeated. Their BIOS is not open. The only big difference between a Purism laptop and other laptops (Acer, Asus, Dell, etc.) is that the CPU has been fused to allow running unsigned firmware. Unfortunatel…

There's some value over other laptops, notably that it's tested with Linux as the main target and uses recent hardware that is virtualization friendly (+15" which is a personal requirement for me). Configuring a laptop like that takes a nontrivial amount of time from my experience. What interests me is that it will run Qubes OS before the 15" ships if that statement is to be trusted. It is one of the more interesting approaches out there and I'll gladly pay a premium for a Qubes laptop.

The BIOS is not free and the laptop won't be free anytime soon due to Intel ME [1]. Unfortunately the compromise for the foreseeable future seems to be freedom vs. more power or hoping for something awesome non-x86.

[1](PDF): http://blog.invisiblethings.org/papers/2015/x86_harmful.pdf

Re: We Need a Better PC

#440

Post by Aoyagi »

euske wrote: post #131

There are many independent laptop PC manufacturers in Japan. Panasonic Let's Note (cf. http://panasonic.jp/pc/ ) is known to have excellent battery life while being decent. Laptops from Mouse Computer (cf. http://www.mouse-jp.co.jp/ ) have almost no pre-installed crap. Unfortunately, many of them don't sell outside the country. They're probably too small/thin to Western people. People tend to think a 17-inch laptop "…

Panasonic makes such great laptops. Too bad it's hard to get them outside of Japan.
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