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We Need a Better PC

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Re: We Need a Better PC

#451

Post by jahnu »

icebraining wrote: post #434
jahnu wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hmmm

https://support.lenovo.com/at/de/documents/pd025709

Don't think I'd be comfortable blocking those for extended periods.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#452

Post by randallsquared »

lmm wrote: post #413
chjohasbrouck wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have both, and I find the things that Macs have that everything else is missing just aren't articulated on a spec sheet. The display on the Macbook Pro Retina is just flawless. The colors, the anti-glare, and the picture quality from all angles, it's just really well done. The brushed aluminum chassis makes it very cool and lightweight, great to travel with and keep on your lap. Excellent battery life. It's just a…

> Macbooks are great, and I wish I could find something as good to install Linux on. You can install Linux on a Macbook if that's what you want. Despite the marketing a Macbook these days is just an expensive, well-designed PC with particular software. > Most of the PC options are steel and plastic, so they're hot and heavy. They'll burn your legs, they have comparably poor battery life. The screen looks terrible if…

You can install Linux on a Macbook, but you'll fight with drivers and end up with less machine than you would using OS X.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#453

Post by kamaln7 »

mandelken wrote: post #388
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…

I bought the first Zenbook UX31 when it came out and last year bought a retina MBP. The zenbook was at the time half the price for the comparable mac air and I enjoyed it very much the first year, but since then I had it repaired 3 times costing me more than the purchase price (HDD, ram, power plug) and the power plug still doesnt work well so I can't use it anymore. It served me well, but not sure I would recommend…

I had a Thinkpad T440s running Ubuntu and then Arch, and now I have a 13" rMBP. I love the glossy screen, vivid colors, and most importantly, battery life. OS X also has the advantage of everything just working perfectly out of the box so I'm happy.

I don't think I'll go back to Linux any time soon, though I do miss tiling WMs.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#454

Post by icebraining »

jahnu wrote: post #451
icebraining wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hmmm https://support.lenovo.com/at/de/documents/pd025709 Don't think I'd be comfortable blocking those for extended periods.

Must be the tablet version, mine doesn't have those.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#455

Post by szukai »

Lenovo only inherited the name from IBM. It's not the same as it used to be... I really wish the author of the post looked beyond one or two laptops given the title he used for his writeup.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#456

Post by Hello71 »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #385
chjohasbrouck wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have both, and I find the things that Macs have that everything else is missing just aren't articulated on a spec sheet. The display on the Macbook Pro Retina is just flawless. The colors, the anti-glare, and the picture quality from all angles, it's just really well done. The brushed aluminum chassis makes it very cool and lightweight, great to travel with and keep on your lap. Excellent battery life. It's just a…

It really is about the details - sometimes you don't notice them until you really need them. Examples: - MBPs have the best wifi of any notebooks - to my knowledge, they still are the only ones to have 3 MIMO streams. Right now, my TX rate is 585 MBit/s. - Thunderbolt and I/O: we recently started to stream our tech meetups to Youtube. The two thunderbolt ports are processing two 1080p streams from BlackMagic Mini box…

- We just got Dell 4k/60Hz monitors. Most of our MBPs can drive them just fine via DisplayPort, others can only do it at 30Hz, if at all.

Intel claims that the i5-5200U included in the Zenbook UX305LA is capable of driving 3840x2160@60Hz over DP.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#457

Post by joefreeman »

elboru wrote: post #348
joefreeman wrote: post #337

I went through a similar process recently after getting fed up with Apple's direction. I ended up getting a Surface Pro 4. The build quality seems good, battery is ok. The software/drivers are terrible - it rarely wakes up from sleep, and I don't get much delight from using Windows. Hoping Linux support improves in the near future.

What do you mean by drivers are terrible? Do some components fail randomly in Windows? Or do you mean they just don't work with Linux? Just asking because I'm planning to buy a Surface Pro

There seems to be something up with the display driver in Windows relating to sleep. Sometimes after I login, Windows proudly tells me it's recovered from a display driver problem. Other times the screen just won't turn on (the keyboard lights come on, and the IR light that Hello uses comes on), so I have to keep restarting the machine. I'm guessing this will get fixed eventually though. Only seems to happen after disconnecting from the charger.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#458

Post by scholia »

dtech wrote: post #264
xerophyte12932 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My anecdotal evidence points the other way. My own Ho dv6 gave me a good 4 years of running. - Yes, the crapware is unavoidable. but who doesn't ship with that? - For me the system restore worked like magic. I tried it a bunch of times on my own machine and those of some friends. The machine was virgin again with just a click of a button. - It's also very easy to get into. Very helpfully labeled; tons of guides avail…

> Yes, the crapware is unavoidable. but who doesn't ship with that? Well Apple for one (unless you count their superfluous apps, but I find those much less intrusive) I think the crapware is inexcusable. If almost every car manufacturer places a fresh pile of dog poo on your brand new car seat would you be okay with it just because everyone does it?...

Crapware is usually found on consumer machines, where installing crapware pays for the OS and reduces the price. Pro machines from Dell and HP generally don't have crapware apart from anit-virus), in my experience.

However, they may have "useful" extra software, which I could do without. (Dell Data Safe backup etc. Lenovo is the worst.)

But you can download a crapware-free version of Windows 7 or 10 from Microsoft and do a clean installation.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#459

Post by wyclif »

joonoro wrote: post #212

The new ThinkPads are indeed awful, get the X220 aka the last good one. That should do you well until something worthwhile comes to replace it (maybe HP?) - Last old-style ThinkPad with great build quality - Last one with the classic keyboard - Small form factor - Sandy bridge i7, still kicks butt because it's not undervolted (check the benchmarks) - up to 16 GB memory - 10 hours of battery with a new 9-cell battery…

I was a big ThinkPad guy until a few years ago, and I get why you recommend the X220...agree it's "the last good one." But can you explain what the "tlp package" does?

Re: We Need a Better PC

#460

Post by coldtea »

izacus wrote: post #352
coldtea wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for the bizarro people that seem to use their Macbooks on their bare laps (doing sauna?)

Or you know... sitting outside in 30C summer in shorts. That 80C chasis temperature then somehow isn't as fun anymore. Current rMBP is unusable outside in summer due to hot chasis... my previous Dell XPS didn't have this issue.

>Or you know... sitting outside in 30C summer in shorts.

Well, anyone that wears shorts and sandals and is over 20, deserves it.

>Current rMBP is unusable outside in summer due to hot chasis...

Maybe sit on a table? I use mine in a country that frequently gets 38-40 oC, and in a country that is constantly Lousiana-summer level heat and humidity (Singapore) and never had much of a problem.

Or one could use any kind of towel or pad below their laptop.

Kind of reminds me of the Louis CK routine about people complaining about trivial things (e.g. the food) while flying, sitting on a chair in the sky, across thousands of miles, in a few hours (something that just 3-4 generations ago took days or even months, discomfort and a few deaths along the way).

We now have undreamt-of power in our PCs or even mobile phones (power which used to take a device as big as a house and with its own cooling infrastructure), and we complain for them being uncomfortamble to have on our bare laps...

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