Earlier quoted context omitted.
My XPS 13 on Debian lasts around 8 to 10 hours without difficulties for long trips.
Is this with Jessie on the XPS 13 9343? I'm only getting around 6 hours on mine.
No. Sid
We Need a Better PC
611–620 of 699 posts
Re: We Need a Better PC
#612Earlier quoted context omitted.
So many little things that Apple just do better. I'd add some things to your list as well - the keyboards are nice and snappy, the machines are silent for general tasks, and the fans are generally quiet unless you're going crazy, with no stupid things like electrical noise / coil whine. Even under heavy load you can sit the thing on your legs and it won't burn you. The machines are very sturdy and don't bend, so they…
I would say it depends on what you do. Mac laptops definitely have strong features that their PC cousins don't have, but... The two Mac laptops I have, they get hot and the fan is noisy, especially my Macbook Pro. The port selection is nice, but the ports are too close together unless you're using all Apple cables. A chunky USB key or mini-display port cable can block other ports. I had to use a knife and shave off t…
>> "The two Mac laptops I have, they get hot and the fan is noisy, especially my Macbook Pro."
What are you doing on them? I'm generally running browser/Xcode/iTunes or Logic Pro X/iTunes/Browser and my fan never spins up. In fact it spins so rarely I tend to think somethings going wrong when it does. It freaks me out. I'm on the lowest spec 13" MacBook Pro.
Re: We Need a Better PC
#613Earlier quoted context omitted.
I too was quite frustrated with the wifi card, apparently they've sourced different cards. The Broadcom (I think?) was pure crap in linux, fine in windows. I upgraded to the non bluetooth intel card, everything is fantastic now.
Yeah, Broadcom. Oh, how did you upgrade? Ask the Dell support?
I figured out which part people were having luck with, archlinux forums/wiki, and ordered it on amazon. intel 7265ngw + bluetooth. Looks like I went for BT and turned it off in bios. Currently 22$ + 2$ shipping. Maybe 8 torx 5 T-5 needed to be removed, swapped in a few mins.
Re: We Need a Better PC
#614Earlier quoted context omitted.
> and we complain for them being uncomfortamble to have on our bare laps... "lap"tops.
Isn't that why they started marketing them as "notebooks"? http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/11/22/man_burns_penis_with...
Heat, definitely. Also, that was the time you started seeing 17"+ notebooks on the high end. One of my wife's friends bought a 20" "laptop" for her electrical engineering work. It looked comical on her lap, but was awesome for bringing work home on.
Re: We Need a Better PC
#615My acer s7 does pretty well;
I've repaired it from severe rain damage, and it's generally easy to disassemble and replace the parts to.
it's got a reasonably nice screen, nice build quality, and reasonably good performance, though you cant change out the wifi chip, nor the ram The webasite also said about enough to do well, and the windows install it came with just had some acer junk on it.
Re: We Need a Better PC
#616Earlier quoted context omitted.
What bothered me was this paragraph: >Apple has great design Functional design. A lot of haters misunderstand it as style. >but Uh-oh >they sell things that are locked down, both physically and in software. OK, I guess you read that on the Internet. But you should question it. When I bought my first Mac the first thing I did before buying it was call Apple support and check whether I could open it and upgrade the har…
I like how you respond to concerns about not being able to modify the physical hardware with both "apple totally lets you do that!" and "some things in life you just can't do!" The second comment is more amusing, given you then compare Apple's laptop with a battery case , instead of other vendors' laptops , whmo frequently provide free service manuals with exploded diagrams showing exactly how to open the thing and g…
I don't recall mentioning a battery case. But maybe you're replying to someone else?
>the funniest part was the assertion that Apple don't design for beauty
Where did you see this "assertion"? I think you're reading something else into what I said.
Re: We Need a Better PC
#617Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would say it depends on what you do. Mac laptops definitely have strong features that their PC cousins don't have, but... The two Mac laptops I have, they get hot and the fan is noisy, especially my Macbook Pro. The port selection is nice, but the ports are too close together unless you're using all Apple cables. A chunky USB key or mini-display port cable can block other ports. I had to use a knife and shave off t…
>> "The two Mac laptops I have, they get hot and the fan is noisy, especially my Macbook Pro." What are you doing on them? I'm generally running browser/Xcode/iTunes or Logic Pro X/iTunes/Browser and my fan never spins up. In fact it spins so rarely I tend to think somethings going wrong when it does. It freaks me out. I'm on the lowest spec 13" MacBook Pro.
I run mostly dev tools, text editor, etc. But I have a bad habit of having more than 50 Chrome tabs open, and Chrome is a notorious pig on just about every OS.
My Macbook Pro (2011, quad core i7) is famous for heating issues, but that aside, any app that forces use of the discrete GPU (at one point, even Coda did) would cause the fans to spin.
I don't want to sound like a snob, but the 13" MBPs aren't comparable with 15" MBPs, since many of them use lesser CPUs (i.e., not the MQ/HQ/QM series chips) that don't generate nearly as much heat.
Re: We Need a Better PC
#618Do you like the MacBook but don't like the OS? go ahead and change it, you can have triple boot. Tiny fonts and pop ups doesn't have anything to do with the machine you are going to buy (unless you also want the website). HP makes the elitebook, magnesium construction a la thinkpad. And last but not least I would like to give this entry the RAGE post award, nomination points for What I want is a computer with: -Decen…
> Rage score 9/10. LOL. Yes, that's fair. I was frustrated with Lenovo's website for all the reasons I described. > Bonus points for calling apple website an icon of web design when it weights almost 100mb. Apple's website is an icon of web design. It's 100MB not because of needless JS & ad tracker bloat, but because of high res images. Just look at it. It's gorgeous: http://www.apple.com/macbook/
What the hell is so gorgeous about that site?
It is slow to load, looks like garbage on mobile, is really jumpy on my desktop, and hides useful information within marketing mumbo-jumbo.
Thats is basically the opposite of gorgeous.
Re: We Need a Better PC
#619Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's nice, but I have a pretty long list of gripes that pretty much prevent me from buying one. Mushy keyboard. Average speakers. Lacklustre I/O port selection. Kinda average camera, despite its resolution. Headphone jack in a stupid place for laptop mode. No brightness controls on keyboard. Trackpad might look and feel nice, but it just isn't as good as the Mac's for palm rejection, and scrolling is still stuttery v…
> No brightness controls on keyboard. Recent discovery from my Surface Pro: You can adjust the brightness with Fn + Backspace and Fn + Del. Works with the Surface Book as well. Regarding multiple display ports, I think the SB was meant to be used with the dock for the "power user" mode. I quote like the ease of the docking capabilities even though I've had a few display issues with it when the machine resumes from sl…
Are there any similar shortcuts?
Re: We Need a Better PC
#620Earlier quoted context omitted.
You forgot the "Book" part. I guess its for branding.
You can add whatever you want to the end of its name; it's still confusing. This is probably one reason why the blog's author isn't aware of it.
Really? Any more confusing than all the Mac's being called Mac?
People get the difference between the Mac, Macbook, Macbook Air, Macbook Pro. Why is Surface, Surface Pro, Surfacebook any different?