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Personally I've spilled Coke through three T and W series keyboards and they worked perfectly fine, except for the fact that Coke is sticky and the keys started getting stuck. After the third time I realized there'd be a better way of handling this than manually removing all the keys and cleaning around the pads with my saliva.
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# ? Mar 29, 2014 21:38 |
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# ? Jun 4, 2024 09:22 |
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So I've been reading the thread for a couple of weeks and I wanted to bounce my ideas around here a bit. My requirements are to have a laptop that will let me work in Photoshop and Premiere. I don't need to make sci fi movies, but I am making business promo materials. I'm the "marketing/branding" guy in a retail shop, while also working in the store. So I've got to be able to move around and get up, and I can't reasonably set up a desktop in the store. I'm used to working all the promo materials from a desktop at a previous job, but now I have to be more mobile. After looking around, I'm leaning really heavily to a 15" Macbook Pro. The extra power and durability are very appealing to me, and the premium in features doesn't seem like it's that overpriced. I've never used OSX before, but I don't think it will be a problem. My question is whether to get the base 15" or get the higher tier with the discrete video card. Will the "Intel iris pro graphics 5200" allow me to edit video (DSLR footage with some basic motion graphics) and handle large photoshop files (photo manipulations/illustrations for posters). Will the lenovo T series thinkbooks have the graphics power I'm looking for? The W series just seems really heavy and bulky. All signs are pointing to me dropping 2-3K for a macbook as a "mobile content creator". Am I way off or something I'm overlooking?
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# ? Mar 29, 2014 22:47 |
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$1,649 for a Macbook Pro (13.3", 256GB HD, 16GB Ram). I just bought it. Decent deal, didn't pay sales tax or shipping. I couldn't really find a similar specced computer for significantly cheaper. I also couldn't of waited for an outlet deal since I don't have a laptop anymore.
5436 fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Mar 29, 2014 |
# ? Mar 29, 2014 22:50 |
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shrughes posted:Personally I've spilled Coke through three T and W series keyboards and they worked perfectly fine, except for the fact that Coke is sticky and the keys started getting stuck. After the third time I realized there'd be a better way of handling this than manually removing all the keys and cleaning around the pads with my saliva. Like pouring a bottle of water through it?
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# ? Mar 30, 2014 02:26 |
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shrughes posted:Personally I've spilled Coke through three T and W series keyboards and they worked perfectly fine, except for the fact that Coke is sticky and the keys started getting stuck. After the third time I realized there'd be a better way of handling this than manually removing all the keys and cleaning around the pads with my saliva. Do you have a normal standard of cleanliness?
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# ? Mar 30, 2014 03:23 |
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Hadlock posted:Like pouring a bottle of water through it? Like ordering a replacement part.
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# ? Mar 30, 2014 03:43 |
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shrughes posted:This is a typical outcome for the T, X, and W series, if you just hit the keyboard: After seeing this video on my phone, I checked for the spill holes on the bottom, looked for water under the keyboard, and booted it up. Well, looks like I made the right investment getting a W540, it didn't miss a beat. edit: shrughes posted:Like ordering a replacement part.
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# ? Mar 30, 2014 03:52 |
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While Lenovo design is pretty smart in that they have drain holes, don't ever remove your keyboard and wash it in the sink. Did just that a few years back to "clean a used keyboard." Basically, the trackpoint module filled with water and killed the entire thing. So yeah, a bit of water will drain but don't over do it.
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# ? Mar 30, 2014 05:56 |
Doesn't that mean that stuff would just drain onto your motherboard, or am I missing something? I can't imagine there's extra space in there for a false bottom or anything (in which case you'd probably prefer the keys have extra travel anyway). I feel like the ideal would be to just have a watertight seal between the keyboard and everything else, and then you replace the keyboard after a spill and everything else works fine nearly every time. edit: I know most keyboard trays aren't watertight anyway, so are drain holes just like a "well may as well make the best of a lovely design" kinda thing or what?
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# ? Mar 30, 2014 15:58 |
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Straker posted:Doesn't that mean that stuff would just drain onto your motherboard, or am I missing something? I can't imagine there's extra space in there for a false bottom or anything (in which case you'd probably prefer the keys have extra travel anyway). I feel like the ideal would be to just have a watertight seal between the keyboard and everything else, and then you replace the keyboard after a spill and everything else works fine nearly every time. Since there's a layer of rubber dome and only a ribbon cable that must jump a lip into the guts of the laptop, it's pretty simple to leave a free path from the bottom of the rubber substrate to an otherwise obsolete port, etc., etc. since port real estate is always changing on the side of a laptop.
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# ? Mar 30, 2014 16:10 |
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go3 posted:GPU-Z should tell you the die size and the architecture This is what I get If I'm reading this right, this article seems to indicate that the processor speed is in line with the Kepler 860M. They also claim that performance (although maybe not power consumption?) should be about the same between the two chips. Imaduck fucked around with this message at 19:16 on Mar 30, 2014 |
# ? Mar 30, 2014 19:12 |
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Imaduck posted:This is what I get Yeah thats the Kepler version. The Maxwell 860M will indeed offer much improved power consumption. I'm kinda perturbed that it is the only Maxwell 800 series mobile chip that will be available.
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# ? Mar 30, 2014 19:31 |
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So Samsung is doing a big media push with their new "Samsung SSD 840 EVO" series in the mSATA format. That is a SATA III (3) connection. It will do read/write operations at 400-500mb/s Just as a PSA, the mSATA port in Sandy Bridge (*20 class thinkpads) and Ivy Bridge (*30 class thinkpads) Thinkpads is only SATA II (2), which maxes out around 280mb/s Just in case you thought putting the latest and greatest in your laptop would give you the latest and greatest. Now, however, the primary, 2.5" disk in your Thinkpad is a SATA III drive. Only the mSATA is SATA II
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# ? Mar 30, 2014 20:34 |
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Hadlock posted:Just in case you thought putting the latest and greatest in your laptop would give you the latest and greatest. I guess if you use your T430 for uncompressed video editing and regularly move around 10GB+ files (hahahahah no) you might notice the difference, but short of that, it'll never show up anywhere other than a benchmark.
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# ? Mar 30, 2014 21:41 |
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AIIAZNSK8ER posted:So I've been reading the thread for a couple of weeks and I wanted to bounce my ideas around here a bit. My requirements are to have a laptop that will let me work in Photoshop and Premiere. I don't need to make sci fi movies, but I am making business promo materials. I'm the "marketing/branding" guy in a retail shop, while also working in the store. So I've got to be able to move around and get up, and I can't reasonably set up a desktop in the store. I'm used to working all the promo materials from a desktop at a previous job, but now I have to be more mobile. After looking around, I'm leaning really heavily to a 15" Macbook Pro. The extra power and durability are very appealing to me, and the premium in features doesn't seem like it's that overpriced. I've never used OSX before, but I don't think it will be a problem. The iris pro graphics are fine for doing advanced 2D content creation (Photoshop/Illustrator). I assume that video editing is more CPU intensive (although probably some of the filter rendering touches the GPU as well). I've been doing that kind of work (less on the video editing, more on the illustrator/photoshop side) on a 13" rMBP with 8GB of RAM and it handles it like a beast. If you don't need the discrete GPU for gaming or 3D editing (Maya or something), i'd stick with the iris pro and max out the RAM and SSD instead.
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# ? Mar 30, 2014 22:15 |
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Anyone with a T440s just have their fingerprint reader up and stop working after coming out of sleep, or even after just being left alone (not sleeping) for a while? Only thing I can think to do to fix it is to reboot. Overall I think I'm getting more and more disappointed with my T440s every month. Should have gone with something else.
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# ? Mar 30, 2014 22:21 |
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Martytoof posted:Anyone with a T440s just have their fingerprint reader up and stop working after coming out of sleep, or even after just being left alone (not sleeping) for a while? Only thing I can think to do to fix it is to reboot.
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# ? Mar 30, 2014 23:08 |
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Doctor rear end in a top hat posted:Does the light not come on at all or does it just not read? I'd imagine the one in my X240 is the same and I haven't had any problems with it. Light doesn't come on at all and it doesn't read. It's very hit or miss with its failure rate. It'll work great for weeks and then I'll lock my machine and get up to make some tea and it'll be offline. Now that I think about it, I didn't check device manager or event log so I guess that's my first troubleshooting step. Just wanted to see if anyone else had this recurring problem edit: Someone at notebookreview recommended I disable power management on the fingerprint reader in device manager which I'll try now.
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# ? Mar 30, 2014 23:12 |
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http://www.sagernotebook.com/index.php?page=category_browse&selected_cat=12 Has anyone ever purchased a laptop from Sager? I have a friend who swears by his because these things don't weigh two tons and don't poo poo out after six months. I'm considering a purchase from them but I don't really know how great these are, would like some more feedback if anyone has any experience with Sager or any advice based on the laptop specs. I'm looking into getting http://www.sagernotebook.com/index.php?page=product_info&model_name=NP2650 because it's cheap. I'm way behind on modern processor speeds/GPUs so I can't rightly determine how good this thing might be for running games in particular. I do play games on the move, LANs and other people's houses, so I prefer a laptop that can run my games. Nothing too high detail, a lot of LoL and Diablo 3, possibly some lovely MMO timesink in the future.
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# ? Mar 31, 2014 00:59 |
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DrDork posted:On the other hand, sky-high sequential read/write speeds are basically irrelevant for 95% of laptop users, and SATA 2 vs 3 doesn't negatively impact the No, but if option A is $65 and option B is $120, and both perform the same on the SATA II bus, you ought to be aware. I won't disagree that the SATA III isn't amazing, but you can buy max SATA II quality devices for half the price. Both will run the same for the average user, but why pay for what you can't use? That's the point I'm trying to make here.
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# ? Mar 31, 2014 01:12 |
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Who even sells SATA II drives that aren't mSATA these days?
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# ? Mar 31, 2014 01:48 |
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Zethrendel posted:
I just purchased a sager. Build quality is something that's important to me too. The research I did makes me optimistic, but not concretely sure how sturdy/long lasting the thing will be. A nitpick about the model you selected and your planned use is the video card - Intel HD 4600 is going to barely cut it right now, and just not in the future. I'd spring for something with a GTX 860m, or the Iris Pro. Here's a link a the review of the laptop I purchased, which can you some idea of the build quality of the brand. tacosupreme fucked around with this message at 02:44 on Mar 31, 2014 |
# ? Mar 31, 2014 02:23 |
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Hadlock posted:No, but if option A is $65 and option B is $120, and both perform the same on the SATA II bus, you ought to be aware. I won't disagree that the SATA III isn't amazing, but you can buy max SATA II quality devices for half the price. Both will run the same for the average user, but why pay for what you can't use? That's the point I'm trying to make here.
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# ? Mar 31, 2014 02:35 |
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Zethrendel posted:Has anyone ever purchased a laptop from Sager? If you're not sure what to look for stats-wise, a general "good enough for medium gaming for the next 2 years without breaking the bank" would be: an i5-4xxx CPU (i7's aren't worth the money, generally), either an Iris Pro 5200 (if you want thin-and-light) or a GF 850/860M (the 860 is noticeably more powerful--the Maxwell 860M version will give better battery life), and 8GB RAM. Either have it come with a SSD or plan to add one yourself after-market (128GB is fine if you have another larger HDD to go with it, 256GB+ if it'll be your only drive).
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# ? Mar 31, 2014 02:45 |
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Here is my one year review of my Sager NP9150 from Xoticpc.com if it helps anyone
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# ? Mar 31, 2014 03:53 |
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DrDork posted:Sager's get re-badged into many, many different brands, so you're in good company on that front. Sager is a rebadger, it's Clevos that get rebadged into Sager and other brands.
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# ? Mar 31, 2014 08:31 |
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So this seems like a pretty decent deal: http://www.microcenter.com/product/428754/U530_Touch_156_Ultrabook_Refurbished_-_Silver I don't care about the touch screen, but everything else looks good for what I'm trying to do. Now, I don't know how goons feel about Refurbs, but I'm just a little worried that there's so many refurbs of this model floating around out there. What would be the reason there's so many of them? All the reviews seem to be pretty good, but I hope they're not prone to spontaneous combustions or anything like that.
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# ? Mar 31, 2014 12:28 |
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Welp. Got my G750 w/ the 860M graphics card. Added a SSD and additional 8 GB RAM. Bought it at Best buy, so they offered to do the install and everything for me. I asked them to just wipe the OS install to give a clean install to remove bloatware, cache 60GB out of my SSD, and update all my drivers. Got it back yesterday. It runs like absolute poo poo. Taking it back today. I suspect they didn't get the drivers right...if I had to guess, the computer is running only on the IntelHD graphics, and not on the 860M. That thing benchmarks worse than my 2 year old laptop.
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# ? Mar 31, 2014 16:10 |
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Is there a difference in build quality between the Thinkpad and Ideapad Yogas?
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# ? Mar 31, 2014 18:32 |
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monster on a stick posted:Is there a difference in build quality between the Thinkpad and Ideapad Yogas? The Thinkpad Yoga feels significantly more sturdy than the Yoga 2 Pro. Internals, I can't say, but the externals seem quite different.
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# ? Mar 31, 2014 19:02 |
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skystream92 posted:Welp. Asking bestbuy to install your OS and drives sounds like the problem here.
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# ? Mar 31, 2014 20:31 |
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Is there a consensus on a PC alternative to an rMBP? I bought an rMBP that I have had nothing but horrible hardware issues with since December, and when I go to pick it up when they're done repairing it I'm going to fight with the manager to try to get a refund. Something portable with devent battery life, hi-res screen, and ideally killer build quality that can deal with being knocked around here and there. Before the rMBP I had a HP Elitebook Workstation, which was a tank but it weighs something like 8 pounds and only gets 90 minutes on a full charge.
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# ? Mar 31, 2014 21:33 |
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Gwaihir posted:Asking bestbuy to install your OS and drives sounds like the problem here. I guess so...I didn't think it would be that hard tbh. Doesn't help that this is the first time I'm using Windows 8.1, so I have no idea how to uninstall all the drivers and start over.
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# ? Mar 31, 2014 21:41 |
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Twiin posted:Is there a consensus on a PC alternative to an rMBP? I bought an rMBP that I have had nothing but horrible hardware issues with since December, and when I go to pick it up when they're done repairing it I'm going to fight with the manager to try to get a refund. What kind of hardware issues were you having? Genuinely curious because I've only had my rMBP for a month.
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# ? Mar 31, 2014 21:46 |
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z06ck posted:What kind of hardware issues were you having? Genuinely curious because I've only had my rMBP for a month. When a USB device is plugged in, eventually the USB controller will die and the trackpad and keyboard will become unresponsive.
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# ? Mar 31, 2014 21:48 |
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Twiin posted:Is there a consensus on a PC alternative to an rMBP? I bought an rMBP that I have had nothing but horrible hardware issues with since December, and when I go to pick it up when they're done repairing it I'm going to fight with the manager to try to get a refund. How about Lenovo T440S?
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# ? Mar 31, 2014 23:24 |
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snoozeallday posted:How about Lenovo T440S? Looks pretty solid! Although I'd like to go with a resolution higher than 1920x1080 if possible. The screen was one of the big selling points of the rMBP for me.
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# ? Mar 31, 2014 23:49 |
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Twiin posted:Looks pretty solid! Although I'd like to go with a resolution higher than 1920x1080 if possible. The screen was one of the big selling points of the rMBP for me. Be aware that scaling in Windows is not great, even in 8.1
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# ? Mar 31, 2014 23:53 |
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z06ck posted:Be aware that scaling in Windows is not great, even in 8.1 Ugh. That is really too bad.
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# ? Apr 1, 2014 00:25 |
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# ? Jun 4, 2024 09:22 |
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Twiin posted:Looks pretty solid! Although I'd like to go with a resolution higher than 1920x1080 if possible. The screen was one of the big selling points of the rMBP for me. I'll chime in here. I have a 15" rMBP and a T440s w/1080p touch. Do not worry about the resolution on the T440s. 1080p on a 14" screen is perfect (turn off scaling, run at native res). Unless you have the vision of a bald eagle or something, you will never see a single pixel. It's butter smooth and looks just as good as the rMBP. Or if you want the most ridiculous resolution on a Windows machine, get a Dell XPS 11. It's 11" and has a QHD screen. Talk about pixel density!
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# ? Apr 1, 2014 02:20 |