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MarquisDeCarabas posted:I'm uninformed...what the hell are Chromebooks? So yeah, if you want to run full-blown Office, you don't want a Chromebook.
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Oct 19, 2014 18:28
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Quad posted:Will the new Chromebook 2 work with SDxC cards?
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Oct 19, 2014 18:33
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Bob Morales posted:You don't want a Chromebook then. ExcessBLarg! posted:They're cheap laptops that basically just run the Chrome web browser and Chrome apps. Hardware-wise they're generally better than the equivalently cheap Windows laptops, but they don't run Windows or Windows applications. Thanks y'all. Let me amend my question, then. Any recommendations for a laptop that is lightweight, has a long battery life, will run Microsoft Office, and is less than $500? I just need it for doing homework (nothing intensive, no need for Photoshop or anything like that), watching cat videos, browsing the internet, etc.
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Oct 19, 2014 19:42
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MarquisDeCarabas posted:Thanks y'all. Let me amend my question, then. Any recommendations for a laptop that is lightweight, has a long battery life, will run Microsoft Office, and is less than $500? Best Buy has an Acer that I think has an i3 and touch for a low enough price that you can buy Office and still be around $500 after tax.
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Oct 19, 2014 20:35
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Acer always easily beats their competitors' prices for equivalent models from what I've seen. They must be cutting corners somewhere but who knows.
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Oct 19, 2014 21:29
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The Lenovo Thinkpad x140e is kinda nice, a bit tiny, but extremely durable, nice batter life, and available refurbished on their outlet site for like 300 or less. I ended up with the one with an upgraded processor, 4GB of ram, and an SSD for 300 including taxes and shipping. It's not the most powerful, but it's a good little machine.
everythingWasBees fucked around with this message at 23:38 on Oct 19, 2014 |
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Oct 19, 2014 23:35
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I'm considering a i5-4210U, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD Yoga 2 Pro for its ability to turn into a (clumsy) tablet for $1250 CAD ($1100 USD). The only thing that would change my mind is if I could find better value in terms of performance OR a bigger screen, but I don't think there are tablet-transformable 15" laptops. Just one last check before I pull the trigger! (This is for my dad, by the way. I already own a Y2P. In case you have an incredible memory and remember me posting about this last year.) 
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Oct 20, 2014 14:22
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MarquisDeCarabas posted:Thanks y'all. Let me amend my question, then. Any recommendations for a laptop that is lightweight, has a long battery life, will run Microsoft Office, and is less than $500? Is a Surface RT out of the question? Buddy got one for his mom because it came with Office for free. She does Facebook and her church's finances and types up their weekly bulletins and he said it was a great idea for her.
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Oct 20, 2014 15:04
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MarquisDeCarabas posted:Thanks y'all. Let me amend my question, then. Any recommendations for a laptop that is lightweight, has a long battery life, will run Microsoft Office, and is less than $500? Do you want a netbook? The ASUS Transformer Book T100 looks like a pretty good fit for what you want, and is among the best of the cheap bay trail tablets.
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Oct 20, 2014 15:46
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internet inc posted:I'm considering a i5-4210U, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD Yoga 2 Pro for its ability to turn into a (clumsy) tablet for $1250 CAD ($1100 USD).
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Oct 20, 2014 22:23
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Karthe posted:I don't suppose you can talk me out of getting one, can you? I have a perfectly functional 15" Toshiba that I picked up less than six months ago but after researching the Y2P I can't shake the desire to replace the Toshiba with one. I know from personal experience that Windows is an awful tablet OS but I keep telling myself that the Tent and Stand modes would come in handy for presenting stuff to people and consuming media while in-flight during trips. Does the Y2P have any additional utility over a traditional laptop? I like to be able to browse the internet while in bed/on the couch without having a keyboard laptop in the way or use the tent mode when I'm cooking. I'll give you that Windows isn't quite ready for touch functions, though. I hate the start screen menu and have disabled it because it's so counter-intuitive, enough that I don't even want use any of the Windows Store Apps. Also, I use Foxit to take notes on PowerPoint presentations and it just doesn't work with touch commands. All in all, I almost never use the touchscreen/tablet mode except when I'm in bed or on the couch. It's still pretty useful but not in a Surface Pro kind of way. I wish I had bought a convertible laptop with a digitizer or something.  It's still a great machine but not much of a touchscreen monster.
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Oct 20, 2014 23:04
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Saw this on the Lenovo outlet for $1040 and was thinking of snatching it up. Carrying around, movie watching, Photoshop, light games (dota2 kind of stuff), Office. I'd grab another stick of RAM. Nothing really intensive. Thoughts? ThinkPad T440s - New Condition Part number: 20AQ004GUS Processor: Intel® Core™ i5-4300U processor (2 cores, 1.90GHz, 3MB cache) Operating system: Windows 8 Professional 64 - English Display: 14.0" FHD (1920 X 1080) MultiTouch LED backlight, IPS w/720p HD Camera Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 4400 Memory: 4GB PC3-12800 1600MHz DDR3L / soldered to systemboard Hard Drive: 256GB SATA 2.5" Solid State Drive Optical Drive: No Optical Included
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Oct 20, 2014 23:08
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Does anybody here have a good sense for what exactly is bloatware and what you should keep? It's a Lenovo Thinkpad X140e, and I'm trying to free up some space. http://pastebin.com/KY9hyFjw
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Oct 21, 2014 17:13
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I've got a Lenovo Y500, and I'm ready to make the jump to SSD, and also to replace my DVD drive with the 1TB HDD the machine shipped with. The "official" caddy from Lenovo is $115, but there are plenty knock offs online for ~$20. Has anyone used any of these and know which ones work and which don't? E: This one seems like the best bet, because it uses the plastic around the old ODD to blend in with the laptop, a problem which no other sites seem to acknowledge http://hddcaddy.com/en/lenovo-ibm-hdd-caddy/143-lenovo-ideapad-y500-hdd-caddy.html
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Oct 21, 2014 18:42
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FISHMANPET posted:I've got a Lenovo Y500, and I'm ready to make the jump to SSD, and also to replace my DVD drive with the 1TB HDD the machine shipped with. The "official" caddy from Lenovo is $115, but there are plenty knock offs online for ~$20. Has anyone used any of these and know which ones work and which don't? There is a post somewhere in this thread that discusses this issue. However, I am not sure if a specific product is actually recommended in that post. I researched this issue once, and I also found that the #1 complaint was a lack of 'flushness' against the laptop case where the optical drive bezel used to be. I "think" that some of the aftermarket products will actually let you clip your existing bezel onto their product. The best advice may be to read Amazon customer reviews.
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Oct 21, 2014 20:51
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I've had a y50 for a few weeks now and overall I am very happy with it. I have already upgraded to a sdd (which I would have done for any laptop) and the one remaining issue was the screen. It's not as bad as I've read it is but it's still a kind of washed out TN panel. I ordered a replacement IPS screen on ebay and replaced it in about 5 minutes and the difference is night and day. This new screen is amazing and I can see myself getting good use out of this laptop for a long time. If you're on the fence about a y50 and concerned about the screen then I think it really is worth the effort of changing it out.
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Oct 21, 2014 23:20
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everythingWasBees posted:Does anybody here have a good sense for what exactly is bloatware and what you should keep? It's a Lenovo Thinkpad X140e, and I'm trying to free up some space. I'd recommend reconfiguring the Lenovo stuff to your liking from within the software and leaving it alone otherwise. There's some useful stuff in there and also some less obvious interdependencies. Some can be uninstalled, but it's hard to tell what exactly because there isn't like one universal package for all Lenovo computers, so some things I have no idea what they are. You can google each one of them, but they don't take up a lot of space anyway.
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Oct 21, 2014 23:51
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schemie posted:I've had a y50 for a few weeks now and overall I am very happy with it. I have already upgraded to a sdd (which I would have done for any laptop) and the one remaining issue was the screen. It's not as bad as I've read it is but it's still a kind of washed out TN panel. How hot does this thing get? Could you feasibly play any games with the laptop actually in your lap without your legs burning or getting uncomfortably hot?
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Oct 22, 2014 05:03
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schemie posted:I've had a y50 for a few weeks now and overall I am very happy with it. I have already upgraded to a sdd (which I would have done for any laptop) and the one remaining issue was the screen. It's not as bad as I've read it is but it's still a kind of washed out TN panel. Could you link me the replacement screen you bought? Did you need any special tools to make the switch? I have a y410p which I really like, but it'd be interesting to get a better screen for it. Speaking of upgrades, is there any way to buy a better battery for my y410p? This thing barely lasts 2 hours on regular use. Maybe 3 if I turn the brightness all the way down.
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Oct 22, 2014 16:20
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Zarfol posted:How hot does this thing get? Could you feasibly play any games with the laptop actually in your lap without your legs burning or getting uncomfortably hot? It gets warm but not not uncomfortably so after gaming for a while. The most hardware intensive game I've played so far is skyrim with a bunch of mods going and haven't had an issue. Other than that I haven't really stress tested it. I'll grab some benchmarking tools and see how hot I can make it tonight and report back. Ur Getting Fatter posted:Could you link me the replacement screen you bought? This is the screen I picked up. Here is the detailed information about it. AHVA is the same thing as IPS. The main concern I had going into it was the 25ms response time. I haven't noticed any ghosting in practice. I found a couple screen compatible with the y410p here. Replacing the y50 screen was super easy with no special tools. I'm not sure about the y410p. schemie fucked around with this message at 19:25 on Oct 22, 2014 |
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Oct 22, 2014 16:38
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So the OP seems to be fairly out of date, maybe you guys can make a recommendation. My wife needs a new laptop. Budget is around $500, but she could go higher if it made a huge difference. She needs Windows, at least a dual core processor, at least 4GB ram, at least 500GB hard drive space. She needs to run a CAD program such as Solidworks or SprutCAM, and graphics editing such as photoshop/illustrator. RAM upgradeability is a good idea too. Her previous laptop still works: it's a eMachines E627 and its performance has gotten pretty bad, with successive windows updates and such. I've cleaned off some malware and that made a big difference, but videos run really choppy, and with only 2GB of RAM it bogs down whenever she tries to do her CAD work. She'd prefer Windows 7 over 8, and touchscreen is not needed. It does not need to be especially portable: it spends most of its time on a desk, and then occasionally taken in a big backpack to a meeting or whatever. It also is usually plugged in, so battery life is not crucial either. She does need to be able to burn DVDs/CDs as well. She found a Lenovo E540 on Amazon for $465.50, which seems like it'd hit most of the above, except that it's running Win8 Pro. Is that a good option? edit: she also found a Lenovo G50 which seems similar except is has the core i5 4210u, for $448 on a 2-day sale at Fry's. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 21:27 on Oct 22, 2014 |
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Oct 22, 2014 20:31
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Leperflesh posted:She found a Lenovo E540 on Amazon for $465.50, which seems like it'd hit most of the above, except that it's running Win8 Pro. Is that a good option? I'll tell you this much: the full hd screen they offer for the E540 is garbage and the hinges are getting awfully wobbly after a couple of months now. I also have a bunch of problems that just might be me with the wifi+bluetooth, getting the thing to sleep, getting it to wake up properly and occasionally perfectly random instant shutdowns (even when not touching the laptop at the time, so it's not the battery not being fitted properly or something like that). I can't in good faith recommend it, based on the build quality alone.
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Oct 22, 2014 21:46
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Leperflesh posted:So the OP seems to be fairly out of date, maybe you guys can make a recommendation. Something like this maybe? http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Precis...=item4add89dc26 17", but it has a warranty till 2015 and decent specs (i7, workstation graphics, dvd drive, OK keyboard/build quality). Probably spent its working life in a drawing office somewhere so I doubt it'll be too messed up aside from a pool of draughtsman's tears under the space bar. Chas McGill fucked around with this message at 22:03 on Oct 22, 2014 |
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Oct 22, 2014 21:55
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I'm looking for a decent alternative to the Yoga 2 pro. For reasons too long to get into, Lenovo and Acer are both on my shitlist and I'd prefer to avoid both. I'm looking for a workhorse ultrabook. i5, 8GB+ ram, 256GB+ ssd. 1080p+ res. 13-14". Price flexible. Most importantly, I'd like something stable from a company that provides decent, ongoing firmware and driver support (unlike Lenovo and its yoga 2 pro  ).The surface 3 pro is on my list. Any others worth considering?
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Oct 22, 2014 22:13
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Flipperwaldt posted:Can't offer you better suggestions, but saying E540 doesn't really say much about the internals, so nobody will be able to tell if it's any good for CAD. Oh, sorry, I should have guessed the model number wasn't enough. It's this one. Here's the G50 at Fry's. quote:I'll tell you this much: the full hd screen they offer for the E540 is garbage and the hinges are getting awfully wobbly after a couple of months now. I also have a bunch of problems that just might be me with the wifi+bluetooth, getting the thing to sleep, getting it to wake up properly and occasionally perfectly random instant shutdowns (even when not touching the laptop at the time, so it's not the battery not being fitted properly or something like that). That's really discouraging, the OP seemed to be saying Lenovo ThinkPads were the well-made, NASA-qualified best laptops these days. Chas McGill posted:I'd look for 2yr old Dell Precisions or something. I was using one at work for exactly that sort of software and it could still do the job. Got an upgrade because I was offered one recently, but if she isn't doing anything too crazy you could probably look at older models. The newer Precisions are actually much worse in terms of build quality. That's higher than she wanted to pay, and I'm leery of used laptops. The six month warranty is a nice mitigating factor though. We'll take a look at Precisions.
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Oct 22, 2014 22:21
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Leperflesh posted:
The qualifier is X, T, W - the Edge range was never considered a real ThinkPad. Even the traditional Thinkpads aren't as well regarded as they used to be - general consensus is build quality is sliding with each new model.
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Oct 22, 2014 22:37
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Leperflesh posted:That's higher than she wanted to pay, and I'm leery of used laptops. The six month warranty is a nice mitigating factor though. We'll take a look at Precisions.
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Oct 22, 2014 22:59
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Lenovo outlet has Thinkpad 2 Pro Yogas with 1080p screen i5 and 8gb ram + stylus for $700 Woot has Dell 15" 1080p IPS touchscreen for $600, i5 & 12GB ram
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Oct 23, 2014 00:11
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I need a laptop. It needs to have at least a 14" display, HDMI port, and decent webcam. Preferably no touchscreen. Used for home/business/very light gaming. Budget is 600 bucks. I was looking at a T430 but it doesn't have the important HDMI port and supposedly the E540 is irredeemably a piece of poo because of its bad display. Help me goons.
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Oct 23, 2014 00:40
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Mini-Display Port (mDP) to HDMI adapters are about a buck at any online retailer and HDMI-mDP cables are pretty common as well
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Oct 23, 2014 00:58
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What's the thought on buying a used laptop off ebay? I'm trying to get something with a decent resolution, light--under 4 lbs, and 12-14 " screen. Looks like a lot of T430s and x230s get recycled through there, but the resolution on them sucks. Anyone go this route? Am I asking for trouble other than having to wash a little semen off it, and probably needing a new battery? Looks like a x230 i5/8gb/500GB can be had around $425 or so in good condition.
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Oct 23, 2014 03:23
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Hadlock posted:Mini-Display Port (mDP) to HDMI adapters are about a buck at any online retailer and HDMI-mDP cables are pretty common as well I couldn't find one that shipped to Canada for less than 25 bucks.
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Oct 23, 2014 03:35
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Is anyone waiting on the Thinkpad Yoga 14? I have been waiting for a machine that balances battery, power, graphics, and tablet-ness in a 14 inch form factor for a while now. I have been waiting for reviews to drop and, admittedly, was disappointed by some of the early reviews of the Yoga 3 Pro. So the Thinkpad comes equipped with a 840M. I've done a bit of reading on it and it sounds like it should be able to play games at medium/high on a medium/high resolution. I think that is adequate for me. I don't know of another 14" machine at this pricepoint that has the same balance of features. Anyone have thoughts on this 'puter, or have ideas for what to expect when it drops at the end of the month? My 12" Pavillion dm1 is about to crumble to dust under my fingers at this point.
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Oct 23, 2014 03:47
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Here's one on ebay canada for approx $2 shipped, third result when i searched for "mini display port to hdmi" http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Mini-Display...=item4189174f27 This looks identical to the one I have plugged in to my X230 right now.
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Oct 23, 2014 03:49
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Leperflesh posted:I'm leery of used laptops. Don't be. If you look carefully you can find a great deal. All my laptops I bought used and work perfectly. I bought a Precision M4400 a while back for a great price.. in warranty. This Vaio Z12 I'm using right now, and so on. Business-class machines such as Latitudes and Precisions are usually a pretty solid bet, and they're always really easy to work on and find parts for. HalloKitty fucked around with this message at 07:20 on Oct 23, 2014 |
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Oct 23, 2014 07:09
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HalloKitty posted:Don't be. If you look carefully you can find a great deal. All my laptops I bought used and work perfectly. I bought a Precision M4400 a while back for a great price.. in warranty. This Vaio Z12 I'm using right now, and so on.
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Oct 23, 2014 10:13
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Chas McGill posted:Most likely they'll have been sitting on a dock with the lid down, connected to two huge monitors. I haven't known anyone to take a Precision home with them or to a site. They're just too heavy. Describes my old Latitude D800 to a t. It was sat in a docking station, beautiful 1920x1200 screen never used, by some finance manager. I grabbed it as the machines were being replaced. Still works, use it as my car diagnostics machine. Upgraded a few bits, mind, but it was worth doing in the day - well-heeled companies refresh poo poo for no reason; yet poor ones don't even when the machines are swapping all day long.
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Oct 23, 2014 13:33
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Bigntasty posted:What's the thought on buying a used laptop off ebay? I'm trying to get something with a decent resolution, light--under 4 lbs, and 12-14 " screen. Looks like a lot of T430s and x230s get recycled through there, but the resolution on them sucks. Anyone go this route? Am I asking for trouble other than having to wash a little semen off it, and probably needing a new battery? I'm okay with it for the most part.
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Oct 23, 2014 13:37
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My boss's laptop is dying and he's looking for a replacement that he can "run over with (his) truck" like he did with the current one (T420). My first thought was whatever the updated Thinkpad T series was but from what I read in the OP it seems like they don't have the same build quality that the old ones do. Use cases will be document editing, web browsing, no gaming so integrated graphics should be fine. A 13"-14" screen would be ideal but 15" isn't out of the question.
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Oct 23, 2014 19:46
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I've been given approval to buy myself a new laptop for work and don't have to cheap out for once so I've been looking at Lenovo's models that have digitizers. My usage will be office stuff like documents/spreadsheets, some digital art and photo editing, and general entertainment like videos and maybe some light gaming. I don't do a *lot* of photo editing or sketching for work but do enough that I dug out my old Graphire and took it to work, but mainly I'll probably end up using it for doodling through boring meetings  To that end I was looking at the ThinkPad Yoga but wondered about waiting around for the new Helix instead. Also I have read mixed things about i5 vs i7 in the Yoga re: performance and power consumption and was wondering if it was worth getting the i7.
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Oct 24, 2014 01:32
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