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Looking to buy a 15-17" Desktop replacement for my parents who run a restaurant and would be using it at home as well. Needs to have a decent screen as they watch a lot of movies on it, as well as be fast. Preferably, I'd like If I could chuck a SSD + normal disk drive in it for them. Mostly used for Office, emails, movies, facebook, etc. An i5/8 gb of ram is plenty. Build quality is important. Budget is around $1200 CAD. Ideally would be available at futureshop/bestbuy but I wouldn't be opposed to buying it online. e: Would 17 be better? My parents are both 50+ and their eye sight is kind of bad. RyceCube fucked around with this message at 14:19 on Dec 11, 2014 |
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Dec 11, 2014 14:15
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The Iron Rose posted:Literally nothing plays the New AC games well at all, and certainly nothing you're going to find in a laptop. The current top of the line desktop GPUs, a GTX 970 and a GTX 980 are barely sufficient to play Unity at 30 FPS and 1080p. An 860m, like is what is in a Lenovo Y50 (i.e. a midrange laptop GPU) is far below minimum requirements and will almost certainly be unable to play it at acceptable frame rates at all. Thanks. I actually forgot about unity, and was thinking of AC4 and Rogue  . I assume that doesn't really change the specs though (haven't looked at Unity's requirements). My main idea was that I wanted to be able to play mid-range games for a decent amount of time, and AC4 came to mind as "If it can run this, it will probably satisfy my non-open world needs for a while now". I'm slowly psyching myself up to have to drop close to 2k on this if I really want to do it right, I just keep hoping there will be some great deal where I won't have to pay macbook prices, as desktop->laptop switch is the single biggest expense between me and the road  .
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Dec 11, 2014 19:15
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surc posted:Thanks. I actually forgot about unity, and was thinking of AC4 and Rogue The y50 should be able to run AC4 and Rogue at 1080p on low-medium at around 30 FPS, but you might have to lower the resolution to 1600x900 to get an acceptable framerate or higher quality. On my old y410p I got around 30-40 FPS at 1600x900 with most settings on low. The Y50 has an 860m which is around twice as powerful, but since I have a desktop I haven't run many games on it. A laptop with a 970m if you can find it will almost double your performance. A 980m would be even better, but I'm not sure how easy it will be to find in the wild. If you can wait a month or two more should be available. E: Here's some benchmarks http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-970M.126694.0.html http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-860M.107794.0.html tl;dr find a 970m if you can. It bests a GTX 760, which is a very respectable medium-high end desktop GPU that can run most anything. A 980m will trump a GTX770, which is utterly insane for a laptop. You want future proofing? A 980m will serve you well - just be prepared to pay for it. e2: andandtech article http://www.anandtech.com/show/8585/nvidia-geforce-gtx-980m-970m-mobile-maxwell-gm204 The Iron Rose fucked around with this message at 20:06 on Dec 11, 2014 |
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Dec 11, 2014 19:50
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Cat Army 
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Awesome, that is basically exactly what I needed for context, and for direction. Time to get researching!
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Dec 11, 2014 20:38
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Although it wasn't a reply directed at my request, I looked up the Lenovo Y series and figure that the middle-of-the-road Y40 is about perfect for my needs. Thanks for the recommendation!
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Dec 11, 2014 21:22
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Nocheez posted:Although it wasn't a reply directed at my request, I looked up the Lenovo Y series and figure that the middle-of-the-road Y40 is about perfect for my needs. Thanks for the recommendation! It's worth noting that the GPU on the y40 is quite poor. I'd buy a used y410p over the y40. the y50 is far superior, if bigger. e: looking at your requirements I'd see if you can get the y50 from your work, and purchase an SSD aftermarket. You need to remove like, 12 screws to swap the two. The Iron Rose fucked around with this message at 21:39 on Dec 11, 2014 |
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Dec 11, 2014 21:36
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I bought a business and all the workstations are poo poo so I'm looking to get a laptop cause I get to work from home a lot now too. Any reason not to get a T440s i5/SSD/IPS? My biggest hangup is that there aren't any in town that I can demo so I'm flying blind as far as keyboard/keypad feel and build quality. Pros/Cons?
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Dec 11, 2014 22:22
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bizwank posted:I bought a business and all the workstations are poo poo so I'm looking to get a laptop cause I get to work from home a lot now too. Any reason not to get a T440s i5/SSD/IPS? My biggest hangup is that there aren't any in town that I can demo so I'm flying blind as far as keyboard/keypad feel and build quality. Pros/Cons? They only thing you need to worry about is the trackpad. If you're expecting something Apple-like you're going to be pissed. I can live with the touchpoint, I shut the trackpad off on my T420 and X220 anyway.
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Dec 11, 2014 22:34
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Bob Morales posted:They only thing you need to worry about is the trackpad. If you're expecting something Apple-like you're going to be pissed. I can live with the touchpoint, I shut the trackpad off on my T420 and X220 anyway. bizwank fucked around with this message at 22:50 on Dec 11, 2014 |
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Dec 11, 2014 22:41
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Mac touchpad drivers are slick as gently caress. The hardware is comparable, but the software decoding of where your fingers are / how many fingers are there / what movement means with regards to computer operation is hugely in favor of Macs.
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Dec 11, 2014 22:51
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bizwank posted:what exactly are the shortcomings of the Lenovo's? Is it so buggy as to be non-functional? You can sort of adjust to this by deliberately and exclusively using the extreme left and right bottom corner of the pad for those operations. Most of my clicking is simple left or right clicking anyway, so it's workable. Opinions on that and workarounds differ. It's far superior to the touchpad on my previous laptop so 
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Dec 11, 2014 23:09
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Well that doesn't sound so bad, sounds like the touchpad on my cr-48 chromebook and I used that just fine (until I couldn't fix the hinges anymore). Is there a vertical scroll area on the side of the touchpad? I don't need to do much click-dragging otherwise.
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Dec 11, 2014 23:18
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bizwank posted:Well that doesn't sound so bad, sounds like the touchpad on my cr-48 chromebook and I used that just fine (until I couldn't fix the hinges anymore). Is there a vertical scroll area on the side of the touchpad? I don't need to do much click-dragging otherwise.
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Dec 11, 2014 23:31
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Oh yeah, duh. I forgot how to laptop 
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Dec 11, 2014 23:37
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The one I have a problem with sometimes is the three finger press for middle click. It seems to work every time unless I have my fingers in a vertical line which isn't a problem unless I'm using it at an awkward angle.
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Dec 11, 2014 23:46
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I currently have a release day X200 C2D 4 gb with a 2011-era Crucial M4 SSD. Its 6.5 years old, a tank, and the best computer I've ever owned, but it's finally getting dim, buzzing at the CCFL, and working too slowly on things like Chrome (tabs are crashing consistently). I need something in a lightweight form factor, and with a good screen this time around. From a non-gaming, non-AV processing perspective, is the X1 Carbon on sale for $1000 at the Microsoft store website a good deal? Specs look good but for the 4gb of ram. The other price point competitors i see are the xps 13, yoga 2 pro, thinkpad yoga 12, and thinkpad yoga 14. I also could conceivably hobble along until broadwell.
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Dec 12, 2014 04:11
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http://laptoping.com/specs/product/lenovo-thinkpad-w541/ http://laptoping.com/specs/product/lenovo-thinkpad-w550s/ New Mobile Workstation with clicky button on top of the trackpad. Looks like thats the standard from now on.
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Dec 12, 2014 05:31
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I'm never getting my desktop-style island of Insert, Delete, Page Up/Down, etc. back, am I? That was one of the reasons I went to Thinkpads in the first place. Also, it looks to me like the 541 is much more the workhorse of the two. Is that correct?
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Dec 12, 2014 08:24
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Grundulum posted:I'm never getting my desktop-style island of Insert, Delete, Page Up/Down, etc. back, am I? The 550 looks like a dual-core only workstation  Re keyboard, there's clearly no room for an extra row of keys above the keyboard, so no:  
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Dec 12, 2014 11:00
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Is it simple to reverse the default on the top row to function keys?
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Dec 12, 2014 16:49
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bpower posted:Is it simple to reverse the default on the top row to function keys? Fn+Esc
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Dec 12, 2014 17:12
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I cannot fuckin wait for Skylake  until July/August 2015Maybe if the Surface Pro 4 uses Broadwell M/QM clocked at 1.5ghz+ I'll fall for that.
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Dec 13, 2014 00:35
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Do they have laptops with external GPUs yet? I remember that being a thing that was being showcased a few years back... wonder if it has actually ever come to market in any form. I'm looking to upgrade gaming laptops, since this Lenovo Y400 is a low quality piece of donkey poo poo [you get what you pay for] but gently caress, I hate buying gaming laptops since theyre so expensive for the given performance, but I have no choice really with this lifestyle.
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Dec 14, 2014 00:09
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EAB posted:Do they have laptops with external GPUs yet? I remember that being a thing that was being showcased a few years back... wonder if it has actually ever come to market in any form. Yeah there was a recently announced alienware one. It looks goofy and I'm not sure it's really more portable than a mini-itx system but here ya go: http://www.extremetech.com/computing/193000-the-alienware-graphics-amplifier-finally-desktop-quality-graphics-on-your-laptop
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Dec 14, 2014 00:16
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I really am not a fan of shopping for laptops but I have ended up helping my wife's mom find a replacement for her husband's ~5 year old laptop (not totally sure about the age but it came with Vista on it). According to her he just uses it for web surfing / stock trading, probably occasionally word/excel/outlook. His complaint is that it takes a long time to boot up and programs open slowly, I'm guessing he's accumulated a lot of garbage programs over the years slowing things down. If it were a desktop I'd say just back it up wipe the drive and throw a less terrible version of windows on it, but I've found that this can be a pain in the rear end on laptops. She says she doesn't want to spend a ton of money, and since the only real issue seems to be boot and program startup times, I'm thinking something with mid to lowish specs and a solid state drive would do the trick . The laptop wont be leaving the house ever really so I don't think it needs to be insanely durable. The tricky part is she would also like a 17"+ screen , which seems to limit options quite a bit so I may be able to talk her out of that. Any recommendations spring to mind for around $650 or less?
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Dec 14, 2014 05:49
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Can't you replace it with a desktop?
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Dec 14, 2014 06:10
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So I got my Y50 with the 15" 3Kx2K display, and am thoroughly enjoying (after finding the weird hidden option for "stop loving zooming everything what good is a high resolution display if you're just making everything look the same") having super insanely small text. It's done a good job of running everything I've tried it with so far (though I haven't tried any AAA games yet). Keyboard is pretty decent. But what the gently caress is up with this goddamn trackpad. First mistake, it's the stupid "no buttons" kind, which I can just barely tolerate on a macbook. But it's so much worse than the macbook one - first annoyance, the default "become unusable for a second after any key is pressed" setting, which is helpfully called something totally unrelated like "palm tracking". I eventually found that by trial and error. But then the default setting for right clicking is "two finger tap" except no, it's loving not, it's "have two fingers on the pad while you push it down until it clicks". I hate the big clunk noise of clicking these things. The macbook does actual two finger tap, but I couldn't find a setting for the Lenovo to detect actual taps (of two fingers - it does tap for regular click). It's also total poo poo at figuring out what movements I have made on the pad compared to a macbook one - very janky and unpredictable. I was really quite against the touchscreen model, but with this lovely trackpad I find myself wishing I'd shelled out for it now.
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Dec 14, 2014 08:59
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I haev a gigabyte p25 and its really strong but there is one problem with it, sometimes it loses focus on the window it is using IE if it's the internet browser it stops scrolling and I have to click it in order to get focus on it again and be able to scroll, which is fine, but it's annoying with games - computer is fast enough you can instantly re-maximise but still.. Seems to do it a few times at once every few hours. I think it might be the Nvidia updater or something like that, something that came with it, because I don't have much installed, anybody else had this problem and been able to fix it?
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Dec 14, 2014 16:12
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So, in response to the excellent comments earlier, I'm looking around at 970m and 980m machines for my "Want some future proofing and ability to game as well as work when I'm living out of a camper van". These both seem like pretty fantastic deals (only difference between them is 17" vs 15" IPS monitors), is there some "gotcha" I'm missing, or is it likely that these prices will not seem way less reasonable once the 980m's been out for a month or two? They also don't have great battery life, which is not great, but not something I really know how upgradable without explosions it is as a user. http://www.lpc-digital.com/sager-np8672-features.html http://www.lpc-digital.com/sager-np8652-features.html Also, how quickly do big jumps come out in laptop tech? This quote: DNK posted:I cannot fuckin wait for Skylake made me suddenly nervous about my ignorance on how quickly mobile tech is developing. I could push back my purchase somewhat if it was going to result in huge decreases in price or increases in capabilities, so I'm curious if that's the point it's at right now, or if there's a lot of cool things that come out that are awesome but will not really impact my experience that much as a non-laptop enthusiast. surc fucked around with this message at 17:23 on Dec 14, 2014 |
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Dec 14, 2014 17:16
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Well the "tick" of intel is a bit late. The Broadwell chips from intel should be out soon. Supposedly in January the thinkpads sporting the new chips will be introduced. Skylake, which is Intel's "tock" is supposedly a major innovation from what we have now but you'll have to wait for mid 2015 for it to even be announced, so good luck waiting.
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Dec 14, 2014 17:41
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'surc posted:So, in response to the excellent comments earlier, I'm looking around at 970m and 980m machines for my "Want some future proofing and ability to game as well as work when I'm living out of a camper van". These both seem like pretty fantastic deals (only difference between them is 17" vs 15" IPS monitors), is there some "gotcha" I'm missing, or is it likely that these prices will not seem way less reasonable once the 980m's been out for a month or two? They also don't have great battery life, which is not great, but not something I really know how upgradable without explosions it is as a user. fact is power is never going to be great on gaming laptops, and you're only ever really going to be gaming plugged in anyway. My Y50 lasts maybe 2 hours on max brightness internet browsing and the like. IF you need battery power buy a cheap chromebook or something. Um. If I were you I'd buy a Samsung 840 EVO aftermarket and put it in the laptop yourself, then clone your windows install over. It's pretty simple and tons of people have done it before. In addition it looks like there are multiple HDD bays in the 15 inch you've selected, so just clone the install to the SSD and change the boot order and you're set. I'd consider getting the CPU+GPU thermal paste upgrade, I remember hearing that it helped some folks keep temperatures down but I can't recall if it was that or the heatsinks... ah well. None of the other upgrades look worth it besides windows and maaaaybe the 16 gigs of ram. Don't fall for that kingston CL9 BS. IT will have absolutely no impact on your computer whatsoever. Consider a warranty if you're rough on computers. Up to you.
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Dec 14, 2014 17:57
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Ok, I'm looking for an upgrade over my Thinkpad X220. It should have a 14'' screen that's not 1378x768, a processor that's reasonably fast (i.e. not slower than a sandy bridge laptop i5), be portable with at least 4h of battery life under light use, and be built like a loving tank because it can and will get dropped/knocked around in a bag. Should I get a Thinkpad X440s, a X440p (the weight being halfway between the X440/X220 and my old heavy 2.7kg Asus craptop should be acceptable if it's the best laptop otherwise), a X1, or is a X430/X430s still viable?
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Dec 14, 2014 23:04
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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You mean the T440s or T440p, T430 or T430s. Heck, you could get a T420 if you wanted. All of those would be acceptable. I think the T440s is best.
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Dec 14, 2014 23:29
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sarehu posted:You mean the T440s or T440p, T430 or T430s. Ok, thanks. Looking at the pictures on the website the T440s looks like a slimmed down version of the T440p, will it be as durable as a T430 or a T440p? Does the X1 have any advantages apart from being slightly flatter and having a higher screen resolution?
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Dec 14, 2014 23:50
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blowfish posted:Ok, thanks. Looking at the pictures on the website the T440s looks like a slimmed down version of the T440p, will it be as durable as a T430 or a T440p? Maybe the T440p or T430 is more durable. It's hard to be sure, because internal forces are smaller when the T440s weighs less, but at least the inside screen bezel on the T440p isn't a sticker. The hard drive mounting system is better on the T440p and T440s than the T430, if you have a spinning disk. The waterproofing of the keyboard is better too (as if you should trust my opinion here). I don't really view the T440s as a slimmed down T440p. It's structurally a bit different on the inside -- take off the bottom and it's relatively open. The T440p is far more "tankish". blowfish posted:Does the X1 have any advantages apart from being slightly flatter and having a higher screen resolution? Two digital monitor outputs? Other than that, no, not really. I think the T440s is better to have than the X1 Carbon. The keyboard, ports, removable battery, are reasons. sarehu fucked around with this message at 00:26 on Dec 15, 2014 |
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Dec 15, 2014 00:23
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surc posted:Also, how quickly do big jumps come out in laptop tech? This quote: Broadwell is going to have a short lifespan as a chipset due to issues it had during development. Skylake was pretty far into development when Broadwell finally got its 14nm process jitters done with, so the Broadwell-exclusive timeline will be very short (less than 1 year compared to the usual ~2yrs). Broadwell is, overall, a very mediocre upgrade over Haswell with the (still very exciting) biggest change being the 14nm process and not anything directly performance related. In fact, most of the performance aspects will be worse. Lower clock speed (for the same price), lower GPU performance (despite being 5xxx codes)... but drastically more efficient power consumption and thermal use. This can mean better real-use performance due to a lack of heat-related CPU throttling. The Broadwell line will absolutely crush their older Haswell competition in the fanless/ultra-portable markets due to these power/thermal advantages. Skylake is the sexy new thing that's going to give huge performance AND power/thermal advantages, and that's coming very shortly after Broadwell. It's the second generation of 14nm process that didn't have to go through production debugging. Broadwell is going to (almost certainly) be the flagship CPU for the Surface Pro 4 despite Skylake being so soon, so still expect some great things out of Intel's twilight chipset. DNK fucked around with this message at 05:36 on Dec 15, 2014 |
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Dec 15, 2014 05:32
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So I like the X1 Carbon. The issue I have is really more of a Windows issue. Scaling for high dpi displays just flat out sucks balls, even in Win 8.1. It's so inconsistent. In some stuff it looks really nice, and in other programs it's a complete mess, steam or skype for instance. Is Microsoft ever going to fix this? It seems like this should be a top priority for Windows 10, considering many $1000+ laptops now ship with high dpi displays, including the Surface. It seems like Apple has it all figured out. Why is Microsoft so far behind? Why focus on a fruity tile interface no one uses when something as basic as UI scaling is broken? Cheap, common 4K+ displays are probably coming in the next five years, and Windows is absolutely not ready.
Dick Fagballzson fucked around with this message at 17:50 on Dec 15, 2014 |
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Dec 15, 2014 17:32
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Technically, UI scaling in windows is not broken. It's the apps that are broken since they do their own thing rather than obey the Windows settings. Granted, some of Microsofts own apps are guilty of this as well.
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Dec 15, 2014 17:51
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Would scaling on Mac be broken for old PowerPC apps, if you could still run them?
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Dec 15, 2014 17:59
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Dick Fagballzson posted:So I like the X1 Carbon. The issue I have is really more of a Windows issue. Scaling for high dpi displays just flat out sucks balls, even in Win 8.1. It's so inconsistent. In some stuff it looks really nice, and in other programs it's a complete mess, steam or skype for instance. Is Microsoft ever going to fix this? It seems like this should be a top priority for Windows 10, considering many $1000+ laptops now ship with high dpi displays, including the Surface. It seems like Apple has it all figured out. Why is Microsoft so far behind? Why focus on a fruity tile interface no one uses when something as basic as UI scaling is broken? Cheap, common 4K+ displays are probably coming in the next five years, and Windows is absolutely not ready. Yea, this is entirely up to application developers to handle (or not handle, as the case may be). Some programs work great, and then some are from Adobe. http://anandtech.com/show/7939/scaling-windows-the-dpi-arms-race is a decent article to explain what goes on. In the end, when the majority of your users are using shitbox 1366 * 768 displays, developers just don't end up spending the time to do it right. High DPI displays are becoming more common, but you'd better believe that the vast majority of stuff out there is still low res dogshit. The stuff that isn't low res crap is mostly tables, which have much stricter approaches as far as what apps can do on their own.
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Dec 15, 2014 22:41
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