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My classes usually don't last for more than 2-3 hours at any given stretch, and I play mostly indie and mid-level games with the very rare "big" release. My budget is absolutely max $1000, preferably under $750. As far as battery life goes, my current computer's is under 3 hours, so anything's a step up really.
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Jun 23, 2015 18:19
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Chic Trombone posted:My classes usually don't last for more than 2-3 hours at any given stretch, and I play mostly indie and mid-level games with the very rare "big" release. My budget is absolutely max $1000, preferably under $750. Grab a lenovo y50. They usually go on sales every other week and you can get one for around that price. It'll last you ~3 hours if you turn the brightness all the way down and the GPU can comfortably handle mid level games and can sorta skate by on the rare big releases. Alternatively buy a chromebook or HP stream 11 and save up for a laptop or desktop that'll run games.
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Jun 23, 2015 18:25
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The Iron Rose posted:Grab a lenovo y50. They usually go on sales every other week and you can get one for around that price. It'll last you ~3 hours if you turn the brightness all the way down and the GPU can comfortably handle mid level games and can sorta skate by on the rare big releases. Does anyone ever actually use an electronic device for note taking? Back in the stone age, if someone had a laptop out during class you could assume they weren't paying attention to lecture. Anyone taking notes used calculation paper. If you have the room, I'd say just spend $500-$600 building a desktop that can play games and buy an hp-stream for classes. You would be surprised how capable it is. Edit: I am the recent owner of an x205ta, and it has about a 10 hour battery life. As long as you don't open a ton of tabs, it's fine.
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Jun 23, 2015 18:42
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Wintering Stinkbug posted:BestBuy had the x205ta open box for $125 today so I picked one up. After you uninstall mcaffee and disable every non essential service you get the base ram usage down to 32%. I'm including windows update and defender as non essential, so YOLO. I've read some vague allusions that creating a usb restore key, deleting all the partitions, and then restoring shrinks the on emmc restore partition by 4gb, so I might try it out tomorrow. If you could rank the playability of each of those games (and whatever else you installed) on like a scale of 1 to 5, I would be interested to hear, and then add it to the OP as a lot of people seem to think you need some $1700 fire breathing gaming laptop to play anything that costs more than $5 on Steam
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Jun 23, 2015 18:46
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Wintering Stinkbug posted:Does anyone ever actually use an electronic device for note taking? Back in the stone age, if someone had a laptop out during class you could assume they weren't paying attention to lecture. Anyone taking notes used calculation paper. I'm pretty regular in the PC Building thread and I'd say it's closer to $800 to get a nicer build, but either way you're getting way more out of a PC than you are a laptop. And you can build pretty small desktops these days. Hadlock posted:If you could rank the playability of each of those games (and whatever else you installed) on like a scale of 1 to 5, I would be interested to hear, and then add it to the OP as a lot of people seem to think you need some $1700 fire breathing gaming laptop to play anything that costs more than $5 on Steam Cost doesn't have anything to do with it. Integrated graphics are fine for Civ 5, darkest dungeons, rogue legacy, starbound and minecraft. What they're not fine for is Skyrim, GTA, Xcom, the Assassin's Creed games and so on. You can play indie games and that's about it on integrated and low end GPUs. You need serious grunt to play at 30+fps@1080p, even for games that came out years ago. poo poo my 860m had trouble playing Modern Warfare 2 at the highest settings. Something like Dying Light or GTA5 I'm lucky if I can get 30FPS @ low settings @ 1080p. The Iron Rose fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Jun 23, 2015 |
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Jun 23, 2015 18:50
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The Iron Rose posted:I'm pretty regular in the PC Building thread and I'd say it's closer to $800 to get a nicer build, but either way you're getting way more out of a PC than you are a laptop. There is this weird belief today that anything less than 1080p and 60fps is unplayable. Maybe I can accept less than that because I'm old and I remember when 800x600 with an mp3 decoding in the background was god tier.
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Jun 23, 2015 20:49
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The Iron Rose posted:Cost doesn't have anything to do with it. Integrated graphics are fine for Civ 5, darkest dungeons, rogue legacy, starbound and minecraft. What they're not fine for is Skyrim, GTA, Xcom, the Assassin's Creed games and so on. I had an ivy bridge Inspiron a couple years back, with Intel HD4000 and a 1366x768 screen, that I played Skyrim (vanilla + unofficial patches + SkyUI), XCOM, and Assassin's Creed 1, 2, and Brotherhood on, all on medium settings. It obviously wasn't 1080p, and I have no idea what the frame rates were, but it was enough that I thought they played smoothly (so I'm guessing ~25-30), except when there was a bunch of fire on the map in XCOM. No, it's not at all ideal. Still, I think it's not nearly as bad as you're constantly making it out to be. I mean, for someone whose absolute minimum is 60fps on medium settings, sure, integrated won't ever do, but for someone okay with medium or low at around 30fps, it should be perfectly serviceable.
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Jun 23, 2015 20:58
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Hadlock posted:If you could rank the playability of each of those games (and whatever else you installed) on like a scale of 1 to 5, I would be interested to hear, and then add it to the OP as a lot of people seem to think you need some $1700 fire breathing gaming laptop to play anything that costs more than $5 on Steam I've got a google docs spreadsheet I'm working on for my shameful reddit post in /r/lowendgaming. Playable to me means ~28fps with dips. Loading times are fairly long because I was using an external hard drive via usb2. Civ V was go make a sandwich did it freeze long. If it can be disabled through normal settings, assume it has been. Draw distances were left at medium low. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cA1pd6ep-RVU7jO9lJy2lndipu_KjqYAUIXVTfSKKiI/edit?usp=sharing As far as other software, I do my "work" through putty mostly. If there is anything (free) you would like me to try, just ask. Edit significant type. Playable is 28, not 38. keymaster02 fucked around with this message at 21:13 on Jun 23, 2015 |
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Jun 23, 2015 21:05
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Okay, 8 months ago I was talked into a gaming desktop by this thread. Now my dad is sick and I'm traveling in and out of New Jersey all the time. I need a cheap laptop. It needs the following things: - wireless internet - microsoft word - skype capabilities Suggestions?
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Jun 23, 2015 21:07
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dj_clawson posted:Okay, 8 months ago I was talked into a gaming desktop by this thread. Now my dad is sick and I'm traveling in and out of New Jersey all the time. I need a cheap laptop. It needs the following things: x205ta, $180 at Microsoft store with word. Might still be on sale for $150 at best buy (doesn't include word).
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Jun 23, 2015 21:11
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Wintering Stinkbug posted:x205ta, $180 at Microsoft store with word. Might still be on sale for $150 at best buy (doesn't include word). Can I install Word or is this one of those computers where you can't change anything without hacking it?
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Jun 23, 2015 21:15
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dj_clawson posted:Can I install Word or is this one of those computers where you can't change anything without hacking it? It has a limited eMMC drive, there is about 12GB free. apart from that limitation I have been able to install whatever I want. (runs windows 8). Edit: Best buy has them on display if you want to go look at it. keymaster02 fucked around with this message at 21:26 on Jun 23, 2015 |
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Jun 23, 2015 21:17
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Wintering Stinkbug posted:It has a limited eMMC drive, there is about 12GB free. apart from that limitation I have been able to install whatever I want. (runs windows 8).
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Jun 23, 2015 21:44
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Wintering Stinkbug posted:There is this weird belief today that anything less than 1080p and 60fps is unplayable. Maybe I can accept less than that because I'm old and I remember when 800x600 with an mp3 decoding in the background was god tier. Well, considering your monitor is probably going to be 1080p that part is important. You don't want to have to run half that.
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Jun 23, 2015 23:14
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Uziel posted:Can you easily replace the eMMC drive?
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Jun 23, 2015 23:30
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Flipperwaldt posted:Not a chance.
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Jun 23, 2015 23:57
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Got it off Best Buy, $150, free shipping, $13 in taxes. Thanks for the help!
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Jun 24, 2015 00:09
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The Iron Rose posted:I'm pretty regular in the PC Building thread and I'd say it's closer to $800 to get a nicer build, but either way you're getting way more out of a PC than you are a laptop. If money is really tight you can commit thread blasphemy and cut corners to get a good GPU in, such as a cheap plastic case, H81 motherboard, i5-4460 CPU, small HDD or SSD only etc. Then go for a on sale/heavily rebated 290 and you can fit a 1080p Ultra build into around the $600 budget. Reddit r/buildapc loves these sorts of builds. You will have an ugly/loud-ish/low expansion computer but it is doable.
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Jun 24, 2015 00:20
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Aphrodite posted:Well, considering your monitor is probably going to be 1080p that part is important. You don't want to have to run half that. a 23" 1080p monitor has about the same pixel density as 19" 900p. You can letterbox. Or I guess enjoy the fun gameplay with slightly blurry graphics.
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Jun 24, 2015 02:38
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I also picked up an X205TA for $150 at BB yesterday thanks to this thread. Took it to my first day of graduate courses and I've been thrilled with it for the price. Got it without Word but whatever, I've installed OpenOffice without problems. There really is plenty of space for several extra applications, documents, and a (significantly) limited music library, so I'm fine. Games are for the desktop anyway. If you want to demo it, call ahead. I have two stores in my neighborhood; One had it, the other did not.
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Jun 24, 2015 02:53
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I love my Pixel(1st gen), this thing is amazing. Chrome OS is just nice and simple for using the internet and basic apps. I installed crouton and ubuntu 14.04, then Steam and VSCode. Short of running Visual Studio and a couple of windows apps it can do just about everything my work issued Thinkpad can. How well does a C720P function with only 2gb of ram? I am thinking about giving one as gift, since I pretty impressed with chromeOS.
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Jun 24, 2015 03:03
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Calidus posted:
My Toshiba Chromebook has 2GB of ram too and it starts to get a little sluggish with more than 8-10 tabs open. I also run a lot of extensions though. Really though, I haven't found the 2 gigs to be an annoyance. E: Have you checked out the Toshiba? I really like the 13in form factor myself. Mental Hospitality fucked around with this message at 03:14 on Jun 24, 2015 |
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Jun 24, 2015 03:12
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Calidus posted:I love my Pixel(1st gen), this thing is amazing. Chrome OS is just nice and simple for using the internet and basic apps. I installed crouton and ubuntu 14.04, then Steam and VSCode. Short of running Visual Studio and a couple of windows apps it can do just about everything my work issued Thinkpad can. Pixel buddy! What resolution do you run Ubuntu at? I found most of them pretty unsatisfactory.
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Jun 24, 2015 03:50
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IuniusBrutus posted:Pixel buddy! Currently max resolution with 120 dpi for xfce. I am still tweaking the dpi setting something between 120 and 150. I haven't tried changing the resolution yet.
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Jun 24, 2015 04:55
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BurritoJustice posted:If money is really tight you can commit thread blasphemy and cut corners to get a good GPU in, such as a cheap plastic case, H81 motherboard, i5-4460 CPU, small HDD or SSD only etc. Then go for a on sale/heavily rebated 290 and you can fit a 1080p Ultra build into around the $600 budget. Reddit r/buildapc loves these sorts of builds. I'd go with an i3 honestly since you can get that new 3.7 ghz one for less than $100, which leaves room for peripherals. tl;dr for the laptop thread you can get a very nice computer for very very cheap if you build a desktop. I have a gaming laptop and a gaming desktop (I got the former before the latter) and I think the next laptop I get in two years time is for sure going to be a non-gaming laptop. The compromises you make for a good GPU are just too big. Unless you're willing to drop two grand so if you're rich then there's no compromise to be made but you get the point I think.
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Jun 24, 2015 05:13
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Calidus posted:How well does a C720P function with only 2gb of ram? I am thinking about giving one as gift, since I pretty impressed with chromeOS. ChromeOS has several tricks up its sleeve to make the most of low memory. My favorite is where it can transparently take part of available ram, make a ram disk with a compressed filesystem, and put a swap file in it thus compressing less used pages while keeping them in ram. . You can't open twenty tabs, but its not as bad as you think. I never had an issue with memory when running unadulterated chromeOS.
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Jun 24, 2015 06:26
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The Iron Rose posted:I'd go with an i3 honestly since you can get that new 3.7 ghz one for less than $100, which leaves room for peripherals. I'd be weary of buying a dual core processor now that games are listing quad core as minimum spec. Edit: not that its bad per se, you can always sell it. I built a poverty level G3258 system that featured a 1280x1024 crt (free from craigslist!) and a used 7870. Ran what the guy wanted just fine. keymaster02 fucked around with this message at 06:49 on Jun 24, 2015 |
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Jun 24, 2015 06:39
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Wintering Stinkbug posted:There is this weird belief today that anything less than 1080p and 60fps is unplayable. Maybe I can accept less than that because I'm old and I remember when 800x600 with an mp3 decoding in the background was god tier. I play most stuff at 1280x720 on my 15" 1080p laptop because it gives better framerates and allows me to up a bunch of other graphical settings so it actually looks better than trying to run at native res to me. The only annoying part is if I want to switch over to the Steam browser to quickly look something up - web pages look terrible.
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Jun 24, 2015 06:41
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Wintering Stinkbug posted:I'd be weary of buying a dual core processor now that games are listing quad core as minimum spec. I3a all have hyperthreading so that stuff should still run. You might be out of luck with the Pentium branded stuff though (dual core no ht)
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Jun 24, 2015 06:43
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Wintering Stinkbug posted:I'd be weary of buying a dual core processor now that games are listing quad core as minimum spec. Huh I didn't believe you at first, but a quick google seems to be listing an i5 which by definition is quad core. Then again, the three titles that came up were "Theif Reboot", "Witcher 3" and "Dragon Age", which are all pretty high spec games in general. If I had to guess, I'd say 70% of anything released in 2012 or earlier, and 95% of anything released in 2010 should play just fine on an i3 at medium or low settings. The price differential between an i3 class laptop and it's much bigger brother the i5 is usually less than $50 and dramatically increases the realistic lifespan of your laptop.
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Jun 24, 2015 06:51
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dissss posted:I3a all have hyperthreading so that stuff should still run. You might be out of luck with the Pentium branded stuff though (dual core no ht) It's still dual core. It can't run more than two threads at the same time. Edit: Windows thinks two threads are running, but unless HT has changed significantly, the processor just runs the second thread when the first blocks. Edit Edit: Did they ever fix the windows scheduler to not run two threads on one core if the other was under utilized? keymaster02 fucked around with this message at 07:02 on Jun 24, 2015 |
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Jun 24, 2015 06:57
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Hadlock posted:Huh I didn't believe you at first, but a quick google seems to be listing an i5 which by definition is quad core. Then again, the three titles that came up were "Theif Reboot", "Witcher 3" and "Dragon Age", which are all pretty high spec games in general. We were talking desktops in the laptop thread  .
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Jun 24, 2015 06:58
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Wintering Stinkbug posted:I'd be weary of buying a dual core processor now that games are listing quad core as minimum spec. A desktop i3 isn't dual core. I mean it is but games that require four cores will run on an i3 as far as I know, while they won't run on that G3258. \\ dissss posted:I play most stuff at 1280x720 on my 15" 1080p laptop because it gives better framerates and allows me to up a bunch of other graphical settings so it actually looks better than trying to run at native res to me. Yeah I can't imagine wanting to play at less than... poo poo 1600x900 honestly. Less than that is just really painful. Hadlock posted:Huh I didn't believe you at first, but a quick google seems to be listing an i5 which by definition is quad core. Then again, the three titles that came up were "Theif Reboot", "Witcher 3" and "Dragon Age", which are all pretty high spec games in general. For desktops or laptops? 'Cause usually getting an i5 is like an extra $150 or so and that's just not worth it most of the time.
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Jun 24, 2015 07:00
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The Iron Rose posted:A desktop i3 isn't dual core. The games currently out will run. No guarantees about future releases on an i3.
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Jun 24, 2015 07:04
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Wintering Stinkbug posted:The games currently out will run. No guarantees about future releases on an i3. It appears to games as a 4 thread processor. The only games that "require" a four thread processor have simple software checks that only run the game if it detects four threads. People have modded these checks out and the games run perfectly smooth on 2 thread pentiums. Unless games start requiring more than four threads, which I would lock out 95% of the market with i3's and i5's, i3's will still run them. i3's are beyond fine for gaming, they're great. They are faster for games than any AMD processor up to and including the FX9590. Purely for gaming, i3's are a better price/performance option than i5's. This is all too much desktop chat for the laptop thread, however.
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Jun 24, 2015 09:47
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My getting on the road is getting closer and closer, so after touting them as totally legit options in this thread multiple times, I'm finally biting the bullet and getting my own Sager (NP8652). I'm still reeling a bit from sticker shock, and I expect to hate myself forever for going back to poo poo battery life on laptops, but other than that I'm hoping to be basically entirely happy with it for the next chunk of years. Things I am the most excited about : Beastly graphics Upgrading from my desktop CPU (AMD Phenom II X4 955) Getting to keep my full numpad on a laptop keyboard  Finally having a machine with HDMI output (My last non phone/tablet purchase of a device was a 1005HA netbook) Trying to come up with situations that would have justified getting the 8GB graphics card. Things I am really not looking forward to: Battery life Dealing with XoticPC's production and shipping, which apparently involves some dude trekking my laptop across the perilous wastelands on foot to get it to them before they can ship it out or something. Paying off my credit card this month (At least I get cash back and can write off part of it as a business expense  )Battery life Living in terror of this thing being stolen Battery life Battery life I'll definitely report back on how it is once I get it and have some time to get impressions. E: Also since that review I linked specifies they have it, I did not go 4k screen, I just got a Sager IPS HD screen. surc fucked around with this message at 15:33 on Jun 24, 2015 |
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Jun 24, 2015 14:58
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Wintering Stinkbug posted:Edit Edit: Did they ever fix the windows scheduler to not run two threads on one core if the other was under utilized? Surely. sarehu fucked around with this message at 15:23 on Jun 24, 2015 |
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Jun 24, 2015 15:21
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surc posted:Sager/XoticPC stuff I'm almost at year 3 on mine. It cost a shitload but has totally been worth it.
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Jun 24, 2015 21:02
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go3 posted:I'm almost at year 3 on mine. It cost a shitload but has totally been worth it. So would you guys say that this is the go-to, money-is-no-object gaming laptop? I'm especially wondering if the display is great (the non-4k version), and assuming that performance is maxed out at the expense of form (well, size) and battery life.
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Jun 24, 2015 22:28
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For someone that wants an Ultrabook with a 256SSD and 8gigs of ram, is there a better deal than than ASUS Zenbook for $599 + tax (http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/ASUS-Zenbook-UX305FA-USM1-Signature-Edition-Laptop/productID.313303100)? I think I'd love the XPS13 but I have to wonder if the price difference is worth it. I don't care about touch, and I want 1080p and not some ultra resolution. The Zenbook was like $520 earlier today but they were quickly out of stock. My current laptop is ancient: Core 2 Duo 1.3Ghz, 4gigs of ram and a slow 5400 hard drive. Uziel fucked around with this message at 23:02 on Jun 24, 2015 |
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Jun 24, 2015 22:56
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