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tminz posted:Those new Razer Blades with a 1060 would be choice if I was in the market. That thing is gorgeous. There are some doomsayers on other forums claiming they'll have thermal issues because a 1060 pulls more watts, and has a smaller surface area. I don't know if it's ~engineering purity~ or a real issue.
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Oct 1, 2016 02:11
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tminz posted:Those new Razer Blades with a 1060 would be choice if I was in the market. That thing is gorgeous. Unfortunately, it throttles like crazy, regularly hits 95c on the GPU which is a little warm, and the keyboard gets very hot in the center. Add to that all the Razer CS horror stories with RMA, and I went from going "I'm definitely getting that if I win the lottery" to "Eh, maybe something better will come along."
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Oct 1, 2016 02:18
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Hello thread. I have no desire to fix up my dying, almost seven year old desktop computer, so I've decided the time to switch to a laptop has finally come. I've never owned a real laptop before so forgive me if I'm a bit clueless. I'm looking for something mostly suitable for .NET development, i.e. Visual Studio, which takes up a lot of space so having some screen real estate is important. I'll probably mostly use RDP to my work computer, but I'd still like it to have decent CPU and memory in case I need to work locally. I might also want to use it for some not very heavyweight gaming, such as Civilization VI if it's good. (Maybe that's actually a fairly resource intensive game, I dunno.) I don't really know what price I'm willing to pay yet, so just give me some examples if you can. I hope this isn't too vague.
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Oct 1, 2016 14:41
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LOOK I AM A TURTLE posted:Hello thread. I have no desire to fix up my dying, almost seven year old desktop computer, so I've decided the time to switch to a laptop has finally come. I've never owned a real laptop before so forgive me if I'm a bit clueless. I'm looking for something mostly suitable for .NET development, i.e. Visual Studio, which takes up a lot of space so having some screen real estate is important. I'll probably mostly use RDP to my work computer, but I'd still like it to have decent CPU and memory in case I need to work locally. I might also want to use it for some not very heavyweight gaming, such as Civilization VI if it's good. (Maybe that's actually a fairly resource intensive game, I dunno.) Civ 6 recommends that you have a graphics card roughly equivalent to a 770. Either go for a computer with a 970m (last generation) discrete graphics card for cheap, or step up to a laptop with a GTX 1060. You can probably nab a laptop with a 970m, which is somewhat less powerful than the GTX 770 that Civ 6 recommends, but a fair bit more powerful than its minimum requirement of a Radeon 6750, for around $900. A GTX 1060 laptop will blow all of that out of the water in terms of graphics performance (around/over twice as powerful), with the extra advantage of a comically low TDP (and thus higher battery life and the like) on top of it all. It'll run you around $1200. As a plus side, those sorts of gaming laptops tend to have excellent tech specs elsewhere (CPU, RAM, resolution if you're lucky). The Iron Rose fucked around with this message at 17:02 on Oct 1, 2016 |
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Oct 1, 2016 16:57
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Cat Army 
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The latest Win 10 update really wants to brick my old Dell laptop and I've had to revert it a couple of times. It's a few years old now and isn't doing so hot anymore anyway, so I figure maybe it's time to replace it. I already have an Acer Chromebook that I really like and is fine for 95% of what I do. Clearly, I don't need anything too amazing. But I do like to play games sometimes and I'm getting tired of looking longingly at my Steam backlog and thinking, "Someday when my laptop isn't garbage." Anyhow, I'm looking at this thing. I'd almost definitely be better off with this one than the one I'm putting up with now, but I'm not great at interpreting computer specs, so I'm wondering what you all think. Am I missing anything important? I like the idea of getting another Acer, but I'm not married to the brand or anything if there's something better in or under that price range.
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Oct 2, 2016 03:15
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I need a recommendation: Basically, I am writing a book and do some light coding. I need something that can run Microsoft office and is comfortable to write on for extended periods of time. So, obviously battery life and screen size are important but I'm not going to play any games on it. I've been looking at a Surface to begin with because I do some illustration but its probably way beefier than I need. Price doesn't need to be extremely low as I'm willing to invest in a very nice piece.
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Oct 2, 2016 04:13
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So I think my old-rear end laptop is finally dying and I am deeply, deeply upset because I've never liked a laptop as much as this one. Everything from the screen to the keyboard to the stable "heft" of it for lack of a better term is perfect for my needs/wants in a laptop and frankly speaking I tend to get stupidly attached to/humanize my technology anyway. It's a Dell Vostro 3400. What I'm looking for in a laptop is pretty simple but specific: -A keyboard wherein you actually get the tactile feel of pressing in the keys (so like I hate the ones that're almost completely flat and the keys don't really indent as you press them). -I don't really need gaming capabilities at all but run-of-the-mill streaming specs would be nice. -Lack of bloatware out of the box (this is actually a pretty big one; I'm OCD about bloatware and the idea of doing a clean Windows install out the gate to eliminate bloatware makes my brain want to explode). -This one is really anal retentive but I hate laptops with rounded corners on the screen. -Ideally, a machine running Windows 7; I've noticed most business machines still do which works for me as you'll see below. I could deal with a Windows 10 machine I think (based on the research I've done on the whole thing, I think if I set up Classic Shell on a W10 machine it'd suit my needs alright once I adapted) but I'd like to avoid 8/8.1 at all costs really. Does anyone have any suggestions? I found the Vostro 3400 via the suggestion of my uncle, who at the time said a small business retail brand laptop was the best route to go as far as strong performance for basic/intermediate functions and minimal bloatware. Even though it was a long-rear end time ago I seriously don't remember any bloatware ever being on this machine, it was pretty fantastic. I bought an Inspiron a while back on sale online sight unseen (but again off a tip from my uncle, whom I trusted because he generally knows his poo poo) but never switched over to it because I was turned off by the keyboard style and the prospect of cleaning off a rather substantial amount of bloatware. Sounds like soon I might not have much of a choice. In terms of literal physical style, cursory research tells me a ThinkPad might be the way to go, but I'm unsure. Any insight would be very, very much appreciated.
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Oct 2, 2016 08:41
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Julet Esqu posted:The latest Win 10 update really wants to brick my old Dell laptop and I've had to revert it a couple of times. It's a few years old now and isn't doing so hot anymore anyway, so I figure maybe it's time to replace it. Why are you confident that Windows Update won't also brick the laptop you're looking at
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Oct 2, 2016 15:49
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EugeneJ posted:Why are you confident that Windows Update won't also brick the laptop you're looking at I'm not. But I haven't heard that it's doing that to a lot of other people. Are all y'all's laptops updating ok?
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Oct 2, 2016 17:21
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The anniversary update really dicked with my touch pad. Had to spend a little while reacquainting myself with the menus to get back to my perfectly tuned software settings.
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Oct 2, 2016 17:42
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Julet Esqu posted:I'm not. But I haven't heard that it's doing that to a lot of other people. Are all y'all's laptops updating ok? I actually like the OS otherwise, too, but man every single thing about how it does updates is so bad.
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Oct 2, 2016 17:50
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drat it. meh.com (the new woot) just had a 4GB Toshiba Chromebook 2 for $160, that I missed. Meanwhile the $300 Acer Chromebook 14 I ordered from Amazon (with Prime claiming "in stock" and "4-5 days") a week ago still hasn't even shipped.
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Oct 2, 2016 19:17
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roomforthetuna posted:drat it. meh.com (the new woot) just had a 4GB Toshiba Chromebook 2 for $160, that I missed. Meanwhile the $300 Acer Chromebook 14 I ordered from Amazon (with Prime claiming "in stock" and "4-5 days") a week ago still hasn't even shipped. If you or someone you know is a VMP you can have another shot at it at 4pm EST. Is that really that good a deal? I think it came up previously and someone said it wasn't that good.
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Oct 2, 2016 19:22
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Julet Esqu posted:The latest Win 10 update really wants to brick my old Dell laptop and I've had to revert it a couple of times. It's a few years old now and isn't doing so hot anymore anyway, so I figure maybe it's time to replace it. That thing has a 940MX, which is hardly a gaming GPU. Sure, if you play really old stuff it'll do, but anything from the past year will run at around 30 fps with all details low at 1280x720. Your best bet for an actual gaming laptop is something with a 1060 for $1k+. As always though, all this really depends on what you're trying to play. Just Google the GPU in a laptop that you're looking at and find benchmarks for the specific games you want to play. You could always get a nicer gaming desktop for the same amount of money. Inzombiac posted:I need a recommendation: I'm thinking a T-series Thinkpad will work for you. SamuraiFoochs posted:So I think my old-rear end laptop is finally dying and I am deeply, deeply upset because I've never liked a laptop as much as this one. Everything from the screen to the keyboard to the stable "heft" of it for lack of a better term is perfect for my needs/wants in a laptop and frankly speaking I tend to get stupidly attached to/humanize my technology anyway. It's a Dell Vostro 3400. What I'm looking for in a laptop is pretty simple but specific: Same as above, a T-series Thinkpad. roomforthetuna posted:drat it. meh.com (the new woot) just had a 4GB Toshiba Chromebook 2 for $160, that I missed. Meanwhile the $300 Acer Chromebook 14 I ordered from Amazon (with Prime claiming "in stock" and "4-5 days") a week ago still hasn't even shipped. Medullah posted:If you or someone you know is a VMP you can have another shot at it at 4pm EST. Is that really that good a deal? I think it came up previously and someone said it wasn't that good. That was me. You dodged a bullet, this is the 2014 Toshiba CB2 and it has a lovely Atom-based N2840 "Celeron." The display and 4 GB of RAM might be nice, but the dual-core CPU is a dog. The Acer you ordered has a newer (albeit still Atom-based) CPU that's at least manageable. The only thing that's going to be better around that price range would be a 2015 Toshiba CB2 with the 3215U Celeron if you can still find them.
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Oct 3, 2016 02:46
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Atomizer posted:That was me. You dodged a bullet, this is the 2014 Toshiba CB2 and it has a lovely Atom-based N2840 "Celeron." The display and 4 GB of RAM might be nice, but the dual-core CPU is a dog. The Acer you ordered has a newer (albeit still Atom-based) CPU that's at least manageable. The only thing that's going to be better around that price range would be a 2015 Toshiba CB2 with the 3215U Celeron if you can still find them.
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Oct 3, 2016 03:08
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Thanks a million Atomizer, that's what my cursory research told me as well but it's good to get confirmation.  EDIT: Research tells me ThinkPads only have SSDs now and the cost of a sized SSD I'd look for is bonkers. That sucks but that's the cost of doing business I guess. =/ SamuraiFoochs fucked around with this message at 06:17 on Oct 3, 2016 |
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Oct 3, 2016 06:06
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SamuraiFoochs posted:EDIT: Research tells me ThinkPads only have SSDs now and the cost of a sized SSD I'd look for is bonkers. Not true, look at the T460, T460p, X260, P50. They all have 2.5" bays and rotational drive options, the bigger models presumably have an M.2 slot as well. But having an SSD is highly recommended. sarehu fucked around with this message at 07:42 on Oct 3, 2016 |
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Oct 3, 2016 07:40
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sarehu posted:Not true, look at the T460, T460p, X260, P50. They all have 2.5" bays and rotational drive options, the bigger models presumably have an M.2 slot as well. But having an SSD is highly recommended. Ah! Thanks! I may come back with more specific questions (or I may talk to a guy I know who knows more about my specific situation) but either way, thanks a lot you guys.
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Oct 3, 2016 08:44
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Julet Esqu posted:I'm not. But I haven't heard that it's doing that to a lot of other people. Are all y'all's laptops updating ok? I had to do a System Restore on my laptop after the latest update gave me a perpetual black screen. Since I have 10 Home I did the workaround where my wifi is set to metered so that Windows Update doesn't run. We'll see how many months go by before I dare try updating it again.
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Oct 3, 2016 14:12
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SamuraiFoochs posted:Thanks a million Atomizer, that's what my cursory research told me as well but it's good to get confirmation. You can also consider Dell Latitudes if pricing is better, since they're largely comparable. The E74x0 (40, 50, 70 depending on generation) would be a good drop-in replacement for your 14" Vostro. I have an E7270 and think it compares well with the MacBook Pro 13" that my work provides, especially considering the price. Build quality is solid, the screen is bright and sharp, and unlike the Macs many components are easily accessible for upgrade/replacement. The newer Latitudes are SSD-only though. Something like an E6440 might allow a 2.5" drive and still have a newish processor; my previous machine, an E6230, definitely does.
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Oct 3, 2016 14:44
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FINALLY bought a T460s to replace my X220. I'll miss the keyboard but I'm looking forward to having more screen real estate and a higher resolution. Feel like I got a decent price for it here (£650 - $830) for an OK spec (IPS FHD, i5, 8gb, 256gb PCIe SSD) with a 3yr onsite warranty.
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Oct 3, 2016 16:50
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I’m looking for a new laptop for work and Civ 6. The work side is relatively straightforward – anything capable of running Civ 6 on minimum will be perfectly adequate as long as the machine is highly portable with a 13-14” screen, is relatively light, has a decent battery life and at least 8GB of RAM. I don’t care if Civ 6 runs on low settings but from past experience, the later game usually requires a pretty powerful CPU; the GPU is less important but needs to be dedicated (for work as well as the game). The Civ 6 recommended specs suggest that I need an i5 2.5Ghz / AMD FX8350 4.0Ghz, 8GB RAM and a AMD 7970 or nVidia 770. The minimum specs for the GPU are a AMD 5570 or a nVidia 450. I don’t want to spend more than £1,000 on the machine, including VAT. I can afford to drop below the recommended specs and save myself some cash. Looking around I’ve found the Gigabyte P34 v5. The 5th version has an i7 6700HQ, 8GB DDR4. The GPUs vary from GTX 960M to the 970M. Scan.co.uk has the P34K, which has a GTX 965M, for £980. The PassMark Charts suggest that this is about equivalent to a desktop GTX 760 ti. That appears to hit the recommended specs for the price I’m after. Can anyone recommend any alternatives that might fit the brief? In particular something which looks a bit cooler (high-end looking milled aluminium case, etc.) or a trade off of less power for more battery life or a lighter setup. Cheers! Edit: Fixed link Bouchehog fucked around with this message at 00:41 on Oct 4, 2016 |
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Oct 4, 2016 00:27
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Bouchehog posted:I’m looking for a new laptop for work and Civ 6. The work side is relatively straightforward – anything capable of running Civ 6 on minimum will be perfectly adequate as long as the machine is highly portable with a 13-14” screen, is relatively light, has a decent battery life and at least 8GB of RAM. Look for laptops with 1060 graphics cards. You do not want to buy Maxwell (900 series) laptops at anything other than bottom of the barrel prices. 980 for a 965m is way too high, even when Maxwell was in its prime.
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Oct 4, 2016 00:30
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The Iron Rose posted:Look for laptops with 1060 graphics cards. You do not want to buy Maxwell (900 series) laptops at anything other than bottom of the barrel prices. 980 for a 965m is way too high, even when Maxwell was in its prime. Perhaps I'm not looking hard enough but I can't find any 1060 laptops for under £1,500. Needing a small screen size to keep the weight and desk space down probably won't help either. I appreciate that "Haswell is Hasbeen" but I can't see much point in upping my budget by 50% for the extra grunt if I don't actually need that extra power. Am I missing something else?
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Oct 4, 2016 00:51
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Bouchehog posted:Perhaps I'm not looking hard enough but I can't find any 1060 laptops for under £1,500. Needing a small screen size to keep the weight and desk space down probably won't help either. I appreciate that "Haswell is Hasbeen" but I can't see much point in upping my budget by 50% for the extra grunt if I don't actually need that extra power. Am I missing something else? Perhaps it's a factor of being across the pond, but at least here 1060 laptops tend to go for around $1200 or so. Much less expensive than £1500! Look at benchmarks and see if you can't find a laptop that'll fit your budget. Alternatively, try and buy used or refurbished. You'll get a much better deal on last generation parts that way. A 965m or 970m will definitely run Civ 6, but both are under the recommended specifications, and you're definitely paying too much for them. The Iron Rose fucked around with this message at 01:12 on Oct 4, 2016 |
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Oct 4, 2016 01:09
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Chas McGill posted:FINALLY bought a T460s to replace my X220. I'll miss the keyboard but I'm looking forward to having more screen real estate and a higher resolution. Feel like I got a decent price for it here (£650 - $830) for an OK spec (IPS FHD, i5, 8gb, 256gb PCIe SSD) with a 3yr onsite warranty.  Going from a 7 pound 2009 Toshiba to the 3 pound ThinkPad. Hoping the keyboard is everything I've dreamed of.edit: Is disabling the batteries in the BIOS enough to prevent ESD, or would you normally unscrew and remove them before replacing the SSD and ram? texasmed fucked around with this message at 22:31 on Oct 4, 2016 |
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Oct 4, 2016 05:59
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texasmed posted:That's a super good deal. I just paid about 300 bucks more after taxes on the Lenovo site for the same model an hour ago with less ram/SSD but I'm not upset.
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Oct 5, 2016 10:48
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Was there no real Chromebook news from the Google event yesterday? Other than a few more models getting developer mode access to the Play Store? Been looking to pick one up for a while. Would be a personal machine that travels along my work laptop. Docs, streaming, evernote, etc. I kept reading "wait until Fall" and yesterday came and went quietly on the Chromebook front.
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Oct 5, 2016 15:36
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pumped up for school posted:Was there no real Chromebook news from the Google event yesterday? Other than a few more models getting developer mode access to the Play Store? They discontinued the Pixel Chromebook and probably aren't going to revive it http://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2016/8/30/12708718/google-sold-out-pixel-2-chromebook
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Oct 5, 2016 18:20
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One thing to look at when you're buying a laptop is where does the heat go. My MacBook Pro gets hot during high CPU usage, but the heat stays 'in' the laptop. My Dell E6440 that I have for work kicks all the heat out of the left side vent. Someone set a chocolate bar on my desk as a nice surprise, I came back from lunch to find a melted sack of chocolate on my desk.
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Oct 5, 2016 18:24
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Bob Morales posted:One thing to look at when you're buying a laptop is where does the heat go. If I recall correctly, 13" Macbook Pros exhaust hot air upward at the hinge, where the body of the laptop meets the bottom of the screen.
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Oct 5, 2016 20:28
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Bob Morales posted:They discontinued the Pixel Chromebook and probably aren't going to revive it Given all the hardware they announced yesterday, if there wasn't a laptop announcement, the chromebook pixel line is probably dead for good. At least if (until?) they merge the chrome OS and Android lines
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Oct 6, 2016 01:48
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Twerk from Home posted:If I recall correctly, 13" Macbook Pros exhaust hot air upward at the hinge, where the body of the laptop meets the bottom of the screen. This is correct and applies to 15" as well - the chassis are very similar. It's a pretty good design since it heats neither your lap nor anything next to you, especially considering that the 13" model uses 28W Iris chips instead of the 15W which is more standard to that size now.
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Oct 6, 2016 04:44
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pumped up for school posted:Was there no real Chromebook news from the Google event yesterday? Other than a few more models getting developer mode access to the Play Store? For the most part, the upcoming Chromebooks will just be built to better facilitate Android apps. Expect to see touchscreens and more internal storage, perhaps convertible designs like the Flip. All CBs work the same, and there's only so many different hardware variants to expect. There are good options now, but wait a little while longer for the aforementioned reasons if you're planning to load a lot of apps.
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Oct 6, 2016 07:56
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Eletriarnation posted:This is correct and applies to 15" as well - the chassis are very similar. It's a pretty good design since it heats neither your lap nor anything next to you, especially considering that the 13" model uses 28W Iris chips instead of the 15W which is more standard to that size now. Actually, for the last 4 years (when they went Retina) the Pro's have vents on the sides  They just don't work as flamethrowers.
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Oct 6, 2016 13:12
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Are you sure those aren't intakes? The 13" Retina definitely vents heat up near the screen, I've had one as a work laptop for the past 2+ years so I know that for sure. I know someone who has had a 15" for a similar period of time and they said it works the same way, and the chassis look similar enough for me to believe it.
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Oct 6, 2016 13:26
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Eletriarnation posted:Are you sure those aren't intakes? The 13" Retina definitely vents heat up near the screen, I've had one as a work laptop for the past 2+ years so I know that for sure. I know someone who has had a 15" for a similar period of time and they said it works the same way, and the chassis look similar enough for me to believe it. You're probably right, that might be why they don't kick out any heat on the sides  The unibody Pro sucked air in through the keyboard right?
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Oct 6, 2016 14:35
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I used to have a 15" Powerbook G4 that would fry your balls.
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Oct 6, 2016 21:22
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Can someone help me pick out a laptop for my friend? He is Turkish and just moved to Australia, and I narrowly stopped him from buying some dumpster fire plastic thing with a 940mx and only a hard drive in it. It is only going to be used for university work, no gaming. He won't go smaller than 15". I am looking for something with an SSD and a nice IPS screen. It will spend a lot of it's time plugged in, so battery life is nice but not too pressing. Budget is $1500AUD, with small leeway if it's a big upgrade for a small increase. Any help is super appreciative, I am a hardware guy but I don't deal with laptops much (I got an XPS13 for myself and a UX305 for my sister, but they are both 13" which my friend won't consider).
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Oct 7, 2016 04:48
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XPS 15?
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Oct 7, 2016 04:54
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