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The Slack Lagoon posted:I want to get something I can mostly use as a tablet, but has a keyboard I can use to type with if needed. I have a laptop, but it's getting old, and I have a Chromebook I've been using to bring to meetings to take notes, but I think I'd like to shrink this down to one device. Sounds like you want some kind of convertible device, with an available keyboard that you can put out of the way when not needed. How about one of the flip Chromebooks? Asus Flip, Acer R11, Acer R13, etc. I also have a Pixel C; it's nice, and will do everything you asked, but I strongly prefer Chrome on ChromeOS or even Windows over Android. They keyboard options are both cool though! Ciaphas posted:Does ChromeOS have much trouble playing media off a network filesystem? The only things I use my Surface 3 (nonpro) for at this point are browsing the net/Youtube and watching See the flippable CB recommendations above. Plex works great, but on my CBs I never could get the NFS for ChromeOS extension to work, if that kinda answers your question. In general though ChromeOS is terrible for file management; it fails during large numbers of file transfers (at least on low-end devices with 2 GB of RAM and the like) and then when you retry it just creates additional files instead of prompting you to rename/overwrite, and it seems to have trouble dealing with directories with large numbers of files. (It probably would work better if you used Crouton to install Ubuntu, but that's another topic.) Just get a CB and use Plex, it's like the perfect combination.
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Dec 3, 2016 08:22
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I suppose the only question remaining, then, is whether your recommended Chromebooks there would outperform a non-pro Surface 3 at basic tasks like web browsing and Youtube. You'd think those wouldn't be too difficult but apparently it's a right bastard for my Surface to have more than 3 or 4 tabs open, let alone doing literally anything else at the same time.
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Dec 3, 2016 09:01
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Ciaphas posted:I suppose the only question remaining, then, is whether your recommended Chromebooks there would outperform a non-pro Surface 3 at basic tasks like web browsing and Youtube. You'd think those wouldn't be too difficult but apparently it's a right bastard for my Surface to have more than 3 or 4 tabs open, let alone doing literally anything else at the same time. Almost any CB with 4+ GB of RAM and any non-Atom CPU will far outperform that Surface 3 if it struggles with more than a couple tabs. Web browsing and Youtube are literally where ChromeOS excels. I regularly have tens of tabs open on my CBs, and I use extensions to "enhance" the experience. The only problematic CB (beyond the low-end 2 GB RAM and/or Atom-Celeron models) is the 2013 Pixel, which has battery/heat/performance issues that I believe are all related (I could elaborate for those interested.) I've been using the "The Great Suspender" extension, which after a time unloads your tabs and replaces them with a placeholder image until you reload; this could help with lots of tabs and lower-RAM systems. Also, Google likes to push the royalty-free VP8/VP9 formats on Youtube even though most CBs don't have hardware acceleration for them, so performance takes a hit but you can just install "h264ify" to force AVC (which is well-supported) on Youtube to take care of that. And yeah, CBs are fine with multi-tasking; I often have Chrome, Plex, and CRD open and I toggle between them. I do recommend higher-end CBs if it's going to be your main system (Pixel, HP 13, Dell 13, Acer 14 FW, Lenovo 13, etc.) because they really are so much nicer than the entry-level stuff.
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Dec 3, 2016 09:28
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Ciaphas posted:I suppose the only question remaining, then, is whether your recommended Chromebooks there would outperform a non-pro Surface 3 at basic tasks like web browsing and Youtube. You'd think those wouldn't be too difficult but apparently it's a right bastard for my Surface to have more than 3 or 4 tabs open, let alone doing literally anything else at the same time.
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Dec 3, 2016 11:38
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I'm trying to help my mom look for a solid laptop that she can use Word, Outlook, maybe Excel, internet, and is portable. Would be great if it fit into the $600 and below range while still having all the usual good specs (I'm relatively clueless about these things too so it's the blind leading the blind here). Good battery life and memory, decent storage, etc. I know this has been covered a whole bunch of times but I'm having trouble whittling down the options. From what I've picked up here Lenovo has a pretty good rep, though I don't know how she will feel about getting refurb or used.
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Dec 3, 2016 16:42
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^ I'll make my standard recommendation to check http://outlet.dell.com as well and pay attention to the coupons for business class laptops in particular. Dell's business class systems are comparable to Lenovo's and competitively priced (as long as you use the coupons), and the refurb systems - at least the E7270 I got - look like new. You should check the Latitude 3000, 5000, and 7000 lines with -U processors; those ending in -70 are the newest (Skylake), followed by -50 and -40 in turn (Broadwell, Haswell respectively). Systems older than that (-20, -30) are below your price range and will have noticeably more bulk, worse screens and less battery life than the newer lines. Some of the 5000s at least have quad-core (-H) processors which are fine, although possibly a bit overkill for a basic productivity machine, but make sure you don't get a Core M like the Latitude 7370 and other ultrathin models have unless you're aware of their speed limitations and know it will be OK. It feels like anyone who gets one without having had one before is at least 50/50 on saying "y'know, it just feels slow" after having used it a while. e: There's a sale on 5470s and 5570s right now for 35% off sticker price, which puts a system with a 1080p screen, 8GB of memory and an SSD (with either dual or quad-core processor, they're priced similarly) for right around $600. It's hard to beat that by much even with consumer-class machines. Eletriarnation fucked around with this message at 18:01 on Dec 3, 2016 |
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Dec 3, 2016 17:52
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Flipperwaldt posted:I don't see that problem on my mother's Surface 3. Consider resetting Windows. Won't be magic, but the device should do better than crumbling having 3 or 4 tabs open. Don't let that stop you looking at chromebooks for better battery life though. Hah, didn't even occur to me that that was an option on a Surface. That has indeed improved matters considerably performance-wise, though seemingly the battery is still poo poo (66% remaining after an hour open playing Youtube). Think I'll still go to Fry's and see what they have in the way of Chromebooks. (Not that battery life hugely matters, seeing as I only need in-house "portability", but given the slow charging rate it still kinda sucks)
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Dec 3, 2016 18:38
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Atomizer posted:I've been using the "The Great Suspender" extension, which after a time unloads your tabs and replaces them with a placeholder image until you reload; this could help with lots of tabs and lower-RAM systems. Oh man, this extension is a godsend. I'd been using Tab Wrangler, but this is so much better. Thanks for the tip!
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Dec 3, 2016 19:02
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chill on sight posted:I'm trying to help my mom look for a solid laptop that she can use Word, Outlook, maybe Excel, internet, and is portable. Would be great if it fit into the $600 and below range while still having all the usual good specs (I'm relatively clueless about these things too so it's the blind leading the blind here). Good battery life and memory, decent storage, etc. Chromebook, dude. Chrome for the Web, office.com for those productivity applications. Cheap ($300-400 for a good one), great battery life. Also, most refurbs that I've purchased over the years are largely indistinguishable from new products, so don't worry about it too much. If you're still not sure about ChromeOS, take it for a spin by having her run Chrome in Windows and see if she can do everything within the browser. Again she'll have to use office.com, but it works fine. Scylla posted:Oh man, this extension is a godsend. I'd been using Tab Wrangler, but this is so much better. Thanks for the tip!  Try these too: OneTab, SessionBuddy, TabCloud, HTTPS Everywhere, SA Needful, uBlock Origin, and COG for various enhancements.
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Dec 3, 2016 19:48
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Atomizer posted:I've been using the "The Great Suspender" extension, which after a time unloads your tabs and replaces them with a placeholder image until you reload; this could help with lots of tabs and lower-RAM systems. This is great advice, anyone on a low end device should be using this Chrome plugin. It greatly reduces memory usage
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Dec 3, 2016 20:31
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Atomizer posted:If you're still not sure about ChromeOS, take it for a spin by having her run Chrome in Windows and see if she can do everything within the browser. Again she'll have to use office.com, but it works fine. Many chormebooks are also now using the developer updates to load apps from the Play Store, office included. It's not always perfect and can get stuck scrolling to the top if you have the file opened on another device, but it might be worth looking into getting her a device for which that is an option. The Acer R11 does this and is a great little book.
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Dec 3, 2016 21:07
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Are Celeron processors nowadays just Atom processors under a different name? Considering that Acer R11 to replace my Surface 3 but I want to be sure I'm not just trading sideways as far as ability to multitask/have a dozen tabs open at once goes. (My surface, even after Windows refresh, still seems to struggle at 10+ tabs if Chrome is the only thing running. And aforementioned battery problems...)
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Dec 3, 2016 21:11
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Ciaphas posted:Are Celeron processors nowadays just Atom processors under a different name? Considering that Acer R11 to replace my Surface 3 but I want to be sure I'm not just trading sideways as far as ability to multitask/have a dozen tabs open at once goes. Sort of - lol at the specific benchmark of the CPU to see how fast it will be
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Dec 3, 2016 22:47
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Ciaphas posted:Are Celeron processors nowadays just Atom processors under a different name? Considering that Acer R11 to replace my Surface 3 but I want to be sure I'm not just trading sideways as far as ability to multitask/have a dozen tabs open at once goes. Some Celerons are faster Atoms with a higher TDP - these take the form N2xxx or N3xxx. Some are i3s with no HT or turbo, lower cache and lower clocks - these are xxxxU. The second is obviously much faster, but uses 15W instead of 6.
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Dec 4, 2016 00:56
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Jesus how anyone keeps this stuff straight on a day to day basis is beyond me. Thanks for the info though. Local stores don't seem to sell very many Chromebooks at all so I wasn't able to try one out. Though I guess "just stay in Chrome forever" on the surface 3 is pretty close to the experience  Actually it would be nice if I could install Chromium OS or whatever on the Surface, see if that helps the performance and battery enough to not bother replacing it.
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Dec 4, 2016 01:16
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Jiro posted:I just purchased an Asus FX502VM on Sunday arrived on Wed. The laptop for the most part is great, save for the touchpad. It's extremely wonky. This is the first time I've been using Windows 10 for an extended period, the drivers are stock Microsoft drivers for the touchpad. Currently I was having trouble calibrating the touch scroll, and now I cannot right click. I've been on the phone with Asus tech support to figure out a solution but for some reason this laptop model doesn't have it's own Asus drivers. Is there a third party set of drivers I can look into? I Googled to see about the right click not working and thought it was a Tablet mode problem and as soon as I changed the setting on that to just be desktop mode only since this model isn't a touchscreen it temporarily solved the issue but went right back to not being able to right click in any window or just on the desktop. Any help would be greatly appreciated. As far as I've seen from the insides, they use many of the same parts as the GL502VT. Try those.
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Dec 4, 2016 01:55
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Ciaphas posted:Are Celeron processors nowadays just Atom processors under a different name? Considering that Acer R11 to replace my Surface 3 but I want to be sure I'm not just trading sideways as far as ability to multitask/have a dozen tabs open at once goes. What Eletriarnation said specifically, but more generally Intel uses various brand names to classify their products regardless of the underlying microarchitecture. Remember how the Pentium was the premium product, and Celerons were lower-end chips, often with features disabled? Then they introduced Core but kept Pentium and Celeron to refer to 2nd- and 3rd-tier CPUs. Also note that Xeons are similar to the consumer Core chips. Going back to the Celerons, though. Like Eletriarnation said, Intel calls some lower-end Core CPUs Celeron, and these are otherwise solid products, especially in Chromebooks where they are more than powerful enough. Intel also developed their Atom line (formerly found in Netbooks of several years past) into a SoC, and while those are commonly found in tablets they also sell some under the Celeron name which are commonly found in low-end laptops, including Chromebooks. These however are pretty underpowered for Windows especially but even ChromeOS. The Braswell-based ones (N3xxx) are OK though. An R11 will be fine; look for one with 4 GB of RAM and the N3150 which is a quad-core. Ciaphas posted:Jesus how anyone keeps this stuff straight on a day to day basis is beyond me. Thanks for the info though. You actually can do this right now! Check out Neverware CloudReady, a professionally-supported ChromiumOS distro: https://www.neverware.com/freedownload/ I believe you can run it as a live distro, that is, off the installation medium without installing it immediately so you can try it out first!
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Dec 4, 2016 09:12
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I'm buying a laptop to use for college computer science homework and my accounting job. Considering I already built a desktop that can help with CAD/computationally intensive work, I'm looking for something portable, not powerful. Budget is $250-350 and looking at used Lenovo X240/X230 or Acer and Dell Chromebooks Atomizer recommended. Plan to install Linux, use Office, videos for online classes, and use Microsoft Visual Studio if I get a Windows machine. I'll bring my laptop to class and do my homework on it so I'm not tied to my desktop. I like the aesthetics of the Lenovos and flexibility of the Windows OS for my CS work. The Chromebooks recommended sound fast enough and slimmer than the Lenovos, but I'm wondering if they'd be good enough* for programming homework and learning Linux. Let me know what you knowledgeable and intelligent people think about this, or if I need to be more specific! *few hardware/software compatibility issues
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Dec 4, 2016 09:45
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Can anyone help with identifying what type of SSD slot this is? This is a new Dell Inspiron 7000 series laptop. The BIOS says there is an open SATA port. I know the image is a little blurry, but there is a set of 29 and 5 contacts, so this is most likely an M key/2280, but I'm not sure what else I need to know before buying. I know I could just swap out the existing 1TB 5400 RPM for a 2.5" SSD, but since this slot exists, I'd like to utilize it and transfer the OS to it and use the existing HDD for storage.
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Dec 4, 2016 21:46
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Yeah, that definitely looks like an M2 slot. The 960 EVO is coming out in like a week and would be a really nice upgrade that you could put in that slot (I'm going to do this with my new black friday ASUS laptop, suffering through the factory install in the meantime)
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Dec 4, 2016 22:50
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Hello thread, I bought a Chromebook a couple years back (Acer 11" with the N2840). I've got a beefy gaming desktop so the Chromebook was my "I'm in the living room and want to waste time online" machine and it served its purpose well. Now however I'm planning to go back to school and this Acer won't cut it for something I would want to be doing work on for hours a day. I've been eyeing the Lenovo ThinkPad 13 CB to replace it, but I have a couple questions: Just a few posts up, there was discussion of the Celeron processors-that the U Celerons are low-end Cores? So is getting an i3 worth it over a Celeron U? Using the B&N link, a CB13 with the 1080 screen and i3 is $365, with the Celeron it's $287. The price difference would be worth it for a noticeable increase in power. Next, are these well constructed? I'm not expecting the Tungsten frames of the traditional ThinkPads, and I'm pretty gentle with my stuff anyway, but a nicer build than the Acer I have now would be great. USB-C is a major selling point to me because I have a USB-C phone, and it would allow me to consolidate chargers. Aside from the Thinkpad, I could only find the new HP Chromebook with a USB-C charger, is that right? The HP is pretty significantly more money. Essentially, my limit is $400, so is the Thinkpad the best CB for that money? I'm not really interested in a refurb X240 or whatever because the simplicity of ChromeOS is a huge boon, and I won't be tempted to try to run games or anything dumb like that. Plus, battery life. Thanks for any advice.
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Dec 4, 2016 23:31
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CES 2017 is starting Jan 3rd, 2017 Dell has plans to announce a Yoga-style XPS 13 It would not surprise me that they announce their updated XPS 15 with GPU at the same event
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Dec 5, 2016 00:16
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Atomizer posted:You actually can do this right now! Check out Neverware CloudReady, a professionally-supported ChromiumOS distro: https://www.neverware.com/freedownload/ Seems to not work on the Surface; at least, it gave me a blank screen with a mouse pointer shortly after the cloudReady logo, then spontaneously turned off about 5 minutes later. Maybe I'll boot it on my desktop just to see how tolerable using Chrome OS is, but I was hoping to see how performance/battery life on the Surface changed with it 
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Dec 5, 2016 02:07
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This seems like a pretty good deal for my father in law, who wants a Windows laptop, 14-15" screen, to do basic real estate work, no? His budget is around 500 and he was looking at some HP laptop at Staples which didn't even have an SSD. I might just tell him to save the money and get the Lenovo X230 on Newegg for 300. Link
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Dec 5, 2016 03:08
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http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...m_term=12612265 $400 for an i5, 8gb 1080p chromebook
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Dec 5, 2016 03:47
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Wow Tiger Direct is still around? The last thing I bought from them was a 486 66 DX2 from... probably Citrix
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Dec 5, 2016 05:15
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mangohead posted:I'm buying a laptop to use for college computer science homework and my accounting job. Considering I already built a desktop that can help with CAD/computationally intensive work, I'm looking for something portable, not powerful. Budget is $250-350 and looking at used Lenovo X240/X230 or Acer and Dell Chromebooks Atomizer recommended. If you can find the Dell CB 13 used for your price range it's great; heavier than you'd expect but still portable and built like a tank. You can easily run a full Linux distro (typically Ubuntu) on any CB. Note that you could use CRD to access your Windows desktop and use any Windows program that way (e.g. Visual Studio.) Between Linux and Windows access any CB should serve your purposes; since all CBs work the same your choice is largely down to price, aesthetics, and battery life. Humerus posted:Hello thread, I bought a Chromebook a couple years back (Acer 11" with the N2840). I've got a beefy gaming desktop so the Chromebook was my "I'm in the living room and want to waste time online" machine and it served its purpose well. Now however I'm planning to go back to school and this Acer won't cut it for something I would want to be doing work on for hours a day. I've been eyeing the Lenovo ThinkPad 13 CB to replace it, but I have a couple questions: The 3855U is a Skylake chip and should be sufficient; I don't know if I can say the i3 would be necessary, but it can't hurt and it's not like you can make the upgrade later on, so go for it; it's not a huge sum anyway. I'd definitely go with a FHD display though, possibly the touch-enabled one. How much of a discount does the B&N thing give you? Is it a percentage off? I've never seen the Thinkpad CB in person, but I'm fairly sure it's as durable as your typical T-series Thinkpad and the other professional CBs (e.g. the Dell 13, Acer 14 for work, etc.) There are other CBs with Type C ports, starting with the 2G Pixel from a year-and-a-half ago. The HP 13, Acer 14 FW, Acer R13, and probably the upcoming Lenovo Yoga, among others; almost every new CB release (other than bottom-end ones) should have Type-C from now on. It's really nice, both in terms of the port physically and the capabilities of it, from the bidirectional charging to alt-modes (I posted here a while ago how my DisplayLink/DisplayPort portable panel works on the Pixel!) and then just the plain old speed increase (of USB 3.1 G2.) Ciaphas posted:Seems to not work on the Surface; at least, it gave me a blank screen with a mouse pointer shortly after the cloudReady logo, then spontaneously turned off about 5 minutes later. Yeah, it might not work on every machine, but if you can get it to work on literally anything then that will give you the full experience. I installed it on a pair of very old (think first-gen Core) laptops and they worked fine (although I gave them to a co-worker for his kids.) I don't think battery life in particular would've changed with your Surface; maybe it's just been through a lot of cycles and is wearing out. 
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Dec 5, 2016 09:33
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Hadlock posted:Wow Tiger Direct is still around? The last thing I bought from them was a 486 66 DX2 from... probably Citrix PC Mall owns them now. I get calls from their business unit all the time. 
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Dec 5, 2016 15:53
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I have a Thinkpad yoga 14 w/a Geforce 840M which I absolutely love. Problem is the thing is slowly dying after 2 years of touring abuse. I'm trying to hold out for the next batch of lightweight touchscreen laptops with 1040/1050s but not sure if I'm gonna make it. I understand CES is January and a lot of new stuff will come out but how quickly are those models normally available to order after being announced?
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Dec 5, 2016 18:47
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signalnoise posted:As far as I've seen from the insides, they use many of the same parts as the GL502VT. Try those. Thanks, I'll give it a go.
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Dec 5, 2016 20:43
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RRSYktxv_Q Interesting review on the Alienware R13 (I think it's R13, can't be arsed to check). Looks pretty solid if it's cheaper than Razer products.
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Dec 6, 2016 02:55
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Optikalusion posted:I have a Thinkpad yoga 14 w/a Geforce 840M which I absolutely love. Problem is the thing is slowly dying after 2 years of touring abuse. I'm trying to hold out for the next batch of lightweight touchscreen laptops with 1040/1050s but not sure if I'm gonna make it. End of January to end of February typically. Ivy Bridge had production issues and the *30 series Thinkpads didn't ship until June during Apple's developer conference wwdc Lenovo had an OLED X1 on display at last CES, claiming it was shipping Q1, but that didn't actually ship until nearly October, but that's a rarity, it's not often you roll out a completely new display technology in laptops. Hadlock fucked around with this message at 04:00 on Dec 6, 2016 |
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Dec 6, 2016 03:52
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NewFatMike posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RRSYktxv_Q That looks cool and screen is really pretty but man oh man is that an ugly laptop
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Dec 6, 2016 04:15
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I have a pretty beefy desktop for everyday use, but I've recently been feeling a desire for a laptop for web browsing, gaming over Steam in-home-streaming, or playing low-impact indie games when I'm overnight away from home. What kind of price range am I looking at here? I'm not sure what kind of performance window I need to be looking at to minimize latency on the in-home-streaming, so I don't know what class of products I should be considering.
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Dec 6, 2016 19:54
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Great picture of IPS vs non-IPS for people who aren't aware of the difference
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Dec 6, 2016 20:37
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Talk about IPS being better for viewing angles has always confused me, because who actually has displays--laptop or otherwise--angled away from their eyes like that? At least I never have, except in the frankly edge case of looking over someone else's shoulder
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Dec 6, 2016 21:30
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Ciaphas posted:Talk about IPS being better for viewing angles has always confused me, because who actually has displays--laptop or otherwise--angled away from their eyes like that? At least I never have, except in the frankly edge case of looking over someone else's shoulder If you have dual screens at work, you will definitely be looking at your desktop screen from odd angles for stuff on the outside half of the screen. For laptops, it means your laptop gets annoyingly fussy about precisely how open it is.
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Dec 6, 2016 21:33
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Some people have lovely laptops with hinges that don't fold all the way back. I really despise that I can't put my knees on the seat in front of me in the train and use my mac laptop. If I'm planning on watching a movie on the train I bring my thinkpad. If your hinge sucks, your viewing angle is going to suck.
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Dec 6, 2016 21:35
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Also, some laptop TN panels are so lovely that there isn't any angle where at least SOME of the screen isn't washed out. E.g., Thinkpad T430
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Dec 7, 2016 08:46
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The Macbook Air TN panel isn't that bad, but most other laptops I've seen have much worse panels. It's best to avoid TN whenever possible.
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Dec 7, 2016 08:58
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