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I have aired out the vents with a duster, the fan itself has completely stopped spitting out air.
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Oct 8, 2014 19:07
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So I asked about 6 months ago and held off hoping for a good hardware refresh. Here I am again. In about two weeks I need to buy a laptop for gaming. Maybe even use it for recording guitar/bass/vocal tracks and poo poo. It will then mostly be used as a media server for Plex, tucked behind my TV, plugged into it via HDMI. I plan on buying Stick of Truth and playing it along with EU4, the upcoming Civ game, maybe Shadows of Mordor. Maybe that new Divinity game. I could splurge and get a Razer but that is probably over kill, but the 14 inch screen really makes me happy, as well as it being thing and light and svelte. Second options are the MSI Ghost GS60, which looks to have lots of options available to choose from. Better GPU, SSD HD, etc. Other is Lenovo Y50, which I read has beefy hardware but is awful construction wise. It is also ugly as hell. Any other recommendations? I considered getting a Surface Pro 3 but that looks like a bad idea. As is a Macbook. I also looked at Alienware but they're huge and also ugly as sin.
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Oct 8, 2014 20:48
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I haven't heard of Y50 being built badly. I hope that's not really the case.
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Oct 8, 2014 21:04
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Zuhzuhzombie!! posted:In about two weeks I need to buy a laptop for gaming. It will then mostly be tucked behind my TV, plugged into it via HDMI. Your requirements are all over the place, what are your priorities, in order? The Y50 is a fine machine and nobody here has complained about build quality, it and the Y40 are actually recommended by many people.
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Oct 8, 2014 21:15
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Zuhzuhzombie!! posted:So I asked about 6 months ago and held off hoping for a good hardware refresh. Here I am again. If budget isn't an issue, the Gigabyte P34G v2 has been getting some solid reviews. It's as close as you're going to get to a gaming laptop that feels more like an Ultrabook with a kickass monitor, from what I've researched. Biggest cons are a poo poo battery life (4 hours on normal usage, maybe an hour while gaming), loud fan (this is true of any gaming laptop), and a huge-rear end powerbrick which is kind of difficult to find a replacement for. I personally haven't bought it because a) $1400, and b) I'm hoping that the next revision will have a better battery life, but it seems like a solid choice. dpkg chopra fucked around with this message at 13:04 on Oct 9, 2014 |
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Oct 8, 2014 21:16
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I'm an engineering student and in need of a laptop that will be competent and reliable for the next two years. Most of the use that I can think of right now is going to be in the excel suite, Matlab, and labview. I will also probably use it to watch movies with headphones, and maybe some light CAD. I would also really like a numpad and to be able to keep it in my backpack. I would like to spend around $800. Can I get what I am looking for for that? Should I look at anything other than the Lenovo ThinkPad T540p? Would I be able to save some money by getting memory and an SSD and installing them myself? This will be my first laptop.
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Oct 9, 2014 03:12
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How can HP have no laptops < 15.6" with SSDs? Everything below "large" has 5400rpm HDDs. Why would they do that? As a follow-up to my earlier post, I'm currently considering the following laptops. Does anyone have any insights on any of these? Dell XPS 12.5-Inch Lenovo Thinkpad Yoga Lenovo Yoga 2 (same "generation" as the Thinkpad Yoga) ASUS Zenbook UX303LA Toshiba Portege Z30-A1301
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Oct 9, 2014 06:19
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I had the zenbook 303LA for about a week before returning it because I couldn't adjust to the navigation keys (pg up, pg dn, home, and end) being bound to fn+ one of the arrow keys. Besides that it was very nice. Only other negatives I noted was that the battery life wasn't superb, only like 5-6 hours, and that Asus was using msata ssds in 2.5" adapters instead of full 2.5 inch ssds back when the laptop first launched.
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Oct 9, 2014 06:34
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Ynglaur posted:How can HP have no laptops < 15.6" with SSDs? Everything below "large" has 5400rpm HDDs. Why would they do that? My work HP 820 G1 (12.5") came with an SSD (a Samsung 840 Pro) so they definitely exist
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Oct 9, 2014 09:03
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So early reviews of the 980m are incredibly positive. Less power usage and performance that's around 75% of the desktop cards. That's mighty impressive, and I'm glad I'll be getting one of those next month instead of the altogether pretty disappointing 880m.
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Oct 9, 2014 11:05
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Ur Getting Fatter posted:If budget isn't an issue, the Asus P34G v2 has been getting some solid reviews. It's as close as you're going to get to a gaming laptop that feels more like an Ultrabook with a kickass monitor, from what I've researched. Yeah, that looks like a pretty solid option. I'll also see if I can find a Y50 in the wild. Thanks!
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Oct 9, 2014 12:38
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Ur Getting Fatter posted:the Asus P34G v2 Surely it's the Gigabyte P34G-v2, and yes, a great gaming laptop to look at
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Oct 9, 2014 12:50
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HalloKitty posted:Surely it's the Gigabyte P34G-v2, and yes, a great gaming laptop to look at Ugh, yes, meant to say Gigabyte, sorry. I'll edit my post.
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Oct 9, 2014 13:03
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Don't worry, Google pointed me in the right direction.
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Oct 9, 2014 16:32
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I've never owned a laptop but am going to be spending a lot of time hospitalized here starting next week. All I want is something I can use to write, surf the web, and play Tome4 Tales of Maj'Eyal and Dungeon Crawl Stone soup on. I've got my eye on a Dell Inspiron i3542-8334BK because I can get a decent deal on one. I'm assuming this will fit my needs?
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Oct 9, 2014 17:20
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How garbage is this super budget Inspiron desktop vs the OP suggested Nexus 7 + Keyboard or a Chromebook? The major reason for consideration being Windows.
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Oct 9, 2014 19:01
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so I'm bad and slow at researching, and my laptop just got borked unexpectedly. It'll primarily be used for office work, net browsing, general media, playing really old games (like HL1 engine and earlier), and digital art - emphasis on pixel art. Nothin' else needs to be fancy. I just need a little bit of power, enough durability to be carried in a thick case without being shattered, and good visual clarity/color. Great battery life is kind of optional since I'm rarely ever using it unplugged. Also my current-now-previous one has a 13" screen, so there's a decent size I guess. Looking at a Lenovo T420. Anything problematic with that?
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Oct 9, 2014 19:50
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LvK posted:
The screen sucks (even the HD+ model). Its fine for office work but don't expect good colour reproduction or black levels or viewing angles - they're all towards the poor end of the scale. That said I don't think that a lot of the cheap consumer focused models with 1366x768 screens are any better - unfortunately good screens still cost fairly serious money (unless you can get by with a convertible like the T100)
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Oct 9, 2014 20:01
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dissss posted:The screen sucks (even the HD+ model). Its fine for office work but don't expect good colour reproduction or black levels or viewing angles - they're all towards the poor end of the scale. Hrm. I'd do most of the heavy duty lifting duty and color correction on a desktop, probably, so landing a bit short of what I want wouldn't be too bad. Especially since my budget's probably tightening up soon. Is there anything with a "so-so" type monitor? e: currently looking to top out at the 800 dollar range with new budget, bit of wiggle room.
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Oct 9, 2014 21:02
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I'm starting a new job soon and one of the perks is a $1000 laptop budget. What's a good-quality, light-weight option that includes touchscreen with at least a 1920x1080 resolution? I'll need the touch capability for later to help troubleshoot touch-based performance issues in Sharepoint apps.
IAmKale fucked around with this message at 23:01 on Oct 9, 2014 |
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Oct 9, 2014 22:48
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Karthe posted:I'm starting a new job soon and one of the perks is a $1000 laptop budget. What's a good-quality, light-weight option that includes touchscreen with at least a 1920x1080 resolution? I'll need the touch capability for later to help troubleshoot touch-based performance issues in Sharepoint apps. I'd get an i5 / 128GB Surface Pro 3 in that budget, and get the type cover out of pocket, or just use a Bluetooth keyboard with it. Twerk from Home fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Oct 10, 2014 |
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Oct 9, 2014 23:04
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Twerk from Home posted:I'd get an i5 / 128GB Surface Pro 3 in that budget, and get the type cover out of pocket, or just use a Bluetooth keyboard with it. Would it be stupid to get a Yoga Pro 2 now that Lenovo's announced its Yoga Pro 3? I know the Pro 3 uses Haswell, but the main benefit seems to be the additional battery life. Performance-wise, is there anything else I'd miss out on by getting something with a 4th gen Intel i5/i7?
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Oct 10, 2014 04:23
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Karthe posted:Would it be stupid to get a Yoga Pro 2 now that Lenovo's announced its Yoga Pro 3? The Yoga 1 is still a great value, the Yoga 2 pro has an ivy bridge chip which is slightly less power efficent than Haswell but it's still lightyears ahead of what you could buy in 2010.
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Oct 10, 2014 05:15
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Hadlock posted:The Yoga 1 is still a great value, the Yoga 2 pro has an ivy bridge chip which is slightly less power efficent than Haswell but it's still lightyears ahead of what you could buy in 2010. My Yoga 2 Pro has an i5-4200U, which is most definitely a Haswell chip. As far as I'm aware, all possible Y2P processors are Haswell, not IB.
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Oct 10, 2014 06:38
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Hotbod Handsomeface posted:I would like to spend around $800. Can I get what I am looking for for that? Should I look at anything other than the Lenovo ThinkPad T540p? Would I be able to save some money by getting memory and an SSD and installing them myself? This will be my first laptop. I'm really biased towards Thinkpads because they have good support, are reliable, and are not terribly expensive. The bad thing about the current gen is lack of physical trackpoint buttons (stupid, stupid design decision that is rumored to revert back in the next revision). If that bothers you and you really like the classic Thinkpad design, then a less expensive T530 might be a good option; no Haswell though. Another option is the Dell E5540. I recently got an E5440, the 14" version with trackpoint, of course no numpad in that size and I hate numpads in laptops, but it has yet to arrive. Only $600 on ebay, and you can get a version with a GTX 720m and SSD or SSHD for about $700-$800 on ebay or amazon. Installing after market memory and SSD, especially SSD, is usually always the way to go. Laptop makers gouge on SSDs, especially for any poor bastards buying an ultrabook or tablet where it is soldered on or really hard to open up. You can get a used Samsung 830 or 840 Pro 256GB SSD for $100-$140 shipped, or a new 256GB 840 EVO for $130 at Best Buy, and 4GB of laptop memory for like $40.
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Oct 11, 2014 04:39
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Thanks for the heads up on the Dell e5540. I'll look at it as well. Can you guys let me know if the following laptop is worth the price? It looks like a pretty good deal, and looks to already have the RAM and SSD that I would have otherwise done myself. Is the Intel Wireless 7260BN good? I don't know very much about this stuff. If this is good I am tempted to just jump on it. It looks like it could be competent for a few years. http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Lenovo-...=item27edc46ce6
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Oct 11, 2014 06:53
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It looks very worth it. Ebay usually has great deals for laptops in really good condition. I don't know how the single band 7260BN wireless card compares with dual band AC cards.
Basch lives! fucked around with this message at 08:17 on Oct 11, 2014 |
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Oct 11, 2014 08:14
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Basch lives. posted:It looks very worth it. Ebay usually has great deals for laptops in really good condition. I don't know how the single band 7260BN wireless card compares with dual band AC cards. I'll second this just from my previous experience. I bought a refurbished laptop on ebay and it was in practically new condition.
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Oct 11, 2014 11:05
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Is the Geforce GTX 860m a Kepler or a Maxwell GPU? I'm having a hard time figuring out what it is.
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Oct 11, 2014 18:25
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Twerk from Home posted:Is the Geforce GTX 860m a Kepler or a Maxwell GPU? I'm having a hard time figuring out what it is. There 860M has two different chips, GM107 and GK104. It can be either. From what I've researched, XoticPC puts Kepler and Gigabyte / Lenovo is putting Maxwell. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_800M_series
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Oct 11, 2014 19:04
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My partner's looking at upgrading to an Apple laptop due to their built-in voice-over not costing an additional $1k in software costs, and has asked me for help. She's looking at a Macbook pro, and would 'like' an internal CD drive. Practically the only option is the 2012 vanilla Macbook Pro with a lovely TN monitor and a mechanical HD. I'd be keen at the very least to get a SSD in there, but Apple's customization options are... limited and exorbitant, to say the least. I'm looking at an external Optical drive, but the price still skyrockets when trying to get a 500GB SSD on practically anything. Is it worth waiting to see what the next refresh will look like? drat apple and their price control on old parts =/ Her use case is office work + personal music collection (so pretty low-end, if memory hungry). Screen Res not an issue due to disabilty, but IPS v TN is.
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Oct 12, 2014 00:46
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Serephina posted:My partner's looking at upgrading to an Apple laptop due to their built-in voice-over not costing an additional $1k in software costs, and has asked me for help. She's looking at a Macbook pro, and would 'like' an internal CD drive. Practically the only option is the 2012 vanilla Macbook Pro with a lovely TN monitor and a mechanical HD. I'd be keen at the very least to get a SSD in there, but Apple's customization options are... limited and exorbitant, to say the least. I'm looking at an external Optical drive, but the price still skyrockets when trying to get a 500GB SSD on practically anything. Is it worth waiting to see what the next refresh will look like? drat apple and their price control on old parts =/ Why not get the base Retina Macbook Pro and use an external DVD drive?
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Oct 12, 2014 02:12
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You can get an SSD yourself and install it and install OS X on it. I don't recommend this. Don't capitulate, get her a 13" rMBP. Her use case isn't "burning CD's for other people all the time" or "being very paranoid about malicious USB firmware" so. Yeah. Here's more encouragement in that direction. It's the right decision, you won't regret it. Unless she's like, actually burning or reading CD's and DVD's all the time, in different locations, for actual reasons. This is a thing for some people.
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Oct 12, 2014 02:32
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I would get her a new MBA or MBP and a $30 external DVD drive, there's a reason nobody complained when Apple dropped external drives from their laptop line. Samsung makes a great external CD/DVD+/-R/RW for about $35 shipped. I use mine about twice a year. You can buy USB floppy drives, too.
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Oct 12, 2014 03:07
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While I agree that one of the modern Macs is a much better idea than an old Pro if they truely need 500+ GB of internal storage then it's going to get pricey.
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Oct 12, 2014 05:39
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So as we know the new Yoga refreshes are on their way. While reviews won't drop for a while yet, does anyone have thoughts comparing the two, particularly toward their use as gaming machines? I've been in the market for ~forever~ now and my 2010 HP-DM1 is crawling its belly at this point, crying out for death. The new Thinkpad Yoga 14 and the Yoga 3 Pro seem fairly comparable to me. The latter is supposed to be a little bit lower in terms of speed and battery, right, with less hard drive space? And since the Yoga 14 is branded as a Thinkpad, would I be correct in assuming some of its internals may be more easily swapped out? These are two new machines that have caught my eye as someone looking for a portable, 14" laptop that I can play games on. I'm going to wait for reviews to drop later in the month. If I waited even a little longer, are there any other machines coming out would also be worth while? These 2 Yogas have me excited in a way I haven't felt in months about new hardware.
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Oct 12, 2014 11:56
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So apparently I have been living under a rock (or just really busy) Yoga 3 Pro does not have fans or vent holes due to low power consumption (Broadwell Core-M)  Apple is likely to announce their new MBP and MBA on Thursday, exact quote from Apple invitation to event "It's been way too long", which will likely also lack fans and vents (new buzz word is Broadwell Core-M, max TDP 4.5W but will turbo boost to 2.5 ghz) Odds are 50/50 that the new MBA will have a retina display. One rumor site is claiming the 11" MBA will keep it's external dimensions but shrink the bezel for a 12" retina display. If that's the case the OP will feature a "how to install Windows on your new Apple Core-M powered laptop" segment.
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Oct 12, 2014 22:39
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Basch lives. posted:I'm really biased towards Thinkpads because they have good support, are reliable, and are not terribly expensive. The bad thing about the current gen is lack of physical trackpoint buttons (stupid, stupid design decision that is rumored to revert back in the next revision). If that bothers you and you really like the classic Thinkpad design, then a less expensive T530 might be a good option; no Haswell though. Speaking of this, when is the next Thinkpad revision expected? I also wonder why the rumors are that way when Lenovo's been trending WTF on the Thinkpad line for a while (the new X1 carbon keyboard, non-physical trackpoint buttons).
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Oct 13, 2014 01:43
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Deus Rex posted:Speaking of this, when is the next Thinkpad revision expected? I also wonder why the rumors are that way when Lenovo's been trending WTF on the Thinkpad line for a while (the new X1 carbon keyboard, non-physical trackpoint buttons). One of the docks for the next Helix has discrete trackpoint buttons.
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Oct 13, 2014 02:43
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I need to replace my folks' laptops and unfortunately it can't be a Lenovo. They had some problems with the Y and U series laptops they bought about 3 years ago and Lenovo's support/repair services for it was less than stellar (Sent one back for a busted solder joint on the charger input and it came back unfixed, then later had the mSATA SSD report itself as failing and Lenovo wouldn't give them the option of performing the drive swap themselves so they could just clone the drive and ship the failing one back) I'd rather not move them to a Mac as Windows is required for some of the stuff they use the laptops for still and running two operating systems is not something I'm looking forward to supporting for them. I've looked at some of the popular stuff on notebookreview and am I correct in assuming touch screen is the current boondoggle companies are throwing on their upper tier laptops. It seems like most of the higher end stuff I'm finding (XPS 15, Inspiron 7000, Elitebook 840) all have touchscreens. I can't see this being something my folks would use so I'm hoping there's something cheaper and as reliable out there.
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Oct 13, 2014 15:34
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