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Guilty
May 3, 2003
Ask me about how people having a bad reaction to MSG makes them racist, because I've never heard of gluten sensitivity
I stepped out on a limb and dropped 1.5k on a huawei matebook pro X with all the fixings. At first I was a little reticent on splurging on a brand I never tried before (lifelong lenovo fan here, and by lifelong I mean the two notebooks I bought from them that have lasted twenty years and never needed anything more).

God. drat. This Huawei is sexy as hell. All the reviews are well deserved I think, I'm very happy with my purchase and I'm looking for excuses just to use the thing.

I'll try to remember to post and update in six months and see how well it holds up.

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TraderStav
May 19, 2006

It feels like I was standing my entire life and I just sat down

I'm pretty dumb on new hardware. Is this the same SSD that I can use in my yet-to-be-shipped Lenovo Yoga X1 gen 3? Or is it another configuration?

Atomizer
Jun 24, 2007



Statutory Ape posted:

Helios 300 owner here and let me tell you, I wish I had just thrown in a 2 TB SSD from the get go.

Looks like you can grab a name brand 2 TB m2 drive for about ~$220-250 from B&H.

Thats the move to make imho

E: i know its sort of expensive to upgrade it, but that drive should last you an extremely long time and can be moved from computer to computer, whether it be desktop or laptop. and i still think we're about a year+ out from seeing sub $200 2 TB SSD deals on the regular


e2: https://slickdeals.net/f/12938701-2tb-intel-660p-nvme-ssd-200-ac-newegg?src=catpagev2 intel 2TB NVME SSD for $200 on newegg

To be fair, back when you bought the Helios, SSDs were far more expensive than they are now. Even today, however, SSDs are still about double the cost of HDDs per capacity; you can get a 2 TB HDD for <$100 and with deals get an SSD of the same capacity for just under $200. The 660p and SU800 are frequently at that price with discounts on Rakuten.

Hadlock posted:

Hell, I have a 128gb SSD and a 64gb SSD from the 2012 era that are in their third machines. I will probably migrate the 1TB SSD that's in my Thinkpad when I finally retire it.

If Thunderbolt 3 4-bay disk enclosures ever come down in price I may just buy one and stuff all my old SSD in one as some ludicrous raid-0 disk

I already have a NAS with 6TB rotational drives attached via gigabit Ethernet, but even one mid-range SSD is fast enough to saturate a gig-e link these days, and nobody sells a TB3 dock with dual gig-e (yet)

Right now my so spare SSD are running as external USB 3 drives attached to the dock

A good HDD can actually saturate Gigabit Ethernet. I wouldn't suggest using RAID0 on a bunch of SSDs without some specific purpose, but I would totally use JBOD to get some extra use out of older drives. If you still have HDDs directly attached to a PC for game storage in particular, I'd suggest using older, otherwise-obsolete SSDs like that 64 GB one as a read cache (as always, I use and recommend PrimoCache.)

TraderStav posted:

I'm pretty dumb on new hardware. Is this the same SSD that I can use in my yet-to-be-shipped Lenovo Yoga X1 gen 3? Or is it another configuration?

You'd have to link your specific model to be sure, but I'd be 99% confident that your brand-new laptop can take at least one NVMe SSD.

TraderStav
May 19, 2006

It feels like I was standing my entire life and I just sat down

Atomizer posted:

You'd have to link your specific model to be sure, but I'd be 99% confident that your brand-new laptop can take at least one NVMe SSD.

Thanks, it appears that I do.

Storage
Some: M.2 SSD / SATA 6.0Gb/s (e.g. xxxG SSD)
Some: M.2 SSD / PCIe NVMe, PCIe 3.0 x 4, 32Gb/s (e.g. xxxG SSD PCIe NVMe)

Does this mean that I can purchase an NVMe SSD and have a second hard drive? Are there any other upgrades that would use that same port that I should consider before going the dual hard drive route? Searching NVMe only brings up SSDs, but as I said I'm pretty dumb and am not sure if I should be searching for another interface to see what's out there.

Source: Link

TraderStav fucked around with this message at 17:29 on Mar 20, 2019

fartknocker
Oct 28, 2012


Damn it, this always happens. I think I'm gonna score, and then I never score. It's not fair.



Wedge Regret
Thanks for all the information, folks.

Atomizer posted:

As long as you can upgrade the drives yourself, built-in storage is a non-factor (plus it's usually cheaper to do it yourself.)

I'm somewhat hesitant to go that route right now. Part of it is I'm not fully comfortable doing that stuff on own (I haven't done it in forever), and I'd rather spend somewhat over my budget now for something that I know will last a while.

One that grabbed my attention was this HP Pavilion on Amazon. I could potentially max out the RAM, SSD, and HDD options, and it would still be only $1200 which is within the price range I'd be comfortable with, but it has a different processor. Would the Ryzen 5 be a huge drop off from an i5 or i7? Or are HP's problematic? Cause on the surface, with my minimal knowledge of such matters, that seems like it would be a solid choice for me. There's also a Lenovo ThinkPad that'd be about $1300, which also looks like it'd be solid and it's i7, if that is a big deal. I did notice it only has an SSD and no HDD, so I'm not sure if that would be a huge issue for my needs.

Also, for what it's worth, I've been mainly looking on Amazon cause I have about $200 in gift cards, so I'd spending a but more there wouldn't be as big of an issue.

Preston Waters
May 21, 2010

by VideoGames
Is Lenovo a good brand for a gaming laptop? I'm ready to trash my Yoga 13 but I want an actual gaming rig this time. As of right now I'm trying to decide between the Legion Y740 (15) or the Legion Y740 (17), which are 15.6" and 17", respectively.

I've just not seeing Lenovo listed in this thread very much, especially with regard to gaming. Additionally, I'm wary of the fact that they've included some malware / bloatware in their other products on release. I know everyone is all :tinfoil: about Huawei right now, so I'm just trying to make sure Lenovo isn't putting some loving backdoor in which they can use to DDOS the Pentagon or some poo poo, especially in a product I'm paying for...

Preston Waters fucked around with this message at 02:21 on Mar 21, 2019

Atomizer
Jun 24, 2007



TraderStav posted:

Thanks, it appears that I do.

Storage
Some: M.2 SSD / SATA 6.0Gb/s (e.g. xxxG SSD)
Some: M.2 SSD / PCIe NVMe, PCIe 3.0 x 4, 32Gb/s (e.g. xxxG SSD PCIe NVMe)

Does this mean that I can purchase an NVMe SSD and have a second hard drive? Are there any other upgrades that would use that same port that I should consider before going the dual hard drive route? Searching NVMe only brings up SSDs, but as I said I'm pretty dumb and am not sure if I should be searching for another interface to see what's out there.

Source: Link

Looks like it has a single m.2 slot, SATA or NVMe compatible. NVMe basically means "a PCIe connection to a physical m.2 interface" so it's just for SSDs. You could add external USB storage though.

fartknocker posted:

Thanks for all the information, folks.


I'm somewhat hesitant to go that route right now. Part of it is I'm not fully comfortable doing that stuff on own (I haven't done it in forever), and I'd rather spend somewhat over my budget now for something that I know will last a while.

One that grabbed my attention was this HP Pavilion on Amazon. I could potentially max out the RAM, SSD, and HDD options, and it would still be only $1200 which is within the price range I'd be comfortable with, but it has a different processor. Would the Ryzen 5 be a huge drop off from an i5 or i7? Or are HP's problematic? Cause on the surface, with my minimal knowledge of such matters, that seems like it would be a solid choice for me. There's also a Lenovo ThinkPad that'd be about $1300, which also looks like it'd be solid and it's i7, if that is a big deal. I did notice it only has an SSD and no HDD, so I'm not sure if that would be a huge issue for my needs.

Also, for what it's worth, I've been mainly looking on Amazon cause I have about $200 in gift cards, so I'd spending a but more there wouldn't be as big of an issue.

Some devices are easier to open and upgrade than others, but as long as you've got one of the simpler devices (e.g. Acers are pretty convenient to work on) this shouldn't be a disqualifying factor. Installing more RAM or m.2 storage is a simple as putting a card edge into a slot (and fastening the latter with an included screw) and a 2.5" drive is similarly trivial.

That HP is poo poo: it's huge, with a 17" display but it's only 1600x900 resolution. Plus the Ryzen mobile chipsets apparently have poor manufacturer support for the drivers. Hard pass. The Thinkpad looks fine as far as I can tell, but I'm not familiar with the E580.

Preston Waters posted:

Is Lenovo a good brand for a gaming laptop? I'm ready to trash my Yoga 13 but I want an actual gaming rig this time. As of right now I'm trying to decide between the Legion Y740 (15) or the Legion Y740 (17), which are 15.6" and 17", respectively.

I've just not seeing Lenovo listed in this thread very much, especially with regard to gaming. Additionally, I'm wary of the fact that they've included some malware / bloatware in their other products on release. I know everyone is all :tinfoil: about Hwawai right now, so I'm just trying to make sure Lenovo isn't putting some loving backdoor in which they can use to DDOS the Pentagon or some poo poo, especially in a product I'm paying for...

The midrange Lenovo Legions are fine gaming laptops just like similarly-priced competitors from Dell, Acer, etc. I usually recommend the Acer Helios 300; if you can get that Y740 with an i7, 1060, and 144 Hz display for <$1k go for it, otherwise get the Helios (depending, of course, on the specs you're looking for, and the games you want to play.)

AgentCow007
May 20, 2004
TITLE TEXT

Preston Waters posted:

Is Lenovo a good brand for a gaming laptop? I'm ready to trash my Yoga 13 but I want an actual gaming rig this time. As of right now I'm trying to decide between the Legion Y740 (15) or the Legion Y740 (17), which are 15.6" and 17", respectively.

I've just not seeing Lenovo listed in this thread very much, especially with regard to gaming. Additionally, I'm wary of the fact that they've included some malware / bloatware in their other products on release. I know everyone is all :tinfoil: about Hwawai right now, so I'm just trying to make sure Lenovo isn't putting some loving backdoor in which they can use to DDOS the Pentagon or some poo poo, especially in a product I'm paying for...

Dave2D recently covered the Y740 and had high praise for it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTUytmEYx6s

Worf
Sep 12, 2017

If only Seth would love me like I love him!

There's like 4-5 laptops that have nearly the same specs (i7/16gb/1060) usually in 15 and 17 inch varieties. Dell, Lenovo, Acer, Overpowered , off the top of my head. I suspect they're effectively interchangeable for 90% of people

Preston Waters
May 21, 2010

by VideoGames

Atomizer posted:

The midrange Lenovo Legions are fine gaming laptops just like similarly-priced competitors from Dell, Acer, etc. I usually recommend the Acer Helios 300; if you can get that Y740 with an i7, 1060, and 144 Hz display for <$1k go for it, otherwise get the Helios (depending, of course, on the specs you're looking for, and the games you want to play.)

the Y740 has a RTX 2070, not a 1060 lol

Statutory Ape posted:

There's like 4-5 laptops that have nearly the same specs (i7/16gb/1060) usually in 15 and 17 inch varieties. Dell, Lenovo, Acer, Overpowered , off the top of my head. I suspect they're effectively interchangeable for 90% of people

yea but I'm not looking for a 1060

Mu Zeta
Oct 17, 2002

Me crush ass to dust

AgentCow007 posted:

Dave2D recently covered the Y740 and had high praise for it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTUytmEYx6s

I like it but it's over $1500 even with the discount. I don't think having the Nvidia 2060 is worth the premium over an older 1060 laptop.

Hadlock
Nov 9, 2004

Statutory Ape posted:

There's like 4-5 laptops that have nearly the same specs (i7/16gb/1060) usually in 15 and 17 inch varieties. Dell, Lenovo, Acer, Overpowered , off the top of my head. I suspect they're effectively interchangeable for 90% of people

laptop-megathread.txt

Atomizer
Jun 24, 2007



Preston Waters posted:

the Y740 has a RTX 2070, not a 1060 lol


yea but I'm not looking for a 1060

Ah, ok then, there's certainly a performance difference there, but we don't have all laptop specs memorized, nor should you expect us to look up every model (especially with all of the possible variants - at least provide a link to what you're looking at.) Also, you really need to provide more details on what you're looking at, your budget, what hardware (e.g. GPUs) you're considering, what games you want to run on it at what settings, etc. I just took a stab at your request based on the little information you provided. :shrug:

Mu Zeta posted:

I like it but it's over $1500 even with the discount. I don't think having the Nvidia 2060 is worth the premium over an older 1060 laptop.

Yeah the 2060 is more powerful than the 1060, but not 50+% more powerful. Again, it's all about what you expect to run on it.

100% Dundee
Oct 11, 2004
In the same vein of the recent SSD/NVME type chat, what's you guys opinion on my situation. My current laptop has two M.2 slots, one is NVME/SATA capable and came filled with a 256gb NVME SSD and the second slot is currently empty but SATA only. I'm looking to expand the storage a bit, 1TB would be basically good enough for the rest of the life of this laptop.

My first path of logic was just to get a 1TB M.2 SATA drive and throw that in the secondary slot since it's only going to be used for storing media/files/etc primarily, I don't do any gaming or anything intensive on this computer so I'm fairly sure the speeds should be perfectly fine and leave the 256GB NVME unit in there as the primary boot drive/programs/etc. The conundrum that I'm running into is that a 1TB M.2 SATA, even the lower quality ones like the WD Blue seem to cost more than a Intel 660p 1TB NVME unit. What would you guys do, ditch the 256GB NVME and throw a 660p in there or keep the 256GB NVME and throw a 1TB drive in the second slot?

Secondly, what are everyone's favorite suggested USB-C dongles/hubs? I'm looking for a reliable, quality one with HDMI, PD pass-through and ethernet primarily, anything else is just a bonus.

Hadlock
Nov 9, 2004

Hadlock posted:

This is the one I have:

https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-Think...8-1-spons&psc=1

It comes with a lovely 6" thunderbolt 3 male to male cable, but you can obviously replace it. $275 seems steep, I remember paying closer to $225

If you go back one page there's significant discussion about this topic of usb hubs

Given that Thunderbolt 3 is being rebranded as "USB4" (not USB 4.0...) might as well pony up for the TB3 model as it'll probably serve you through 2-3 laptops

I'm firmly of the opinion that Lenovo's 40AN0135US is best of breed, and I'll fight anyone who disagrees with me, mostly because I have one and also because it allows you to Bring Your Own Cord so you don't have a lovely 6" dongle device with an octopus of black tentacles shooting off every which way sitting right next to your laptop.

Plenty of photos on the previous page, but I think this pretty much sells the idea of a 6' cable from laptop to dock #onecabletorulethemall

Worf
Sep 12, 2017

If only Seth would love me like I love him!

Yes

Mu Zeta
Oct 17, 2002

Me crush ass to dust

You have to be a psycho to have a desktop that clean and organized. My desk looks like there was a tornado.

TITTIEKISSER69
Mar 19, 2005

SAVE THE BEES
PLANT MORE TREES
CLEAN THE SEAS
KISS TITTIESS




Huawei 14" touchscreen laptop $699 shipped, with code

Worf
Sep 12, 2017

If only Seth would love me like I love him!

Brads deals is pretty good. I was made aware of a great deal on dell refurbs there about a year back

TITTIEKISSER69
Mar 19, 2005

SAVE THE BEES
PLANT MORE TREES
CLEAN THE SEAS
KISS TITTIESS




Yeah the Dell refurb sales are often 40 or 50% off. I got my parents new computers this way, $180 each.

Hadlock
Nov 9, 2004

Mu Zeta posted:

You have to be a psycho to have a desktop that clean and organized. My desk looks like there was a tornado.

To be honest right now there's two laptops on my desk plus a Chinese pirate radio Ham radio, an SDR dongle plus 20' of wires to string it all together so that I can track commercial ship traffic

But my desk lives in the corner of the living room so when guests come over...

Mu Zeta
Oct 17, 2002

Me crush ass to dust

Do you have any speakers? They'd ruin the clean look though. I personally like having everything build in so I've been using iMacs since 2004.

Atomizer
Jun 24, 2007



100% Dundee posted:

In the same vein of the recent SSD/NVME type chat, what's you guys opinion on my situation. My current laptop has two M.2 slots, one is NVME/SATA capable and came filled with a 256gb NVME SSD and the second slot is currently empty but SATA only. I'm looking to expand the storage a bit, 1TB would be basically good enough for the rest of the life of this laptop.

My first path of logic was just to get a 1TB M.2 SATA drive and throw that in the secondary slot since it's only going to be used for storing media/files/etc primarily, I don't do any gaming or anything intensive on this computer so I'm fairly sure the speeds should be perfectly fine and leave the 256GB NVME unit in there as the primary boot drive/programs/etc. The conundrum that I'm running into is that a 1TB M.2 SATA, even the lower quality ones like the WD Blue seem to cost more than a Intel 660p 1TB NVME unit. What would you guys do, ditch the 256GB NVME and throw a 660p in there or keep the 256GB NVME and throw a 1TB drive in the second slot?

Secondly, what are everyone's favorite suggested USB-C dongles/hubs? I'm looking for a reliable, quality one with HDMI, PD pass-through and ethernet primarily, anything else is just a bonus.

It make sense to keep the OS on an NVMe drive and just add a 1 TB SATA, but if all you need is 1 TB total then it also makes sense to go with the cheapest option (i.e. replacing the 256 GB with the 660p.) On the plus side you could always repurpose the SSD you removed, either by putting it in another system eventually or throwing it in a USB enclosure. Unfortunately those enclosures are more expensive than USB-SATA ones.

Hadlock
Nov 9, 2004

No but I've never been much of an audiophile. Prior to going to laptop only, my desktop system was hooked up to the 2010 version of the high-and-mighty Logitech Z213 (LS21).

My downstairs neighbor is both deaf and owns a 15" subwoofer though, enough for both of us. Day and night. One day I'm going to put a brick through her living room window.

I do have a pair of the new usb-c charging, wireless sony WH-1000XM3 noise cancelling headphones (which I charge off the thunderbolt 3 cable when not using the laptop). They work really well.

Laptop speakers are tiny tiny and tinny sounding, it is a fact of life/physics, I have come to accept it.

Guilty
May 3, 2003
Ask me about how people having a bad reaction to MSG makes them racist, because I've never heard of gluten sensitivity

If anyone's on the fence about Huawei, it's a beautiful machine that runs extremely well. The only test I cannot vouch for is the test of time, as I just got mine. But I'm really happy with it

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

Mu Zeta posted:

I like it but it's over $1500 even with the discount. I don't think having the Nvidia 2060 is worth the premium over an older 1060 laptop.

Yeah it's not a massive performance over the older Pascal series GPUs especially for people with a limited budget.

etalian fucked around with this message at 22:03 on Mar 22, 2019

LRADIKAL
Jun 10, 2001

Fun Shoe
Looking for a Chromebook for my wife. She currently has a Toshiba CB35-B3340 13.3 Inch Chromebook (Intel Celeron, 4GB, 16GB SSD, Silver) Full HD-Screen https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00N99FXIS/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_VSvLCbS77DTH2 .

It's still good enough for her, she mostly uses it for school work, but it's starting to get a little pokey, low on battery, and it's not reliable for playing HD video on trips.

There was a 14 inch laptop listed above that seems similar, but so similar that the processor is basically same spec. Is there anything with 1080p, around 14 inch screen for less than 500, that performs better? Starting to look like we should just hang on.

100% Dundee
Oct 11, 2004

Atomizer posted:

It make sense to keep the OS on an NVMe drive and just add a 1 TB SATA, but if all you need is 1 TB total then it also makes sense to go with the cheapest option (i.e. replacing the 256 GB with the 660p.) On the plus side you could always repurpose the SSD you removed, either by putting it in another system eventually or throwing it in a USB enclosure. Unfortunately those enclosures are more expensive than USB-SATA ones.

That's a great idea about throwing the NVME drive into a USB enclosure, I didn't even consider that. Unfortunately the good ones seem to be like $40-50 each which doesn't make much sense for me for such a small, external drive. I think I'm just gonna go the easy route and get the 1TB SATA M.2 since it's only like $10-15 more and throw it in the secondary slot and leave the 256GB NVME one as the boot drive like you mentioned.


LRADIKAL posted:

Looking for a Chromebook for my wife. She currently has a Toshiba CB35-B3340 13.3 Inch Chromebook (Intel Celeron, 4GB, 16GB SSD, Silver) Full HD-Screen https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00N99FXIS/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_VSvLCbS77DTH2 .

It's still good enough for her, she mostly uses it for school work, but it's starting to get a little pokey, low on battery, and it's not reliable for playing HD video on trips.

There was a 14 inch laptop listed above that seems similar, but so similar that the processor is basically same spec. Is there anything with 1080p, around 14 inch screen for less than 500, that performs better? Starting to look like we should just hang on.

If you have a Microcenter nearby and don't mind a full windows laptop vs a chromebook, I'd highly suggest checking out the WinBook CW140 that they sell. WinBook is like their "store-brand" essentially I believe, they are made specifically for Microcenter and sold in-store only. That model sounds like it might fit your needs perfectly, $399, 14inch, decent 1080p IPS display, touchscreen 2-1, i5-8250u, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, decent battery life, etc. Would be significantly faster performance wise I'd think and also just so happens to look exactly like that model your wife currently has which she might like.

Atomizer
Jun 24, 2007



LRADIKAL posted:

Looking for a Chromebook for my wife. She currently has a Toshiba CB35-B3340 13.3 Inch Chromebook (Intel Celeron, 4GB, 16GB SSD, Silver) Full HD-Screen https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00N99FXIS/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_VSvLCbS77DTH2 .

It's still good enough for her, she mostly uses it for school work, but it's starting to get a little pokey, low on battery, and it's not reliable for playing HD video on trips.

There was a 14 inch laptop listed above that seems similar, but so similar that the processor is basically same spec. Is there anything with 1080p, around 14 inch screen for less than 500, that performs better? Starting to look like we should just hang on.

Oof, that's the 1st-gen Toshiba CB2 (2014); the one from 2015 is basically the same thing but with a much faster CPU. :(

The N2xxx CPUs are especially lovely Atom-based ones, but the N3xxx are better. I wouldn't blame you if you wanted a Core i3 or Core m though. Check my Chromebook Megathread, especially the last couple of pages; I mention how nowadays there's a ton of similar CBs, so you have plenty of options but they're all kinda similar. Does it have to be at least 14"? There's a few at that size or above, most options are smaller than that. Everyone who has, for example, the Asus Flip C302 loves it, although it's a ~12" FHD display. It's <$500 as a refurb/used, e.g. on Amazon Warehouse Deals.

100% Dundee posted:

That's a great idea about throwing the NVME drive into a USB enclosure, I didn't even consider that. Unfortunately the good ones seem to be like $40-50 each which doesn't make much sense for me for such a small, external drive. I think I'm just gonna go the easy route and get the 1TB SATA M.2 since it's only like $10-15 more and throw it in the secondary slot and leave the 256GB NVME one as the boot drive like you mentioned.

Yeah the good thing about SSDs is that when you upgrade from one to another, you can use the old one for something (even if it's just as a HDD cache or USB flash drive) indefinitely into the future because they all have good performance, but the bad thing is like I said, NVMe enclosures are much more expensive than SATA ones. Conversely, in the future NVMe SSDs will be pretty much exclusive in new systems.

LRADIKAL
Jun 10, 2001

Fun Shoe

Atomizer posted:

Oof, that's the 1st-gen Toshiba CB2 (2014); the one from 2015 is basically the same thing but with a much faster CPU. :(

Thanks, tank bro! I didn't know there was a Chromebook thread, I'll check it out. It doesn't have to be 14" necessarily. It looks like a lot of the cheaper CBS have very similar CPUs to the one we have, just more power efficient.

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

Guilty posted:

I stepped out on a limb and dropped 1.5k on a huawei matebook pro X with all the fixings. At first I was a little reticent on splurging on a brand I never tried before (lifelong lenovo fan here, and by lifelong I mean the two notebooks I bought from them that have lasted twenty years and never needed anything more).

God. drat. This Huawei is sexy as hell. All the reviews are well deserved I think, I'm very happy with my purchase and I'm looking for excuses just to use the thing.

I'll try to remember to post and update in six months and see how well it holds up.

lmao looks like Huawei made a good 13" Macbook Pro/Macbook Air replacement.

DrDork
Dec 29, 2003
commanding officer of the Army of Dorkness

etalian posted:

lmao looks like Huawei made a good 13" Macbook Pro/Macbook Air replacement.

Yeah, that's exactly what they were going for, and by all reports they have hit the nail on the head. The screen in particular is real fuckin' nice, and having a MX150 option is great for some light gaming if that's your sort of thing. It does suffer from nose-cam syndrome, but so do a bunch of other 13" ultrathins, and if you don't use video chat a lot it probably isn't worth thinking about.

It's a pretty solid device, and at $1300 for an i7/16GB/512GB/MX150 version, it's not even particularly expensive for what it is.

Cozmosis
Feb 16, 2003

2006... YEAR OF THE BURNITZ, BITCHES

Guilty posted:

I stepped out on a limb and dropped 1.5k on a huawei matebook pro X with all the fixings. At first I was a little reticent on splurging on a brand I never tried before (lifelong lenovo fan here, and by lifelong I mean the two notebooks I bought from them that have lasted twenty years and never needed anything more).

God. drat. This Huawei is sexy as hell. All the reviews are well deserved I think, I'm very happy with my purchase and I'm looking for excuses just to use the thing.

I'll try to remember to post and update in six months and see how well it holds up.

Agree with this and previous posters. Just bought one at 1300 from the recent sale and it is very solid, the screen is beautiful, it is light and powerful, and the trackpad is decent for a Windows machine.

Still debating if I want to keep it or just use an older machine for a while while I wait for Apple to fix their poo poo keyboards. Been about 8 years since I've consistently used a Windows laptop, but this one is making it hard to give up.

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

DrDork posted:

Yeah, that's exactly what they were going for, and by all reports they have hit the nail on the head. The screen in particular is real fuckin' nice, and having a MX150 option is great for some light gaming if that's your sort of thing. It does suffer from nose-cam syndrome, but so do a bunch of other 13" ultrathins, and if you don't use video chat a lot it probably isn't worth thinking about.

It's a pretty solid device, and at $1300 for an i7/16GB/512GB/MX150 version, it's not even particularly expensive for what it is.

Yeah I'm also guessing the first version of the matebook Pro X was a "Loss leader" for Huawei item since it was substantially cheaper than the competition since the $1300 on sale model has lots of expensive features like the 512GB SSD.

Macbook Pro Touch 13" with similar options is $2200.

The new Dell XPS 13" would set you back $2000 for similar options but doesn't have discrete GPU to allow for light gaming.

Apparently the newer version of the same Matebook Pro X laptop sells for the $2000 so the first generation is probably the better bet for people looking to save some money.

Cozmosis posted:

Still debating if I want to keep it or just use an older machine for a while while I wait for Apple to fix their poo poo keyboards. Been about 8 years since I've consistently used a Windows laptop, but this one is making it hard to give up.

You know Apple is not going to fix their keyboard problem similar to how they told consumers they should he happy with no longer having a dedicated headphone jack.

etalian fucked around with this message at 12:16 on Mar 24, 2019

Worf
Sep 12, 2017

If only Seth would love me like I love him!

That Huawei looks real nice I admit. Definitely the next Ultrabook I get is having an mx150/equiv

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

Statutory Ape posted:

That Huawei looks real nice I admit. Definitely the next Ultrabook I get is having an mx150/equiv

Well at least it makes it possible to do light gaming or much older 3D games.

Some of the better optimized somewhat 3D games can also 1080 but at medium settings.

But you can pretty much forget getting any sort playable framerate on open world newer games like AC: Odyssey or Farcry

https://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-MX150-Benchmark-and-Specs-of-the-GT-1030-for-Laptops.223530.0.html

sirbeefalot
Aug 24, 2004
Fast Learner.
Fun Shoe
I've had my first gen Matebook X Pro for a couple months and it really is a nice machine. It has a couple very small annoyances like the trackpad rattle but overall its a very well built machine and feels much more solid than a typical notebook. The screen ratio is probably the best part and makes it really nice for productivity/browsing. That's something I had a hard time with looking at most laptops with wider aspect screens. If I were to change anything to make the design "perfect" I would move one of the USB-C ports to the right and make them both full-fledged TB3, but as is it is really well sorted.

Spacedad
Sep 11, 2001

We go play orbital catch around the curvature of the earth, son.
Just curious - I'm considering a razer blade 2019, but aiming to get a 256gb ssd version to save about 200 bucks. (The RTX 2070 one seems the best for me.)

How hard would it be for me to buy my own 1tb+ ssd later and add it myself. Either that, or how viable would external SSDs be for gaming if at all. (For reference, it has 1 thunderbolt 3 port and 3 USB-C ports.)

Edit: I think this is last year's model but I'm guessing you can upgrade the ram or ssd yourself too?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TZih3m0-Ys

Hadlock
Nov 9, 2004

I've been using some combination of USB-C/3.0, and before that, local network share (NAS) basically since Steam started officially supporting it years ago.

To the end user, USB-C/3.0 is just as fast as local disk when it comes to games. Somebody will pipe up that modern nvme disks are 3x faster and a modern SATA SSD can saturate USB 3.0, but - but in reality you're looking at staring at a loading screen for 2-3 seconds, rather than 1 second. Actual in game performance isn't impacted.

If you're running a commercial database backed website from your laptop then sustained disk might be a problem but you should be fine for games.

That said I always spec out a 1TB disk whenever I have the chance now. With updates and basic software installs you can quickly fill up 100-150GB and you're constantly swapping and deleting stuff to make room. 256 is the bare minimum I would use if money were tight.

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isndl
May 2, 2012
I WON A CONTEST IN TG AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS CUSTOM TITLE
Best way to check how hard it would be to upgrade the SSD yourself is to download the service manual and run through the instructions since those are what you're gonna be following. If the process involves popping out the keyboard or something you might be in for a slog.

Running games off an external SSD should be feasible but I dislike the idea myself, USB C cables are thick and bulky so they don't tuck out of the way very well.

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