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The Carbon is all about being super portable (light) with a long battery life. For Battletech you probably want a 1660ti (a 1650 would probably be ok, but I'd say step up to the 1660ti). The cheaper ROGs for ~$800 would probably be a great fit there, or the MSI/HP Omens are decent selections at around that $800 price point. If you really like the Thinkpads I think you're in the P1 "mobile desktop" category there, or else the legion 5i or the Y740 would work pretty well.
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Oct 30, 2020 18:31
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Ghost Leviathan posted:I repeat the title of the thread I drunkenly made in another forum: What laptops aren't poo poo? My old Acer is well past its use by date and I don't think its battery really does anything anymore, but I've learned from that not to make impulse buys based on vaguely similar brand names. well if you are talking about reliability over a three year period Squaretrade did a study with the top three being Asus, Toshiba and Sony. Also the interesting data point is premium models had noticeably lower failure rates, with the cheapest laptops have the highest chance of failure in the first 2/3 years. I'm assuming it's because cheaper models cut corners on things like the cost of lower level components down to the SMT component level. Of course the below Square trade report was back in 2009 so things might have changed in the last 11 years but I imagine the trend for budget models failing earlier would still be the same. Consumer Report did a 2015 customer survey on break-downs which had Apple place the lower for breakdowns over a 3-year period of use. https://www.squaretrade.com/htm/pdf/SquareTrade_laptop_reliability_1109.pdf quote:Apple, as in year's past, has the most reliable notebooks by far - a 10 percent breakdown rate in the first 3 years - with Samsung and Gateway distant seconds at 16 percent, and the rest of the industry - including Acer, Lenovo, Toshiba, HP, Dell and Asus, at 18-19 percent. https://www.zdnet.com/article/consumer-reports-notebook-reliability-survey/ etalian fucked around with this message at 00:19 on Oct 31, 2020 |
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Oct 30, 2020 22:20
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My xps 9310 showed up today. This sucker is tiny. 100 going to return it, or sell it, for the 15" version. Because goddam this thing is tiny. But hard to pull off the bottom plate, but doable. Never turned it on until after. Windows install was quick and painless, performance so far is great. No benchmarks yet, and I may not bother. It's good enough for me, just have to decide if the igpu is enough for my needs, and I can tell that without benchmarks. It came with a cover to hold the smaller size m2 drive, but it's shaped wrong to allow a 2280 to fit under it. It's installed without right now. Bad choice?
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Oct 31, 2020 00:27
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Hi all. My wife is looking into getting a laptop for some light gaming, and general pottering around on the internet - watching videoes etc. Nothing fancy. PC looking in the $1,000 - $2,000 range Australian Dollerydoos. Available/shipping to Melbourne, Victoria
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Oct 31, 2020 09:00
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I am also hoping to get a recommendation if someone is generous enough to take the time.
The last laptop I got was a very lightweight HP that this thread was really strongly recommending to everyone, this would have been like 8 or 9 years ago. It was a really good buy and has served me well, but it can't cope with the demands Win 10 puts on it. The laptop I owned before that was an Acer that was like a paving slab, I don't want to own another laptop that's such a hassle to carry around!
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Oct 31, 2020 15:23
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Here's one I found online: https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/hp-255-g7-15-6-laptop-amd-ryzen-5-256-gb-ssd-black-10215532-pdt.html It's a lot cheaper than other laptops I see on that site and others, but still has 16 GB ram and a 256 GB SSD. Decent size screen. What am I missing here? What have they skimped out on, that they're offering it so cheap compared to other comparable machines? Nothing leaps out at me when I look at the list of technical specs.
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Oct 31, 2020 15:52
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I mean, if you’re ok with just a 256gb ssd and and a processor that’s one generation (soon 2 generations) old then it’s probably fine. The screen likely isn’t very good. E: it has a membrane keyboard which is very much a love/hate kind of thing.
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Oct 31, 2020 16:01
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Those HPs are kinda cheapo/plasticy for the money but the hardware is ok. The GPU is good for minecraft/sims/tabletop simulator but that's about it. It'll probably run a little warm for the hardware if you're doing a big compiling job but I think you'll be fine. I don't know the UK price market but there's nothing wrong with that laptop if the price is good. A quick googling can help you find if a 8GB laptop has an empty ram slot, upgarding to 16 is pretty cheap (40 or so) and easy to do.
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Oct 31, 2020 16:02
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Fruits of the sea posted:I mean, if you’re ok with just a 256gb ssd and and a processor that’s one generation (soon 2 generations) old then it’s probably fine. The screen likely isn’t very good. Lockback posted:Those HPs are kinda cheapo/plasticy for the money but the hardware is ok. The GPU is good for minecraft/sims/tabletop simulator but that's about it. It'll probably run a little warm for the hardware if you're doing a big compiling job but I think you'll be fine. I don't know whether the keyboard is going to be an issue for me. I suspect not. The old laptop I have (that's nearly unuseable now) has kind of plasticky keys and it never bothered me. I found out the approximate model by looking in the old netbook thread where I posted that I'd bought it. It's an HP dm1z and I bought it in 2012. No idea how I'd figure out what kind of keyboard it has (but it was surely a cheap one). I'm not against upgrading a laptop. I've poked around inside desktop machines before, but never a laptop.
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Oct 31, 2020 16:34
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Lockback posted:Something with a 1650 and an SSD Sucks that it's not upgradable without voiding the warranty (this just a gently caress you, or how it's put together?). 256gb is kinda measly, and it's single channel memory (not sure if there's a second slot). But from what I've seen, that's still really cheap.
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Oct 31, 2020 18:35
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The HP dm1z had an excellent keyboard imo and I much prefer it over the often praised thinkpad keyboards even. Just for reference.
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Oct 31, 2020 18:37
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Lockback posted:The Carbon is all about being super portable (light) with a long battery life. For Battletech you probably want a 1660ti (a 1650 would probably be ok, but I'd say step up to the 1660ti). I'm not married to IBM or anything. I guess I didn't realize how intensive the battletech specs were. Maybe I should just bite the bullet and build a desktop, my laptop hardly ever moves anyway. Then I can get something lightweight for when I do need to post on SA from the toilet. In the mobile arena does AMD or Intel have any specific edge? I know Intel has been the industry standard for a long time but I stopped paying attention in like 2015.
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Oct 31, 2020 21:39
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I really hope that we get a successful ARM on Windows computer. The battery savings versus x86 will be so nice. If they can just get the emulation for x86 applications down with minimal performance hit even on 64-bit versions of those applications we'd be pretty much golden.
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Oct 31, 2020 21:58
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Rinkles posted:Sucks that it's not upgradable without voiding the warranty (this just a gently caress you, or how it's put together?).
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Oct 31, 2020 22:15
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Olothreutes posted:In the mobile arena does AMD or Intel have any specific edge? I know Intel has been the industry standard for a long time but I stopped paying attention in like 2015. AMD has made a big comeback with the Ryzen 4000 laptop CPU but like any race it's been a tug of war contest this year. Intel recently released the Tiger Lake (4 core only) refresh this fall and also AMD laptop CPUs don't offer native thunderbolt support yet (Mainly useful for use situations like 2 monitors on same thunderbolt dock). For here and now recommendation the Intel laptops with Tigerlake are very competitive if features such thunderbolt support as must haves. However due the Ryzen 4000 series being a 8 core CPU, AMD currently has a edge for multi-core applications and even more interesting actually gets in striking distance of much higher TDP intel CPUs.
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Oct 31, 2020 22:27
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Olothreutes posted:I'm not married to IBM or anything. I guess I didn't realize how intensive the battletech specs were. Maybe I should just bite the bullet and build a desktop, my laptop hardly ever moves anyway. Then I can get something lightweight for when I do need to post on SA from the toilet. fwiw i play that battletech game off and on- when i play on the laptop, i just use steam streaming from my desktop instead of running it locally, even on my laptop that can actually handle it. you could build your desktop and basically any laptop you get would be able to play it via that method i mention. this is a great method of playing any turn based game tbh. and yeah its a pretty heavy game it seems. ive never really checked what it uses for resources, but i imagine w those turn lengths it has its pretty cpu intensive Worf fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Oct 31, 2020 |
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Oct 31, 2020 22:45
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Battle tech is relatively demanding for a turn-based game. My 2 year old laptop with an i7 and an RX550 (basically a laptop 1050ti) couldn’t handle it.
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Oct 31, 2020 23:30
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So maybe the answer here is that I don't need a laptop that can play battle tech, and instead should just get something to do light gaming like Among Us and otherwise do web poo poo with. E: So onboard graphics are probably more than sufficient, I don't need any more than 512 in a hard drive, I'm not even using the full 320 GB drive I have now. Is 8 GB of RAM still a sufficient amount or has windows bloated to the point that 16 is now better? I do tend to leave a bunch of tabs open and whatnot. Olothreutes fucked around with this message at 00:47 on Nov 1, 2020 |
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Nov 1, 2020 00:27
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It's worth waiting for reviews on the new laptops with Intel Xe integrated graphics. Supposed to be a huge jump in performance. enough to play mainstream stuff like Overwatch in 1080 Ultra 60+ fps. https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/31/21542700/intel-iris-ex-max-discrete-graphics-gpu quote:Today, Intel revealed the full first wave of laptops that will include this GPU, some of which are available for purchase now in certain countries. Mu Zeta fucked around with this message at 00:55 on Nov 1, 2020 |
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Nov 1, 2020 00:52
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Olothreutes posted:So maybe the answer here is that I don't need a laptop that can play battle tech, and instead should just get something to do light gaming like Among Us and otherwise do web poo poo with. 8GB is sort of the bare minimum for most real world applications / provides more than performance for the average user but 16 GB is ideal.
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Nov 1, 2020 01:01
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etalian posted:8GB is sort of the bare minimum for most real world applications / provides more than performance for the average user but 16 GB is ideal. Largely agree but with the caveat that I think you'll mostly be ok with 8GB for the life of an average cheaper laptop. Lots of laptops can accept more memory too, and it's pretty cheap. And yeah, Battletech is a more demanding game. Like I said, I think a 1650 would probably be ok, but if you think you'll play any game sorta like it in the next 3 years I'd push for a 1660ti.
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Nov 1, 2020 02:30
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Lockback posted:Largely agree but with the caveat that I think you'll mostly be ok with 8GB for the life of an average cheaper laptop. I'd advise for most people to buy and select a laptop that actually meets "here + now" needs instead of agonizing over "future proofing". Most laptops have a practical live of 5- 6 years, other components like batteries will most likely needed to replaced at the 3 year mark. But if you are planning to have a laptop for a longer period of time 15" laptops are more powerful and also easy to change out some of the parts for either failures / upgrades (RAM/NVME SSD/Wi Fi Card) There's also much better sub $1000 laptops due to intense competition between main companies such than you can find good options in terms of CPU and SSD storage at this pricepoint.
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Nov 1, 2020 05:04
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battletech does run fine on a 1650, fwiw.
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Nov 1, 2020 12:18
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Statutory Ape posted:battletech does run fine on a 1650, fwiw. https://www.fpsbenchmark.com/battletech
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Nov 1, 2020 14:11
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Anyone with a 4k 15.x" laptop: what do you run for display scaling?
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Nov 1, 2020 15:01
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Couple laptop deals coming up for Costco on Black Friday https://www.costco.com/super-friday-preview.html MSI GE75 17.3" 1080p 144Hz Gaming Laptop 10th Generation Intel® Core™ i7 Processor and 8GB NVIDIA RTX 2070 Graphics Card. 16GB Memory 1TB Hard Drive + 512GB SSD Warehouse Price $1,499.99 Instant Savings –$300.00 YOUR COST $1,199.99 Dell XPS 13" UHD+ Touch Laptop 11th Generation Intel® Core™ i7 Processor. 32GB Memory 1TB SSD Online Price $1,999.99 OFF –$400.00 YOUR COST $1,599.99
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Nov 1, 2020 23:55
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Note another advantage from Costco is they offer a 2 year warranty which goes beyond the manufacturer warranty for laptop failures.
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Nov 2, 2020 01:24
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etalian posted:Note another advantage from Costco is they offer a 2 year warranty which goes beyond the manufacturer warranty for laptop failures. What do they do when you have a failure 1.5 years in? Cover the manufacturer's repair costs? Do it themselves? Money back?
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Nov 2, 2020 01:41
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Rinkles posted:What do they do when you have a failure 1.5 years in? Cover the manufacturer's repair costs? Do it themselves? Money back? The 2 year warranty extends the manufacturer warranty, so the work would be done by the mfg in the same manner as if it was under the regular 1 year warranty. You need to call Costco's concierge service first but basically your point of contact is with the mfg and they just bill Costco for the repairs. If they can't repair it then they will replace/refund. If you pay with their Costco Visa card you get an additional 2 years on top of that, so 4 years total. That extra period is from Citi though so I believe it's the "Notify CC company, pay for repairs, CC company reimburses you" type of warranty.
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Nov 2, 2020 02:09
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etalian posted:Note another advantage from Costco is they offer a 2 year warranty which goes beyond the manufacturer warranty for laptop failures. Probably the wrong year to be pushing a premium travel charge card, but the platinum amex is one of the few cards that still covers electronic items for a year after the mfg warranty. You'll have to read the fine print but it's a pretty nice perk if say, you're buying an apple device which only has a 1 year warranty. The platinum card is pretty pricey ($500/yr) on it's own, but if you break down the perks (and Covid ever ends and we can travel again) it almost breaks even; an apple care plan would probably push you in to net positive. I think the gold and lower tiers dropped their extended warranty stuff in the last year so it's just platinum now.
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Nov 2, 2020 04:04
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Hadlock posted:Probably the wrong year to be pushing a premium travel charge card, but the platinum amex is one of the few cards that still covers electronic items for a year after the mfg warranty. You'll have to read the fine print but it's a pretty nice perk if say, you're buying an apple device which only has a 1 year warranty. Yeah I noticed Discover used to have the one year extended warranty but the benefit got dropped. Most cards have online guides for benefits and it is a good way to save money over paying for extended warranty plans. I imagine from a "magic smoke" failure point of view most laptops would probably croaked in the first three years if there's a latent issue in the hardware. https://awardwallet.com/blog/best-credit-cards-extended-warranty-coverage/ etalian fucked around with this message at 04:50 on Nov 2, 2020 |
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Nov 2, 2020 04:47
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Hadlock posted:Probably the wrong year to be pushing a premium travel charge card, but the platinum amex is one of the few cards that still covers electronic items for a year after the mfg warranty. You'll have to read the fine print but it's a pretty nice perk if say, you're buying an apple device which only has a 1 year warranty. I just got a Chase Freedom Flex, and I'm pretty sure mfg warranty extension is a perk on those.
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Nov 2, 2020 06:13
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Quixzlizx posted:Freedom Flex Lmao
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Nov 2, 2020 09:28
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Nov 2, 2020 22:49
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Looks like my Legion 5 is arriving tomorrow, do you still need to remove lots of bloatware these days or is it mostly fine?
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Nov 4, 2020 23:13
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Just use revo uninstaller to get rid of most of the crap. Win 10 works pretty well nowadays with little maintenance.
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Nov 4, 2020 23:43
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If you have any more great 1650 laptop deals, I'm still looking. My sister made her mind up too late to snag that $450 Lenovo.
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Nov 4, 2020 23:48
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https://slickdeals.net/f/14481749-b...earchBarV2Algo1 That's probably as good of a 1650 deal as you'll find if you can wait a few weeks.
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Nov 5, 2020 00:58
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Thanks a lot. That is essentially a Black Friday (week) deal, though. We will probably end up waiting.
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Nov 5, 2020 01:04
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I'm looking at buying my wife a laptop for Christmas. It's gotta be a Windows machine, no negotiation there, but I'm hoping for a decent deal on a 13" or 14" laptop that basically has a shitload of RAM, or expandable RAM (because of Chrome) and a great battery life. I haven't bought a laptop for personal use in about ten years so I'm completely starting from scratch now. I'd like to buy something somewhat higher quality, and a touchscreen would be a huge plus. I'd spend up to $800 on it. The last laptop I bought for her was about 15 years ago, and it was a Lenovo POS made out of cheap plastic and it basically killed itself in about 18 months. Back in my day the Dell Latitudes were the ones to buy, but is there a general manufacturer/model I should steer towards nowadays?
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Nov 5, 2020 02:52
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