Laptop Megathread: Your laptop doesn't have Haswell? More like Hasbeen~

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > Laptop Megathread: Your laptop doesn't have Haswell? More like Hasbeen~

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Bob Morales: Aug 18, 2006; ~~Just wear the fucking mask, Bob~~

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

Killer_B posted:

Which brand rates well so far as used for running Linux, and is more semi-recent?

I have taken a look on Ebay at both Dells and Lenovos, it seems as though the T470/480 models, and the T570 models seem to tick off enough boxes for what I want, possibly with the exception of 4 cores, which would require the x80 refreshes.

Was really looking at the $350-550 range for used, might or might not require a HDD/OS, which I'm comfortable enough installing myself.

Kinda aware that Intel video is preferred lately, as Nvidia is still pretty twitchy so far as driver support without issues; M.2 slots would be nice, but 2.5" for SSDs will work well enough.

I've thought about Ryzen as well, but there's likely few/no choices at the price points I've been looking at.

You shouldn't have any problem with a T480

I'd avoid a T470 or earlier because they are dual-core U series...

You already know that, though.

Here's a T480S for $550 (or best offer) on eBay, needs an SSD though

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-Thinkpad-T480s-i5-8250U-16GB-Ram-1920x1080-FHD/164585358064?hash=item26520d42f0:g:Q04AAOSwpfxf2pVn

There are probably cheaper ones that was like the third hit. Laptop prices got jacked up by COVID/WFH.

Any chance you can raise your budget at all?

You can buy a T490S with 16GB/512GB for $730, brand new

https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-t-series/ThinkPad-T490s/p/22TP2TT490S

# ¿ Dec 17, 2020 14:29

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 14:44

Bob Morales: Aug 18, 2006; ~~Just wear the fucking mask, Bob~~

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

Killer_B posted:

Are there other spots I might look for outside of Ebay? General issue is trying to find a unit that I can verify the screen resolution, sometimes (as you know) the listings can be kind of contradicting, and I've had a couple of sellers I've emailed that sounded as though they couldn't be assed to confirm for me/weren't especially technically literate.

A lot of times you have to cross reference e model number to get the correct specs if they aren�t listed

But I think the T480S will always have a 1080 (may be wrong)

# ¿ Dec 25, 2020 14:22

Bob Morales: Aug 18, 2006; ~~Just wear the fucking mask, Bob~~

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

Pollyanna posted:

Are Thinkpads still the go-to for midrange laptops? My 2012 MBP is on its last legs and I think it's time to finally retire the old girl. I want something that can handle Youtube, Netflix, Discord, etc. but definitely nothing approaching a gaming laptop, I have a PC for games. It seems like Thinkpads have changed a lot in the past few years, though.

My primary concern is durability and modularity. My main gripe with the 2012 MBP is that it's actually rather fragile, and various parts (most notably the hinges and SATA cable) just die over the period of a year or so and have to be replaced. Something that's easily fixable and upgradeable would be ideal, but these are laptops we're talking about, so there's only so much you can do there.

Last I heard, Thinkpads were nice and durable, but I've been out of the loop for a while. Price point would be about $650-$800 unless there's a compelling reason to go up. Are the L14/T14s any good?

Yea, they're still great. Haven't really changed that much.

Not sure about the L14 but the T14 is just fine.

# ¿ Dec 30, 2020 16:37

Bob Morales: Aug 18, 2006; ~~Just wear the fucking mask, Bob~~

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

I. M. Gei posted:

PLEASE tell me there is a way to increase the max zoom size in MSPaint on my new Dell XPS 17.

I do a lot of mock-ups in Paint that require me to count the number of pixels I color in for scale reasons. Right now I�m trying to draw up a plan/map for rearranging my bedroom furniture, but FUUUUUUUUUUCK is that default max zoom size loving tiny. I have to strain my eyes like a loving motherfucker to see and fill in those individual pixels. I have never had this problem in Paint before; the pixels are plenty big on my desktop monitor, and I�ve never had any issues with them being too small on laptop screens smaller than 17�.

I�ve checked Google at least 3 times and turned up nothing. Outside of loving with the screen resolution or using that dumb cursor magnifying glass on the Accessibility menu � both of which are loving annoying to the point of distracting me too much to get any work done � I�m out of ideas.

How good are you with a debugger? :q:

# ¿ Jan 1, 2021 00:16

Bob Morales: Aug 18, 2006; ~~Just wear the fucking mask, Bob~~

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

dreesemonkey posted:

I'm somewhat leaning towards the X1, though a 5+ week wait doesn't sound very appealing.

Check resellers like CDW/Insight to see if they have anything in stock that they can ship today.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2021 19:23

Bob Morales: Aug 18, 2006; ~~Just wear the fucking mask, Bob~~

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

Hadlock posted:

Buy your mother the 15/17" laptop. Don't stress out about how dumb the decision is so long as she's happy with it

Agreed.

However. Father in law got a 17� laptop a year or two ago. This year,
Mother in law got an iPad and he has taken it over.

# ¿ Jan 9, 2021 00:30

Bob Morales: Aug 18, 2006; ~~Just wear the fucking mask, Bob~~

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

Hace posted:

olds like big screens because of old eyes

His 17� laptop also had a TN panel :smith:

# ¿ Jan 9, 2021 13:54

Bob Morales: Aug 18, 2006; ~~Just wear the fucking mask, Bob~~

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

yellowyams posted:

I hope this is the right thread to ask this. I've had a t440s lenovo thinkpad for a little over 7 years now and it's been a real trooper but around early 2020 it finally started showing signs that it was getting old. Like the air vent actually gets audibly loud now and the bottom surface of the computer gets hot which was something that it had been very good about before, sometimes Windows updates seem to never happen unless I restart, it suddenly shuts off without warning on rare occasions, and a few other issues that are more complicated to describe but nothing that makes it unusable.

It used to have a program that was called something like Lenovo System Update that would do a lot of troubleshooting and tell me info about my computer's health but it got discontinued a few years ago because of a massive security hole so I haven't been able to do things that probably would have extended my computer's lifespan a little more like updating the BIOS. I installed CrystalDiskInfo when I first started using my laptop but I don't understand how it works and I don't think it's actually reading my SSD anymore since all the counts are blank when I click on health status. Samsung Wizard says my SSD is still healthy so I hope that's just an issue with however CDI is set up and not my SSD.

I guess my question is are any of these signs that I should start making preparations for a replacement, and if not then what signs should I be looking for? What kind of lifespan should I be expecting? I definitely don't want to get a new laptop prematurely but I don't want to be stranded without one either. It's perfectly usable at the moment but I'm getting nervous about how old it is since the only other laptop I've owned was replaced after about 5 years.

Have you tried re-installing Windows? Buy a Lenovo T14 to replace it.

# ¿ Jan 11, 2021 13:45

Bob Morales: Aug 18, 2006; ~~Just wear the fucking mask, Bob~~

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

yellowyams posted:

The main issue I recall with installing Windows was that I definitely needed a Fn key during one of the initial boot-ups and mine hasn't worked for a few years after I accidentally spilled a tiny drop of lens cleaner into the keyboard. I'd replace my keyboard but since I already don't know how much longer I have with this thing I've been reluctant to commit to buying one, plus my previous attempts to even open the computer up again to find the serial number ended in failure. Maybe I should just take the gamble though. Thanks for the advice.

Fn key swap in BIOS?

# ¿ Jan 12, 2021 14:06

Bob Morales: Aug 18, 2006; ~~Just wear the fucking mask, Bob~~

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

Hadlock posted:

I would seriously question buying a laptop with a glued-in battery that has been degrading for 6 years. The screens on the 2015 vs 2017 are notably more dim. I haven't double checked the M1 specs but I'm pretty sure a $999 2020 macbook air will blow the doors off a 6 year old i7 rmbp

Disclaimer: for the last two years I've been forced to use a piece of poo poo 2015 rmbp and loving hate everything about it, except the keyboard, which is average, and not crippled like the slightly newer macbooks

The 2015's are slow

I also would be hard pressed to pay over $500 for one, as a new battery is $199 from Apple

# ¿ Jan 15, 2021 13:55

Bob Morales: Aug 18, 2006; ~~Just wear the fucking mask, Bob~~

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

Woebin posted:

A friend just asked me what machine to get for video and audio editing, figuring since I'm a programmer I'll obviously know this stuff.

Well, I don't, of course. Last I heard, years ago probably, MacBooks were the preferred laptops for that kind of work, is that still true in any meaningful way or is it up to personal preference at this point? Any crystal clear "this is the media editor's laptop" answer (I assume not)?

Personal preference.

# ¿ Jan 19, 2021 14:07

Bob Morales: Aug 18, 2006; ~~Just wear the fucking mask, Bob~~

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

Hadlock posted:

If you want a color accurate screen on a laptop, I believe your only options are a mac, or an XPS

Most people don't expect you to do full time video editing on

A) a laptop
B) not on an external color calibrated monitor

Modern laptops are just stupid fast these days though, even with thermal throttling. About 4 years ago laptops finally got good enough for gaming, I think with 3000 series gpu, we're getting to the point where you can regularly do major computational loads on the laptop

The screens are mostly still universally poo poo, though. At least they aren't 2005-era TN glass anymore

Dell ultrasharp monitors come color calibrated from the factory, and are reasonably priced if you're looking for a workhorse monitor

Does HP still do those dreamcolor screens?

# ¿ Jan 20, 2021 16:42

Bob Morales: Aug 18, 2006; ~~Just wear the fucking mask, Bob~~

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

jokes posted:

Is there any after-market cooling device I can use on an MBA? Like, would just a desk fan be sufficient to combat throttling?

I haven't ever experienced throttling yet on my MBA and don't intend to for my use case I was just curious if there's any option to keep it cool-- even if it's ugly?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1KZuVqodak

:think:

# ¿ Feb 6, 2021 21:58

Bob Morales: Aug 18, 2006; ~~Just wear the fucking mask, Bob~~

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

Cheese Thief posted:

I'm curious about Thunderbolt. I have a macbook with 2 Thunderbolt ports, only, and to my it's exactly like having a computer with no ports at all. I can't use a mouse, a keyboard, I can't do anything. What is it for? I think it's just a port that is meant to be used with a dock or a converter? Is apple trying to say 'stop using usb, do everything per Bluetooth?" It's really confusing, because I've never seen an accessory with a thunderbolt wire in my life.

I think USB is the huge reason why my next computer will by a Thinkpad, and no more Macs. Even XPS I hear uses this Thunderbolt? Might as well not have a port at all in my opinion. What am I missing here?

It's not really made for keyboard/mice etc.

In your case you could just get a cheap USB hub with a USB-C cable to connect it to your Mac. Get a bluetooth mouse. And buy one USB-C to USB adapter for flash drives or whatever.

Are you rich? Buy an LG 4K/5K monitor and that will solve most of your problems.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2021 14:58

Bob Morales: Aug 18, 2006; ~~Just wear the fucking mask, Bob~~

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

Quixzlizx posted:

Am I missing something about how Thunderbolt works on Macs, or are there just no USB-C keyboards or mice out there?

If you want to waste precious USB-C ports on a keyboard, you can.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2021 16:18

Bob Morales: Aug 18, 2006; ~~Just wear the fucking mask, Bob~~

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

ilkhan posted:

I bring my work laptop home, plug in one cable, and get my whole home setup without any other tinkering.

Same here. I use a MacBook Pro at home, but I have a T470 at work. I just plug into my USB-C monitor and I get mouse, keyboard, ethernet, display, and power with 1 cable. Also beats bringing home (aka forgetting at home) a charger (although I'm sure I think my personal Carbon X1 charger would work)

# ¿ Feb 16, 2021 16:44

Bob Morales: Aug 18, 2006; ~~Just wear the fucking mask, Bob~~

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

Yea, I just buy my mom an iPad every couple years.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2021 19:39

Bob Morales: Aug 18, 2006; ~~Just wear the fucking mask, Bob~~

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

Xtronoc posted:

What's the thread's opinion on Thinkpad's X1 series generally, especially the Gen 9 with the new Intel Evo platform? I am in the market for a business laptop and no gaming needed. My x260 is still chugging along but the internals are showing slugginess.

They are the upper echelon of business laptops.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2021 17:57

Bob Morales: Aug 18, 2006; ~~Just wear the fucking mask, Bob~~

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

Uziel posted:

Looking for some help picking a laptop for work. My company is buying but didn't give me a budget other than "Let me know what it costs". Not sure how to interpret that.

I'm partial to Lenovo.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2021 14:57

Bob Morales: Aug 18, 2006; ~~Just wear the fucking mask, Bob~~

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

buglord posted:

Hi thread. When buying a returb/outlet laptop, are business line models still better than consumer/home grade? Trying to get a long lasting media consumption laptop for a friend with a budget of $600. While the consumer stuff looks a lot nicer, I have no idea about long term reliability.

Yes, just beware of the 250 nits business class screens.

# ¿ Apr 14, 2021 13:56

Bob Morales: Aug 18, 2006; ~~Just wear the fucking mask, Bob~~

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

Anyone stuck a SSD in the T480 WWAN slot? It's supposed to work....I found an SK Hynix NVME drive and stuck it in there but when I boot the computer I'm just greeted with an amazing array of beeps and bloops from the internal speaker.

# ¿ Oct 1, 2021 13:22

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 14:44

Bob Morales: Aug 18, 2006; ~~Just wear the fucking mask, Bob~~

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

Worf posted:

Are there any 2-1s that have drawing capability similar to an ipad? without also bringing a separate device (other than pen)

Penny Arcade dude used to post good reviews on the Surfaces

# ¿ Oct 8, 2021 13:39

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > Laptop Megathread: Your laptop doesn't have Haswell? More like Hasbeen~

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