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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butt dickus: Jul 7, 2007; top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

Get the i5 upgrade ($30) and at least the 1600x900 upgrade ($15). Get the Ultimate-N wireless upgrade ($40) if he's going to be on WiFi at all. You can save a lot of money by upgrading the RAM and SSD yourself. The HD 4000 graphics can play Civ 5, but maybe not at an acceptable frame rate. The 5400M is about on par with Haswell IGP, so there's a decent improvement, but maybe not $85 worth.

e: The 1600x900 and 5400M upgrades used to be $50 each, so it looks like they've moved stuff around. It's still $100 to get them both.

# ¿ Jul 11, 2013 18:58

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 07:52

butt dickus: Jul 7, 2007; top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

BigFactory posted:

So does that inspiron fall into the plastic crap group?

Yes. It's also got a terrible 1366x768 display. Last year they had the 15R Special Edition that had a 1080p screen and some aluminum parts in the frame which made it a little less crappy. The SE didn't have a numpad, though.

# ¿ Jul 17, 2013 16:32

butt dickus: Jul 7, 2007; top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

Schmetterling posted:

I have a question on behalf of my little brother. He wants something he can take to uni to access his lecture slides, and maybe take notes/work on some projects. He was originally planning to get an ipad, but I'm not sure that he'd be able to work properly without a keyboard. I showed him the Chromebooks at JB Hi Fi, and he's done a bit of googling tonight, and he seems generally interested. What we would like to know is whether he would be able to use a flashdrive to access the slides (as powerpoint or as pdf) offline, as his wireless access is sporadic at best.

Also, the Pixel doesn't seem to be available in Aus, so out of the Samsung and the Acer, which is better? I suggested the Samsung because of the 6.5hr battery life, and even as the more expensive Chromebook, it's still cheaper than an ipad.

You can access files offline by using the internal storage or USB external storage, but I don't think it has a viewer for PowerPoint files. It should do PDFs, though. I have the Samsung Chromebook and I know someone with the Acer. The Samsung is better for general use, but the Acer does have a larger hard drive and faster processor. The guy here at work installed Ubuntu on his (Acer) and runs a Windows virtual machine inside of that, but he's a bigger sperg than I am. The Acer also has a glossy screen (yecch).

# ¿ Jul 18, 2013 14:25

butt dickus: Jul 7, 2007; top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

go3 posted:

Sometimes people just want advice and not lectures on how they are using laptops wrong

I want to know what the best 48" tires are for my 1970 Gremlin. Also I'm looking at adding a 4th spoiler. I have $300 to spend. Thanks.

# ¿ Jul 18, 2013 23:30

butt dickus: Jul 7, 2007; top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

mastershakeman posted:

What about focusing on 17" laptops? My guess is that it's almost impossible to see a difference in resolution from 1920x1080 to the 1366x whatever at such a small screen, even up close.

Your guess is completely wrong. 1366x768 is lovely lovely lovely even on a 14" screen and it will be especially painful to look at on a 17". Since she's going to be typing she's going to be looking at a lot of text and that's where pixel density is the most important. 17" is also a terrible idea for reasons outlined in the OP.

# ¿ Jul 22, 2013 14:26

butt dickus: Jul 7, 2007; top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

The T440s (and probably T440) is going to have a 1920x1080 IPS option and I'm going to buy the poo poo out of it.

# ¿ Jul 22, 2013 17:04

butt dickus: Jul 7, 2007; top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

Cream_Filling posted:

I seriously doubt it will be under $1000 though. That screen is probably a $400-500 option, based on my raw guessing.

The 1080p (TN) option on the T530 is $250 right now, I'd expect it to be $300 or less on the T440. Even if it's higher, my budget doesn't stop at $1000 :unsmigghh:

There's also supposed to be an IPS option on the 1600x900 panel, which might be a $50 upgrade like on the X230.

# ¿ Jul 22, 2013 17:27

butt dickus: Jul 7, 2007; top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

Cream_Filling posted:

A 1080p IPS monitor at that size is going to be pretty pricey. I'd stick to my $400 guess, especially since it's going to be an option and so probably won't have huge volumes.

Screen prices have been dropping. Last week I bought a 21.5" 1920x1080 IPS monitor for $120 and if everything goes according to expectation I'll be buying a device with a 7" 1920x1200 IPS panel for $230 (ok I'm probably going to buy the $280 version but still).

The panel itself should cost Lenovo under $100 and they're also not needing to burn one of their 1600x900 panels already included in the base price, so the issue isn't cost/margin as much as it is how much Lenovo thinks customers will pay, and my estimate on that is $300.

# ¿ Jul 22, 2013 17:55

butt dickus: Jul 7, 2007; top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

movax posted:

TN has such a wide gamut.

Not usually :v:

# ¿ Jul 22, 2013 22:57

butt dickus: Jul 7, 2007; top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

The discount prices should be shown as well since everyone in the US can get them at that price.

# ¿ Jul 23, 2013 00:42

butt dickus: Jul 7, 2007; top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

Michymech posted:

Well I couldn't help myself and when I got to the shop and seen the 15' model they had only had a lovely screen in it I grabbed the MSI CX70-20D

i7-4702 CPU
gt 740m 2gb ddr3
16gb DDR3 ram
1 TB HDD
17' FHD 1920x1080 non-glare type
blueray player
hd webcam
got it for $1299
and yes i am aware that it is a 17' but so far i have had no issue with the size and there wont be many times i wont be able to have it on a surface other then my legs

You left off that the HDD is 5400 RPM, the whole thing weighs 6 pounds and only has a 6-cell battery. So enjoy 22 minutes of gaming until you have to plug it in and then trip over the cord and pull it to the floor where it breaks into 43 pieces.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2013 04:12

butt dickus: Jul 7, 2007; top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

The T440 (or is it the T440s?) also has an internal 3-cell battery so you can swap without powering down.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2013 16:22

butt dickus: Jul 7, 2007; top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

Any rumors as to when the T440 and T440s are going to be available? I'm champing at the bit.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2013 21:12

butt dickus: Jul 7, 2007; top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

Is the X1 Carbon also going to get a Haswell refresh with a 1080p IPS panel? Optical drives make me angry.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2013 22:14

butt dickus: Jul 7, 2007; top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

Zero VGS posted:

My laptop power brick maxes out at 90w with a GTX 260m in it, but comparable desktop GPUs seem to take twice the wattage alone as my entire laptop.

There are low-power GPUs like the GTX 650-E. It's 75 watts max, same as the 260m. There's probably even lower power ones.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2013 21:36

butt dickus: Jul 7, 2007; top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

oneof27 posted:

I was waiting for the Haswell Thinkpads, but since my budget is around $8-850 I think I might as well get the T430 now since the T440s is out of my budget.

How do you figure?

Hadlock posted:

I added in USD since about two other people will bother converting those prices. Keep in mind the B&N price is about 25%-30% off MSRP. So probably in the $800-$850 range to launch? Trending downwards towards december.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2013 20:35

butt dickus: Jul 7, 2007; top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

mewse posted:

Oh boy a 1960x1080 screen

49:27 is such an elegant ratio.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2013 16:11

butt dickus: Jul 7, 2007; top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

minusX posted:

Seems pretty great, but I'm studying CS and not seeing some IDEs for Chrome OS anywhere

Chrome OS doesn't really have applications, you just do stuff in the browser, so you could use something like CLoud9. The other option is installing Linux on it. One of the guys I work with has the Acer and he put Ubuntu on it and it works well enough.

# ¿ Aug 17, 2013 21:19

butt dickus: Jul 7, 2007; top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

Ur Getting Fatter posted:

20-25% boost on what?

Performance. If you don't use the extra muscle, battery life doesn't take a hit, either. The added grunt from the i7 scales with power use so on heavy loads you use almost the same amount of power to get the same amount of work done, just in a smaller amount of time. The i7 is actually a good buy in this case.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2013 16:42

butt dickus: Jul 7, 2007; top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

Bob Morales posted:

Yea, drat. A MacBook Air with those specs (i7/8GB/512GB) is only $1849

I just configured a Duo 13 exactly like that for $2219.99 on Sony's site.

The Sony also has 60% more pixels and an IPS touchscreen with an integrated digitizer. I'm sure that's worth an extra $370 for some people. Not me, though!

# ¿ Aug 20, 2013 18:06

butt dickus: Jul 7, 2007; top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

I think the digitizer is a better selling point than the touchscreen.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2013 18:17

butt dickus: Jul 7, 2007; top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

So it looks like the T440s comes with discrete graphics and no option for integrated. I don't want an optical drive/bay either, so how much longer am I going to have to wait for a T441s or X2 Carbon or whatever they're going to be called?

I'm this close to just buying a MBA already but I hate OSX and running anything else on one just seems retarded, as does spending a decent amount of money on something with a TN panel.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2013 20:19

butt dickus: Jul 7, 2007; top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

heiden posted:

If I solely asked for a notebook in the 400-600usd range with a good screen&battery for browsing/youtube/university-type stuff and nothing else, would there be a solid option around?

A Chromebook should be good for what you want, but the screens aren't particularly good. Unless you get the Pixel, but that's just too much to spend and doesn't have good battery life like the ARM version.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2013 20:24

butt dickus: Jul 7, 2007; top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

Seamonster posted:

Optimus means you're not running the dGPU unless you need it and you can force programs to use the integrated individually as required. I understand from the viewpoint of not wanting to paying for something you won't use but seeing as the MBA doesn't have a 1080p option, much less an IPS option, besides the extra size and weight, how could the T440s not fit your needs?

I'll admit it's pretty close and I'm not going to rule it out since I've been so excited about the drat thing. I'm also retarded and thought that it had an optical drive, so not having one's a bonus. If I play any games on it they won't need more than an HD3000, and I don't do CAD or anything like that, so the dGPU is a waste of space and cooling hardware.

I guess if that's my biggest gripe then I should just buy one.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2013 21:03

butt dickus: Jul 7, 2007; top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

shrughes posted:

The T440s won't have an optical drive.

I have no idea how I came up with that. They're all starting to blur together.

# ¿ Aug 21, 2013 14:29

butt dickus: Jul 7, 2007; top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

Ibsen posted:

What other connections does it require coming out from the laptop though?

I want to switch back and forth, but using one external keyboard and mouse for both desktop and laptop.

Checking out Synergy now.

That's exactly what a KVM is for.

All you need is a KVM that has the right video connector. Your desktop and laptop will each have one or two USB cables going to the KVM for keyboard and mouse, and one video cable each. The KVM will have two USB ports for the keyboard and mouse, and one video connector that goes to the monitor. Nicer KVMs will intercept certain keyboard commands to switch. Cheaper ones will have a physical button to press.

agarjogger posted:

OSX takes about five minutes to learn for a longtime Windows user.

I used OSX for five years and never got used to it.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2013 23:21

butt dickus: Jul 7, 2007; top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

Erkenntnis posted:

A buddy of mine just linked me this as a possible purchase for himself. How can I shame him out of it?

Holy poo poo that fucker is gargantuan. Compared to the T440s it's 2.4 times as heavy, 2.7 times as thick and probably around double the surface area. I'm kind of surprised they didn't just say "gently caress it, let's put a desktop video card in here." They even give you a backpack to haul the drat thing around in, probably because they figured if you're taking the laptop anywhere you're going to need to bring the power adapter if you want to use it for more than 12 minutes.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2013 14:36

butt dickus: Jul 7, 2007; top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

Everyone who uses old-rear end projectors should just have to buy a goddamn adapter. I don't understand why D-sub ports didn't go away with serial and parallel ports.

# ¿ Aug 24, 2013 21:21

butt dickus: Jul 7, 2007; top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

AnandTech has an article on choosing a gaming laptop that names some specific models sorted by price. They've also done in-depth reviews on some models and provide hard numbers.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2013 15:35

butt dickus: Jul 7, 2007; top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

Weinertron posted:

The screen upgrade should be mandatory

I don't think this should be the case on laptops used primarily for gaming. If you're doing any kind of work, you'll want crisp text and screen real estate. That doesn't matter in a game, and you'll get better performance when the GPU is pushing less pixels.

1600x900 is 37% more pixels than 1366x768 and 1920x1080 is almost double. That translates directly into framerate. If you're doing nothing but games, 1366x768 is acceptable and possibly even desirable.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2013 15:59

butt dickus: Jul 7, 2007; top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

Srebrenica Surprise posted:

Scaling is apparently really good nowadays.

This is news to me, as I only heard that it was good on ultra-high resolution devices like the rMBP. I guess on a game it wouldn't matter so much.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2013 16:39

butt dickus: Jul 7, 2007; top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

Blinky2099 posted:

Is this a good option if I just need a laptop to browse a few websites with decent battery life? or is there a more recommended solution?

http://m.bestbuy.com/m/e/product/detail.jsp?skuId=8850098&pid=1218914355314

That is exactly what that machine is for. There's also an ARM Chromebook that has better battery life and boot/wake times, but has a slower processor and is $50 more. I think the screen is also better?

# ¿ Aug 29, 2013 16:36

butt dickus: Jul 7, 2007; top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

signalnoise posted:

Is there any significant downside to getting the i7 other than price? I'm getting conflicting reports here. If she got the i7, money aside, is there going to be a situation she finds herself going "ugh shoulda got the i5"

There is no downside to the i7 other than the cost. Anything that's CPU-bound will perform better on the i7. It's a reasonably-priced upgrade and were I getting one I'd totally go for it.

# ¿ Aug 29, 2013 16:43

butt dickus: Jul 7, 2007; top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

QuarkJets posted:

yes, it will be slightly faster on processor-intensive tasks (such as _____?).

Rendering 100 page PDFs?

# ¿ Aug 29, 2013 18:58

butt dickus: Jul 7, 2007; top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

QuarkJets posted:

Even my lovely 6 year-old desktop does that in a negligible amount of time.

What's your idea of negligible? Both my work machine (Linux) and home machine (Windows) are relatively high-performance and it can still take them a noticeable amount of time to render some pages, which can be irritating when going through a long document.

# ¿ Aug 29, 2013 20:26

butt dickus: Jul 7, 2007; top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

Just found an article about the design changes on the T440s. It says that the T440s should show up in Australia in October so I hope that means the US is still on target for September.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2013 15:47

butt dickus: Jul 7, 2007; top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

shrughes posted:

The screen is a crappy 1366x768 screen, you shouldn't pay 999 GBP for that.

The description on the page says "Full HD" which means 1920x1080. The OP should probably have a section like this:
HD 1366s768
HD+ 1600x900
FHD 1920x1080

# ¿ Sep 2, 2013 20:27

butt dickus: Jul 7, 2007; top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

Smoking_Dragon posted:

My boss wants to get a laptop for his 10 year old daughter for her birthday. He wants something that is good for school work and some gaming (I think she mostly plays Minecraft). I want to find him a fairly stable windows based laptop. Problem is that he's a total cheapskate and will have a lot of trouble spending more than $350 or so, is there something out there worth considering?

Check the Lenovo Outlet.
http://outlet.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/outlet_us/LenovoPortal/en_US/catalog.workflow:item.detail?GroupID=445&Code=LRZ36ZW-3367XF8

# ¿ Sep 4, 2013 20:35

butt dickus: Jul 7, 2007; top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

Lenovo is claiming 17 hours on the T440s, so if that's with two 6-cells and the internal 3-cell, you can expect a little over 10 hours on the 440s.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2013 23:22

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 07:52

butt dickus: Jul 7, 2007; top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

Haven't seen much about the X240 in this thread. Apparently it will also have a 1920x1080 IPS option. AnandTech also says late October for the new models, so 8 more weeks of waiting.

e: Doesn't actually say IPS in the article.

X240s?

butt dickus fucked around with this message at 16:00 on Sep 5, 2013

# ¿ Sep 5, 2013 15:57

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

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