I occassionally need a Win laptop for road-warrior work. My trusty old Panasonic Toughbook gave up the ghost yesterday. I can't really see spending more than $400 but -hell- it's a business expense.
What's thecore using lately?
Macbook Air with VMWare installed.
Done.
I recently bought an HP > Win 8 and it works.
Spams almost as good as a MAC ;D
Lenovo, love 'em.
11" ThinkPad
Macbook Air.
Macbook Pro, 13" (retina obviously)
An MSi laptop with Ubuntu running on it.
Doesn't really matter which one, as long as it's running XP.
>xp
I know. Trust me, I dread moving away from xp. But this laptop is only used 4 or 5 times a year so it'a a good place to try win 8. ...and load up a bunch of tweaks to make it look like xp.
I have a use for bluetooth 4, as well. I'm playing around with sensors & such. So far, it's narrowing down to leveno & acer.
Win 8 was the most frustrating experience I've had with a laptop, HANDS DOWN. It has the *worst* usability I've ever seen with an OS.
Best spec so far with Win 8 & bluetooth 4 is
Lenovo IdeaPad U310 13.1-Inch Touchscreen Ultrabook $669.99
Intel Core i5-3337U ULV Processor (1.8 GHz)
4 GB DDR3 RAM
500 GB 5400 rpm Hard Drive, 24 GB Solid-State Drive
Lenovo model# 59365302
That Lenovo sounds quite good. In recent shopping jaunts I have been quite impressed with the IdeaPad line.
In Japan I get a lot more local product exposure on the shelves. I've also been quite impressed with the Sony VAIO laptops. They have in-store customization packages where a sales rep will let you completely customize your machine. Not only can you pick all of the internal components, but also the external case and keyboard.
The ToughBook line is still going strong. I stopped by the Panasonic showroom and played with the convertible tablets. Those things look like they'd last a while, but they're not cheap.
>toughbook gave up the ghost
Pro tip: thump a dead laptop's underside rapidly & hard while it's trying to boot and you may bring it back to consciousness long enough for one last goodbye.
Quote from: rcjordan on April 15, 2013, 12:31:05 PMPro tip: thump a dead laptop's underside rapidly & hard while it's trying to boot and you may bring it back to consciousness long enough for one last goodbye.
What kind of pro was that? Tortoise caretaker / chiropractor at your local zoo? :o
Quote from: Zwart on April 15, 2013, 02:03:05 PM
Quote from: rcjordan on April 15, 2013, 12:31:05 PMPro tip: thump a dead laptop's underside rapidly & hard while it's trying to boot and you may bring it back to consciousness long enough for one last goodbye.
What kind of pro was that? Tortoise caretaker / chiropractor at your local zoo? :o
hehehe, it's true enough if it's the typical bga failure. If it works, you can redneck reflow the board with a convection oven or heat gun and IR thermometer. I've never gone to the trouble though.
>What kind of pro was that?
CLEAR!!!! BZZZZZzzzzzzzttttt!!
You're just jealous, Zw.
It's the kind of pro tip that comes from the realization that you really have nothing to lose. You'd be surprised how many people won't try something radical even if it's the only hope.
>gone to the trouble
Yeah, really, I hate to see it go. It's the W2 model that Lazerubb researched and told me to get. First of the ultrabooks but loooong before anyone had heard of such a thing. But the fact of the matter is that it's not worth my time to work on it.
I could hear the disk trying to spin up over & over. Figured, Hell, why not try some CPR? Worked! I thought I had everything backed up but it was nice to get in and copy everything off just in case.
LOL RC I get that totally - no worries. Just seems a bit odd to me to revive bad connections in a laptop by beating the crap out of it. But hey... ;D
"a bit odd" - you should visit the South. (US)
Where 99.872% of things can be repaired with a hammer and/or duct tape.
duct tape Carolina Chrome
Cheap laptop flood coming. Note link to <$300 HP Win 8 15" laptop at the bottom of article.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57580376-92/cheap-intel-devices-will-run-google-microsoft-oses-sources-say/
I put the leveno in a wishlist just to see what's happening with price. So far, it's dropped $20.
>An MSi laptop with Ubuntu running on it.
That sounds really nice to me. The only thing right now that forces me to boot windows is the Bing Desktop app.
>Lenovo IdeaPad U310 13.1-Inch Touchscreen Ultrabook $669.99
Other than the weight --I think this one was priced at $1/LB-- this laptop seems great. I spent an hour deleting apps and crapware (though this was actually minimal versus desktop purchases 5 years ago) and cleaning up the UI to my ultra-minimalist requirements.
Once I realized that I had to think of the Win8 UI as more like a smartphone than a desktop, I didn't have much trouble navigating.
Well crap! I wasn't prepared for the off chance that I might like Win8 even better than XP.
Win8 is my preferred OS by far these days. I feel hobbled on Win7 without all the now familiar Win 8 shortcuts. WinXP is on its last legs anyway. I'd have a hard time using that as my primary OS now.
I haven't opened the lid on the ipad in 3 days. This laptop with the intel i5 & ssd drive cold boots to the start page in <20 seconds. Not as good as the ipad, but tolerable and worth the trade to get real, for-true DELETE and arrow keys. Battery life is about 4 hours.
Once I figured out how to set Chrome's default to "desktop mode" rather than the fullscreen W8 app mode, I was good to go.
Besides the better dir/file tree, the ability to easily pin to the task bar is what really makes it work for me.
<added>
I'm finding the touchscreen occasionally convenient, too.
>I'd have a hard time using that as my primary OS now.
I agree. I've docked the laptop at the office and am trying some of my software --the most important being citydeck. I've held off migrating because CityDesk had minor problems with vista but could be tweaked to run. Even though it's no longer supported, users said it ran fine on W7. I loaded the crippleware version on W8 and it spun up without a hitch. I'm upgrading it to the pro version now. If a couple of other programs move OK, I'll buy another laptop and dock it in place of the tower.
<added>
CityDesk is ported over and seems to be working fine. I've noticed that W8 seems recognize old software and hardware extremely well.
This is the best OS/hardware combo I've ever had --and I've been on Win since W1. Gates, if you're still lurking here, I owe you lunch.
I just wanna know what they're paying you
They're bribing me with plug-n-play on steroids. I have a couple of go-to programs that I can't live without ...old versions that I liked better than their newer flavors --ultraedit, for instance. Vista didn't play well with them, so I stayed with xp. But for some apps, financial software would be one, you're playing a dangerous game by waiting too long to migrate. Your data files might get marooned.
>plug-n-play on steroids
Everything moved without spawning a single alert or error message.
>Win8 is my preferred OS by far these days. I feel hobbled on
I ordered an identical set-up for the office.
I now have identical twins --except for the network device names and desktop colors. Now to properly address syncing and/or cloud file management so I won't have an overwrite disaster.
As long as those 13" screens aren't too small for you...the rest of the Lenovo hardware seems pretty sturdy.
> syncing and/or cloud file management
I've been using Cubby by LogMeIn for file sync between multiple Windows machines. However, that's no longer free. You need to pay to get their DirectSync technology which doesn't need to store info in the cloud. You could sync an unlimited amount of data that way. It's a lot like the old Microsoft Mesh product, which I used successfully for years, but ergophobe had issues with... ;)
I'm going to look into the new BitTorrent Sync. It's free; Supposedly quite fast; Doesn't require the cloud. I could see BitTorrent Sync being a serious challenger to DropBox and similar services. It looks like a fast, secure way to transfer files.
>13" screens
The lenovo has an hdmi port so it easily jacks into the ageing 42" Sharp lcd tv I use as a monitor at the office. The settings menues MS now provide make it really easy to configure a laptop to dock. I'm just going to leave it more or less permanently docked.
At home, 13" is fine.
>sync
I only have two, maybe three, applications that need to work with the same files. I'm leaning toward just putting the master files on a lacie sd key and write backups to each individual workstation.
>I'm leaning toward just putting the master files on a lacie sd key and write backups to each individual workstation.
This ended up working fine but took some serious thinking about how I work and what files I wanted kept where. I'm always very deliberate about how I organize the file tree but cloned workstations required some special consideration.
>I only have two, maybe three, applications that need to work with the same files.
Ended up being about 5 or 6.
<added>
The machines are silent. That's a huge change over the old quad-core Dell XPS at the office that had fans blasting away.
>The machines are silent.
I think that comes from the push for low energy consumption, for me though even if the energy was higher quieter is better.
It is hard to quantify how noisy (and hot!) a few computers can make a room. We tend to work in a bear pit manner where we throw lots of people in a room with no screens or such stuff, a quiet machine is a good machine.
>push for low energy consumption
Yeah, and the push to boot
fast. Seriously, if you're going to displace my Ipad, you have to COLD boot damn near instantaneously. Take a look at the drives
"500 GB 5400 rpm Hard Drive,
24 GB Solid-State Drive"
It looks like everything 'system' goes on the SSD.
<added>
FWIW, I don't like to use sleep mode. I believe computers should only have 2 settings; Off & GoFast
So I just signed up some outside office space, and I won't be taking central command, at least yet.
Do you find the extra cost of a touch screen worth it? I just don't see myself touching, you know, the shiny screen.
>extra
it's only a slight convenience for full-time keyboard users like us, dras. we tend to have the places we work arranged to suit us --keyboards, chargers, etc.
that said, since my main machines tend to stay in service for 5-7 years, i expect some touch apps to become more 'must have' over that time span.
ALSO, from the few people I know who have laptops/Win8 *without* touch, they have said they regret not having it now. No particular reason given, they just feel they're missing something.