I'll probably buy 1 more Win laptop. Recommendations?

Drastic · April 15, 2013, 02:47:14 PM

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?

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.

rcjordan · April 15, 2013, 04:45:32 PM

>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.

Zwart · April 15, 2013, 05:15:50 PM

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...

Drastic · April 15, 2013, 05:34:38 PM

"a bit odd" - you should visit the South. (US)

Where 99.872% of things can be repaired with a hammer and/or duct tape.

rcjordan · April 15, 2013, 05:43:55 PM

~~duct tape~~ Carolina Chrome

rcjordan · April 20, 2013, 01:21:44 PM

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.

littleman · April 21, 2013, 07:35:03 PM

>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.

rcjordan · April 26, 2013, 03:08:15 PM

>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.

rcjordan · April 27, 2013, 05:33:52 PM

Well crap! I wasn't prepared for the off chance that I might like Win8 even better than XP.

bill · April 29, 2013, 05:17:31 AM

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.

rcjordan · April 29, 2013, 10:56:49 AM

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.

rcjordan · April 29, 2013, 10:14:23 PM

>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.

rcjordan · April 30, 2013, 05:18:44 PM

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.

Zwart · April 30, 2013, 05:47:04 PM

I just wanna know what they're paying you

rcjordan · April 30, 2013, 06:12:32 PM

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.