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Last post Author Topic: I need advice: which laptop to buy?  (Read 14826 times)

brotherS

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Re: I need advice: which laptop to buy?
« Reply #25 on: January 22, 2011, 10:17 AM »
edited my post above:

[...]
Lenovo ThinkPad SL510 NSLDFGE
[...]

[edit] I was working with this a little today. The fan does start and stop, so I guess that rules it out [/edit]
Too bad... :(

Then hopefully JavaJones buys the other one and can tell me about the fan there! :)

xtabber

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Re: I need advice: which laptop to buy?
« Reply #26 on: January 22, 2011, 02:23 PM »
edited my post above:

[...]
Lenovo ThinkPad SL510 NSLDFGE
[...]

[edit] I was working with this a little today. The fan does start and stop, so I guess that rules it out [/edit]

Most laptops will allow you to set the fan to stay on through the BIOS, if that's what you REALLY want.  I don't see why you would want the fan running when it doesn't need to be.  The power manager on Lenovo computers will allow you to set the fan to maximize performance, which is a better way to go, IMOH.

f0dder

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Re: I need advice: which laptop to buy?
« Reply #27 on: January 22, 2011, 04:24 PM »
Most laptops will allow you to set the fan to stay on through the BIOS, if that's what you REALLY want.  I don't see why you would want the fan running when it doesn't need to be.  The power manager on Lenovo computers will allow you to set the fan to maximize performance, which is a better way to go, IMOH.
I'd rather have the fans running constantly, but at a lower rate, than having the JET EXHAUST NOISE every-so-often :)
- carpe noctem

brotherS

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Re: I need advice: which laptop to buy?
« Reply #28 on: January 22, 2011, 04:33 PM »
I'm with f0dder!

@xtabber: check out http://www.youtube.c.../watch?v=M3tin-05CEM (and turn the volume up) to get an idea how annoying it can be in a quiet room. Probably not so bad in a loud and hectic work environment.

Carol Haynes

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Re: I need advice: which laptop to buy?
« Reply #29 on: January 22, 2011, 04:59 PM »
Been flogging a lot of Samsung HD laptops recently (eg. R540). Reasonably priced, well made and nice screens with the advantage of a full size keyboard. Main drawback is battery life is not up to the hype.

Depending on how much you want to spend Sony do some very nice HD laptops and generally are ugradeable to 8Gb RAM and have Core i3 processors which are quite nippy. Cost a bit more for the BluRay versions but they are really solidly built and have a decent battery life.

If you are looking at Thinkpads be aware that they are very crap heavy out of the box and make sure you avoid models with bloody stupid button/joysick type mouse instead of a touchpad (awful to use - unless you only ever plan to use a wireless mouse).
« Last Edit: January 22, 2011, 05:01 PM by Carol Haynes »

brotherS

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Re: I need advice: which laptop to buy?
« Reply #30 on: January 25, 2011, 07:51 AM »
Been flogging a lot of Samsung HD laptops recently (eg. R540). Reasonably priced, well made and nice screens with the advantage of a full size keyboard. Main drawback is battery life is not up to the hype.

Depending on how much you want to spend Sony do some very nice HD laptops and generally are ugradeable to 8Gb RAM and have Core i3 processors which are quite nippy. Cost a bit more for the BluRay versions but they are really solidly built and have a decent battery life.

Thanks for the pointer. The only Sony that fits my needs seems to be the VAIO EB4X1E/BQ - which sounds pretty good (to me) on paper:
- 39.4 cm/15.5"
- 4 GB RAM (2x 2 GB)
- Intel Core i5-480M (2.66 GHz / 3 MB Cache)
- Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit
- Full HD (1920 x 1080)
- ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650
- 500 GB HDD
- Blu-ray Disc Combo (BD-ROM/ DVD+-RW/+-R DL/RAM)
- WLAN 802.11n, Bluetooth

Not cheap, but might be worth it... and according to the review of a similar VAIO model, the fan runs continuously, but is rather quiet.

And should I ever decide to go SSD, I found this:

2nd Drive Caddy for Sony VAIO E & F Series (add 2nd HDD or SSD)
http://newmodeus.com...&products_id=280

eSATA-USB cable (eSATAp), connect SATA optical drive externally
http://newmodeus.com...&products_id=346


If you are looking at Thinkpads be aware that they are very crap heavy out of the box and make sure you avoid models with bloody stupid button/joysick type mouse instead of a touchpad (awful to use - unless you only ever plan to use a wireless mouse).

I'm not sure if you left out the "t" by accident or on purpose, but that really IS a sick invention... I wonder how it ever ended up in a real product.
« Last Edit: January 25, 2011, 10:47 AM by brotherS »

JavaJones

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Re: I need advice: which laptop to buy?
« Reply #31 on: January 25, 2011, 01:06 PM »
Funny, I like the "joystick"/nubbin pointer on Thinkpads. Always have. I'm out of practice with them, but when I used one regularly I much preferred it to a touch pad. Regardless of my opinion they're still shipping them so I must not be the only one who likes them. ;)

By the way I did end up buying the Lenovo. Should be here Thursday. Woo!

- Oshyan

JavaJones

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Re: I need advice: which laptop to buy?
« Reply #32 on: January 31, 2011, 06:56 PM »
Got the y560p. Overall I'm pretty happy with it. For the price I got a wickedly fast CPU, 750GB HD, and discreet graphics card. All things that I wanted. On top of that I got a keyboard without numpad and a centered touch pad, both of which I prefer.

Unfortunately there are a few problems, some with workarounds, others... I don't know. *sigh*

First thing I ran into is the touch pad is actually rather *big*. Small problem, just takes some getting used to, it's the reach between left and right click that I have to adjust to most. Far from a deal breaker in any case.

Then there is the fact that the normal lower-left Ctrl key is now the Fn key. Many, many laptop manufacturers make this "mistake" (mistake IMHO) and I really don't understand why. Ctrl has been in this position on most keyboards for eons. Fn is a new-ish key that is only present on laptops. There's no particularly good reason not to put the Fn key where they always move the Ctrl key to. This one does really bug me. Admittedly it's something you can adjust to, but since desktop keyboards are all the "normal" way it's harder. I will be looking into a key remapper, but I saw that some people on the Lenovo forums were going so far as to use a custom (and obviously unsupported) *BIOS modification* just to get this system-wide. Yeesh

OK, now we get into the more serious stuff. The next thing I noticed was the touch pad would stop responding for a half second or so after any typing. This one I didn't understand at all. I figured it had to be a settings issue with the touchpad and I scoured around in there, eventually discovering that turning down the "palm guard" (supposed to help avoid accidental touch pad motion when typing) helped a good amount. Now the delay is minimal, though it's still there a bit. I also turned off most of the touch pad "gestures" as I find then being triggered at random too often. So fortunately this whole issue was minimized.

Finally, the biggest issue that still somewhat remains, the dithering on this laptop is some of the worst I've ever seen. For those of you not familiar with dithering, it's a color reproduction method used by cheap LCDs (on most laptops; Apple was even sued over this!) that basically tries to make up for lower color depth (6 bit vs. 8 bit) by using multiple colors in patterns (like newsprint) to simulate more subtle gradients. It's generally not that noticeable on your average laptop screen, but for some reason here it's pretty distracting, at least for me. Apparently the y560 has had this problem off and on for a while, even back into 6+ months ago with the previous model (before Sandy Bridge). That being the case it's frankly rather shocking and dismaying that the problem persists now. I may just be unusually sensitive to it, but it definitely bothers me, and is worse than my previous Toshiba, or even the cheap, generic replacement LCD I eventually had to get for it (when I cracked the original :D).

There's a lot of discussion in the Lenovo forums about the display issue and various possible fixes. It seems as though it *may* be something Lenovo can fix with a BIOS update or graphics card driver fix. That remains to be seen. Fortunately I did find that turning the refresh rate down from 60hz to 50hz seems to help a bit and makes the effect almost invisible in many cases. It's still there if I look close, but it's better. This seemed odd to me, but I'm not going to argue. Surprisingly I didn't see any mention of this on the Lenovo forums yet...

Last but not least, there is the new Intel Sandy Bridge chipset issue which has just cropped up. It's unclear yet whether it affects laptops as I think they may use a different chipset, and certainly a different board design, but it's certainly still of concern. I will be waiting to see how it pans out.

Now this may seem like a lot of issues, but I've found issues with almost every product I've purchased. I will say I was more thoroughly pleased with my Eee when I bought it, and with the Toshiba 15" laptop that preceeded this Lenovo. But both also have some issues.

Ultimately I am not certain I am going to keep this thing, though I am leaning toward yes as the price is right and the basic hardware is solid. So far I've been able to work around or mitigate most of the issues I've encountered *except* the possible Intel chipset issue. Waiting to hear about that one...

Mostly I'm just frustrated at what seem like really obvious and, in many cases, preventable issues. These things should be caught in QA. If laptop makers stopped trying to reinvent the wheel with e.g. new keyboard layouts and whatnot, I think there would be a lot less of some of these issues. I just don't understand why they keep doing this as it usually causes more problems than it solves. I suppose they want to differentiate their products, but I say that sticking with what works would be different enough from the competition as it is! You should see HPs new nightmarish "all-in-one touchpad" on all their new laptops, widely regarded as absolutely awful to use. How do these things get out of the labs!?

Regardless of my satisfaction with this model, I think it's a clear case of wait-and-see for any 2nd gen i-series CPU laptops at this point given the Intel chipset issue. Wait and see if it affects laptops, if not then you're in the clear. We should know within a week or two.

- Oshyan

KynloStephen66515

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Re: I need advice: which laptop to buy?
« Reply #33 on: January 31, 2011, 09:47 PM »
Not got the energy to read to see if its already been suggested...but get the Dell Duo!