Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Time to buy a new laptop

I was in Radio Shack a while ago. Almost bought a laptop, but restrained my impulsiveness, so I could research them a bit. And of course, seek the sage advice of this group of IT / electronic experts.

I use my laptop primarily for two things. I calibrate my displays with it, and I tune vehicles.

The things I need:

1) Sometimes I'll have three USB inputs, so I need to have at least three of those.
2) A pretty good battery.
3) At least a 15" display, preferably larger, but the laptop can't be huge, because I carry it back and forth from the vehicle to the house.
4) It can't be a fragile thing, but not "tough book" tough either.
5) I'd love the screen to be glare resistant. My current laptop screen is very difficult to see when sunlight hits it.
6) Thin and easy to carry around would be great.
7) My software runs on Window. No Apple compatibility.

When I use it for tuning, I plug the interface into the laptop. Then I scan the engine/trans as I drive the vehicle, or when it's on the dyno. After I get the data I need, I then go into the tune file and make changes. One of the things I work is VE tables, and they are 3D. This is why I need the larger screen. It's hard to see the little dips and valleys in the 3D cube on a small display. Here is an example to give you an idea of what it is I'm trying to describe.... http://www.hptuners.com/products/vcmsuite/ssl_vcmeditorgfx.jpg

The cube can be rotated, and viewed from all angles. I then just grab a line with the mouse curser, and move the line up/down/right/left as needed.

Sometimes I'll just find somewhere to park while in the car to make some tweaks to the tune. In ambient daylight, this can be a challenge. Is there a particular screen type that might help in these conditions?

I'd like to keep costs under about $700.

what you have described as glare more than likely is that the screen it a backlit LCD. For those screens to work you need to have a backlight that exceeds the ambiant light present to be able to see what is on the screen. Sunlight is VERY bright and I don't know of many LCD screens that can produce enough backlight to exceed that of the sun.

And the brighter you run the screen, the more that you drain your battery as the screen is the items that uses the most power in your device

Over the last 7 years, I have had the use of 5 different laptops. Mostly used for Microsoft Office – Excel, Word, & Power Point, along with Chrome for surfing, research, etc. Starting with the oldest:

Lenovo ThinkPad – I can’t remember the model. Bought it “off lease” from an engineering company. Excellent build quality, and the performance was good for a 2 year old model. Loved the track point feature. After 3 years of ownership, it would only turn on intermittently.

Toshiba Satellite L500. Bought new to replace the Lenovo as a combination work and “family” laptop. This thing has taken a beating and never let us down. It was being used 14 to 15 hours a day on average between 3 kids and 2 adults. 6 years later it still works, but the battery has about a 30 second life – just enough to unplug and run to the next outlet. And I had to buy a universal power supply. Based on our experience, I would buy another Toshiba.

ASUS (Model ???) Bought new for me by the company I work for. I had no say in the selection. Actually they bought two – one for me, and one for the service manager. Biggest piece of crap we have ever used. Both have lags and glitches galore, and are slow as molasses. I stripped all the bloat software out of them, boot with only the absolute minimum, and it only makes a slight difference. I complained so much that my boss gave it to his daughter, and bought me the next one.

Lenovo G500. This is the computer I am currently using. Night and day performance compared to the ASUS - it is fast! But because this is the entry level model, the build quality is not that great. It is flimsy, and one of the hinges partially broke about a year in. Not enough to send it in, but you can tell something isn’t right. The other drawback is the proprietary power supply connector. This prevents using a universal supply if the original dies. If I were to look at Lenovo again, it would be one from the ThinkPad line.

About 2 weeks ago we bought my daughter a Macbook Pro for her 16th birthday. This thing is unreal. Build quality seems to be off the charts, and the Retina display is simply stunning. 10 hour battery, SSD storage, and it only weighs 3.5lbs. I want one – bad.

A friend of mine is an Apple guy. Loves his Apple laptops. He gets a new one every time they come out with a new model.

So is there a preferred processor, memory? Anything that I should avoid when searching for one?

There is a cult following with Mac's. They are effectively an Intel laptop that has gone through a style consultant. Are they build any better.. I don't think so. You get to give up some items like memory upgrades, and a replaceable battery. They are making them slimmer all the time as they think that slim is better.

Keep in mind that once you cross over to apple, then you now have to deal with the software issue. If you are running windows apps, they don't natively work on your apple. You will need to deal with bootcamp that can have issues as Apple does not support it at all.. or some virtual machine solution. Not always the best.

You can take the side that you can pay the premium for an apple machine, or buy 3 lesser (cheep) windows one and replace it once it breaks.

Sounds like a "perfect Apple consumer"... I know a few of them as well at work. Always spending money on what Apple tells them is the latest "you will be cool if you own this" product. I kid you not that several of them admit that they don't see much improvement over the previous model/product to justify jumping every model or year, but yet they keep doing it. LOL.

I just don't understand why someone would buy a new product when the old one isn't even that "old" or anywhere near its end of life.



So true.

Then again, I haven't offered any insight into anything good yet.

I will say this, at work we offer Apple MacBook Air devices, Dell Ultrabook E7440 laptops, iPads, and now the Microsoft Surface Pro 3.

The hands down favorite right now are the Surface Pro 3s. From a tablet perspective, even Apple users are loving them. Plus you get the power of an actual laptop.

I saw my brother-in-law this weekend and he has been in the Apple camp for many years. His family only owns Apple computers, tablets, and cell phones... His work switched him from a MacBook Pro to the Microsoft Surface Pro 3 and he couldn't stop talking about how much more he likes the Surface Pro 3. So much so that he is talking about buying a Windows computer or some sort for their home when the Apple one dies or gets too old.

As a IT, Sys Admin, Net admin, Security admin, wireless admin and whatever admin I've been over the years.....

I HATE APPLE.

Biggest overhyped POS products on the planet. I can not tell you how many issues we have with these things where I work from staff, faculty, students etc (University). It's been like this for years. iPads, iPhones, MACbooks..all of it. Thankfully I think people are finally catching on....hence the term CrApple that gets tossed around by the kids.

The Surface tablet has gotten REALLY popular with everyone here now and we can't keep up with the demand. It has completely replaced my laptops. I have had a Surface Pro 1 , and now a Surface Pro 3. Best machines I've had in years and I've had almost every brand of laptop and tablet you can think of over the last 25yrs. Do NOT even consider the RT version of the surface tablet though. Junk.

That being said, while they do have display port out/hdmi out, the screen isn't big enough for your needs at just over 10" but keep in mind, with a tablet you do not need such a big screen as you hold it closer, and it has a nice high resolution.

Dell Business laptops (not home line), or Lenovo would be my suggestion.

But don't buy an apple...just don't.

As an IT, sysadmin, UNIX admin, Windows admin, Mac admin, and whatever admin I've been over the years....

I'm not religious about what I hate or don't. I like using Macs, so I use Macs. Someone else doesn't, use something else. I happen to think the build quality tends to be higher on Macs than on other laptops. Hell, my boss uses one that he runs Windows on because he doesn't like OS X.

I think that my dislike (yeah, it turned into a bit of hate over the years) started when I was in Apple Macintosh technical training back in the mid 90's. Oh my gosh, the fanboys were heavy there too from the instructors, but the people taking the classes pretty much all left certified, but not liking the limited support that can be provided by a "field tech." People complained about Windows and the BSOD, but dang, at least it wasn't a useless Error Type 11. The BSOD had some code information that could lead you to either an application or hardware piece. On the Mac, nope... nothing... I do remember some slick tools that *if they were running in the background* an the machine crashed, you could recover a lot of the information, but that was basically something doing an "autosave" to a temp location every minute or so.

Not sure about durability of things today... Not just the particular Mac or PC in question, but just things in general. Yeah, there are some advancements in materials, but people can and will still break anything, or do what my wife did a few years ago and close a pair of earbuds inside a new laptop and crack the screen, or set a laptop running Netflix on a blanket on the bed or couch and block the fan port, etc.

While I won't ever knowingly own an Apple product, it doesn't mean that I don't see the market for them. It just isn't for me. Yeah, I like to have cool stuff too, but an example would be that I am trying to get my wife to upgrade her old phone to a Samsung S6 on preorder. The early reviews of the S6 and S6 Edge are very good. The Edge has some cool features that can be done with it, but it is also a $100 premium over the regular S6. The reviews that I've seen from people known for Apple products say that the $100 more expensive S6 Edge is a "must have" despite the features being worth about $20 in my opinion over the regular S6.... Why? Because several openly admit that you will be *THE* coolest person with it... Sounds like Apple marketing, but for an Android product.

I don't care to be cool... That ship sailed shortly after college. I do, however, care about functionality and price (I call it "value"). If someone else wants to spend more of their money on something with the similar functionality, then let them. Just like the guy I work with that I offered to buy, install, configure, and calibrate all of his home theater gear in his new house because a local "expert vendor" was selling overpriced mediocre stuff... He said that he wanted "turnkey" (which I was offering) and didn't care that he paid a premium for a lesser quality setup. He can now say that he has a "home theater installed by __________"... It was really about the name for him... He also buys a new iPhone, iPad, and MacBook every year, then later admits that he didn't *need* to, but just wanted to have the latest Apple products. So be it. It is his money, not mine, and if he is happy with it, then it isn't my place to tell him otherwise.

Sadly, I do have Apple products in the house and at work. iPads, phones, macbooks. I'm required to know them. But I'm not required to like them. Just too many hurdles and issues. Do they have some very specific uses for specific types of users that will serve those users better than alternatives? Yes. But most of the time the "alternatives" are the better decision.

I'm still stuck on 4 out of 5 dentists.

I really like the Surface Pro, but damn they charge a premium for the foot print.

No Apple for me. No Surface either, as I need more USB ports and the larger screen. I'm looking at the Dell touch screens though.

I'd look at a Thinkpad, since you've put the kibosh on Macbooks.

My 2 cents:

Switched to Macs at the office, home office and laptop (15" retina MBP) about 5 years ago & there's no going back. There's a major reason that people interested in scientific computing prefer the Macs: OSX is a modern GUI built on top of a UNIX foundation, so you can do all your low-level shell work natively. These are the best machines I've every owned. So smooth, fast, intuitive, powerful. The engineering details in the fit and finish are amazing too ... absolute things of beauty. Had to upgrade my wife's computer recently, and went for a low-end Toshiba for budgetary reasons. She doesn't live on the computer like I do, and we couldn't justify a Mac. I spent most of a day just getting the adware and junk off of it. The screen is horrible -- especially off axis. The design is clunky. And having to use Windows for any amount of time drives me through the roof. The apple approach is so much more elegant, minimalistic, refined, unified, cohesive, functional ... software and hardware both. The prices are higher, but the value is there, no doubt. Pricing a Dell (for example) with comparable processors, memory, screen, and form factor is not going to save much money after all the upgrades from base configuration. Finally, I've never found the software issue to be problematic. Everything I need pretty much is available for OSX, and there's quite a bit more usable free software pre-installed, for that matter.

All, just in my opinion, of course

Funny story: I was at a high performance grid computing conference a couple of years ago in Indianapolis. During/between presentations the house/podium computer crashes. I say to the guy next to me "Is there a computer expert in the house". He says "Yes, but its probably Windows -- No one here would know what to do".

I've never had an issue with my iPhones and iPads that I've had with my other products. I'll stick with Apple.

So we are comparing high end Macs with a low-end/cheap Toshiba and wondering why the Mac looks so much nicer? SMH

In a past life all serious scientific computing was handled by many nodes in a blade server array. Mac was never on the table for anything serious.... Just teasing as I write this on an Ipad.

Sure, the Mac/Toshiba comparison is not a fair one .. we bought it because it was cheap. But I've owned high-end Dells as well, and have never, ever seen a computer anywhere that compares to the fit and finish top-to-bottom, or the quality of the user experience of the Macs. Not even close.

Right ... different types of computing ... heavy lifting is on a Linux based cluster (the really heavy hitters often choose to distribute workloads literally globally via the open science grid). I have private local access to a machine with 10 dual-quad nodes, with 16GB of RAM each and ~ 4TB of raid duplicated global disk. Actually, it's getting a little long in the tooth, but still serves well. On a laptop I need to be able to do programming, access Linux command line utilities, run lightweight jobs, write documents in LaTeX, and ssh remotely into the big machine, etc. It's not power that is vital in this case, so much as "culture". There are ports to Windows that work OK for a lot of that, but nothing really compares to having a Unix-based OS native under the hood.

A personal preference that you have to still be willing to pay for. I'm cool with that if you like it. No sweat of my back at all, so we're good...

Dannnnngggg.... I just looked at their web site. Wow, they have a lot to choose from! I wish the convertibles had bigger screens.

Yeah, it's kind of ridiculous. I think the T series is generally the one to go for (don't do Rs, yick).

Agree to Agree

And I'll just say that all laptops suck. Then, now, and forever.

If I ever get another laptop, I'll get a cheap one.

Has anyone else noticed how threads about computers on this forum that mention Apple start to look like threads about speakers that mention Axiom on different audio forums?

The platform wars are over, people. Use the tools that make you happiest. End of story.

Ever though how Apple and Axiom are at the opposite ends of the marketing wheel.

Apple sells a reasonable product but charges a high end premium for it.
Axiom sells a premium products, but charges a reasonable price for it.

*sigh* You are proving my point.

No.. the big difference here, is that any negative points about Apple are made from people who actually own the product and are giving an opinion based on their own observations, rather than just hearsay and speculation because that seems to be what everyone else says.

Apple sucks. End of story.

Point. Proven.

Not at all, Ken. You got played.

Hey, be nice to Ken.

OK, so Apple verse....all the others....aside.

Getting back to one of my earlier questions, is there a preferred type of memory, type of screen, processor, or anything in particular that should be avoided?

Not that I'm aware of, Mike. I do highly suggest that you get a laptop with a high capacity SSD. I also suggest you store any media on an external hard drive, thus leaving your SSD (main drive) dedicated for your OS and programs. When using an SSD as your main drive (on a laptop or desktop), it should be kept as clutter-free as possible.

Peace

This used to be the case, but such care is no longer really necessary.

The "write endurance" of modern SSDs is above the threshold where most consumers need to worry. They are much self-healing in that they come with plenty of spare storage cells to replace ones that have worn out from too many write cycles. Unless you're filling filling your drive nearly to capacity (more than 90ish%), and then deleting a bunch of data, then filling it again, over and over like you would if you were doing video production or something on it -- then you don't really need to worry about your SSD any more than you did with spinning disks.

That being said, be sure to get a high-quality ssd that's as big as you can afford so that you don't fill it too quickly. 1TB drives are pretty reasonable now. I'll leave it to Ken or others to recommend a brand.

That is, if you feel like installing your own SSD in the laptop. If you do, get a Samsung 850 EVO or Pro. There are subtle differences, and the Pro will last longer. But you'll pay a premium for that.

If you don't feel like installing your own SSD, you're stuck with what the manufacturer will put in it (and they probably won't tell you what brand it is).

I'd probably stick with an Intel CPU, preferably in the Core i5 or i7 range rather than i3 (or worse yet, Pentium or whatever their mid-low range is these days). No preferred type of memory, other than a large amount (8 or 16GB if you can swing it).

Screen type is a fairly personal choice, but my preference would be a high res "retina" type; e.g. 2650x1600 at 15" or better. I don't know how many of those are out there.

Last time I checked (6 months ago) you still paid a silly premium to buy a laptop with an SSD installed. At some point that will change, but SSDs don't seem to have hit the mainstream yet.

its not that SSD have not hit the main stream yet, it's that the vendors know that SSD is a hot wanted item and a cash cow in their eyes.

I still need to buy a laptop. I was surfing the Costco web site and they have a few with SSD's. They are all pretty small though. 256 Gig. I'd really like to keep the price under a grand, and I don't see that happening with a larger SSD. I don't think I need a huge hard drive, but I don't know if I want to be locked into 256 Gig. That's kinda small nowadays.....

I am in the midst of taking some math courses, and found a real need to write on the screen with a stylus. So I need to focus on touch screens.

One laptop I am sorta learning towards, is the HP Envy 15t. http://www.costco.com/HP-Envy-15t-Touchscreen-Laptop-%7c-Intel-Core-i7-%7c-1080P-%7c-4GB-Graphics-%7c-Backlit-Keyboard-%7c-Blu-ray-Writer-%7c-Windows-8.1-Professional.product.100214364.html

It has a BR writer, which is something I do not need.

They have this Lenovo Flex that looks kinda cool.... Not sure about the brand though. http://www.costco.com/Lenovo-Flex-3-Series-2-in-1-Touchscreen-Laptop-%7c-Intel-Core-i7-%7c-1080p-%7c-2GB-Graphics-%7c-Backlit-Keyboard.product.100203985.html

These are the two with SSD's....

http://www.costco.com/Toshiba-Satellite-S55-Touchscreen-Laptop-%7c-Intel-Core-i7-%7c-Backlit-Keyboard-%7c-Office-Home-%2526-Student-2013.product.100153745.html

http://www.costco.com/HP-Omen-15t-QUAD-Touchscreen-Laptop-%7c-Intel-Core-i7-%7c-1080p-%7c-Backlit-Keyboard-%7c-2GB-Graphics.product.100163504.html

I've been pretty impressed with the HP business-class laptops.

Lenovo's have been really good for our family, too. My daughter has a newish Lenovo Yoga and I REALLY like how small and light it is. It has a pretty small screen, but it is pretty friggin cool.

While I share your trepidation about filling up the hard disk, it might be unwarranted. I mean, what kind of big content do you really need? You've got all your pictures, video and audio on your NAS anyway, so what's going to fill all that space?

Good point Tom. I'm not sure. It just seems weird to step back with storage space, when the norm is more. 1T is small nowadays. 256G seems inadequate. I do not use cloud either, and don't intend to.

So what's so great about these SSD's anyway?

What the heck do you need an i7 for? Are you taking a class in rendering? or Video Editing where multi core processing will be of great use? The truth is that you are probably far better off to get a cheeper i5 or i3 as you will find that the rest of the computer becomes far more obsolete well beyond the time that you processor is being a bottleneck (ill conceived thought of future proofing)

As for the side of the SSD. realize that they are selling 1tb SSD's for $360 that you could install yourself. You will never get the likes of HP or Lenovo or heaven forbid Apple to pass on these savings to you the consumer. You are far better to get for your needs now and replace the drive in the next year or so when they fall down to closer to the cost level of hard drives today.

Well I tend to keep cumputors longer than most, I suspect. Well the laptop anyway. I've had the one I use now for five years. It is pretty slow and clunky running the programs I use now, but that's not saying much. It says pentium T3400 processor. 2GB SDRAM and 160 GB HDD. So I reckon one of the 256 SSD's would be just fine, and more memory with a touch screen. I would also like number keys. I did not realize so many laptops do not have them. And a finish that isn't slippery would be great. I carry it to/from vehicles several times a day when I am tuning.

Micheal, I think most people with laptops tend to store stuff on their local network or in the cloud. For myself I have a bunch of desktops for storage and tend not to keep much on my laptop. I bought a 17" HP Envy about a year ago and its a great machine ,I have had no trouble with it what so ever and HP is good about sending updates for the bios etc as needed and it goes without a flaw. I have 2 HP monitors since I prefer a shiny screen which is why I chose the HP Envy, most other computers have the dull screens which just seem lack luster. I say go for the HP they have a great rep.

I put a 256 GB SSD in my desktop 21 months ago with the same trepidation you are experiencing, Mike. Seemed mighty small to me. I have no idea what you like to load on your computer, but, I tend to install new programs every week. In addition to my operating system and a ton of programs, I have:

58.2 GB of Music
7.9 GB of Videos
5.62 GB of Documents
4.26 GB of Pictures

Of the 221 GB available on the hard drive, I've used 166 GB of space and have 55 GB free and available. I also have an external, 1TB, hard drive (@$75) standing by for all that music if I ever need more space on my desktop hard drive. If I move that music to the external hard drive, I would have 113 GB of free space out of the 221 GB available on the drive. So, for me, 256 GB has been no problem. YMMV.

Thanks guys! This is a learning adventure for me.... I was screwing around last with my current laptop, imagining using a pen to write on the screen. It's a downright PITA reaching across the keyboard for any involved pen work (like fratoring equations). So I think that locks me down to one of these 180 deg, 2 in 1 laptops. I'm also thinking 256G is just fine.

But can anyone educate me on these new SS drives? What's so great about them.

Bought a HP Envy, 15" screen. i7 / 8meg / 1T. That's the only one they had at Best Buy, and the others stores didn't have crap. No wonder on-line shopping is killing stores. I really, really wanted to buy the HP Spectre 360, but the screen is just too small for what I use this laptop for. I almost walked out with it, but couldn't do it. That is one wicked little laptop. If anybody has been contemplating a 2 in 1 laptop, or wants a bigger tablet, you ought to check out this little bugger. HP partnered with Microsoft in the design, apparently.

This Envy machine seems to be all I need and wanted. Windows 8 is clunky. This machine comes with a free upgrade to Windows 10, so I won't try too hard to learn 8.

A couple things I'll need to work around....

1) I need to buy an external optical drive. Some of my software programs comes on disk. It's a PITA to try and download it too. Office Pro 2010, for example. I have the DVD's, but can't download it from Microsoft.
2) I didn't realize that these stylus pens were so clunky. Kinda worthless really. I also didn't realize you can't use them like a mouse, to draw on the screen. Apparently that's an Apple thing. I may need to buy one of those drawing/signature thing-a-mu-jingies....

Its getting close to useful.

1. Its a flipbook not a 2 in one.
2. There is no external SATA port for attached storage
3. There is no option (that I saw) for upgraded graphics.

I really, really wanted to go to a 2 in one, but nothing was quite up to my requirements, at least not in my price range.

I need all 3 of the above features (no, I don't need no stinkin' NAS)at a reasonable price.

In the end, I settled for a quad core i5, 16gb of ram, a realy slick and very quiet PSU and a 256gb SSD in a nice compact case for $700. I'll add a good graphics card as soon as I'm ready to play Dragon Age Inquisition.

Give me the above (well maybe not the quadore) at a reasonable premium for the form factor and I'll move to a 2 in one.