Buying a new laptop

[Berkut]

Unboxing and setting up the new laptop now. So far it looks mighty nice...

[katmai]

[beeb mode]Shoulda bought a mac[/beeb mode]

[Norgy]

Unboxing and setting up the new laptop now. So far it looks mighty nice...

Pics pls.

[Berkut]

SO initial thoughts:

1. The power supply box seems very heavy.
2. The laptop itself seems well constructed and solid. Screen doesn't feel flimsy, and the keyboard is outstanding.
3. No bloatware! Turned it on, got W10 set up, and that is all that was on there!

So far I am very pleased...

[Norgy]

Considering the hardware stuffed inside, power supplies tend to be quite heavy these days. Wouldn't want to be stuck with 250 Watts anymore.

[Berkut]

You know, I guess I had not really thought about that...but it is a good point.

[Josquius]

have a laptop with the 15.6 " screen, and just Intel graphics. It's got an i5 4xxx something processor, and it plays "Banished" and "Cities: Skylines" well enough.   

Surprising. Skylines seems quite demanding on my desktop

[Barrister]

[beeb mode]Shoulda bought a mac[/beeb mode]

He specified a "gaming laptop".  Graphics cards in Macs are not up to gaming, even if he used Boot Camp to install Win 10.

That's the reason why I ditched the Mac and went PC last year.

Perhaps you should now be saying [katmai mode]?

[Barrister]

I have this trip to Europe coming up this summer.  Compared to 10 years ago practically every place has WiFi these days.


My wife has a MacBook Pro she'll probably bring on the trip, but well it's hers.  I remember the "netbook" craze from a few years ago, but it seems to have died out.  Is there such a thing as a basically functional tiny laptop for around $200?  Just looking for web surfing and a functional keyboard, and maybe, just maybe, to be able to play 10+ year old games or so.

About the only thing I've come up with is:

http://www.dell.com/ca/p/inspiron-11-3162-laptop/pd?ref=PD_Family

11" screen, 2.6 lb, modern celeron processor, 2GB RAM, 32GB HDD.

Is such a device remotely worthwhile?

[Monoriu]

I have this trip to Europe coming up this summer.  Compared to 10 years ago practically every place has WiFi these days.


My wife has a MacBook Pro she'll probably bring on the trip, but well it's hers.  I remember the "netbook" craze from a few years ago, but it seems to have died out.  Is there such a thing as a basically functional tiny laptop for around $200?  Just looking for web surfing and a functional keyboard, and maybe, just maybe, to be able to play 10+ year old games or so.

About the only thing I've come up with is:

http://www.dell.com/ca/p/inspiron-11-3162-laptop/pd?ref=PD_Family

11" screen, 2.6 lb, modern celeron processor, 2GB RAM, 32GB HDD.

Is such a device remotely worthwhile?

I regularly bring a laptop on my trips.  A couple of years ago, I thought I could get away with a cheap laptop, since I didn't do gaming when I was travelling.  I just wanted to have access to the internet.  So I bought a cheap laptop that was light.  One of those decisions that I regret later.  Everything was slow as hell.  The lesson I learned was that I needed reasonable power just to do basic tasks, and to keep up with the times. 

Also, "practically every place has wifi" just isn't true.  London, maybe.  But as soon as I leave the big cities in Europe/Japan, wifi is inconsistent. 

[Grey Fox]

BB have you considered a Chromebook?

or buy any 100$ tablet at Canadian Tire.

[Barrister]

I have this trip to Europe coming up this summer.  Compared to 10 years ago practically every place has WiFi these days.


My wife has a MacBook Pro she'll probably bring on the trip, but well it's hers.  I remember the "netbook" craze from a few years ago, but it seems to have died out.  Is there such a thing as a basically functional tiny laptop for around $200?  Just looking for web surfing and a functional keyboard, and maybe, just maybe, to be able to play 10+ year old games or so.

About the only thing I've come up with is:

http://www.dell.com/ca/p/inspiron-11-3162-laptop/pd?ref=PD_Family

11" screen, 2.6 lb, modern celeron processor, 2GB RAM, 32GB HDD.

Is such a device remotely worthwhile?

I regularly bring a laptop on my trips.  A couple of years ago, I thought I could get away with a cheap laptop, since I didn't do gaming when I was travelling.  I just wanted to have access to the internet.  So I bought a cheap laptop that was light.  One of those decisions that I regret later.  Everything was slow as hell.  The lesson I learned was that I needed reasonable power just to do basic tasks, and to keep up with the times. 

Also, "practically every place has wifi" just isn't true.  London, maybe.  But as soon as I leave the big cities in Europe/Japan, wifi is inconsistent.

There's no way on earth there's money to buy a fancy ultrabook, although that's ideally what I'd want.

I wonder if that's changed at all though, now with Win 10 (supposedly in partoptimized for lower-power tablets and notebooks), and more modern 14nm processors.

And maybe not every place has WiFi, but the cottage we've rented for a week does.


GF: re: a Chromebook - I guess that's where the thought of "maybe some 10+ year old games" comes in.  Something to kill time on the plane or whatever.

Everything I've ever heard about $100 Android tablets is that they should DIAF.  One option might be a refurbished iPad Mini I guess - $279 on the Apple site, same as the Dell I linked to.

[Grey Fox]

I'd buy that Dell Inspiron.

[Barrister]

I'd buy that Dell Inspiron.

Yeah, that's kind of intriguing, isn't it.  HP has something with pretty well identical specs as well.

I'll have to think about it.  It's above what I could spend as a pure impulse buy - but not by a lot.

[katmai]

[beeb mode]Shoulda bought a mac[/beeb mode]

He specified a "gaming laptop".  Graphics cards in Macs are not up to gaming, even if he used Boot Camp to install Win 10.

No problem playing games like total war, witcher on my laptop with nvidia gt 750 card