The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent
vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums
here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules
document is now in effect.
Laptop Replacement/Suggestions Thread: Bring out yer dead laptops!
Posts
On a related note, I've been toying with the idea of upgrading the 500GB hard drive at some point in the future. Google tells me that it's an M.2 2242, which gives me fewer and more expensive options than 2280s. Are there any gotchas to avoid here? I'm not really super knowledgeable about laptops.
I was kind of eying this https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sabrent-DRAM-less-Internal-Performance-SB-1342-2TB/dp/B07XVRTG1H but the expected Black Friday discount did not materialise.
I will only help a friend fix a laptop if the answer to 'do you care if we break it on accident' is 'no', e.g. it isn't worth paying someone to fix but he has the part it needs, so why not give it a go?
I don't think there's any other gotchas that are different compared to full size M.2 SSDs, but I'm not an expert about SSDs or laptops. You do probably want SSDs with DRAM cache because they perform better. I don't think power is an issue.
My wife would like a macbook, but doesn't want to pay for the one which would be able to handle two monitors which is something she desires (I don't think she'll use this at her station personally, but it's what she wants
//posted this in the wrong thread. Since then, poking around, sounds like while it isn't really an immediate threat, that the best course of action is still not to dilly dally in replacing the battery. There are a lot of presumably Chinese brands on Amazon, with ok reviews, but probably easy to game. Any favorite reputable retailers or are these going to all be fairly equivalent?
And to find one, just google laptop battery replacement. There are plenty of 3rd party companies that aren't amazon. The reality is that most of the actual batteries will probably come from the same factories in China, but I'd prefer to deal with a company that isn't on Amazon.
Messing around on the HP website, I customized an HP Envy Laptop 17t-cr000, total cost about $1,700.
Processor and graphics Intel® Core™ i5-1235U + NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 2050 Laptop GPU (4 GB)
Memory 16 GB DDR4-3200 SDRAM (2 x 8 GB)
Display 17.3" diagonal, 4K UHD (3840 x 2160)
Storage 1 TB PCIe® NVMe™ M.2 SSD
OS: Windows 11.
Any comments or criticisms?
This one on sale looks like a much better deal if you/they don't mind the screen being 1440p-ish instead of 4k, and 16" instead of 17" https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/pdp/hp-envy-laptop-16-h0787nr
laptop 3060 GPU and way better processor for about the same price not on sale, but it is on sale, so for $300 less
What is the priority of the laptop? Gaming or productivity and battery life?
I think the best compromise between both is still going to be the ASUS ROG Zephyrus line. Those are proper gaming laptops that also get decent to good battery life. If they really want to game on the laptop you want an H series processor, (or at least HS on the AMD side) and at least a 3060 GPU.
*edit* I have to admit to being a rube, but the '$800 off' sticker caught my eye when perusing the stock at the local Microcenter. Smaller HD, but if the benchmark for games I'm trying to run is 'Starcraft 2' the GPU and 1.7 Ghz seem like they should be fine? This isn't going to be used for gaming when there isn't a wall outlet near by, so battery life isn't a heavy concern, and it's replacing a laptop that's made it through 10+ years of good service.
https://www.microcenter.com/product/663175/hp-omen-17-ck1020nr-173-gaming-laptop-computer-black
I ended up going with this model: https://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/asus-rog-flow-x16. After going to Microcenter, the Asus StudioArt model with an Oled screen was just so much better than anything else they had. The Flow X16 has a mini-led, which isn't quite OLED but pretty close on smaller screens. I would have loved a 17" version but in 2022, nothing was available. The best OLED option was an MSI model at 15.6". This year it seems there may end up being more options. Acer has an 18" model with mini-LED option. I'm not seeing any 17" OLED models sadly.
Outside of OLED/Mini-LED, LCD screens can range greatly. It may be worth going to Microcenter if you have one to take a look. My wife got an Alienware X17 R1 with 4K screen which is one of the nicest normal LCD screens I've seen (also has the best keyboard I've seen as it's mechanical). We were able to get it refurbed for a discount, but it was still kind of expensive. One thing I noticed when going to Microcenter, there are a ton of laptops that have decent specs but had terrible screens and overall build quality was pretty terrible.
Another model that's been generally reviewed really well is the Lenovo Legion Pro 5i. Looks like a 7i model is coming out with the latest stuff, so you might be able to get a discount on the 5i. A few pages back someone got a couple and seemed pretty pleased.
my legion 5 (ryzen5 / 1660ti) that i got for 800$ is coming up on 2 years now and is still going strong. their fan design is great and quite easy to open up and clean.
Is there a reliable repository for deep service manuals for older Dells - not the basic, "this is how you pull it apart and how you put it back together" one that they have on their main public website, but something that is like, "Plug (Px) should have 19.5v between pin 0 and pin 8"?
Spoiler for some details:
What I don't know, is if this model has some silly internal operation where-in, if the battery is not plugged in then the battery plug is cut off from the main rail voltage.
I don't want to spend $99+shipping and tax on a new battery if it's a mainboard problem.
My laptop has Wifi, but it suddenly has less wifi than it used to. The range is suddenly much lower; it will work just fine if I'm within about 3 meters of the wifi hub, but any further than that and it... won't. It's a really steep drop-off too. Literally the difference between leaning forward and leaning back on the couch at my dad's place, for instance.
Edit: I should say that the issue has persisted through a complete reinstallation of the operating system, albeit both OS were Linux distros.
The wifi signal is still detected, and the signal strength can be reported as at, say, 70% and just... not give me any data. If I use my ancient Pixel2 as a wifi hotspot, it'll work just fine in places where the laptop wifi just cycles through the trying to connect sequence.
The wifi card in the laptop appears firmly seated and connected and not obviously damaged in any way.
It's one of these https://www.impactcomputers.com/5w10v25797.html which I infer from the price is not the highest of high end units. I'm open to replacing it with something better if that is what's needed to fix the problem, and if it's a viable option. It seem to be connected via a normal M2 socket.
While I have the laptop open, I can also see that the SSD is a 512GB Western Digital SN530 in 2242 format. Is this drop-in replaceable with any 2242 NVME?
(Irritatingly, Lenovo seem to have mounted it on some kind of metal shim that specifically restricts putting in a 2280, even though there would clearly be space for one if it weren't for that damb shim)
I had this happen on my laptop. Bluetooth and 2.4ghz wifi share the same frequency. As soon as I’d connect my Bluetooth headset my wifi would go to shit.
Update: Bluetooth isn't the problem here. Opinion from another source says this sounds like an imperfect connection between the wifi chip and the actual receiving surface in the laptop lid. As the cables plug into the wifi chip itself perfectly well as far as I can tell, further investigation would mean doing more dismantling than I an comfortable with to deal with what is basically an inconvenience.
On the other hand, if it becomes more inconvenient, or the problem gets worse, I can get a USB wifi dongle pretty cheaply.
So in general, my brain kinda short-circuits when it comes to making a choice lest I make the 'wrong' one.
My usage right now would be simple, but I'm trying to get something that will support/encourage revisiting happy challenges and getting out of my house, and kinda futureproof without completely overspending. At Best Buy, I only really looked at Surface Laptop and Macbook Pro; I liked the keyboard on the Surface better, but nothing really wowed me. I liked the touchscreen as an accessibility option, and I certainly miss having a tablet, but that's not the priority over my needs listed above. (The Lenovo Yoga's kb is a nonstarter.)
Someone the other day mentioned their Framework -- I think that whole thing is neat, and with recent updates, the only drawback might be the lack of dedicated graphics card on the 13". Tempting, but a bit small.
Anyway, here's a list a data scientist recommends, and his readers' suggestions:
MacBook Pro 13″ or 14″
MacBook Air M2
Dell XPS 13 or Dell XPS 15
Dell Inspiron 15.6″ (+8gb RAM)
Lenovo Thinkpad X or T series
Razer Blade Stealth
However, for everything else it has been a dream. I've owned Dell, Apple, Toshiba and most recently before the Framework, an Asus laptop. I hated them all. I love my Framework laptop. It runs so clean because I installed the OS myself. Every single little part on it is removable and replaceable individually. I can upgrade it with new parts without replacing anything that doesn't need upgrading.
Hell, when the new 16" chassis (With the mobile GPU slot) releases later this year, I could just transfer the innards over and only buy the new chassis and a GPU.
The offerings are still fairly limited, and with only one screen/chassis size right now it's not super great, but if what they offer does fit what you want, I highly recommend a Framework laptop.
While I'm not going too hard against Framework, they're still very much a work in progress company. The 12th gen version of their computers have terrible battery life, Framework even admitted it after the fact and that no amount of bios updates/driver updates/fixes can solve that. So the 12th gen version of their components is not super highly regarded.
And as for the OS, sure but I could also take a clean Windows 11 ISO and install it on my [name brand] laptop, only install the drivers and none of the extra software, and get that clean OS experience, so that's not unique.
Don't get me wrong, I think it's great this company exists, it needs to exist, and I want it to succeed. I've priced out a 13" laptop tons of times, trying to justify it. But when I look to replace my 6 year old laptop this fall I just can't justify what is going to be about a $600 premium for essentially the same internal components over what is an equivalent name brand laptop. I just need that price to come down a bit, and for the company to prove more reliability.
Hopefully the first issue is fixed in newer revisions (I think the latter was fixed in 12th gen but no idea).
I've never really been able to find a perfect laptop, so it's all about narrowing down that you need/want most. I'd start with the OS. Can you run all your data scientist software on MacOS? Are you comfortable using MacOS? For me, I've used Windows since Win95, so moving to MacOS wasn't happening. Also mine is mostly gaming, so that also ruled out Mac's. But if you are ok with it, it's hard to beat the build quality and features in a macbook (though you pay for it).
If you are leaning Windows or the price is too much, then figure out what's next. For me, since I'm gaming, I focused on screen, which limited me to only a couple models. If specs and keyboard are your top requirements, that might limit you as well. Mechanical keyboards on laptops are pretty rare still. My wife has an Alienware with one, and it's really great, but it's also missing a numpad and is 17".
For reference, I got the Asus X16 Flow. The mini-led screen, folds into tablet mode, and a 3070ti card were my most important points. However I had to give up battery life and a great keyboard (this keyboard is pretty squishy).
Or I guess the 3d scanner is the main reason I'd like a laptop. I could probably deal with lugging around a desktop if it's in a decent-ish sized form factor.
I think my budget is around $1500 I'll probably buy in like a month or so.
Other options would be to wait for a dell sale and grab a refurbed laptop. I've had pretty good luck in the past with refurbed outlet stuff from Dell.
Lenovo
Asus (ROG)
Possibly LG but I haven't messed with them
----
My ancient Lenovo Y5 is finally showing its age. It couldn't reliability connect to hotel internet when my wife's Dell work laptop had no issues. I'm going to start by grabbing a wifi dongle to see if that fixes things.
That being said, the machine is 2012 vintage. Even though I now only use it about twice per year, I think it's time for a replacement. So I'm going to start low-key looking for one but don't plan to buy for a while.
If any of you see a good deal, @ me. I prefer discrete GPU.
Back to school season is July and August. Considering school starts in September doing back to school deals in October is a miss.
I'm going to be headed back into a WFH situation soon where we use remote desktop software to work off the computers at the office. I'd like the option of having a laptop that I can work off of if I need to be away from my home PC. I won't be gaming on this, just remote work (and maaaaaybe some light-to-moderate video editing though that's only for hobby reasons), so as long as it can handle some not-too-strenuous multitasking while tethered to a mobile wifi hotspot I'd be sitting pretty. I'm looking for a Windows machine (10 is fine, doesn't have to be 11), preferably something with a numpad. 4K resolution at a minimum. I'm thinking my budget can go up to $1,500. $2,000 if need be, but if it's lower then all the better.
Edit: Poking around, it looks like 4K and the numpad are luxuries that I can do without.