I guess I'm lucky that I don't have to deal with Lenovo customer service. This Ideapad 5 has been great.
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.
M.2 2242 is a form factor, specifically it's the shortest M.2 form factor. There's 3 M.2 form factors, 2242, 2260 and 2280. So you do need to get a 2242 type one specifically for it to fit in the laptop.
Really comes down to how much you want to pay. Technically getting something from Microcenter or Bestbuy would be best if you get their warranty since you can take it in. Even slightly technical users can be leary working on laptops.
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?
Well yes I get that part; it's 42mm instead of 80mm long. I meant in terms of power draw, sidedness and cache
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 ). She doesn't otherwise have high graphic demands (not going to be gaming, or anything like that). So what would you guys recommend with modern laptops which can support 2 external monitors?
If you are not looking for anything fancy, look at Dell Small Business outlet for sales. I have a precision for work and it's a champ with 2 monitors, though it may be overkill depending on her work. Either way, they tend to come with 1-3 year on site warranty and you can sometimes get a decent deal.
My wife's laptop case wasn't sitting flush, but she's dropped it a few times. I opened it to make sure the battery wasn't swollen, and it was just due to the panel being bent... but the battery was a little swollen, just not enough to push the back panel. Should I replace it ASAP or is it ok to procrastinate? Online people make it sound like it is a hand grenade at more or less any point in time but wasn't sure how reasonable it was to replace them before performance starts to degrade just because you can see a little puff.
//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?
I'd just replace it. The cost of the replacement isn't worth the trouble of the worst case scenario or even the best case scenario (where it just stops working and now we have to wait for a new one).
The battery isn't going to set on fire today or tomorrow, but you should still replace it ASAP.
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.
OK thanks for confirming I ought to just swap it out. At least for this one they seem surprisingly affordable, compared to what some other rechargeable batteries run.
0
Gabriel_Pitt(effective against Russian warships)Registered Userregular
I was asked to assist in speccing out a laptop, with the capabilities not being too tough, like playing Satisfactory or other recent games without having to minimum graphics everything, and then all the normal stuff, like running Open Office and streaming. I figure this build will be good for a good number of years to come, but wanted to see that I hadn't goofed on anything, or 'hey, this laptop does the exact same but is $XX cheaper.'
Messing around on the HP website, I customized an HP Envy Laptop 17t-cr000, total cost about $1,700.
The laptop version of the 2050 looks like a pretty bad GPU, I'd go for the laptop 3060 they offer instead if you can get it. Personally I'd also go for a smaller screen resolution, 4k on a 17" screen seems like it would be hard to notice the difference from 1080p or 1440p. Plus the bigger the resolution the harder it is for the GPU to drive it, and laptop GPUs already struggle with their focus on lowering power consumption and heat generation.
yeah that U series processor, 2050, and 4k screen are a recipe for a bad time.
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.
Gabriel_Pitt(effective against Russian warships)Registered Userregular
edited March 9
Productivity and battery life. Gaming is an appreciated perk. That setup was a case of 'just because I could, doesn't mean I should've.' I mean, 4k, that's so many K!
*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.
When looking for laptops, for me the screen is going to be the #1 priority. A laptop is more than just gaming, it's media and productivity, which means the screen quality is more important than a few extra FPS for me.
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.
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.
Xantus on
Paths of Exiled - (waffenheimer)
Domination -> BrunswickBeardcombe - SuperKudukuJazz
+2
Gabriel_Pitt(effective against Russian warships)Registered Userregular
Thanks all for the help - it blew a few cobwebs out of my brain and helped me get a decent spec together that pushed all the right buttons.
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.
Domination -> BrunswickBeardcombe - SuperKudukuJazz