Laptops?

  On 12/28/2018 at 11:28 AM, Lewps said:

splurging on 6th gen x1 because of 8th gen i7 which has much better performance with quadcore processors compared to 7th gen i7's dual core

Be aware though that the U series CPUs, which the X1 Carbon uses, will thermal throttle much quicker than the other series

Get a polysterene Flopbook Zx008ŁŒŃ222. You can play internets and create porns if you use it incorrectly. 

I went for an xps 13 against watmm advice

Waiting to regret it

Sorry, last time I'll ask for someone to check but this spec seems considerably better than the one I posted earlier. I know it is aged but otherwise seems okay, is there a catch I am missing?

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Lenovo-Thinkpad-T440s-Core-i7-4600U-2-10GHz-12GB-Ram-240GB-SSD-Webcam-Laptop/372230921093?_trkparms=aid%3D111001%26algo%3DREC.SEED%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20160908105057%26meid%3D4499c69a899c40ab9d1b1ca5e13a5317%26pid%3D100675%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D15%26mehot%3Dpp%26sd%3D372230921093%26itm%3D372230921093&_trksid=p2481888.c100675.m4236&_trkparms=pageci%3Af57d021d-0b45-11e9-ad22-74dbd1801478%7Cparentrq%3Af922ddcc1670aa1266f872f5fff388d8%7Ciid%3A1

na, that seems to be the usual price..checked with the other big refurbishers, exactly the same configuration..usually the display and ram are the big inflaters - price-wise.. found something interesting on the german ebay..same price, same config except FHD TouchScreen and 2nd battery..but B-ware..

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Lenovo-ThinkPad-T440s-Core-i7-4600U-12GB-240GB-SSD-1920x1080-Touchscreen-4G-LTE/132812368683?hash=item1eec3beb2b:g:d10AAOSwys1biB-I:rk:1:pf:0

Ah okay cool, thanks for checking it out.

  On 12/28/2018 at 11:37 AM, oscillik said:

 

  On 12/28/2018 at 11:28 AM, Lewps said:

splurging on 6th gen x1 because of 8th gen i7 which has much better performance with quadcore processors compared to 7th gen i7's dual core

Be aware though that the U series CPUs, which the X1 Carbon uses, will thermal throttle much quicker than the other series

 

Ive read thermal throttling typically happens when docking your laptop which i dont plan to do, plus with 4 cores i doubt i'd have much of a problem with this unless i was running it at benchmark speeds all the time

  On 12/30/2018 at 10:15 AM, Lewps said:

 

  On 12/28/2018 at 11:37 AM, oscillik said:

 

  On 12/28/2018 at 11:28 AM, Lewps said:

splurging on 6th gen x1 because of 8th gen i7 which has much better performance with quadcore processors compared to 7th gen i7's dual core

Be aware though that the U series CPUs, which the X1 Carbon uses, will thermal throttle much quicker than the other series

 

Ive read thermal throttling typically happens when docking your laptop which i dont plan to do, plus with 4 cores i doubt i'd have much of a problem with this unless i was running it at benchmark speeds all the time

 

 

Absolutely untrue — I have a Surface Pro 4, which uses a U-series CPU, and it thermal throttles very often. I also have a ThinkPad X230 with an M-series i7 CPU, which also thermal throttles when it isn't docked (albeit needs to be doing more for longer before it does).

 

Also, the amount of cores you have doesn't have any bearing whether you're more or less likely to thermal throttle.

hmm damn alright have you tried undervolting/ throttlestop or repasting the cpu?

This talk of thermal throttling (thanks osc!) made me dig further into things - actually very useful as I was on the edge of pulling the trigger on a HP computer then backed off when I found some info on this very issue.

 

Found this website to be helpful: https://www.notebookcheck.net/ 

 

They generally seem to do a good job putting laptops through their paces, including stress testing to reveal how a laptop might function under extreme conditions, including a look at temperatures + what speed a processor might drop to under heavy use. Probably good to pay attention to the specific model/specs, but seems like a good place to sanity check - particularly if getting something that might be used for heavy applications. 

Thermal throttling may not be an actually big deal for many users is the thing that often gets lost in the specs talk. Especially if you want a thin and light and cheap laptop, you've gotta accept some concessions, and that's possibly one of them. Depends on the use case and all that. If you're talking about rendering videos or running seven instances of Serum on your DAW then maybe you just need to get a desktop...or pay for an expensive (and likely large) laptop that can handle that....or maybe just accept that the video rendering will take 65 minutes instead of 56 or you can only open four instances of Serum at a time. Is it really worth an extra $1000 and a thicker laptop with shittier battery life to be able to do those things slightly faster or slightly more? That's a question we all must ask ourselves when the gods question us at the pearly gates of Best Buy.

 

You're all smart people so just a little reminder, basically. :)

Has anyone stateside bought a refurbished laptop via Goodwill? Or bought a refurbished laptop in general?

 

I just need something simple to replace my PC to record with and out of via a Tascam 122: Win 7, 500mb HD or so.

thx T355, that website was v helpful

 

helped me decide on the Lenovo T480s over x1 carbon 6th gen because of better thermals, looks like the perfect laptop!

Edited January 1, 2019 by Lewps

Np! Let us know how you like your T480s when you get it - looking forward to your review!

Ok - took the plunge and got a Lenovo Legion Y530, here's a mini-review. Although it took a lot of self-restraint to not spring for the i7 Y730 (aluminum chassis + RGB backlit keyboard + better GPU + better screen) I think I made a wiser choice with the Y530. After some fairly exhaustive research, the issues that most reviewers have with this computer are the weak display panel, the (ostensibly) too spongy keyboard, and the somewhat odd configuration of the keyboard and touchpad layout (will not discuss processor here, as you can get either model with essentially the same configs). Having the aluminum chassis would be nice from a stability/quality standpoint, but the plastic used for most of the components here does not seem like pieces of crap. With a Holiday discount of 25%, I was able to get this for under ~$840 after tax. Specific specs under spoiler if folks are interested. 

 

SPECS

 

 

 

What's a Legion and does Lucifer know you have one? Also, why you might want to get a gaming laptop (might)

For those who don't know, the "Legion" series is Lenovo's gaming focused set. Because of this, the configuration (I believe) has some aspects that recommend it for a music production workstation. E.g., the way the laptop is set up includes two large fans, fans on the GPU, and what appears like a fairly well thought out venting system. In doing general research on music making laptops, it seems like gaming laptops often cross the divide, being designed as little workhorses to run programs that are consistently running/giving the processor a workout. Which (I think) means that even the base configurations for these devices are geared more to the type of stuffs that a music maker might throw at a machine vs. say, an office product. Take that all with massive doses of NaCl as I'm just a dude who googles shit. And confirmation bias is a real and true aspect of life. 

 

Concerns (or lack thereof):

My main concern for this thing will be: does this hold up to long-term use. My sense is that laptops by their very nature are going to crap out w/in a certain timeframe. You are showing a lot of stuff into a small compartment, and there will never be the same sort of ability to replace/upgrade as with a desktop. You're paying for the convenience of portability, which includes a certain amount of inherent planned obsolescence. The numpad location is not significantly problematic for me, I will get used to it. Additionally, since I'm NOT gaming the slightly spongy (but still very responsive keyboard) and the slightly dull display means nothing to me. Also, the GTX 1050 (no TI) is also not something that I find to be problematic in the least. This comp is purely for schoolwork and music making. All the negative hits that probably pushed this down in price to a sweet spot for me aren't negatives for me at all

 

The one thing I'd put in the "legitimate concern" category (for what I do) is the limited # of USB ports. It's not bad for a laptop. There are 3 (one on each side, one on the back, which I think is the only USB 3.0 interface). One used for wireless keyboard/mouse, one for Focusrite Scarlett Solo and one for Midi Keyboard =  no more for anything else. Just not enough (again, for me) so will be investing in a USB hub sometime soon. 

 

Joys (or how I learned to stop worrying and love the comp)

It's been ~5 years since I built my PC and the one I configured at that time was built specifically to run VR applications. i4770-k, GTX 1080 TI, 256gb SSD + 1 Terabyte hard drive, can't remember how much RAM (think 32 gigs), etc. etc. For it's time, it was pretty much a beast. The thing also weighed metric ass-ton. Used to lug it around to schools to do VR demonstrations for education and. . . well, let's just say I got my steps in those days. 

 

Given all that, I'm sort of gobsmacked that I seem to be getting a similar performance out of this thing that weighs 5 pounds and takes up 13% of the real-estate. The SSD that came with thing thing was actually rated as somewhat slower compared to other NVME SSD's but it still boots in about 3 seconds. Programs are likewise snappy, w/ M$ word launching in what seems like a millisecond and Renoise (though w/ no real VST's to speak of) in about 2 seconds. Not surprising coming from 5 year -old tech to 2019 but still. I know this will all change as time goes on and I add more shit, I know, but I'm still impressed. 

 

The computer itself is pretty fucking sexy, in an understated way. You basically would have no idea this was a gaming machine (it's missing most of those gaudy red touches or multi-colored lights blasting out of it's ass like a unicorn shitting rainbows). The exceptions would be the back "ledge" of the Laptop and the word "LEGION" with a "Y" inside the "O" that light up. Again, subtle - just enough to make it interesting, but not garish or offensive. Stealth badassery. The look is utilitarian, polished, formal with aforementioned hints of intrigue. 

 

Performance: This gets a highlight, as this what (for me) is the most important. I did a light stress test last night using a breakbeat XRNI in Renoise, about 4 instances of Serum and one instance of Reaktor. The processor hit about 54% at it's most active. Keep in mind, this is with 0 tweaking of the OS, no changes to the power plan (it was still set on "balanced,") on 8GB of RAM, with an i5 processor. I was kind of floored. While this is not necessarily indicative of a completed project file, and although I did not choose presets that tend to max out either VST, I specifically chose VST's I know tend to put pressure on the system and I really expected things to slow to a crawl. 0 signs of slowdown, no audio dropouts, etc. etc. Performance was on par with what I used to see with my desktop under these conditions (though I suspect given the relatively small amount of RAM - which can be upgraded to 32gb incidentally - I would like start running into mem problems fairly soon). 

 

I will continue to test and report back here. I suspect that I'll hit a ceiling in performance relatively soon, but what I've seen so far is totally workable for a sub $900 machine with a good pedigree and a nice balance to form and function. I've already accepted there will likely be instances where I need to bounce down audio - but given the fact that it looks like I could likely run at least a few instances of my favorite VST's + additional, minimal footprint progs leaves me ecstatic. 

 

Thank you!

Big thanks to everyone here (WATMM massif) - particularly to those who put me on the Lenovo path, as well as Osc who brought up what I actually consider to be a fairly important metric to consider after reading more about it (thermal throttling). I found a lot of laptops with some great looking specs but stress tests showed a serious dip against advertised clock speeds. This makes total sense, since most people using a laptop are NOT hammering it with programs that demand a lot out of the processor consistently. Eventually lead me down the path of seriously considering a gaming laptop and feel like a got a really good deal on a machine which is designed (albeit not intentionally) to do what I want it to. fanks all! 

Edited January 7, 2019 by T3551ER

ordered my t480s !

 

8GB RAM - planning to update to 24GB 

Intel i5 8250 GPU

WQHD screen - meant to be great, paid extra for this

128GB SSD - planning to update to 1TB SSD

 

gonna be in Aus in a month 

^nice, how'd it go lewps? why 24gb of ram, sounds a bit random but i'm assuming there's some reasoning

screen is nice?

 

or are you still waiting for it to cross the seas 

 

really don't mean this as a brag/comparative, just came in here to post that i finally ordered a P1 thinkpad, gonna consolidate my rig/swap some shit out/clear my head regarding where my software files and all that is as it's all become a sprawling mess. got multiple ableton files and waves recorded of hardware everywhere and backed up doubly and just, it's a mess. trying to straighten up my brain/music/life. anyone wanna buy a surface or an annoying amd ryzen desktop? :D

yo been too lazy, had the laptop almost 3 weeks ill try write my thoughts after work today

  On 2/12/2019 at 12:12 AM, Lewps said:

yo been too lazy, had the laptop almost 3 weeks ill try write my thoughts after work today

Looking forward to reading your thoughts, I am considering the same machine, just with the mid level screen, more initial ram and bigger initial hard drive.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Ok so I originally ordered the laptop from Lenovo US website with the specifications I listed above, only I tried to use a corperate perks password to get an enormous discount (with a chance of getting sued for fraud). My purchase was accepted and everything seemed fine until the day before the order was scheduled to be shipped it was mysteriously cancelled. I ended up ordering a refurbished one with: 1TB SSD 16GB ram WQHD screen i7 650U for $2k off ebay which got to Aus in 9 days.

 

I spent about a day doing a fresh windows install to get rid of all the bloatware and garbage that was preinstalled on the OS - i followed the optimisations listed here by Krogneth (recommended) https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/8o6txz/what_are_the_best_things_to_do_with_a_clean/

 

After the clean install I undervolted using Intels Extreme Tuning Utility and its been stable at -0.090V + 50W Turbo Power Boost Max. I haven't thermal repasted yet, but I will.. eventually. Throttling hasnt been an issue and if it does throttle when Im rendering video its only for a few seconds and theres no noticeable dip in performance. I also installed TPfancontroll, not sure how much thats really doing. (it's 39C right now)

Cooling and build quality of this machine are excellent. Seems like people were having major heating issues with the T480s models with the Nvidia eGPU as the thinness of the laptop was too much for a U series CPU and hot eGPU

 

I was having a problem at BIOS for a while where it wouldn't boot until i disconnected USB hardware, I fixed that by removing other options for booting in the boot manager in the BIOS

 

I take my computer to work with me regularly and its so light i can carry it around in the palm of one hand with ease. Unfortunately its hard to come by a case for the size of this laptop so i've just been using a bubble wrap sleeve lol

 

Battery life is no where near what Lenovo claimed at 15 hours, I got about 7 hours the other day when i forgot my charger, but it still beats the shit out of my old dell laptop for battery life

 

Reason for wanting 24gb ram is because that is the max for the T480s - T480 can handle 32.. but 24 is more than enough for what I need in a laptop.

 

Screen is great, beautiful colours but since I have my laptop plugged into a 1080p monitor for most of the day I'm not sure it was really worth it. I was having some scaling issues plugging into a HD monitor initially but windows seems to have sorted that out for me.

 

Overall it's exactly what I want - light, fast, excellent build quality, good battery life, good cooling, can run multiple adobe programs at the same time 

 

Things Id like to do in the future:

 

dual boot linux

repaste CPU

install 24GB ram

get USB-C to HDMI cable to run two monitors

hot damn. didn't much consider Lenovo cancelling an order because the discount wasn't valid but I guess that's always a possibility, sounds like you ended up with something working well. better to have a nice screen and not much use it, I guess? my Surface screen is the nicest/highest quality I've ever had but it's relatively small so it doesn't like spoil me for more normal monitors/etc. i read plenty good about those models. didn't even think about possible bloatware, it's coming straight from Lenovo so hopefully not

  On 2/13/2019 at 1:16 AM, auxien said:

hot damn. didn't much consider Lenovo cancelling an order because the discount wasn't valid but I guess that's always a possibility, sounds like you ended up with something working well. better to have a nice screen and not much use it, I guess? my Surface screen is the nicest/highest quality I've ever had but it's relatively small so it doesn't like spoil me for more normal monitors/etc. i read plenty good about those models. didn't even think about possible bloatware, it's coming straight from Lenovo so hopefully not

Mine was manufacturer refurbished so I assume lenovo put that garbage on it. P51 is a great choice!! Would probably have gone P51 if i didnt eventually plan on building my own desktop workstation comp

^P1 actually! Just got it today, the keyboard is so goddamned nice, I didn't think I was gonna gush like so many people do online but it really does feel so good. Quick and just barely clicky enough, soft but not mushy, almost chiclet type but not exactly I guess? I dunno, not worried about the semantics, it's a really fucking good keyboard. Can see some people thinking it's not clicky/mechanical enough for them, but I quite like it with my first few hours of usage. 

 

Not sure if it's the 32GB of RAM or just the solid processer or combo of that and other things, but this sumbitch is so speedy at everything. Windows installation/updating was so fast, hell, even Edge is quick, I haven't even downloaded Chrome yet. Gotta get my shit (Ableton, basically) installed and see how that goes, also gotta buy another m.2 drive since this baby has two slots and I only had them install one. Only a one bit of Lenovo software on mine, though there was the normal Windows 10 trying to get me to install Candy Crush/Netflix/etc shit.

 

Anyway just wanted an excuse to type and test this keyboard basically :)

  On 2/27/2019 at 3:29 AM, auxien said:

^P1 actually! Just got it today, the keyboard is so goddamned nice, I didn't think I was gonna gush like so many people do online but it really does feel so good. Quick and just barely clicky enough, soft but not mushy, almost chiclet type but not exactly I guess? I dunno, not worried about the semantics, it's a really fucking good keyboard. Can see some people thinking it's not clicky/mechanical enough for them, but I quite like it with my first few hours of usage.

 

Not sure if it's the 32GB of RAM or just the solid processer or combo of that and other things, but this sumbitch is so speedy at everything. Windows installation/updating was so fast, hell, even Edge is quick, I haven't even downloaded Chrome yet. Gotta get my shit (Ableton, basically) installed and see how that goes, also gotta buy another m.2 drive since this baby has two slots and I only had them install one. Only a one bit of Lenovo software on mine, though there was the normal Windows 10 trying to get me to install Candy Crush/Netflix/etc shit.

 

Anyway just wanted an excuse to type and test this keyboard basically :)

I am looking at the P1 and curious what screen option you went with? I am thinking about just going with 15.6” FHD (1920 x 1080) IPS anti-glare, 300nits, but have seen some pretty bad vids of the T480 screens.

 

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

damn those lappys are 3300 AUD :0 well out my budget, nice CPU tho. glad its good!