Why oh why does it have a buttonless clickpad? I've got a ThinkPad T440p and it's terrible. I despise every minute of working on it and have to bring a mouse around. Is this just copying Apple for looks?
I'm dying to buy a laptop that's as good as my X201 (and keeps 12" format, though thickness doesn't matter much), but with modern specs. I'm probably gonna break down and get an X250, which is limited to 8GB of RAM for no good reason, but I've heard newer processors can handle IM's 16GB SODIMM, so that particular problem might be solved. The X250 is the first gen ThinkPad after Lenovo partially realized they had destroyed the ThinkPad line and started, albeit slightly, listening to customers again.
Any other suggestions? I've tried using a macbook, and the screen is great, but the keyboard, clickpad, and hot metal are very uncomfortable.
I'd spend hundreds on a conversion kit to drop new guts into an X201. (And to mod it with mechanical switches... I'd spend a lot.) It seems you can't spend as much on a ThinkPad these days. My X201 was over $2000 without WWAN, but the X250 tops out around $1600.
If I had a t440p, I would buy one of the touchpads, with buttons and install it. Like this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Touchpad-Left-Right-Three-Keys-for-L...
I had an x201s, That is a very hard computer to move away from, as not much is better. Currently I'm using a t430s. I miss the smaller size, and the screen res on the t430s isn't the greatest.
I bought a used X230, upgraded to 16GB of RAM, added an SSD, and it's been an awesome machine so far. But you're right, the X250 will offer a better display. At least Lenovo seems to have eased up on the hardware blacklist where this model and the T450 are concerned http://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/31rnsv/t450_and_x2...
The old thinkpads that is... Was looking at an X250 as i'm tired of the macbook battery life however that's now 8gb max (unless you fork over $350 for 16gb and put it in yourself), it's also an ultrabook. Still good battery life but... I rather have a bit thicker (but not wider) but better keyboard, more battery, more memory...
Sadly I can't get too interested in a machine like this. What I want in a work machine is the following:
1) 16GB RAM (or more)
2) High density display
3) SSD drive
4) Quad core or better CPU
5) Small and thin
6) Discrete NVIDIA GPU (not the Intel integrated crap)
Apple's MBP is the only machine I know of that fits this bill. I'm becoming less and less a fan of OSX, but you can't argue against the hardware. Can anyone point me to a non-Apple machine that does these things?
EDIT:
Thanks for the pointers! I'll look into the Dell and Lenovo machines mentioned here. It's been a year or so since I've looked for machines comparable to my older MBP, so it's cool to see some new options.
I am in the same boat. I am trying to replace a 2010 MBP 15" with nvidia card, 8 GB ram.
for me, it needs to last 5+ years (sorry, company policy).
Anything with comparable specs (15", core i7 quad core, 8-16 gb ram, 1920X1080+ screen, decent battery life, 3yr support and <=5 lbs) comes to same price as a 15" mbp. and this mbp and others in my company lasted 5+ years without any issues. Well, i had to get my logic board replaced due to some known issue, which was covered. battery life is awesome, dont care for keyboard but its ok, hate OS X. Also, I want to move 100% to Linux but not at the cost of a good hardware. Yes, I can install ubuntu on mbp but whats the point then in paying apple tax and not everything works flawlessly in ubuntu on mac hardware, already tried it. They just seem to make the best hardware at the moment.
m3800 is very close to these requirements but ends up costing same as 15" mbp and battery life is not as good.
Only Apple's top end machines ship with a Nvidia card now and in my experience those same machines have quite serious overheating problems.
Thinkpad's T series fits some of your bill but I doubt the screen is high density enough.
PS - I must be the only person on earth who thinks the user experience with 1080p is better than super-high resolution. Currently most operating systems (Windows, Linux, and OS X to a degree) suck at high DPI so your fonts and UI elements shrink as the resolution increases.
Take a look at Dell's XPS 15, seems to fit your bill. I have the older version XPS 15, and it doesn't have the hi-res screen (1920x1080) and isn't too thin/light, but is great for me.
How small? I've got a Dell Precision M3800 (I think same chassis as their XPS 15) which ticks all of the boxes you mentioned but in a 15 in form factor.
I'm in the same boat. The only machine I can find fitting those specs at the 13" form factor is a Clevo W230SD[1]. And I have serious concerns about its build quality.
I am looking forward to owning a Surface Pro 4 which will have everything except for the discrete GPU.
For me - the touch screen, the pen and the extreme portability more than make up for the lack of GPU and if I need to play high-end games I can use my Playstation, Xbox or my tower workstation that has an Nvidia GPU. Outside of games though, I think the Surface Pro's GPU is fine for most graphics work using Photoshop, et al.
I've been using the previous gen XPS 13 and my 2009 MacBook Pro for the past eight months. My experience with the XPS 13, and Dell in general, has been disappointing.
If I had to make the decision again, I'd definitely get the M3800 instead of the XPS 13.
1. Google about trackpad configuration (palm detection, etc.) on the XPS 13 Dev Edition, it seems to be a combination of the hardware and Linux driver support. Maybe it's fixed in this new rev, I'm not sure.
2. There are known issues with audio popping and crackling when you plug the XPS 13 Dev Edition into speakers.
3. When you're sitting in a quiet environment, like a home office at night, you can hear electrical noise coming from the laptop. It's a known issue, maybe it's resolved in this new generation.
4. One of our XPS 13s was DOA. It happens. It took eight weeks to get a replacement, starting from the first time I contacted support. Once I was connected to somebody in USA on-shore support, they were very helpful, and told me much of that turnaround time is based on their suppliers.
Is the electrical noise a high pitched whine? Coil whine? Every Intel laptop I've used has it. It's supposedly due to power saving going on and off. At least on my ThinkPad, disabling power saving (ie running the CPU at full power all the time) made it go away. I think I may have developed tinnitus from it. It's unbelievably unprofessional.
'Course, disabling CPU power saving modes kill battery, but my T440p never got much life to begin with (I get maybe 70 minutes max now, down from around 2 hours. But I'm running VMware for everything, so perhaps that hurts.)
This looks like the perfect laptop for me at this moment. I just worry that a ceiling of 8GB of RAM means it won't be the perfect laptop for me next year. And I'd like my laptop to last me 2-3 years.
It runs Ubuntu and costs about the same of a ChromeBook Pixel here a few weeks back. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9185526). Seems to be limited to 8 gigs ram, Pixel gives you 16 but has less HD space. No USB Type-C either...
How does the keyboard compare to a MBP? Love that keyboard.
Do they also include free Ubuntu stickers to cover up the Windows logo on the keyboard? :)
My Macbook Pro isn't even a year old yet, so I won't be replacing it any time soon. But hardware like this is finally competitive with Apple - I'd be taking a close look if I was in the market.
The fact that OS X has gotten worse and worse with every version makes me switching next time even more likely.
To ask those complaining about 8gb not being enough... Please name one thing that won't allow you to do which is crucial in your day to day workflow.
I'm not saying i don't believe you, I'm just genuinely curious.
Edit: Looking at this thread, I have to say there has to be a cause and effect here somewhere. You have a million web-developers saying they need more than 8GB to use Chrome to surf web-pages and web-apps.
I'm pretty sure web-apps sucking that amount of resources was caused by giving web-devs machines with 8GBs+ of RAM to begin with. Giving them more, wont fix the problem. It will only make it worse.
As for a developer-anecdote: Almost all bugs post-shipping bugs I've experienced and had to fix, more than 50% has only been reproducable on low-resource constrained environments.
By super-specing your dev-environment, you are shipping bugs you cannot detect. You just don't know it.
not being facetious, but as time goes on it seems more websites load more javascript and chrome takes more memory keeping it's state, my macbook has 8G of ram and when I'm actually working on it doing my daily basics it's nearly unusable.
(Word,Excel,Thunderbird,Chrome,MySQLworkbench,PGAdmin,Cyberduck,MS Remote desktop, terminalsx10(a few python shells) and gvim x5)
I've taken to using my desktops more because I have the freedom to just "spin up" whatever I need in virtual machines and in minutes have an entire test infrastructure.
What's to keep Dell from heavily customizing and releasing / packaging a version of Ubuntu in the same vein that apple customized, released, packaged nextstep as OS X? The only thing I can think of would be "talent at the company". And I know next to nothing about the internals of dell, let alone what they've done since being repurchased and privatized.
Kind of a fun thought, even if it's a little far fetched.
Dell is historically monumentally incompetent at software. Michael Dell's own book discusses the epic failure of a large software project they embarked on many years ago now.
That's not to say Dell has to remain incompetent at software...with a will to do so, and enough money and competent management (which Dell does seem to have), they could theoretically build a top-notch software engineering organization.
Long ago, Dell initially had plans to develop their own version of Linux, hired a bunch of Linux developers. Most of them are still there and things like DKMS came out from that team. But Dell will never ever have their own customized OS and definitely not like OS X.
Dell focuses heavily on Profit & Loss for each team and that drives the investment. Their focus is to keep OpEx as low as possible.
Unless the company culture changes heavily, which I dont see happening, esp. with Michael back at the helm, things wont change. They make good cheap hardware and thats about it. Everything else, including some hardware, they push work upstream to vendors.
the lack of a native ethernet port rules it out for any operations work that requires working on the datacenter floor.
actually this is a frustrating trend, native ethernet adapters are 0 cost to CPU instructions, I know you can use thunderbolt (and I've not looked at the spec in detail) but USB ethernet controllers use the CPU when plugged in- and I'm not a large fan of that honestly.
Maybe I'm too much of a power user for a 13" but for me this feels like a step back from netbooks from a functionality and mobility standpoint, and not far enough a leap forward for performance to justify stepping "up" from a Thinkpad X201. (which I have loaded with an SSD and 8G ram)
but, I agree that my use-case is significantly different from most peoples. I'm still left recalling a time where manufacturers were reluctant to stop shipping with 56k modems- but seem to have dropped Rj45 pretty quick.
Unless you need to use a crossover cable, why not just add a wireless hub to your DC LAN? We have one at our DC, but it's only ~3 cabs worth of equipment, so YMMV.
Having a lot of ram is nice, but every time I read that people need at least 8gb for development, I ask myself what it is that they are running. I am running chrome, sublime, docker, hbase, redis, memcached, mongodb and probably some more stuff and I hardly swap with 4gb, or maybe I just do not realize it because of my ssd. Am I missing some ultra useful, memory annihilating dev tool?
[+] [-] dang|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MichaelGG|11 years ago|reply
I'm dying to buy a laptop that's as good as my X201 (and keeps 12" format, though thickness doesn't matter much), but with modern specs. I'm probably gonna break down and get an X250, which is limited to 8GB of RAM for no good reason, but I've heard newer processors can handle IM's 16GB SODIMM, so that particular problem might be solved. The X250 is the first gen ThinkPad after Lenovo partially realized they had destroyed the ThinkPad line and started, albeit slightly, listening to customers again.
Any other suggestions? I've tried using a macbook, and the screen is great, but the keyboard, clickpad, and hot metal are very uncomfortable.
I'd spend hundreds on a conversion kit to drop new guts into an X201. (And to mod it with mechanical switches... I'd spend a lot.) It seems you can't spend as much on a ThinkPad these days. My X201 was over $2000 without WWAN, but the X250 tops out around $1600.
[+] [-] ntw1103|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] avtar|11 years ago|reply
Also, here's a link related to the 16GB SO-DIMM modules that you mentioned https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/X-Series-ThinkPad-Laptops/16GB-...
[+] [-] userbinator|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kbenson|11 years ago|reply
1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultrabook
[+] [-] tluyben2|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skizm|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kurtz79|11 years ago|reply
It is not unibody, it is not aluminum, the screen is basically without bezel.
This is the first non-Apple ultrabook that is genuinely interesting to me, design wise.
[+] [-] _halgari|11 years ago|reply
1) 16GB RAM (or more) 2) High density display 3) SSD drive 4) Quad core or better CPU 5) Small and thin 6) Discrete NVIDIA GPU (not the Intel integrated crap)
Apple's MBP is the only machine I know of that fits this bill. I'm becoming less and less a fan of OSX, but you can't argue against the hardware. Can anyone point me to a non-Apple machine that does these things?
EDIT:
Thanks for the pointers! I'll look into the Dell and Lenovo machines mentioned here. It's been a year or so since I've looked for machines comparable to my older MBP, so it's cool to see some new options.
[+] [-] kbenson|11 years ago|reply
1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9341506
2: http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/555/campaigns/xps-linux-lapt...
[+] [-] skynetv2|11 years ago|reply
for me, it needs to last 5+ years (sorry, company policy).
Anything with comparable specs (15", core i7 quad core, 8-16 gb ram, 1920X1080+ screen, decent battery life, 3yr support and <=5 lbs) comes to same price as a 15" mbp. and this mbp and others in my company lasted 5+ years without any issues. Well, i had to get my logic board replaced due to some known issue, which was covered. battery life is awesome, dont care for keyboard but its ok, hate OS X. Also, I want to move 100% to Linux but not at the cost of a good hardware. Yes, I can install ubuntu on mbp but whats the point then in paying apple tax and not everything works flawlessly in ubuntu on mac hardware, already tried it. They just seem to make the best hardware at the moment.
m3800 is very close to these requirements but ends up costing same as 15" mbp and battery life is not as good.
w540 is heavy
t series dont have discrete graphics
[+] [-] Someone1234|11 years ago|reply
Thinkpad's T series fits some of your bill but I doubt the screen is high density enough.
PS - I must be the only person on earth who thinks the user experience with 1080p is better than super-high resolution. Currently most operating systems (Windows, Linux, and OS X to a degree) suck at high DPI so your fonts and UI elements shrink as the resolution increases.
[+] [-] ntw1103|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scoj|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrewchoi|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mjewkes|11 years ago|reply
[1]http://www.xoticpc.com/sager-np7339-clevo-w230sd-eta-0320201...
[+] [-] shillx|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pravpraveen|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WorldWideWayne|11 years ago|reply
For me - the touch screen, the pen and the extreme portability more than make up for the lack of GPU and if I need to play high-end games I can use my Playstation, Xbox or my tower workstation that has an Nvidia GPU. Outside of games though, I think the Surface Pro's GPU is fine for most graphics work using Photoshop, et al.
[+] [-] timtadh|11 years ago|reply
It is more comparable to a Mac Book Pro and can be configured with 16 GB of memory as well as the hi res display.
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] TYPE_FASTER|11 years ago|reply
If I had to make the decision again, I'd definitely get the M3800 instead of the XPS 13.
1. Google about trackpad configuration (palm detection, etc.) on the XPS 13 Dev Edition, it seems to be a combination of the hardware and Linux driver support. Maybe it's fixed in this new rev, I'm not sure.
2. There are known issues with audio popping and crackling when you plug the XPS 13 Dev Edition into speakers.
3. When you're sitting in a quiet environment, like a home office at night, you can hear electrical noise coming from the laptop. It's a known issue, maybe it's resolved in this new generation.
4. One of our XPS 13s was DOA. It happens. It took eight weeks to get a replacement, starting from the first time I contacted support. Once I was connected to somebody in USA on-shore support, they were very helpful, and told me much of that turnaround time is based on their suppliers.
[+] [-] MichaelGG|11 years ago|reply
'Course, disabling CPU power saving modes kill battery, but my T440p never got much life to begin with (I get maybe 70 minutes max now, down from around 2 hours. But I'm running VMware for everything, so perhaps that hurts.)
[+] [-] andrewchoi|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Splendor|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cdnsteve|11 years ago|reply
How does the keyboard compare to a MBP? Love that keyboard.
Do they also include free Ubuntu stickers to cover up the Windows logo on the keyboard? :)
Would love to hear from real devs using this.
[+] [-] sandGorgon|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] untog|11 years ago|reply
The fact that OS X has gotten worse and worse with every version makes me switching next time even more likely.
[+] [-] cookrn|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] josteink|11 years ago|reply
I'm not saying i don't believe you, I'm just genuinely curious.
Edit: Looking at this thread, I have to say there has to be a cause and effect here somewhere. You have a million web-developers saying they need more than 8GB to use Chrome to surf web-pages and web-apps.
I'm pretty sure web-apps sucking that amount of resources was caused by giving web-devs machines with 8GBs+ of RAM to begin with. Giving them more, wont fix the problem. It will only make it worse.
As for a developer-anecdote: Almost all bugs post-shipping bugs I've experienced and had to fix, more than 50% has only been reproducable on low-resource constrained environments.
By super-specing your dev-environment, you are shipping bugs you cannot detect. You just don't know it.
[+] [-] dijit|11 years ago|reply
not being facetious, but as time goes on it seems more websites load more javascript and chrome takes more memory keeping it's state, my macbook has 8G of ram and when I'm actually working on it doing my daily basics it's nearly unusable. (Word,Excel,Thunderbird,Chrome,MySQLworkbench,PGAdmin,Cyberduck,MS Remote desktop, terminalsx10(a few python shells) and gvim x5)
I've taken to using my desktops more because I have the freedom to just "spin up" whatever I need in virtual machines and in minutes have an entire test infrastructure.
[+] [-] PopsiclePete|11 years ago|reply
Anything under 16 GB is unacceptable to me.
Developer edition? Nope, not really. I need Linux, Windows and OS X. So my only option remains, as ever, a macbook pro with 16GB RAM.
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] GrinningFool|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] endlessvoid94|11 years ago|reply
What's to keep Dell from heavily customizing and releasing / packaging a version of Ubuntu in the same vein that apple customized, released, packaged nextstep as OS X? The only thing I can think of would be "talent at the company". And I know next to nothing about the internals of dell, let alone what they've done since being repurchased and privatized.
Kind of a fun thought, even if it's a little far fetched.
[+] [-] SwellJoe|11 years ago|reply
That's not to say Dell has to remain incompetent at software...with a will to do so, and enough money and competent management (which Dell does seem to have), they could theoretically build a top-notch software engineering organization.
[+] [-] skynetv2|11 years ago|reply
Dell focuses heavily on Profit & Loss for each team and that drives the investment. Their focus is to keep OpEx as low as possible.
Unless the company culture changes heavily, which I dont see happening, esp. with Michael back at the helm, things wont change. They make good cheap hardware and thats about it. Everything else, including some hardware, they push work upstream to vendors.
[+] [-] danwakefield|11 years ago|reply
[1]: http://blog.mikebrito.com/?p=114
[+] [-] tpeaton|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dijit|11 years ago|reply
actually this is a frustrating trend, native ethernet adapters are 0 cost to CPU instructions, I know you can use thunderbolt (and I've not looked at the spec in detail) but USB ethernet controllers use the CPU when plugged in- and I'm not a large fan of that honestly.
what happened to the very small, fold out ethernet ports? like the one on the old XPS 15 (or: http://www.pcstats.com/articleimages/201304/sam540U3C_edge2....)
Maybe I'm too much of a power user for a 13" but for me this feels like a step back from netbooks from a functionality and mobility standpoint, and not far enough a leap forward for performance to justify stepping "up" from a Thinkpad X201. (which I have loaded with an SSD and 8G ram)
but, I agree that my use-case is significantly different from most peoples. I'm still left recalling a time where manufacturers were reluctant to stop shipping with 56k modems- but seem to have dropped Rj45 pretty quick.
[+] [-] mattbeckman|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skwirl|11 years ago|reply
I thought the issue was that these laptops are thinner than an Ethernet port.
[+] [-] jraedisch|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] daddykotex|11 years ago|reply
16GB of RAM An SSD drive An FHD display
Unfortunately, most of the products available with these features were either similarly priced as the MBP but with clumsy trackpads reputation.
[+] [-] meritt|11 years ago|reply
MBP Chromebook Pixel System76 Galago
Anything else that even exists?
[+] [-] shillx|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] more_original|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] l-vincent-l|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spot|11 years ago|reply