Advice on finally buying my first laptop
Hi all! I want to purchase my very first laptop in the next few days. :) I've purchased several for the wife and kids over the years but I've always stayed "desktop forever" for my daily tasks, mostly due to the cost/performance of desktops vs laptops. However, I am now spending so much more time outside remote connecting to my various desktops on mobile devices that maybe it is time to finally just get a decent laptop. I've always hated the small screen real estate available when using laptops when compared to a multi-monitor desktop that I am really drawn to a dual screen laptop like the ROG Zephyrus Duo (https://www.asus.com/ca-en/Laptops/ROG-Zephyrus-Duo-15/). However, I don't want to invest so much $$$ ($4K+!) into my very first laptop. So I have given in (for now) and narrowed it down to a much more affordable Ryzen 7 laptop from HP (I know, lots of bloatware coming my way from HP): https://www.costco.ca/.product.100673520.html Looks like the HP Omen 15 line has lots of future upgrade ability (at least for a laptop) with 2 internal NVMe M.2 connectors, and up to 64GB of DDR4-3200 memory max. Plus it is fairly portable vs beefier "gaming" laptops and I can easily get it at Costco so I will have a no hassle return if needed (at least for the first 90 days). Looking over reviews on the web, the Ryzen 7 "H" series seems to give 1.5 - 2.0 x the battery life vs a similar speed Intel i7 / i9 "H" variant. Of course I will have to give up getting Thunderbolt with any of the current generation Ryzen laptops and will usually be stuck with low to mid-end discrete graphics with the current Intel vs AMD laptop politics. For you laptop users out there, is Thunderbolt worth the Intel tax and the Intel battery draining premium? During the summer, I want to be able to play AAA games by the pool and on the docks with this laptop so at least an entry level or better discrete graphics card *and* a matte or > 300 nit display will be mandatory. Thoughts and comments on your favorite laptop(s) are welcome! For the MUUG Roundtable topic police: I intend to install WSL2 so :P. -- Bradford C. Vokey Treasurer Manitoba Unix User Group
Thunderbolt 3 (actually USB-C, but both, really) can die in a fire. Preferably a very painful one. Great in theory but a giant PITA in practice. I think you should pick your laptop based on the case/product series (e.g. do you need a titanium-reinforced unit?), then screen, then keyboard, then GPU (if it matters to you). CPU differences are minimal unless you're doing something unusual... and you're not getting a mobile GPU to run 4k games at 120Hz anyway. I would never buy another HP, even if it was half the price of everything else. Multiple negative experiences with several HP product lines over the last 10yrs. ASUS and Acer make better laptops than HP does, both physically and driver-wise. If you want a docking station for multi-monitor or PCIe or serial or whatever, plan your entire purchase around that. -Adam On September 26, 2020 6:25:09 p.m. CDT, "Bradford C. Vokey" <brad@fsi.ca> wrote:
Hi all!
I want to purchase my very first laptop in the next few days. :) I've purchased several for the wife and kids over the years but I've always stayed "desktop forever" for my daily tasks, mostly due to the cost/performance of desktops vs laptops.
However, I am now spending so much more time outside remote connecting to my various desktops on mobile devices that maybe it is time to finally just get a decent laptop.
I've always hated the small screen real estate available when using laptops when compared to a multi-monitor desktop that I am really drawn to a dual screen laptop like the ROG Zephyrus Duo (https://www.asus.com/ca-en/Laptops/ROG-Zephyrus-Duo-15/). However, I don't want to invest so much $$$ ($4K+!) into my very first laptop.
So I have given in (for now) and narrowed it down to a much more affordable Ryzen 7 laptop from HP (I know, lots of bloatware coming my way from HP):
https://www.costco.ca/.product.100673520.html
Looks like the HP Omen 15 line has lots of future upgrade ability (at least for a laptop) with 2 internal NVMe M.2 connectors, and up to 64GB of DDR4-3200 memory max. Plus it is fairly portable vs beefier "gaming" laptops and I can easily get it at Costco so I will have a no hassle return if needed (at least for the first 90 days).
Looking over reviews on the web, the Ryzen 7 "H" series seems to give 1.5 - 2.0 x the battery life vs a similar speed Intel i7 / i9 "H" variant.
Of course I will have to give up getting Thunderbolt with any of the current generation Ryzen laptops and will usually be stuck with low to mid-end discrete graphics with the current Intel vs AMD laptop politics.
For you laptop users out there, is Thunderbolt worth the Intel tax and the Intel battery draining premium?
During the summer, I want to be able to play AAA games by the pool and on the docks with this laptop so at least an entry level or better discrete graphics card *and* a matte or > 300 nit display will be mandatory.
Thoughts and comments on your favorite laptop(s) are welcome!
For the MUUG Roundtable topic police: I intend to install WSL2 so :P.
-- Bradford C. Vokey
Treasurer Manitoba Unix User Group
-- Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
I've worked in the trenches for the longest time. Whatever you do, do not buy HP. Dell, Lenovo, ASUS, hell, even Acer. But *never* HP. Kind regards, Alberto Abrao On 2020-09-26 7:48 p.m., Adam Thompson wrote:
Thunderbolt 3 (actually USB-C, but both, really) can die in a fire. Preferably a very painful one. Great in theory but a giant PITA in practice.
I think you should pick your laptop based on the case/product series (e.g. do you need a titanium-reinforced unit?), then screen, then keyboard, then GPU (if it matters to you). CPU differences are minimal unless you're doing something unusual... and you're not getting a mobile GPU to run 4k games at 120Hz anyway.
I would never buy another HP, even if it was half the price of everything else. Multiple negative experiences with several HP product lines over the last 10yrs. ASUS and Acer make better laptops than HP does, both physically and driver-wise.
If you want a docking station for multi-monitor or PCIe or serial or whatever, plan your entire purchase around that.
-Adam
On September 26, 2020 6:25:09 p.m. CDT, "Bradford C. Vokey" <brad@fsi.ca> wrote:
Hi all!
I want to purchase my very first laptop in the next few days. :) I've purchased several for the wife and kids over the years but I've always stayed "desktop forever" for my daily tasks, mostly due to the cost/performance of desktops vs laptops.
However, I am now spending so much more time outside remote connecting to my various desktops on mobile devices that maybe it is time to finally just get a decent laptop.
I've always hated the small screen real estate available when using laptops when compared to a multi-monitor desktop that I am really drawn to a dual screen laptop like the ROG Zephyrus Duo (https://www.asus.com/ca-en/Laptops/ROG-Zephyrus-Duo-15/). However, I don't want to invest so much $$$ ($4K+!) into my very first laptop.
So I have given in (for now) and narrowed it down to a much more affordable Ryzen 7 laptop from HP (I know, lots of bloatware coming my way from HP):
https://www.costco.ca/.product.100673520.html
Looks like the HP Omen 15 line has lots of future upgrade ability (at least for a laptop) with 2 internal NVMe M.2 connectors, and up to 64GB of DDR4-3200 memory max. Plus it is fairly portable vs beefier "gaming" laptops and I can easily get it at Costco so I will have a no hassle return if needed (at least for the first 90 days).
Looking over reviews on the web, the Ryzen 7 "H" series seems to give 1.5 - 2.0 x the battery life vs a similar speed Intel i7 / i9 "H" variant.
Of course I will have to give up getting Thunderbolt with any of the current generation Ryzen laptops and will usually be stuck with low to mid-end discrete graphics with the current Intel vs AMD laptop politics.
For you laptop users out there, is Thunderbolt worth the Intel tax and the Intel battery draining premium?
During the summer, I want to be able to play AAA games by the pool and on the docks with this laptop so at least an entry level or better discrete graphics card *and* a matte or > 300 nit display will be mandatory.
Thoughts and comments on your favorite laptop(s) are welcome!
For the MUUG Roundtable topic police: I intend to install WSL2 so :P.
-- Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
_______________________________________________ Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.ca https://muug.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
-- Kind regards, Alberto Abrao
On Saturday, September 26, 2020 8:27:06 P.M. CDT Alberto Abrao wrote:
Whatever you do, do not buy HP.
Got any war stories to share? My 2.5-year old HP Spectre hasn't given me any trouble, other than an initial problem with Linux's thermal management. Before that, my HP Elitebook lasted 8 years, with RAM and disk upgrades and a trivially-easy keyboard replacement. Two data points in a decade isn't much of a sample size, though.
It'll be hard to convince you that your HPs were bad, because they were probably not. The high-end models are good overall no matter the brand. (Well, except for Acer, because their high-end gear is... well... average, and priced accordingly. Acer is a budget brand, and, as long as you know what you are getting, this is not a bad thing). However, there are some things that I expect no matter the price. For example, I do not expect a great, clean Windows install from any brand on the low-tier models. It is what it is. But I do expect to find drivers without too much hassle so I can clean it up and start fresh. Or that a BIOS update will go through without further concerns. I also want to easily find downloads for older products. I am not talking about updated everything, of course. Instead, I expect to have access to an archive of everything that was released for a particular model, even if it is 5+ years old. And, of course, I want it to last at least 3+ years being reasonably taken care of without glaring issues like overheating or something blowing up/failing. And, in my experience, HP fails miserably on all of these points. Some are personal experience, some are from my current and past professional activities. A few ones that I can think of: 1) At one point, I had a HP Microserver N54L to which drivers and firmware updates were not available, unless you had an active support contract. HP is the only one I've seen doing this. You would have no issues getting that for any Acer/Lenovo/Dell/Asus product, no matter how cheap/expensive, consumer/enterprise, desktop/workstation/server, whatever. 2) When I worked at repair centres at one point or another, HPs were a huge staple. Their support is awful, they tend to have thermal issues, and they love to brick themselves during BIOS updates. This last one happened so often it was a running joke at one point. Myself, I can deal with these issues most of the time. But if someone asks me which brand to buy, I am not going to tell them to get something that they - or someone they will pay to do so - will have to deal with. I assume they want something they can use, and if possible, enjoy. 3) Most of the time, whatever it is that you're paying for an HP model, you can get something better from another brand for the same price. That's not always true of course, but it is often the case. Personally, if I am willing to deal with an occasional headache, I would rather have an Acer. They're cheap, and, if you are not too hard on your stuff, they last long enough. Or an Asus if I want something fancier. Now, Dell and Lenovo: 1) Generally more expensive, even the consumer-grade stuff, but better quality. 2) I've never dealt with Lenovo support for consumer-grade products, but Dell is really good, like hassle-free good, enterprise-level for consumer-grade gear. Enterprise is usually decent no matter what for any of them, because enterprise. 3) Both seem to be cutting corners on quality recently. That goes for the whole industry, it seems. They are still ahead of the others on quality. 4) Nice resell value. I don't know if you care, but if you do, they will hold their value better than the other brands. 5) They will have better Linux support. 6) I am not very familiar with Dell customization options, but be careful with Lenovo. If you think you're getting a steal of a deal, pay more attention before going ahead, because they will happily ship you a brand-new ThinkPad laptop with a 1366x768 TN panel. In 2020. Yes, I've unboxed these. And *there's* your deal! Asus and Acer: 1) Asus is, in general, higher quality than Acer. However, there's always *something* that goes pooch on a particular model, like clockwork. Most of the time, it is the display ribbon cable and/or the power supply. The former can be a PITA to replace, but the replacement part is cheap most of the time. The latter is just a matter of buying another one, but not always cheap. If you're doing your own repairs, or don't mind paying if necessary, you may be willing to go ahead with Asus and do it if/when the time comes, because they do offer a quality+value combination that is often unbeatable, especially when things such as dedicated graphics are a must. 2) Acer tends to have a more fragile enclosure, so if you're the hooligan type, it will show. But other than that, they don't seem to have any ticking time bomb hardware-wise most of the time. That said, it never hurts to search for a particular model number to research before purchasing. Asus and Acer are also the ones to buy if you're concerned about vendor lock-in practices such as BIOS whitelisting. It may be a moot point by now, as most manufactures are soldering the hell out of everything, but worth mentioning. Still, as much as I've seen (and fixed) a bunch of stuff, that's just, like, my opinion, man. You do you. Still, if I can be of any assistance, feel free to ask. Kind regards, Alberto Abrao 204-202-1778 204-558-6886 www.abrao.net On 2020-09-27 11:30 a.m., Glen Ditchfield wrote:
On Saturday, September 26, 2020 8:27:06 P.M. CDT Alberto Abrao wrote:
Whatever you do, do not buy HP. Got any war stories to share?
My 2.5-year old HP Spectre hasn't given me any trouble, other than an initial problem with Linux's thermal management. Before that, my HP Elitebook lasted 8 years, with RAM and disk upgrades and a trivially-easy keyboard replacement.
Two data points in a decade isn't much of a sample size, though.
_______________________________________________ Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.ca https://muug.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
I've only had Dell and HP laptops for work use; the Dells have been universally fine, and I haven't really liked an HP yet. The HP I've got currently has a crappy keyboard and a thoroughly detestable trackpad, so even if the rest is fine, it's unpleasant to use if those are your main input mechanisms. I usually have that docked, and it's OK to use with a separate keyboard and mouse. My personal laptop is a bit of a beast, since I care more for comfort and expandability than the current trend towards thin and light. It's a Lenovo ThinkPad P50, from their "mobile workstation" line. I've had it for about 2.5 years, and it's been a tank in the best ways as well. - Robust, still feels new to me. - Keyboard is great to type on, and I like that I can have a numeric keypad on a laptop. - It's designed for end-user expansion. One RAM slot is full, with others waiting, and was the same for drive bays as well. In fact, it now has the added SSD from the MBP I replaced with the ThinkPad, after the glued-together Mac shit the bed (again). Not only can you get into the innards, they even *show you how*. Yup, service manuals are online! This applies to older Lenovos as well. - While native Linux isn't the intention for the OP, it does work great, and my main use case here. - Lots of ports for I/O, not just a pair of USB-Cs. Cheers, Tim Alberto Abrao <alberto@abrao.net> writes:
It'll be hard to convince you that your HPs were bad, because they were probably not. The high-end models are good overall no matter the brand. (Well, except for Acer, because their high-end gear is... well... average, and priced accordingly. Acer is a budget brand, and, as long as you know what you are getting, this is not a bad thing).
However, there are some things that I expect no matter the price. For example, I do not expect a great, clean Windows install from any brand on the low-tier models. It is what it is. But I do expect to find drivers without too much hassle so I can clean it up and start fresh. Or that a BIOS update will go through without further concerns. I also want to easily find downloads for older products. I am not talking about updated everything, of course. Instead, I expect to have access to an archive of everything that was released for a particular model, even if it is 5+ years old. And, of course, I want it to last at least 3+ years being reasonably taken care of without glaring issues like overheating or something blowing up/failing.
And, in my experience, HP fails miserably on all of these points. Some are personal experience, some are from my current and past professional activities. A few ones that I can think of:
1) At one point, I had a HP Microserver N54L to which drivers and firmware updates were not available, unless you had an active support contract. HP is the only one I've seen doing this. You would have no issues getting that for any Acer/Lenovo/Dell/Asus product, no matter how cheap/expensive, consumer/enterprise, desktop/workstation/server, whatever. 2) When I worked at repair centres at one point or another, HPs were a huge staple. Their support is awful, they tend to have thermal issues, and they love to brick themselves during BIOS updates. This last one happened so often it was a running joke at one point. Myself, I can deal with these issues most of the time. But if someone asks me which brand to buy, I am not going to tell them to get something that they - or someone they will pay to do so - will have to deal with. I assume they want something they can use, and if possible, enjoy. 3) Most of the time, whatever it is that you're paying for an HP model, you can get something better from another brand for the same price. That's not always true of course, but it is often the case. Personally, if I am willing to deal with an occasional headache, I would rather have an Acer. They're cheap, and, if you are not too hard on your stuff, they last long enough. Or an Asus if I want something fancier.
Now, Dell and Lenovo:
1) Generally more expensive, even the consumer-grade stuff, but better quality. 2) I've never dealt with Lenovo support for consumer-grade products, but Dell is really good, like hassle-free good, enterprise-level for consumer-grade gear. Enterprise is usually decent no matter what for any of them, because enterprise. 3) Both seem to be cutting corners on quality recently. That goes for the whole industry, it seems. They are still ahead of the others on quality. 4) Nice resell value. I don't know if you care, but if you do, they will hold their value better than the other brands. 5) They will have better Linux support. 6) I am not very familiar with Dell customization options, but be careful with Lenovo. If you think you're getting a steal of a deal, pay more attention before going ahead, because they will happily ship you a brand-new ThinkPad laptop with a 1366x768 TN panel. In 2020. Yes, I've unboxed these. And *there's* your deal!
Asus and Acer:
1) Asus is, in general, higher quality than Acer. However, there's always *something* that goes pooch on a particular model, like clockwork. Most of the time, it is the display ribbon cable and/or the power supply. The former can be a PITA to replace, but the replacement part is cheap most of the time. The latter is just a matter of buying another one, but not always cheap. If you're doing your own repairs, or don't mind paying if necessary, you may be willing to go ahead with Asus and do it if/when the time comes, because they do offer a quality+value combination that is often unbeatable, especially when things such as dedicated graphics are a must. 2) Acer tends to have a more fragile enclosure, so if you're the hooligan type, it will show. But other than that, they don't seem to have any ticking time bomb hardware-wise most of the time. That said, it never hurts to search for a particular model number to research before purchasing.
Asus and Acer are also the ones to buy if you're concerned about vendor lock-in practices such as BIOS whitelisting. It may be a moot point by now, as most manufactures are soldering the hell out of everything, but worth mentioning.
Still, as much as I've seen (and fixed) a bunch of stuff, that's just, like, my opinion, man. You do you. Still, if I can be of any assistance, feel free to ask.
Kind regards, Alberto Abrao 204-202-1778 204-558-6886 www.abrao.net
On 2020-09-27 11:30 a.m., Glen Ditchfield wrote:
On Saturday, September 26, 2020 8:27:06 P.M. CDT Alberto Abrao wrote:
Whatever you do, do not buy HP. Got any war stories to share?
My 2.5-year old HP Spectre hasn't given me any trouble, other than an initial problem with Linux's thermal management. Before that, my HP Elitebook lasted 8 years, with RAM and disk upgrades and a trivially-easy keyboard replacement.
Two data points in a decade isn't much of a sample size, though.
_______________________________________________ Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.ca https://muug.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.ca https://muug.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
On 2020-09-26 Adam Thompson wrote:
I think you should pick your laptop based on the case/product series (e.g. do you need a titanium-reinforced unit?), then screen, then keyboard, then GPU (if it matters to you). CPU differences are minimal unless you're doing something unusual... and you're not getting a mobile GPU to run 4k games at 120Hz anyway.
Adam's right, sort of, you need to decide your must-have features in order of priority, and list them out. Brad's email started out making it sound like screen was top, but then meandered. If it's truly real-estate and pixels and size you need put that at the top of your list as that will narrow the field considerably. It also might be very hard to determine "matte" in many units without seeing them physically first. I would suggest, for a typer/programmer like you, that you *need* a normal US keyboard and must eliminate all the bilingual keyboards many brands force on you. If you've never typed with the enter key 1.5cm further to the right, try it before you dare buy a bilingual. For me keyboard is top priority. Also, for accounting you might prefer a big laptop with a numeric keypad. Adam's right: cpu is really not important these days if you get one that is at least the i5/ryzen x5xx or better. The discrete graphics, if you really want it, will narrow your field a lot better than cpu. P.S. Acer is only fine if you don't want to run native linux. And Asus ones don't tend to last long. P.P.S. What's an AAA game? Where you go around towing cars?
On 2020-09-27 06:52, Trevor Cordes wrote:
P.S. Acer is only fine if you don't want to run native linux. And Asus ones don't tend to last long.
Heh, that's true. The ASUS is the laptop you wish hadn't died, and the HP is the laptop that just won't quite die no matter how much you wish it would.
P.P.S. What's an AAA game? Where you go around towing cars?
ROTFL. That's the funniest take I've seen on that! "AAA (pronounced and sometimes written Triple-A) is an informal classification used for video games produced and distributed by a mid-sized or major publisher, typically having higher development and marketing budgets." (From wikipedia) So basically just this year's blockbuster game, whatever that is. Which, running on a laptop is going to be... painful, unless Brad gets one of those Gaming-specific monstrosities I see at Memory Express sometimes. (They're nice, but NOT meant for your lap.) -Adam
Everything is a cost/performance trade off but no matter what else you do just make sure it has a solid state drive (SSD). I'm pretty sure those are standard now in laptops but worth double checking. The low-power traditional hard drives they put in laptops trade performance for battery and are so slow you'll think you've gone back to the 90s... Just a note on docking stations; USB-C based docking stations are fast becoming the standard and have come a long way. They are now perfectly fine for the average knowledge worker who wants a single convenient cable to plug in to get dual display, keyboard, mouse, etc. The only downside is your GPU won't work on the USB displays so there is a negative impact on graphics performance. On the upside you don't have to buy a different docking station for every device. Here is a neat trick; plug your Samsung mobile device into a USB-C docking station and presto! You have a full workstation on your phone! Keyboard, mouse, dual display, everything (though some apps aren't optimized for it). Google "Samsung DeX" for more details, maybe you don't even need a laptop? John On Sun., Sep. 27, 2020, 9:09 a.m. Adam Thompson, <athompso@athompso.net> wrote:
On 2020-09-27 06:52, Trevor Cordes wrote:
P.S. Acer is only fine if you don't want to run native linux. And Asus ones don't tend to last long.
Heh, that's true. The ASUS is the laptop you wish hadn't died, and the HP is the laptop that just won't quite die no matter how much you wish it would.
P.P.S. What's an AAA game? Where you go around towing cars?
ROTFL. That's the funniest take I've seen on that!
"AAA (pronounced and sometimes written Triple-A) is an informal classification used for video games produced and distributed by a mid-sized or major publisher, typically having higher development and marketing budgets." (From wikipedia)
So basically just this year's blockbuster game, whatever that is. Which, running on a laptop is going to be... painful, unless Brad gets one of those Gaming-specific monstrosities I see at Memory Express sometimes. (They're nice, but NOT meant for your lap.)
-Adam _______________________________________________ Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.ca https://muug.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
Thanks Adam, Alberto, Glen, Tim, Trevor, and John, for all your sapient replies! TL;DR: I ended up getting an ASUS ROG Strix G17 from Best Buy (for easy return if I really can't stand it). I am test driving it right now. Here is the one I purchased: https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/asus-rog-strix-g17-17-3-gaming-laptop-b... And here are my takes on some of the Perls of wisdom I received from all of you:
/On 2020-09-26 7:48 p.m., Adam Thompson wrote:// / //
/Thunderbolt 3 (actually USB-C, but both, really) can die in a fire. Preferably a very painful one.// //Great in theory but a giant PITA in practice./
Okay, I will give up dreaming that someday there will be a easy to use, single cable connection, to charge, connect to Ethernet, connect to an external keyboard, mouse, scanner, drive 4 external monitors, and cook supper. Well at least one that just works all the time of course. :)
I think you should pick your laptop based on the case/product series (e.g. do you need a titanium-reinforced unit?), then screen, then keyboard, then GPU (if it matters to you). CPU differences are minimal unless you're doing something unusual... and you're not getting a mobile GPU to run 4k games at 120Hz anyway. I used your priority picking order. Slightly modified along with Trevor's suggestions.
However, I do plan on playing some modern tow truck driving games at 1080p at > 60Hz using Ultra High settings on this mobile GPU - while sitting by the pool! So :P
/I would never buy another HP, even if it was half the price of everything else. Multiple negative experiences with several HP product lines over the last 10yrs. ASUS and Acer make better laptops than HP does, both physically and driver-wise./ Noted. Along with the advice from most others to stay away from HP.
/If you want a docking station for multi-monitor or PCIe or serial or whatever, plan your entire purchase around that./ Thanks for this. It really got me thinking. I will probably never dock this laptop. I realized I didn't need a desktop replacement. I just wanted a portable/lug-gable potentially gaming computer to use outside that has as much screen real estate that was easily movable. The furthest I will probably ever transport this laptop will be to a MUUG meeting once or twice a year if/when we ever start meeting again in person.
For good or for bad, I still have fully usable, still upgrade-able, still really decent, 7+ year old Tecnopolis (Trevor) desktops that just never die and will for sure outlive this laptop!
/On 2020-09-2=7 Trevor Coredes wrote: /
/Adam's right, sort of, you need to decide your must-have features in order of priority, and list them out. Brad's email started out making it sound like screen was top, but then meandered. If it's truly real-estate and pixels and size you need put that at the top of your list as that will narrow the field considerably. / Done. I really wanted the easily portable 2 screen set-up of the Asus duo's, but I just could not justify the price. So a 17" laptop was the next best alternative. Heck, I will probably just leave a second monitor easily accessible to the backyard and keep moving it in and out when I need too. External monitors are cheap enough to just replace when they get destroyed by the bugs and humidity. Right? /It also might be very hard to determine "matte" in many units without seeing them physically first./ Most review sites do a really good job of telling you what the screens of various laptops are. Part of the reason I chose the ROG G17 is that even though it has a glossy screen with "specs" that say it only has 250 nits of brightness, their tests (from multiple sites) all said it was pushing 290 to 350 on almost all the panels they tested. I will find out tomorrow if my individual unit will work okay outdoors in the sun (if we get any sun that is). /I would suggest, for a typer/programmer like you, that you //*need*//a normal US keyboard and must eliminate all the bilingual keyboards many brands force on you. If you've never typed with the enter key 1.5cm further to the right, try it before you dare buy a bilingual. For me keyboard is top priority. Also, for accounting you might prefer a big laptop with a numeric keypad./ Wow. I remember you telling me about this before, so I researched, researched, and researched and found the G17 has *almost* a full normal keyboard with a fairly good numeric keypad. And you are right. I use the numeric keypad ALL THE TIME. Only the pageup/down, home/end, and delete/insert keys were rearranged and combined on the G17, so I thought I could live with that. But once I got it, whoa - tons of the "keycaps" have been replaced with bilingual character ones - which are not at all in the product photos on the Best Buy website. Bah! What a stupid way to clutter up the look of a perfectly good keyboard.
Why are bilingual keyboards being forced upon us? If you want a bilingual keyboard, buy one. Go ahead and charge more for all Canadian laptops with the extra cost of stocking another SKU to keep the Franco-phones happy if you need to, but don't make all of us use keyboards we can't even understand. Are we changing the ABC song to accommodate French characters next? Some of my keys are just nuts! Many have 5 different symbols on them like: "{^[[^" all one key!?! I have no idea how to access or use any of them. Alt+numpad and/or the windows character map app (which has been around since XP days) work great for entering special characters. I don't need a dedicated key that constantly shows me characters I will never ever use. *** Sorry for the bilingual rant Gilbert! ***
/On 2020-09-27 12:02 p.m., John Lange wrote:// / //
/Everything is a cost/performance trade off but no matter what else you do just make sure it has a solid state drive (SSD). I'm pretty sure those are standard now in laptops but worth double checking. The low-power traditional hard drives they put in laptops trade performance for battery and are so slow you'll think you've gone back to the 90s.../ Check. 3 NVMe expansion slots on this G17! Lots of room for more fast storage going forward.
So far so good. Keyboard learning curve almost done. I've now come to realize that I use Home and End a lot more often than I thought! Thanks again everyone! -- Bradford C. Vokey Treasurer Manitoba Unix User Group
On 2020-09-29 Bradford Vokey wrote:
Wow. I remember you telling me about this before, so I researched, researched, and researched and found the G17 has *almost* a full normal keyboard with a fairly good numeric keypad. And you are right. I use the numeric keypad ALL THE TIME. Only the pageup/down, home/end, and delete/insert keys were rearranged and combined on the G17, so I thought I could live with that. But once I got it, whoa - tons of the "keycaps" have been replaced with bilingual character ones - which are not at all in the product photos on the Best Buy website. Bah! What a stupid way to clutter up the look of a perfectly good keyboard.
You didn't walk into the store to peek at the display unit to see the kb? Isn't that the point of brick & mortar? Well, as long as there isn't a key between the quote and enter key, you should be fine -- that's the big killer. You can always take a black marker to all the weird symbols on the keycaps :-) P.S. I look forward to the Brad v Gilbert Bartertown cage match at the next physical meeting! Don't let him get the chainsaw! ;-) P.P.S. who wants to take odds on the over/under on when this thing gets dropped in the pool or river or rained on?
Actually, Brad, I'm with you on this one. I don't remember every coming across an international or French-Canadian keyboard layout that I actually liked (or that was even familiar to me after learning to type on a bilingual typewriter). There doesn't (didn't?) seem to be a standard layout even, and keys get shifted around from where I'm used to finding them. It makes touch-typing very difficult. (Add to that the fact that I have to work on a number of different systems with different keyboards, so I like to have a consistent layout, as much as possible. The fairly standard US English 104-key layout is what I'm most comfortable with.) I prefer to have the few accented characters I need implemented through "dead keys" in standard locations, and I don't need key-top label to guide me, once I know where those locations are. I'm probably not alone in this. I'm guessing that's why the MS Office dev team put in their own dead-key support in the suite, rather than relying on the international keyboard support in the underlying Windows system. (I'm a big fan of the Zombie Keys add-on for Firefox and TB, which embraces the same set of dead-key combinations as MS Office, and extends it further. I wish someone would implement that at the system level in Windows, Linux, and macOS, so we could enjoy a consistent and usable standard everywhere!) Gilbert On 2020-09-29 1:43 a.m., Bradford Vokey wrote:
/On 2020-09-2=7 Trevor Coredes wrote: / ...
/I would suggest, for a typer/programmer like you, that you //*need*//a normal US keyboard and must eliminate all the bilingual keyboards many brands force on you. If you've never typed with the enter key 1.5cm further to the right, try it before you dare buy a bilingual. For me keyboard is top priority. Also, for accounting you might prefer a big laptop with a numeric keypad./ Wow. I remember you telling me about this before, so I researched, researched, and researched and found the G17 has *almost* a full normal keyboard with a fairly good numeric keypad. And you are right. I use the numeric keypad ALL THE TIME. Only the pageup/down, home/end, and delete/insert keys were rearranged and combined on the G17, so I thought I could live with that. But once I got it, whoa - tons of the "keycaps" have been replaced with bilingual character ones - which are not at all in the product photos on the Best Buy website. Bah! What a stupid way to clutter up the look of a perfectly good keyboard.
Why are bilingual keyboards being forced upon us? If you want a bilingual keyboard, buy one. Go ahead and charge more for all Canadian laptops with the extra cost of stocking another SKU to keep the Franco-phones happy if you need to, but don't make all of us use keyboards we can't even understand.
Are we changing the ABC song to accommodate French characters next?
Some of my keys are just nuts! Many have 5 different symbols on them like: "{^[[^" all one key!?! I have no idea how to access or use any of them.
Alt+numpad and/or the windows character map app (which has been around since XP days) work great for entering special characters. I don't need a dedicated key that constantly shows me characters I will never ever use.
*** Sorry for the bilingual rant Gilbert! ***
-- Gilbert E. Detillieux E-mail: <gedetil@cs.umanitoba.ca> Dept. of Computer Science Web: http://www.cs.umanitoba.ca/~gedetil/ University of Manitoba Phone: (204)474-8161 Winnipeg MB CANADA R3T 2N2 Fax: (204)474-7609
participants (9)
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Adam Thompson -
Alberto Abrao -
Bradford C. Vokey -
Bradford Vokey
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Gilbert E. Detillieux -
Glen Ditchfield -
John Lange -
Tim Lavoie -
Trevor Cordes