What Laptop Now?

[grskier]

You watching movies on this during travel?

Display could come into play...

I was hoping to read that you needed to edit all your rad GoPro footage on this too... just so someone would write:
Iceman edits gopro footage of skiing in jeans...... in jeans.

[abraham]

I've heard this mentioned as an air replacement with Windows: asus ux305 http://www.asus.com/Notebooks_Ultrab...ZENBOOK_UX305/

[gravitylover]

Almost. Get an Acer Chromebook instead. They are less expensive AND better. Love it.

Love my little Acer Chromebook. I snagged it on a kindle fire deal for $60. Would've bought one for each of the kids at that price if they'd let me. It has been a great little unit for basic web stuff.

I looked at the Asus stuff and my kids had Asus netbooks. I thought they felt cheap. They do seem to work well they just don't have the "quality" feel if you know what I mean. Acer has come a long way and seems to be as good as anything else now but I had read some marginal reviews about their chromebook durability but that was a year ago, things may have changed.

[stuckathuntermtn]

Ah, Chromebook. If you're good with a 13" screen, that's a good way to go.
Asus does look like Anus, much like that Shitaker gaper thing, but Asus actually makes a lot of really good computer parts (built my new computer with an Asus mobo. They're great), so they just eventually started offering complete computers. This laptop of theirs that I have has a very nice finish. Case is part metal. Clean lines, rounded edges, yada yada.

[mall walker]

Another vote for a chromebook. For what you're describing, you can't beat the price. I've got the little Samsung, my fiancé uses it for school. Decent battery life, touchpad, etc. It's no Mac, and watch out for the disk space, but you can put a GNU Linux on there via crouton pretty easily if you find yourself needing to.

For a roughly $200 web browsing machine you can't beat it imo. Kicks the shit out of a tablet too, with an actually usable keyboard.

[mall walker]

I know nothing about this brand of computer. I'm sure they are great but good gravy, the name! Every time I see it my mind rearranges and adds letters and I see "Anus"

I'm not sure I've ever heard this particular criticism of Asus before lol

[Trashcan]

Yeah KQ is a killer recipe person and a great contribution to this site.

Ice if you can find a HP Spectre on the cheap it is a great machine with good sound/graphics and very light weight. good battery life and just close the lid and your done.

[RShea]

Do you want a good keyboard? If so then the tablets out there would need a bluetooth or USB keyboard if you want under 13 inches and light weight. Microsoft did a price strategy change on Tablet screen models- they reduced the OS pricing based on the screen size (free OS for 7 inch tablets)...

Otherwise, plenty of 13 inch options in traditional laptops- Windows, Chromebook, or even Linux all would work for the limited stuff you are talking about. Heck you could purchase a used system and load it up with Mint or one of the other Linux desktop versions if you wanted to go that route- probably cheaper than the repair cost of the Apple.

Lenovo Yoga series, the previously mentioned Asus (which made many products for other components for name brand computer companies in their time), Acer even all have some mid sized screen laptops that would be worth investigating.

[digitaldeath]

Dude, just ask the guy at bestbuy

[ricky64]

I just went through this exercise, and went with the Dell XPS13 touch. Very pleased. Lightweight but sturdy, has nice touch/excursion with the keypad, and good touchpad action. QHD display and very good battery life thus far. Check the reviews. Blows away the yoga 3.

[riser4]

Based on Ice's usage I am going to have to back off a little on my recommendation for a Chromebook. It certainly works for me and I love the battery life on mine. And I love the fact that I can buy four or five of them for the price of an MBP. So only Ice can determine if a CB is right for him. Of course, this all depends on what Apple said when he took his defective unit (hehe) in to the store.

[iceman]

My appointment at the store is this afternoon, I'll know what's up after that hopefully. The web and phones aren't that great together.

[MMP]

threadjack

my mbp 13" is running slow and i want to upgrade the hdd to flash. apple store or private company?

[BigDaddy]

Yes

[BigDaddy]

I know..too funny. My 8 yo mbp is going strong with a new hard drive. Aftermarket is best, so say the geniuses

[stuckathuntermtn]

Is it out of warranty?

[MMP]

yes it is. its a 2011

[mall walker]

my mbp 13" is running slow and i want to upgrade the hdd to flash. apple store or private company?

I spent a few weeks in between assignments swapping HDDs for SSDs at work. On the older models all you need is a screwdriver, but you will need some way of installing the OS again... might be worth checking at the Apple store, as this can be a pain if you are unfamiliar / impatient.

Edit: to clarify, we were installing OS X on the blank SSDs (once they were installed) using a portable drive, a USB cable, and some sort of program designed to do precisely this... all of which you may find yourself lacking. Unhelpfully, I also cannot recall the name of the provisioning software we used.

[Tippster]

I spent a few weeks in between assignments swapping HDDs for SSDs at work. On the older models all you need is a screwdriver, but you will need some way of installing the OS again... might be worth checking at the Apple store, as this can be a pain if you are unfamiliar / impatient.

When you upgrade your drive it often comes in a kit with a USB interface and a Cloning program that will fully copy your HDD contents (including hidden files) to the new drive. Once that's done you swap out the drives and your comp will fire right up. The initial boot might take a little longer so the process configures for the new drive but that's pretty much it. Hardest part of upgrading my MBP was finding the right screwdrivers.

MMP: start here to see if you can do this yourself: https://www.ifixit.com/Device/MacBook_Pro

[MontuckyFried]

threadjack

my mbp 13" is running slow and i want to upgrade the hdd to flash. apple store or private company?

If you can do it yourself, go for it. Either way, the upgrade is WELL worth it and should allow you to squeeze a few more years out of an aging computer. My home PC has a solid state drive, is around 6 years old and still absolutely flies. I believe the drive can take a lot of credit for its speed.

[irul&ublo]

Iceman wears out his computer downloading midget tranny clown porn.

In jeans.


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

[BigDaddy]

I spent a few weeks in between assignments swapping HDDs for SSDs at work. On the older models all you need is a screwdriver, but you will need some way of installing the OS again... might be worth checking at the Apple store, as this can be a pain if you are unfamiliar / impatient.

Edit: to clarify, we were installing OS X on the blank SSDs (once they were installed) using a portable drive, a USB cable, and some sort of program designed to do precisely this... all of which you may find yourself lacking. Unhelpfully, I also cannot recall the name of the provisioning software we used.

Apple will install their software for free at the gb

[stuckathuntermtn]

Clone the drive onto the ssd. You need another computer to do this.

[365wp]

I have a Chromebook, use a Dell XPS 13 at work, and have a MacBook Pro 13" from 2009 at home. Next laptop will be a MacBook. Touchpads from all other laptops are like trying to move the cursor using the robot arm game that takes your money and rips you off. We had to return one of our XPS 13s at work, it was DOA. Mine has crackly audio, a somewhat crappy built-in wifi adapter, and a motherboard that you can hear (it's a known issue, see the Googles) when you're working in a quiet space.

[iceman]

Yeah I went to the Apple store today and they tried to fix it, the guy took it in the back and came out all proud, with it working again. He turned it around to show me it was working and it went black again. Then he couldn't bring it back to life at all. But I took the refurb deal - $280. for a complete refurb with a 90-day warranty, it seemed worth it. They say I get it back in 3-5 days, i guess we'll see.