PC Tech Thread

http://mobile.extremetech.com/#/computing/24465-ssd-stress-testing-finds-intel-might-be-the-only-reliable-drive-manufacturer

#smugintelowner

The price has dropped by 80 quid so I suspect they've stopped the 100 quid cashback now.

The bios update is worth doing, very easy, and I now have an SSD on the 5th Sata port and a blu-ray drive on the eSata.

I've lived with a brand new Mac Air over Christmas, and I just want to say, the Thinkpad x220 I have beats it in every way.

On the Thinkpad the battery lasts longer, it's never noisy no matter how many virtual machines I fire up (the Mac Air fan is so damn loud), the control of screen brightness is better, the keyboard more comfortable for actually doing work.

Even simple things, like we wanted to charge 2 phones but only had 1 plug socked so decided to use the USB cables from the Mac Air. But... the Mac Air needed to be powered on all night, as it doesn't power the USB ports if the laptop is off.

On the Thinkpad, you can USB charge when on cabled power, even with the Thinkpad turned off.

Physically they are identical dimensions, except the Thinkpad is fractionally taller at the front.

After 2 weeks with a Mac Air I think it's second rate in almost every way. The only thing I thought that the Mac did well was the very large touchpad and the scrolling, etc via the touchpad. That was it, on every other factor the Thinkpad beats it.

Oh, and our Thinkpad includes 3G without a dongle.

Bloody great machines.

As it's NY I'm trying to clean up my netbook to see if I can eke a bit more life out of it.

What is "My Stationery" and can I delete it?

Google doesn't seem to help. The best understanding I can get is that it allows you to make pretty backgrounds in Windows Live (whatever that is). The folder is full of a combinations of jpgs and hyperlinks along the lines of:

file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/name/My%20Documents/My%20Stationery/ArtDeco.htm

Delete it.

If nothing breaks: Win.

If it comes back after reboot: Oh well.

If something breaks: It probably isn't essential as that's most definitely not a standard folder and some bloatware probably put it there.

Cheers.

Interesting mini comparison. What sort of size/weight difference is there - as in how noticeable if you were carrying it around all the time?

here's some info:
http://www.sevenforums.com/general-discussion/102578-my-stationary-folder.html

Seems like it has something to do with window live email

Cheers. I saw that, but other than it sounding like it tied to Windows Live it didn't really mean a great deal to me.

I'll just delete it.

Although on the upside of tidying I found I had MS OneNote and it looks quite useful.

I pretty much use google applications now, google keep is like MS OneNote, but it syncs with my android beautifully so I always have it with me wherever I go.

actually doing work

There's your mistake.

You're clearly not the target market. :)

Cheers.

Interesting mini comparison. What sort of size/weight difference is there - as in how noticeable if you were carrying it around all the time?

Lenovo x220 :
http://shop.lenovo.com/us/ww/pdf/x220_datasheet.pdf

Mac Air 13":
https://www.apple.com/uk/macbook-air/specs.html

Lenovo is 30.5cm x 20.6cm x 1.9-3.4cm and weighs 1.3KG
Mac Air is 32.5cm x 22.7cm x 0.3-1.7cm and weighs 1.35KG

So the Lenovo is slimmer, shallower but deeper. The Lenovo weighs less.

Both have SSDs and 8GB RAM, I'm using both for the same type of development work and so my usage is almost identical on both: vagrant, virtualbox, 5 virtual machines, programming, web browsing, email, streaming music in the background.

Screen size is identical on both (13"), resolution is almost identical on both, Lenovo is an IPS screen with better quality colours and wider viewing angle.

The thickness of the Lenovo comes from the battery pack, it's a 9-cell battery that is rated for 15 hours but the way I use it I get about 7 hours. The battery is removable though, so I can carry a 12-cell too which would give me another 10 hours of real world usage.

The Mac Air is rated for 12 hours and I used it similarly to the Lenovo and I could barely get 5 hours.

The Lenovo had a much stronger WiFi reception, much faster WiFi speed, and of course has 3G built-in.

Your mileage may vary on battery times, I run Linux (Ubuntu 12.04 LTS) and run a lot of virtual machines for development.

But... the takeaway is that I was using the Lenovo out of familiarity and support for Linux, always envying the beauty of the Mac Air. Now I've tried the Mac Air and lived with it a few weeks, I wouldn't leave Lenovo at all. The Lenovo is awesome.

I actually find the Thinkpad form factor (slightly thicker, but less wide and deep overall) to be far more comfortable to carry around and to balance on your lap.

Ive just got a macbook air from my work as my laptop, and in a strange coincidence, i've been looking at second hand x220's all week to replace my own personal laptop(s) - a 2006 macbook and a x60

On OneNote... it's perhaps the best application on Windows.

It's incredible.

Evernote done right.

Shame it's Windows only.

Some of the features:
Paste an image and have the text extracted.
Lists everywhere!
Infinitely size whiteboard
Record audio and video notes, and embed them
Searchable

Felicity organised her entire PhD in OneNote, as it just worked and was flexible enough to cope with her changing research style.

^^ cheers that was very thorough.

I was looking at the specs, but I wanted that idea of those "soft" comparisons.

I've been umming and ahhing about replacing my netbook, but want something that's still compact and very portable.

Ive just got a macbook air from my work as my laptop, and in a strange coincidence, i've been looking at second hand x220's all week to replace my own personal laptop(s) - a 2006 macbook and a x60

The search will be fun, there are so many variations on the x220. Not just the several options originally available, but the ones we use were customised.

We only chose 2 customisations: enabling of the 3G chip and the IPS display.

But still... there's a hell of a lot of choices that people could've made when ordering them originally. So you need to do extra work to figure out what you're getting when finding them on eBay.

Damn fine machines though, and I love the Lenovo warranty. We're 3 years in and they fully replaced a motherboard, and the base plastic for us last year. Nothing had failed... it was my fault for tripping over the cable and sending it across the room. The laptop still worked, but the power socket became a little loose and so Lenovo replaced the motherboard and the bottom of the case to make sure it was good again. £40 that extended warranty cost us, and that was next-day on-site... and yup, they turned up next-day, to my 19th floor flat in West London. Awesome stuff.

Probably installed some new hardware from the NSA whilst they were at it?

Anyone using Chrome? It wont see my router or wifi extender when I put the IP addresses into search bar.

Can't find a decent answer when I google the problem either.

Can other browsers?

Can other browsers?

No, Explorer won't show the admin stuff either.

Hmmm so the both failing hdd at the same time continues.

I tried drives on the mac and they opened eventually then didn't format after trying for 2 hours.

Does this mean my drives are 100% dead? Should I try them on Linux or do a full windows reinstall then see if they work? If I know they are 100% screwed then fine I'll buy another 1tb but it's annoying and strange to have 2 fail at the same time.

No, Explorer won't show the admin stuff either.

Can you ping the IP address of the router?

The search will be fun, there are so many variations on the x220. Not just the several options originally available, but the ones we use were customised.

We only chose 2 customisations: enabling of the 3G chip and the IPS display.

But still... there's a hell of a lot of choices that people could've made when ordering them originally. So you need to do extra work to figure out what you're getting when finding them on eBay.

Damn fine machines though, and I love the Lenovo warranty. We're 3 years in and they fully replaced a motherboard, and the base plastic for us last year. Nothing had failed... it was my fault for tripping over the cable and sending it across the room. The laptop still worked, but the power socket became a little loose and so Lenovo replaced the motherboard and the bottom of the case to make sure it was good again. £40 that extended warranty cost us, and that was next-day on-site... and yup, they turned up next-day, to my 19th floor flat in West London. Awesome stuff.

I bloody love my X220. Just bought an mSata ssd, 16gb of ram and an Expresscard 3.0/esata for it. Along with an i5 and 250gb ssd already on it. This thing runs and bloody well runs! It's so versatile. I can even run light gaming on it with ease! CS:Go native? Left4Dead? No problem!

I got it without an IPS screen but realised It just wasn't adequate for photo work, so I called them up, they told me to call their main distributor and it cost me £75 to send it to them and replace it! Flipping brilliant. Warranty not void either.

I'm not a fan for warranties but mine already had 3 years on it. Original HDD failed, I called them up, next day. Boom! New HDD. Going to renew it next week.

I don't even use my desktop anymore. I just hook it up to a NAS when backing up large stuff. For how light it is, it just flows. Don't even get me started on the battery. 6cell two years later is at 50% capacity and still holds 3.5hrs of charge on max brightness, wifi, chrome and photoshop.

I fucking love this machine.

The Macbook Air is just an iPad with a keyboard and a USB port. Oh and it makes you look like an edgy hipster media type....

wot? Macbook AIr is a full-blown PC with x86_64 processor capable of running pretty much OS you want, iPad is a SoC ARM device restricted to iOS. Totally different things.

Please point me in the right direction if this is the wrong thread. I was watching a film on my laptop last night, it was too quiet so I tried to plug it into my digital radio's line in. That didn't work, but when I unplugged it from the headphone jack, no sound comes out.

I think the computer thinks some speakers or headphones are still plugged in, but they're not. The sound manager still thinks music is playing, I have uninstalled and reinstalled both the sound card driver and the sound card itself to no avail.

With headphones in you can just hear whirring and static.

Is the sound card/headphone port fucked? Any suggestions? My laptop is my cinema/television/hi-fi at the moment, without sound my like will be very tedious.

It's working this morning.

Ignore the above. It is clearly a superior, sentient, self-healing being.