keenmaster486 wrote:

schmatzler wrote:

A31p

What's the advantage here over the A31?

15" UXGA IPS. A31 may be (rarely) SXGA+ IPS, but also can be TN and can be 14". Also, A31p has a better video chip and S-Video in (not really useful these days, but still).

Correct. The UXGA FlexView panel of the A31p looks really good, especially the pixel density makes it very crisp.

It also features a Radeon 7800 with 64MB DDR RAM. Cheaper models only have a maximum of 32MB without DDR (and it's a 7500 without TnL, so there's not a lot of "modern" gaming on these machines).

My machine is in near perfect condition. Only one of the motherboard screws is a bit loose (the nut on the bottom side of the case doesn't hold very well anymore). A little bit of epoxy should fix that. I even put a 2.4GHz Pentium 4 into it - what a beast! 😀

I recommend Eluktronics laptops,

bought one Eluktronics P670HP6 in the end of 2016, price never drop down since that days and it still works perfect like before and any game run at 100% quality.

So they not too expensive, same or better quality as Dell (even better than Alienware)

now have 2 SSD, 32GB Ram

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M0F66F6/

I think the T420s is going to be it for me.

I just replaced the battery with a brand new one, and upgraded the storage from the internal PCIe slot to the SATA bay, to get SATA III speeds instead of SATA II.

This makes it the only fully functional (hardware & software) modern laptop I currently own, 🤣.

I like it. The keyboard is the classic kind, and feels very much up to par with my 90's Thinkpads. It has plenty of power for everything I need to do. Plus I upgraded it a while back with 16 GB of RAM.

I'll probably stick with this one for a while.

Also, you can replace the optical drive with an Ultrabay battery to get actually reasonable battery life on this laptop.

Or replace it with a SATA caddy to add in another SSD or HDD. You can even put 3 drives in there this way if you use the mSATA slot.

The *20 line was really amazing.

dr_st wrote:

Also, you can replace the optical drive with an Ultrabay battery to get actually reasonable battery life on this laptop.

I might actually do that. Could be lucrative.

oeuvre wrote:

Or replace it with a SATA caddy to add in another SSD or HDD. You can even put 3 drives in there this way if you use the mSATA slot.

I have a 512 GB drive in there already -- I'm not a huge storage user fortunately! Even on my main computer at home where I store the majority of my stuff, I am only using about 300 GB.

ok but you could put in 3xMFM drives!!

oeuvre wrote:

ok but you could put in 3xMFM drives!!

Why didn't I think of that?

So far the T420s is working just fine. I also have a couple other Thinkpads I've been tinkering with: an X61, which works just fine and is actually so portable that it will probably be my main computer for traveling, and the IBM T41 (the last true IBM), which after upgrading with an SSD, replacing the battery, and installing WinXP/Lubuntu, is surprisingly useful! The modern web even works on it just fine, albeit rather slowly (YouTube is a slideshow). But I can VNC into other computers easily, or do terminal things, or word processing, just as I would any other computer.

Links 2 runs blindingly fast on it, as well. Which is pretty cool because I'm used to running it on machines like my Thinkpad 560X, where it will be fast if you give it enough RAM, but not blindingly so.

I really wish someone would take Links 2 and update its support for newer HTML/CSS stuff, and re-enable and update its former Javascript 1.1 engine to ES5/6 standards. An easy task, right? Could probably be done in a few hours!

My first windows laptop cost $2400
A Sony Vaio with pentium 533mhz CPU.
And then an IBM Thinkpad that costs about the same.

So I think laptops today are a bargain.

I would probably get the NEW Apple 16-inch notebook ( Base model )

Once you go Mac you never go back.

New 2.6GHz 6-Core Processor 512GB Storage AMD Radeon Pro 5300M 2.6GHz 6-core 9th-generation Intel Core i7 processor Turbo Boost […]
Show full quote

New
2.6GHz 6-Core Processor
512GB Storage
AMD Radeon Pro 5300M
2.6GHz 6-core 9th-generation Intel Core i7 processor
Turbo Boost up to 4.5GHz
AMD Radeon Pro 5300M with 4GB of GDDR6 memory
16GB 2666MHz DDR4 memory
512GB SSD storage¹
16-inch Retina display with True Tone
Touch Bar and Touch ID
Four Thunderbolt 3 ports
$2,399.00

Not again...

But I thought iPad was so perfect, all other computers are unnecessary

keenmaster486 wrote:

But I thought iPad was so perfect, all other computers are unnecessary

Yes, Size does matter !...
For size and portability you can't beat the base model 9.7" iPad with retina display and all day battery life. Built in UPS. ( $250 )
iPad Air 2019 for best Value performance iPad ( $400 )

The Macbook pro 13" would be my next pick for the perfect size and portability.

The Macbook Pro 16" is the best deal for a notebook. Large Retina 5K display and 4 thunderbolt ports. ( Base model ) ( 6-core or 8-core CPU )
32gb ram and a 1tb SSD.

And the Macbook Pro's can multiboot and run OSX ( UNIX ) , Linux and MS-Windows too.

Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5zeJyQ31rM&t=4s

Fortunately, I have a MacBook already which I mentioned in the OP. I use it for that odd thing that requires a Mac, and it works just fine. I am really enjoying my Thinkpads for my normal things... which is mostly writing, various internet things, playing old games, and software development. I tried using my Mac for software development, and, being Unix based, it works fine, but I will always prefer Linux. Besides, I don't like the Mac keyboard layout very much.

MacOS is just so large. It is rock solid stable, but so resource-hungry... I like my OS lean and mean. So it's Linux Mint XFCE for me right now. 400 MB RAM usage at idle. Meanwhile, my Mac uses 2.5 GB after a clean reboot 😜

keenmaster486 wrote:

Fortunately, I have a MacBook already which I mentioned in the OP. I use it for that odd thing that requires a Mac, and it works just fine. I am really enjoying my Thinkpads for my normal things... which is mostly writing, various internet things, playing old games, and software development. I tried using my Mac for software development, and, being Unix based, it works fine, but I will always prefer Linux. Besides, I don't like the Mac keyboard layout very much.

MacOS is just so large. It is rock solid stable, but so resource-hungry... I like my OS lean and mean. So it's Linux Mint XFCE for me right now. 400 MB RAM usage at idle. Meanwhile, my Mac uses 2.5 GB after a clean reboot 😜

Yes, I have the same Macbook Pro mid-2012 upgraded with 16gb ram and 500gb SSD and NEW battery.
I hope to get another 3 years out of it as I already have had it for 5 years.

I have it loaded with MacOS Bootcamp for dual boot OSX and MS-Windows-10 Pro

I ran all kinds of performance test in both operating systems. An it turned out they score almost identical.
Both operating systems idle at about 0-3% CPU utilization.
Both operating system will use up about 4gb of ram by default, but will increase up to 12gb. They do this because it is pointless NOT to use the ram.
Why have allot of ram if the operating system is not going to use it. Ram that is not being utilized by the operating system is waisted ram.

Intel486dx33 wrote:

Ram that is not being utilized by the operating system is waisted ram.

Lol. This is like saying "money that is not being spent by the government is wasted money"

keenmaster486 wrote:

Intel486dx33 wrote:

Ram that is not being utilized by the operating system is waisted ram.

Lol. This is like saying "money that is not being spent by the government is wasted money"

Think about it. If you load everything in RAM the computer will run faster.
Thats why SSD's are faster than hard-drives. SSD's are just slower ram.

Intel486dx33 wrote:

Think about it. If you load everything in RAM the computer will run faster.

This is certainly not what macOS is doing. I don't know what it thinks it's doing with all that RAM but it certainly isn't making the system faster.

If you want something that ACTUALLY does that...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_d … at_run_from_RAM

Most of these are less than 1 GB. Only a couple get up to 2 GB.

But I don't want that. I prefer to keep my RAM for my programs. My SSD is mighty fast enough, and besides that, I'm pretty sure every modern Linux distro loads everything that it needs into RAM at boot anyway.

keenmaster486 wrote:

I prefer to keep my RAM for my programs.

Many modern operating systems attempt to intelligently preload applications in RAM (in Windows that started with Vista's Superfetch) exactly to achieve what you, as an end-user, want.

dr_st wrote:

Many modern operating systems attempt to intelligently preload applications in RAM (in Windows that started with Vista's Superfetch) exactly to achieve what you, as an end-user, want.

If Vista knew what I wanted, it would stay out of my RAM entirely!