Hello all

I will need ot buy a new computer, so the question is what web site should I cousult to get uptodate with the latest technology.

Best regards

Laptop, desktop or for next to your telly?

Techradar perhaps. e.g. Best laptops for 2016

laptop/tablet I don’t know yet, it’s going to be mainly for office duties.
Obviously laptop gives me the ability to run Linux…

Decide budget, buy the fanciest box/laptop you can afford. Its as simple as that these days.

For officey stuff you don’t want a tablet. Get a top-spec MS Surface and all the extra add-ons and you have an expensive laptop that is also a tablet, but unless you need the ability to strip it down to a tablet that’s wasted money.

I tend to recommend everyone get a Mac these days, much less prone to breakage and reasonably priced: the Macbook Pros and iMacs can be price but the base Macbook is very well specified and the Mac Minis is very reasonably priced. Just order from Apple direct so eg Dixons can’t screw you with aftermarket software you don’t need.

If you are going to run native Linux, unless you are very happy with Linux I would avoid anything with a Optimus card.

I tend to recommend everyone get a Mac these days, much less prone to breakage and reasonably priced: the Macbook Pros and iMacs can be price but the base Macbook is very well specified and the Mac Minis is very reasonably priced. Just order from Apple direct so eg Dixons can’t screw you with aftermarket software you don’t need.

Jesus, I recommend people not to get an Apple as when it **** up you are screwed.

rossburton – Member

the base Macbook is very well specified

The Macbook is not a great spec actually. My 2007 Macbook felt faster, very dissapointing. Seems like they’ve gone 100% for portability, it’s like an el-cheapo version of a Macbook air without the performance.

xora – Member

Decide budget, buy the fanciest box/laptop you can afford. Its as simple as that these days.

Not really, as you could end up like me with a Lenovo with i7, great 1080p LED IPS screen, SSD, Nvidia GPU, AND A FUDGING UNUSABLE TRACKPAD. I MEAN SERIOUSLY AT NO POINT IN DEVELOPMENT DID ANYBODY TRY TO USE THE ***ING THING?!!??!!?
I have to carry round a bluetooth mouse like a technopleb now.

I recommend people not to get an Apple as when it **** up you are screwed.

Personally I throughly recommend they buy the three year extended warranty & sell ASAP to a fanboi after that.

I’m currently trying to figure out what to buy (desktop wise), that’ll last a while, won’t be completely useless & won’t cost the earth. Intel have a new family of processor (skylake) just make sure your either grab a bargain haswell processor machine (the previous family before skylake was actually broadwell but these seem thin on the ground)), 8gb of ram, a SSD hdd & graphic card to fit your needs, other than build quality, there all a much if a muchness IMO. I’ve just been browsing the tech site, & investigating specific parts as I discover the newer standards

Or, if your local Sainsbury has stock, there are dinky little Acer Revo One bundled with a monitor going for £99. ( I got one last week for £149, I feel robbed now). They are upgradeable and good enough for media, surfing and office stuff.

I have to carry round a bluetooth mouse like a technopleb now

Does the Trackpoint ‘nipple’ not work either?

If you are going to run native Linux, unless you are very happy with Linux I would avoid anything with a Optimus card.

Ubuntu 14.04, Lenovo W541 with Optimus, worked perfectly out of the box.

Would not recommend it unless you really want to bother though:

Screen doesn’t dim when you unplug the power – needs a script
Power management not optimised for battery – needs a script
Touchpad too sensitive for typing by default – needs a script

etc.

AND A FUDGING UNUSABLE TRACKPAD. I MEAN SERIOUSLY AT NO POINT IN DEVELOPMENT DID t ANYBODY TRY TO USE THE ***ING THING?!!??!!?

Is this the same Lenovo that I am using under windows without a problem? “Unusable” really? Then how am I using it?

Isn’t it mac for work, pc for games and geeks, which is a bit of a turnaround but true?

I bought a new PC last September, when the old one was about 6 years old and just starting to run out of steam enough for me to donate it to my parents as an upgrade for them.

I was a bit out of touch with the HW, but after playing around with the 3XS Custom configurator thing on the Scan website, figured out a budget.

Using a custom configurator gives you a base system to start a bit of research on and also choose where you are prepared to compromise.

Most of the time you’re just looking at the numbers, and it’s not too difficult to research which numbers are which: bigger == better or smaller == better.

If you have specific requirements, you better do proper research.

Does the Trackpoint ‘nipple’ not work either?

Blimey, does anyone use those?

We use a lot of Lenovos at work and in general the trackpads work but are a bit clunky and small (well compared with a mac trackpad anyway). The newer T440 and T450 ones are not too bad though.

Cougar – Moderator
Does the Trackpoint ‘nipple’ not work either?

No clit on these, think that’s only ThinkPad models?

molgrips – Member
Is this the same Lenovo that I am using under windows without a problem? “Unusable” really? Then how am I using it?

I have no idea. It’s a U31. Any regular computer user would notice these issues. My wife complained immediately and she’s only an occasional user. You might be a two-finger-typer 🙂

I went into the shop and checked their display model, it was the same, so no hardware issue. Just poor design/driver support.

And yes “unusable” if a right click turning into a left click, or things being accidentally dragged around to random points on the screen, or scrolling suddenly going massively fast (i.e. sometimes skipping several pages from a small movement) etc results in work being lost/time wasted.

Ok thanks everyone I’ll have a look at the various website, but looks like Dell may have a winner 😀

You might be a two-finger-typer

Have you seen my post count? 😆

Here is the winner