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Ok, so here's my dilemma. I want a convertible tablet pc. Problem is though, I think all of the ones on the market are poop. They either run android (I don't see the point still) and iOS, or are clunky and rediculously expensive. But I had a extremley bright idea. Buy whatever laptop I like, slap a touchscreen on that *****, and be happy. Keep in mind that as a poor college student with no job, I will probably never be able to afford this
1. Take apart laptop completley, Rip out the green bullcrap.
2. Mod case to be suitable as a convertible...or just look cool.
3. Rverse USB port to face inside
4. Close USB off from the outside
5. Get a USB Touchscreen conversion kit, which im sure come in many different flavors (Capacitive, Multitouch, Resistive), or better yet use a connector designed for computer internals, making #3 and #4 useless.
6. Add 3rd party accelerometer for Poitrait/Landscape orientation
7. Find a suitable hinge (or make one) and replace it
8. Boot laptop, install drivers for touchscreen and accelerometer
9. Pat myself on the back for custom making a tablet PC?
In my opinion the hardest part would be modding the case to be suitable as a convertible tablet, which can't be too hard. I have access to MIG/TIG welders, sheet metal cutters, grinders, ect. and I know people who know how to use them, so working with metal shouldn't be too dificult. In fact, I probably could just build a case myself from scratch. I also have alot of experience with plastic, so that's not a problem although I'd prefer to use metal for structural parts.
Touchscreen conversion kits seem to be all over the internet with a quick google search, and it shouldn't be too hard to find high quality capacitive touchscreen panels.
Walcom Bamboo Stylus because I'm a G
Accelerometers that work with windows I don't know about, but it cant be too hard Amirite? You can find ANYTHING for sale on the internet.
If I do do this however it will probably be in the summer (when I have a job). The only probelm I might have is the internals, seeing as I've never handled computer internals before. My brother did build his computer though, and I have a friend who also builds computers. It dosen't seem too hard compared to the other stuff like modding the case. While the laptop is dissasembled I'd probably put the parts in ziplock bags to keep them away from dirt and debris while I'm not using them. As long as I'm careful I don't thinkim going to mess anything up.
Good idea or no?
Good idea. Just keep in mind that the whole thing would be much heavier than a regular tablet, so holding it in hand would be difficult.
I have seen an EEE PC modded with a touchscreen, but the keyboard part was still there.
Just get a transformer lol...
What is wrong with Android? What is it you need to do that it won't?
My other idea would be to tell you most android devices are capable of running linux too?
Sounds like alot of work..and there are suitable models on the market, but if you wanna do it?
By the time you get around to it I wonder where technology will be...
PS ziplock bags? NO! Get some static bags..ziplocs are crazy static-charged! Honestly though, sounds like you are a good deal away from being able to deconstruct and reconstruct a laptop..the integrated circuits are ridiculously small and fragile..
PPS The hardest part might be actually getting the accelerometer sensors to function..which is where android comes in..you have to actually write some code into your operating system that will recognize and react accordingly withing the right parameters in your code..devs on this sight have problems with accelerometers that otherwise worked on a stock rom on OEM machines, god knows what it would take to get one working on a machine that never intended to have one by design?
That is all
What's old is new again
It's funny we did something similar a few years ago to build PC's into cars and trucks. For that application and at that time it made sense. Today we essentially just make custom docks for COTS tablets so that they integrate with the car.
If you're opposed to Android and other mobile OS's my suggestion is to start looking around craigslist for convertible tablet/laptops like those from HP and Dell or look for a cheap HP slate. I've seen gently used Slates going for around $200-300 and they run windows 8 reasonably well. I've seen convertibles close to that price as well.
Unless you are just dead set on a fabrication project i'd strongly suggest taking advantage of off the shelf hardware and mass production pricing and spend your extra time and money learning how to get the most of of those components.
If you do go ahead with this then weight and cost will be your biggest issues. I think a better twist on this would be to figure out how to make a transformer type of dock for other popular tablets. If you can make them well and make them cheap then sell a few and buy what you really want.
The reason I don't like android is because It's not a desktop OS. I'll be building this tablet-y thing for graphics/image editing, word processing and a little bit of gaming in between and I'm not 100% sure about android graphics programs. I like to keep it simple and use MS Paint, then GIMP if i need a more powerful program. I'm also a windows fanboy and it's what I've been using ever since I was 2... I also like to build things.
I hate the transformer prime. I want a convertible tablet, not a tablet and a little dock thingy...won't serve my purposes.
I didn't know Ziplock bags are staticy by nature. Thanks for the tip.
As far as the accelerometer, I don't know much about them but if it's super difficult I'm probably not going to bother with it. I'll maybe install a switch?
It's hard to beat windows for functionality but you might check out paint.net as a free replacement for paint.
Over all though I get the idea that you're a little in over your head on this.
Sent from my HTC Flyer using XDA App
LexusFman said:
I hate the transformer prime. I want a convertible tablet, not a tablet and a little dock thingy...won't serve my purposes.
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Have you seen the Eee Pad Slider?
Also, Adobe photoshop for android = $10
https://market.android.com/details?id=air.com.adobe.pstouch&hl=en
LexusFman said:
The reason I don't like android is because It's not a desktop OS. I'll be building this tablet-y thing for graphics/image editing, word processing and a little bit of gaming in between and I'm not 100% sure about android graphics programs. I like to keep it simple and use MS Paint, then GIMP if i need a more powerful program. I'm also a windows fanboy and it's what I've been using ever since I was 2... I also like to build things.
I hate the transformer prime. I want a convertible tablet, not a tablet and a little dock thingy...won't serve my purposes.
I didn't know Ziplock bags are staticy by nature. Thanks for the tip.
As far as the accelerometer, I don't know much about them but if it's super difficult I'm probably not going to bother with it. I'll maybe install a switch?
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Dude, I've got photoshop, an office suite, and tons of games, I'd never have to touch a PC again..I am a graphic designer by trade! I can even watch hulu (something not supposed to be capable of on android platforms), I've got a nice stylus and a full qwerty keyboard and mouse- I'm working on the OG transformer not the Prime, as far as I can tell the Prime was pushed too quickly and has issues with all of it's radios due to the metal shell..the TF101 does not have these issues, and the TF700 (basically the prime with the GPS and radios fixed and better resoultion) is available if you don't want to go for the OG transformer.
Seriously sounds like you're trying feverishly to open a can of worms to get a windows tablet when in reality there is no need and windows is given a run for it's money with the new ICS android on the way. Trying to unlock a windows phone after unlocking a whole bunch of Android devices would quickly turn you off of Microsoft as an OS IMO, that's what made me an Android fanboy (I was a windows guy previously, now I'm leaning more and more towards linux/android for their open source code user-friendly programability). But, if you are determined to do something the hard way = the expensive and labor/time-consuming way, no one is going to stop you
Just remember- in the world of technology things are done: Right, Cheap, and/or Fast. BUT, you can only choose two..
I've done this already with a eeePC 700.
1. The resistive touchscreen. You'll need a stylus for that.
2. Typing with a stylus is horrible.
3. It was heavy. Even when it was only 7inch screen. The battery made it heavy. (but I had 9hours of battery life)
4. You couldn't navigate the boot menu (without an external keyboard)
5. Resistive touchscreen is crap for drawing, because you still want to support your hand on the screen while drawing, which you couldn't do.
6. Moving Items around sucked (no drag and drop)
and many more.
I used it in my bed, for browsing. was good enough, until the touchscreen cable snapped. (I didn't have an external keyboard, so I had to open the tablet, connect the keyboard, and navigate the boot menu when I had to)
Hope this helped. Though it was fun to build it and use it, it's not what you would call an 'every day' tablet
romitkin said:
Good idea. Just keep in mind that the whole thing would be much heavier than a regular tablet, so holding it in hand would be difficult.
I have seen an EEE PC modded with a touchscreen, but the keyboard part was still there.
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I don't think it would be much heavier, in fact I think the idea is perfect for modification of a netbook. It would probably be cheapest. since so much case modding is required and so many enclosure fabrication resources are handy, to put together a frankenstein out of 2 or 3 broken netbooks. Find someone who smashed the screen of one netbook, another one who fried the board of theirs, find a total-loss broken tablet PC (like dropped in lake michigan level of total loss so it will cost pennies) and get the ribbon cable and swivel element from there. I think if this idea is applied to a netbook it would be excellent in size and weight as well as functionality. And with the x86 version of android's progress, it could even be running android like a tablet in screen out mode, and change to webtop mode when its swiveled. Put a netbook mobile broadband card in there, many netbooks have open card expansions under the screw-out panels underneath, if not you would have to choose between wifi or taking the wifi expansion out in favor of a mobile broadband card, and certainly make sure that the card is supported by your wireless provider if you choose to go the mobile broadband route. With verizon or sprint you will most likely have to acquire a mobile broadband card out of a netbook that was originally sold by the company, but be sure to check and make sure the MEID is clean before paying anything for one, if the seller defaulted on a contract they used to acquire it, you might as well flash the thing to cricket or metroPCS and use them as your mobile broadband carrier. With either wifi or mobile broadband, as well as bluetooth, don't forget the antenna! yeah that thing you have to unhook from the other side of the card to take it out, you need that. (oh yeah, bluetooths are included as expansion cards sometimes too, if so you could always remove this to make room for the mobile broadband if you don't use bluetooth. I sure don't and probably wont until they drop the rediculous prices of non-audio bluetooth interfaces to acceptable and competative levels.)
That project actually sounds pretty freakin cool, the type of thing I'd do if I wasn't already swamped with projects. Definetly keep us posted if you decide to go through with it, as I pointed out, if you build it from netbook parts it should be well within your budget, netbooks run much cheaper then notebooks already, but a netbook is comperable in power to most current android devices and thus is suitable to handle most things you'd use a tablet PC for, just not high powered stuff like compiling code or rendering animation or playing 3d online games.
Edit: I'd like to add and point out that as a regular user of an acer netbook running ubuntu, it is wise to refrain from excessive multitasking, the atom had to sacrifice a bit of things we've become accustomed to in notebooks to meet the low power consumption and operating temperature requirements, and a lot of those things are things that mostly benefit multitasking. You will not be happy if you try and run a jillion programs at the same time.
That being said ubuntu's new primary UI, I forget what it's called evolve or something like that, it is an excellent UI for netbooks, perfectly space-optimized, especially in the vertical range which gets filled quick on lil netbook screens. I'm not sold on it and prefer to go with gnome or xfce on desktops and normal-sized notebooks, but it is top-notch on a netbook. I'd also recommend not messing with the accelerometer at first and including it later as it may be a pain to implement correctly in comparison to the limited amount of functionality it brings to the table. I'd rather have something that works personally that I can make additions to then pull my hair out trying to throw everything in the first time right.
---------- Post added at 10:14 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:47 AM ----------
Will_nonya said:
It's hard to beat windows for functionality but you might check out paint.net as a free replacement for paint.
Over all though I get the idea that you're a little in over your head on this.
Sent from my HTC Flyer using XDA App
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Have to LMAO @ this comment. If users would ever actually push developers to release for the linux platform, especially hardware manufacturers (which is ridiculous since all they would have to do is release their code open source, or even just parts of their code and the community would do the rest. Doesn't matter much tho, it's mostly crappy chinese hardware that isn't supported by linux, and their HQs more then likely don't speak enough english to be able to request anything, beleive me I've tried to contact MSI before.... most hardware worth running is fully supported tho)
But point is, I feel like it is extremely cumbersome whenever I'm forced to use windows, apart from trying to use unsupported hardware or cross-platform software (although wine and mono have made GIGANTIC leaps in usability). I pretty much never have to deal with drivers, updates to all software happens automatically, it's become so self-maintaining that I'm ashamed of how lazy of a linux user I've become. When I actually do have to do something even remotely advanced I have to think for a minute about it. Usually the only thing that really requires a lot of getting under the hood that I ever have to do is when I set up my audio-production setups which is even a lot easier now that they have dedicated repositories for them, and when set up correctly the real time preemptable kernel will run circles around any windows or OSX setup latency-wise. I was pulling lower latency with computers recording with ardour, and sequencing/synthesizing/sampling with seq24 amSynth, and qsampler, 5 years older then any PC I would test it against running windows with Reason and Protools. the Jack audio drivers that allowed software to plug audio inbetween applications directly across the PCM was just icing on the cake.
Windows is good software, but linux has certainly surpassed it by leaps and bounds. Windows still rules for gaming because of directX and industry unwillingness to port to linux, but the period of time right after Microsoft declared it was removing directX support from XP on further releases saw linux catch up with windows for a little while as they rushed wine to support the newest directX making it actually possible to actually run new releases under windowsXP even. Curses microsoft, foiled again! And off topic, but furthermore, I can't believe people still pay so much money for that god damn talking paper clip, openoffice.org ftw!
As I said windows isn't bad software, I said before in these forums actually that if windows ran a microsoft controlled repository to distribute all software for windows through, like linux, it would have similarly non-existant problems with viruses. Having people go around the wild-west of the internet downloading and installing programs from there without even thinking about it is just asking for the malware and adware problems windows experiences. Windows is good software, linux is just much better software.
Too complicated...
On a second thought how about moding a cheap Tablet with better parts. Is it even possible like are the parts such as a processor, camera, or the radio chip available for tablets and phones.
Why dnt you get a transformer?
In my opinion, it would just be better to settle for an table, prices are gonna drop really soon. The market for Eee PC's alike has diminished since the release of the ipad.
This is a wonderful opinion. The things mentioned are unanimous and needs to be appreciated by everyone.
A lot of things to doo, better start with a simple tablet and try to upgrade it if possible... dont know if its possible btw.
I did something almost like this.
Took apart a dirt cheap acer aspire one with a small 8 GB SDD.
Small 280 Atom 1.6GHz cpu and cheap intel GMA gpu.
Inverted the screen
Added a extra 512MB ram and inserted a 16GB SD card.
My battery however did not stand up to the task so i ordered a 9 cell pack.
It ran quite stable with 6 days standby or 12hours of heavy usage.
The lack of a accelerometer however made it a pain for quite a few games.
But i did have a vague plan to get value's from it into the android OS using a AVR and a few other cheap parts.
Many manufacturers still produce cheap atom notebooks like these.
But hardware specs have gotten better and better, so you should be able to pick one up for cheap still.
http://www.axiotron.com
Soooo 2008...
I'm doing this with an old pentium 3 thinkbook. I know its not really that great of a computer but it at least redeems it as a usable device.
sounds interesting will looking forward for it....
Good Idea!
I do not and have not ever owned a computer. I do love Windows Phone. So tempted am I after looking at god knows how many YT videos of the CP of 8. So. Tempted. What tablet do you guys recommend? What laptop? This is my first computer and I, quite frankly, expect it to last for a good while.
I know it's buggy. I know it's a beta. But damn does it look sexy.
If you want to get a tablet that can run Windows 8, is well-built, and modern-looking, and you want it before the proper Windows 8 tablets come out in the second half of the year... then the Samsung Series 7 Slate would be my recommendation.
Lumenii said:
If you want to get a tablet that can run Windows 8, is well-built, and modern-looking, and you want it before the proper Windows 8 tablets come out in the second half of the year... then the Samsung Series 7 Slate would be my recommendation.
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Quite a hefty price tag on that. Every YT review mentions that the viewing angles are subpar. Your assessment as well? Otherwise, sexy specs, indeed. Added to the list, thanks.
Wait for windows 8 to launch and get a quality laptop with a touch screen. They will be flooding the market then and $750 will probably be enough for decent model. You may also want to avoid a tablet for windows 8 since software support for the ARM architecture is going to take a little time. A laptop with touch screen will allow you to fully enjoy the touch features metro brings while also being able to run everyday software and not just the simple metro apps.
I am running Windows 8 CP on a JooJoo (Intel Atom N270 and Nvidia ION), and it's running well. But I am jealous when I watch other people with Samsung Series 7 Slate running same tasks 3-4 times faster. So I would say that Samsung Slate deserves its money if you want power. But if you are looking for something affordable take a look at Winpad P100 with dual-core N570 and Hi-Definition 1366*768 screen. It will cost you around 450$. From what I read it is quite good compared to other Tablet PCs.
Cheers!
I owned a Samsung Slate for a week and I wouldn't recommend it.
cristidotro said:
I am running Windows 8 CP on a JooJoo (Intel Atom N270 and Nvidia ION), and it's running well. But I am jealous when I watch other people with Samsung Series 7 Slate running same tasks 3-4 times faster. So I would say that Samsung Slate deserves its money if you want power. But if you are looking for something affordable take a look at Winpad P100 with dual-core N570 and Hi-Definition 1366*768 screen. It will cost you around 450$. From what I read it is quite good compared to other Tablet PCs.
Cheers!
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This thing looks pretty good and when I googled it I found a website that it selling it for $349 (single core) and add $50 for the Dual Core so its only $400 bucks...
Acer Iconia Tab W500
I think one of the challenges you are going to run into right now is that no hardware manufacturer is really making a true Win8-optimized Laptop. Buying anything at the moment is kind of a crap-shoot as a result.
If you are truly looking owning something that needs to last a few years you may be better waiting until the product goes gold and Dell, HP, Lenovo (and even Nokia if rumors are to be believed) begin coming out with product that will take advantage of the touch-enabled interface. I know I'm not making any expensive personal decisions until then as I expect to see a lot of interesting stuff at that point.
For testing purposes I've been using an Acer Iconia Tab W500 since the DP release that was boosted with an 80GB SSD. Total cost was about $600.00 (Tablet plus SSD bought off eBay) and as a Tablet PC for testing it is a great deal for the money.
Wait until fully win8 compliant hardware available
To be able to use a Win8 tablet like any of the other modern tablets, it needs to be able to allow Metro apps (like mail, feeds, weather) to update themselves while the device is asleep.
To do this, the hardware has to support the Connected Standby (CS) state.
The CS presenter at the BUILD conference stated that the tablet handed out there (same as Samsung Slate XE700T) did NOT support CS.
That is why I stopped being interested in the Slate.
I would suggest waiting until devices running the full finished Win8 come out as they would most likely support all the designed-in Win8 functionality.
To those who think that a laptop with touch will do, I say that the Samsung Slate has shown that a dual core i5 64bit tablet is easily capable of replacing almost all current laptops, but in a more flexible and convenient format. I predict that tablets with keyboards will replace laptops almost completely (come the next replacement opportunity).
my recomendation...
If you absolutely can't wait, I have an Acer Iconia Tab W500.
10.1 Inches, AMD Fusion C-60 (yes, not C-50) dual core @1.0Ghz with Radeon HD6290 graphics, 2Gb of memory and a 32 Gb SSD for storage.
I got it with the Keyboard dock which ads a Lan and makes it an awesome choice.
Better by far than any atom out there.
MasterTB said:
If you absolutely can't wait, I have an Acer Iconia Tab W500.
10.1 Inches, AMD Fusion C-60 (yes, not C-50) dual core @1.0Ghz with Radeon HD6290 graphics, 2Gb of memory and a 32 Gb SSD for storage.
I got it with the Keyboard dock which ads a Lan and makes it an awesome choice.
Better by far than any atom out there.
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I second this. The W500 is so awesome. I have the version with C-50 and even this one does most games and programmes amazingly fast!
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I got the Samsung Slate. My reasoning is on my blog at gadgets dot itwriting dot com - I have too few posts here to give the link unfortunately. Search for Samsung.
Frankly, the device is not that well designed. The keyboard (optional extra) is particularly annoying, because it has no real on/off button. Very hard to pack a keyboard in such a way that keys do not get pressed accidentally. Consequently, if you pack keyboard + slate in your bag, with the slate on sleep, the keyboard wakes it up and bad things happen. Ended up removing batteries from keyboard when not in use, and they rattle around at the bottom of the bag.
Of course you don't need to get the keyboard; and with Windows 8 it works better than with 7 although I have not got the rotation sensor working yet. The Windows button doesn't work quite right, especially after it has been on for a while, but no great loss. Performance is great, and I don't regret the purchase given that I really need to use Windows 8 NOW.
If you can hold off though, I would definitely wait for devices that are designed for Windows 8.
Tim
^^ the Series 7 Slate keyboard has an off switch. Its the same button you click to put it in pairing mode.
dtboos said:
^^ the Series 7 Slate keyboard has an off switch. Its the same button you click to put it in pairing mode.
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I have found it works OK as an "on" switch but not as an "off" switch!
Tim
Hardware wise what's coming in the next few months?
bmstrong said:
Hardware wise what's coming in the next few months?
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Probably nothing. You won't see new devices until Win8 is ready to be released.
dtboos said:
Probably nothing. You won't see new devices until Win8 is ready to be released.
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Well, nuts. I convinced my brother to drop it onto his laptop. Absolutely fantastic for me, as a long time Windows user he was horrified. A lot, I think comes down to a fear of change and the misconception that you can't really do anything with the MetroTop. As a WP lover I couldn't be happier and wished they didn't even include the desktop side.
I'll look around at a couple suggestions, perhaps with the fever surrounding the iPad 3 I can snatch something cheap.
There isn't really anywhere to ask this question so I am asking it here.
I am running a Dell M90 on Windows 8, but its finally starting to die. The screen is going out and its not economical to replace it. Im a little sad but its had a good run. Boots in less than 30 seconds and had a Windows rating over 5. Pretty good for a seven year old laptop. I am needing a replacement quickly.
Q: Which of the three laptops would you buy? Or is there another one out that I am missing?
Dell XPS 15
Samsung 17" series 7
Samsung 15" Series 9 Ultrabook
Why It's not such an easy decision:
Best option to upgrade to Windows 8 ( The M90 doesn't have the nvidia drivers available that it needs, uses a general driver w/out aero support)
Portability (The M90 is a monster to carry around)
I need a screen at least 15"
What is the major drawback between I7 and I5?
It must be Ivy Bridge or 3rd generation iSeries
I think I want a glossy screen (the M90 is matte, and I just dont think it looks as nice)
Would you only look at SSDs?
I am going to college in the next 2 month, to become and engineer , I want to get a lap top that can hold the five years of college , and needn't to say , it should be able to run some heavy programs easily , I have a budget of maximum 1500 $
It will be very good , if it is an ultra book , since I will have to move alot with it .
If it is in the wrong section , please move
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Lenovo g500s or Hp g6
Whats ur requirements bt? Even I m a clg student. I use lenovo g500s and it meets up all my requirements
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No $1500 laptop will run "heavy programs easily" in five years. The standard of what constitutes a heavy program marches on in time with Moore's Law. In 5 years, computers will be about 8x as powerful as they are now.
Thanks for your answer, I am.meeting a senior in 2 weeks, will ask him, what I will need .
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Delete
I am an engineering student right now and I am going into my third year. My senior year of high school I got a thinkpad t510. While a bit on the heavy side, it blows through most things easily. I got the kind with a dedicated gpu, so I can run CAD applications fine, although they lag a bit when working with complex things. I also got the 9-cell battery, which still gives like 6 hours of uptime after three years. The Haswell models should easily exceed that.
Though looking back I would recommend the w series. They are the same form factor but contain much more powerful gpus (I have an NVIDIA NVS 3100m, which is slightly better than integrated. The w series come with full out quadro cards, which are awesome for engineering).
They can become quite expensive, but as long as you don't try to max out ssds and ram with an Intel extreme cpu and stuff you should be fine with $1500.
Edit: Looks like lenovo hasn't started using Haswell yet. The w530 at the default configuration has awesome specs though. If I was buying one all I would add to this would be windows 8 pro. http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/w-series/w530/
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Ali_ultra99 said:
I am going to college in the next 2 month, to become and engineer , I want to get a lap top that can hold the five years of college , and needn't to say , it should be able to run some heavy programs easily , I have a budget of maximum 1500 $
It will be very good , if it is an ultra book , since I will have to move alot with it .
If it is in the wrong section , please move
Sent from my cm_tenderloin using Tapatalk 2
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People comment that Apple Mac Air is an almost perfect laptop. I guess that it should be within your budget. I do not run heavy programs on any of my laptops ( windows 7, windows 8), and I have not used any Apple laptop. What do you think?
wnandroid said:
People comment that Apple Mac Air is an almost perfect laptop. I guess that it should be within your budget. I do not run heavy programs on any of my laptops ( windows 7, windows 8), and I have not used any Apple laptop. What do you think?
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If you get a Mac Book Air, expect crappy Windows drivers and poor battery life when/if you need to use Windows.
Get a MacBook Air, IF you plan on developing iOS apps or if you prefer OS X.
Get a Windows 8 machine otherwise. As to which ultrabook, I would go with either the Sony Vaio Pro or Sony Vaio Duo 13 if you plan on using OneNote as a digital notebook. Both machines have Haswell, and both are incredibly light and can be specced out i7/8G Ram/256-512GBSSD ... which is something you'll find important if you plan on carrying your computer to class all the time for the next 4 years.
wnandroid said:
People comment that Apple Mac Air is an almost perfect laptop. I guess that it should be within your budget. I do not run heavy programs on any of my laptops ( windows 7, windows 8), and I have not used any Apple laptop. What do you think?
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Click to collapse
Bad idea.
He said heavy programs. A macbook air is not a powerful machine, also incredibly overpriced. With the OP's budget and requirements he could normally get something with a dedicated GPU which would then be capable of dealing with his requirements, a macbook air would eat his entire budget and then not be enough power for 5 years.
If you were only using an office suite for those 5 years the macbook would be fine.
Point B, many engineering courses involve windows software which would then mean he would have to buy a copy of windows and load it onto the mac, but wait, the macbook drivers for windows suck
My main, 4-5 year old macbook pro, seems to slowly be dying. HDD making weird noises, dead pixels on edges, power randomly turning off all the way, the works. I know some of this stuff is fixable, and I'll probably come around to it later, but right now I'm looking into getting a new computer, preferably a windows 8/ windows 8.1. While looking around for what my replacement would be, I know that some tablets, such as the surface pro, run windows 8. I think it would be cool to have a computer i could develop on and then go to class and turn it into a tablet and take notes on it. I don't know much about development, since I am a noob at it, and I'm going to collage in computer science next year, I don't know much about computer specifications for development. So, what would be a good choice for a tablet pc for developing? I do understand that a laptop or a full on PC would probably be better, but I'm just looking at options right now.
The main criteria for serious development (note: nothing you do in the first year or two of a CS curriculum is likely to qualify, unless you're going to MIT or something) are:
A) High-resolution display (1920 x 1080 is what I'd consider to be the bare minimum for a dev box) with a large enough screen that you can read it easily at default DPI. This is needed so you can have multiple code views, or code + documentation, open at once.
B) A pretty good supply of RAM. Depending on the languages and IDEs you're using, and the size of the code bases you're working on, just what is *enough* RAM will vary, but I wouldn't want to use anything less than around 8GB in a dev box. That lets me have multiple IDEs open, and a ton of browser tabs and history (for documentation), all at the same time without swapping.
C) SSD if you can afford it; the performance boost on stuff like compiling is substantial. You'll want to make sure you have plenty of space, though; source code even for large projects is only occasionally into and rarely much past single-digits of gigabytes, but the full repository history for a long-running project can be huge, and you will probably want to have room for virtual machines too (which are literally full additional OS installations) so you can test on different systems, or learn to develop for both Windows and Linux on the same machine, etc.
D) A really good keyboard is a must. You'll spend a long time using it, and you'll use a lot of weird keys that you aren't used to hitting right now. You want a full keyboard (no missing keys; did you know that there are actually times when Scroll Lock is useful? No joke...) with full-sized key-spacings (a cramped keyboard will slow you down and be uncomfortable really quickly). What type of "feel" you want to the keyboard is up to you, but most people really like the Lenovo keyboards for laptops, for example; your basic cheap membrane keyboard is probably *not* going to be pleasant to use.
Surface Pro 2 might work, if you got the Type Cover, but I wouldn't really recommend it. You want a bigger display on a dev box, usually, and the keyboard is optimized for everyday use but not for development.
Different people have different preferences for development machines. However I think GoodDayToDies suggestions are all good ones.
I am currently a first year computer science student at the university of northampton. I went with just getting a laptop rather than a tablet hybrid of some sort. Ultimately settled on the HP Sleekbook 14. Its only an intel core i3 @1.8ghz with HD4000 graphics and 6gb of RAM, but for everything you do in first and 2nd year (and potentially 3rd if there is a 3rd year not really sure how things work in the US) thats actually plenty powerful. It isn't a solid state drive, which would have been nice. There is only one criticism with it for programming and that is the screen resolution, at 14" the physical size is fine, but it is only 1366*768 which I can fit my stuff onto but it would be much nicer to have a higher res screen as with a higher res you can fit more code on without having to decrease font sizes or hide task bars in your IDE or whatever (I decrease font size and unpin the solution explorer and toolbox etc in visual studio, eclipse I dont unpin anything because I am still trying to get used to it, its only when you use something else that you realise how good visual studio is).
I did computer science as one of my A-Level subjects. I didn't bother with getting a laptop for that, I used the school machines in lesson, took bus home, used my desktop PC at home (and seeming as I commute to northampton daily from home instead of staying on halls, I can still do the same, but for convenience sake I use the laptop still, with my setup its more comfortable). I did have a friend though that didn't have a desktop PC at home or anything, his only computer was a 10" netbook, 1.3ghz dual core atom on 1gb of RAM and one of those really sucky 600p displays. He did his entire A-Level computing coursework on it, didn't use the school machines for anything other than testing and viewing documentation (as in that school we weren't allowed details for the WiFi which also had a hidden SSID, even if we did connect to the network via wifi or plain old ethernet, there was a proxy server nobody had details for either, so no internet for unauthorised machines). He was perfectly happy to bash out code on a tiny keyboard and only see a few lines of it at one time, I really wouldnt recommend it though. Visual studio was also perfectly happy to run on that machine (albeit with about a 10 minute load time when first opening it), compiled and debugged ASP.net applications perfectly fine too.
Under default settings in eclipse and with the console window thing pinned open at the bottom of the display. I can fit 28 lines of code on a 768 pixel tall screen.
Tablets for taking notes dont last long. Only people still doing that since the beginning of term are either using a surface with touch cover and typing yet still having a pad of paper for drawing diagrams or there are 2 people with surface pro's who use the digitiser stylus. Under lecture note taking conditions capacitive pens and virtual keyboards dont cut it. Also seen a small handful of people using bluetooth keyboards with iPads. One of the 2 surface pro guys does also use the surface in lab sessions for doing his work, the other switches to a uni machine. If your fine with a small keyboard then yeah, you might be able to do devwork on a surface pro, but there are @"keys"^Which>'R'|arely {if ever} get touched during daily usage; They are often placed on smaller buttons on smaller keyboards, much harder to hit. If your going to spend a few seconds trying to hit shift+2 to type a " (I'm british, our keyboards arent the same) then its going to slow you down considerably, my mate with the netbook didn't have a problem with this, I couldnt do it though. I have used the apple wireless keyboard and can type reasonably well on that (even though its about netbook size), but I cannot use it for programming, although in my case thats because apple are morons who don't know what a british keyboard looks like so the symbols are in the wrong place for me (their idea of a british layout keyboard, because they do sell one, is slap a £ sign on the 3 key and give us a double height enter/return key, that is it, all of their changes), that wouldnt effect you in the US.
I would say anything with a core i3/i5 or even i7 will have the CPU horsepower to get your work done.
For first year stuff I highly doubt more than 4gb of RAM will be needed. but I will recommend 6-8 anyway for future proofing.
Unless you are doing a specialised pathway with graphics or gaming, don't bother with an integrated GPU, you won't really need it.
1366*768 screen res should be the absolute bare minimum, 1080p highly recommended though. When this machine is replaced one day, I will definitely be going 1080p.
You need a keyboard which is comfortable to use. Go to best buy or whoever else sells computers out there, use a few machines, see what features you do or do not want.
I cannot recommend something 10" in size for most people. I use 14", I wouldnt go smaller than 13". For that reason I wouldn't recommend a convertible. If you were to go convertible, at least go active digitiser to make up for it. Some of my lectures I just type up, most I just go old fashioned with active digitiser mk1 (also known as pen and paper).
I am however looking at either the dell venue 8 pro or the EVGA tegra note tablets as a note taking tool. Can't really justify the expense though on something that would purely be that, a note taking tool.
4 GB of RAM should be enough unless you plan to use emulators. If you use emulators, you might wanna boost that up to 8.
A video card is also useful, regardless of how "weak" performance it has in gaming. If you use a CPU built-in one, you will lose up to 1 GB of RAM depending on what you do.
The display is probably the most important of them all. You will spend lots of time looking at it trying to figure out what is going wrong, and if your eyes do not agree with the display, you will find your efficiency greatly reduced.