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friend needs new laptop, recommendations?



 
 
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  #1  
Old November 29th 17, 01:42 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware
Mike S
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 78
Default friend needs new laptop, recommendations?

My buddy needs a new laptop, his is over 6 yrs old, runs out of RAM and
slows down often, and crashes when more than 2GB RAM is installed! A
computer shop spent 2 hrs with him trying to install more RAM, then get
it working again when it crashed each time. Due to its age we think it's
smart to get a new computer and sort out the RAM issue later, or just
use it as a backup with enough s/w removed that it's still usable.

I found this - looks like a decent, affordable machine, to get him
through the next 5 yrs.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Dell-Insp...Drive/54906451

He doesn't do much more than email (Outlook), browse the web, save tons
of pictures, and do a little Photoshop (CS2 or higher).

I've never bought anything at Walmart before, so I don't know if that is
in itself an issue, or if the machine itself is good. It looks like good
speed for the price, and I wanted to get one with enough RAM that it is
not an issue in future. Do I need to be concerned about buying h/w from
Walmart? And are there better deals in roughly this price range? Money
is definitely an issue.

TIA,
Mike
  #2  
Old November 29th 17, 03:34 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware
Paul[_28_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,467
Default friend needs new laptop, recommendations?

Mike S wrote:
My buddy needs a new laptop, his is over 6 yrs old, runs out of RAM and
slows down often, and crashes when more than 2GB RAM is installed! A
computer shop spent 2 hrs with him trying to install more RAM, then get
it working again when it crashed each time. Due to its age we think it's
smart to get a new computer and sort out the RAM issue later, or just
use it as a backup with enough s/w removed that it's still usable.

I found this - looks like a decent, affordable machine, to get him
through the next 5 yrs.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Dell-Insp...Drive/54906451


He doesn't do much more than email (Outlook), browse the web, save tons
of pictures, and do a little Photoshop (CS2 or higher).

I've never bought anything at Walmart before, so I don't know if that is
in itself an issue, or if the machine itself is good. It looks like good
speed for the price, and I wanted to get one with enough RAM that it is
not an issue in future. Do I need to be concerned about buying h/w from
Walmart? And are there better deals in roughly this price range? Money
is definitely an issue.

TIA,
Mike


That's a TN display. The color will shift when you more
your head. On my laptop, the "best" view of the screen, requires
placing your head below the horizon. Which means tilting the display
back at 135 degrees, to get good image quality.

An IPS display panel has a so-called 178 degree viewing angle,
which means the position of your head is not as important.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPS_panel

To me, "the panel isn't the only thing, it's everything".
Good image quality is important.

*******

And for Win10, you would appreciate an SSD more than
a rotating hard drive. Even if you could only afford a
60GB SSD, it would be better than a rotating 1TB HDD.
I couldn't believe the difference until I tried it here.
Right now in the test machine I have an SSD with
cloned Win10 on it, to replace the 500GB hard drive
I was using. And the startup is a lot faster. With
the HDD, there was a delay until you could do anything,
until Windows Defender finished its initial scan. The
SSD makes that a lot faster.

Depending on the type of SSD used, it can be a bit
harder on battery life. There are some articles
which compare power consumption, to make such a
selection easier. The SSDs that do some amount
of data compression before writing to the flash
chip, can have higher power consumption. The Kingston
SSDs with Sandforce controllers, are an example of
potentially high peak power designs. But finding
a good article will allow looking up the actual
measured numbers. The power number "printed on
the tin" (devsleep?), is intended to deceive,
and real measurements are required.

*******

It's disappointingly difficult to get a good deal from Dell.
When I googled, I was being pointed at a Dell gaming laptop
to get IPS, and then I get a power sucking GPU I don't need.

https://www.pcworld.com/article/2465...sappoints.html

Things I want for Win10:

1) IPS panel
2) SSD (because it's Win10, WinXP could use an HDD)
3) Quad core CPU (because it's Win10, WinXP could use dual core)

Other nice to haves:

4) Keyboard you can use.
5) Chassis that doesn't bend.

You can spend *days* sweating over Google searches, to
find a decent laptop.

Good luck in your search.

Paul
  #3  
Old November 29th 17, 05:27 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware
Mike S
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 78
Default friend needs new laptop, recommendations?

On 11/28/2017 6:34 PM, Paul wrote:
Mike S wrote:
My buddy needs a new laptop, his is over 6 yrs old, runs out of RAM
and slows down often, and crashes when more than 2GB RAM is installed!
A computer shop spent 2 hrs with him trying to install more RAM, then
get it working again when it crashed each time. Due to its age we
think it's smart to get a new computer and sort out the RAM issue
later, or just use it as a backup with enough s/w removed that it's
still usable.

I found this - looks like a decent, affordable machine, to get him
through the next 5 yrs.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Dell-Insp...Drive/54906451


He doesn't do muchÂ* more than email (Outlook), browse the web, save
tons of pictures, and do a little Photoshop (CS2 or higher).

I've never bought anything at Walmart before, so I don't know if that
is in itself an issue, or if the machine itself is good. It looks like
good speed for the price, and I wanted to get one with enough RAM that
it is not an issue in future. Do I need to be concerned about buying
h/w from Walmart? And are there better deals in roughly this price
range? Money is definitely an issue.

TIA,
Mike


That's a TN display. The color will shift when you more
your head. On my laptop, the "best" view of the screen, requires
placing your head below the horizon. Which means tilting the display
back at 135 degrees, to get good image quality.

An IPS display panel has a so-called 178 degree viewing angle,
which means the position of your head is not as important.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPS_panel

To me, "the panel isn't the only thing, it's everything".
Good image quality is important.

*******

And for Win10, you would appreciate an SSD more than
a rotating hard drive. Even if you could only afford a
60GB SSD, it would be better than a rotating 1TB HDD.
I couldn't believe the difference until I tried it here.
Right now in the test machine I have an SSD with
cloned Win10 on it, to replace the 500GB hard drive
I was using. And the startup is a lot faster. With
the HDD, there was a delay until you could do anything,
until Windows Defender finished its initial scan. The
SSD makes that a lot faster.

Depending on the type of SSD used, it can be a bit
harder on battery life. There are some articles
which compare power consumption, to make such a
selection easier. The SSDs that do some amount
of data compression before writing to the flash
chip, can have higher power consumption. The Kingston
SSDs with Sandforce controllers, are an example of
potentially high peak power designs. But finding
a good article will allow looking up the actual
measured numbers. The power number "printed on
the tin" (devsleep?), is intended to deceive,
and real measurements are required.

*******

It's disappointingly difficult to get a good deal from Dell.
When I googled, I was being pointed at a Dell gaming laptop
to get IPS, and then I get a power sucking GPU I don't need.

https://www.pcworld.com/article/2465...sappoints.html


Things I want for Win10:

1) IPS panel
2) SSD (because it's Win10, WinXP could use an HDD)
3) Quad core CPU (because it's Win10, WinXP could use dual core)

Other nice to haves:

4) Keyboard you can use.
5) Chassis that doesn't bend.

You can spend *days* sweating over Google searches, to
find a decent laptop.

Good luck in your search.

Â*Â* Paul


Thanks Paul,
I had no idea about the display, and an SSD is good advice, it's
operated plugged in a good % of the time. #5 is smart too.
Thanks,
Mike
  #4  
Old November 29th 17, 06:00 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware
[email protected]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 33
Default friend needs new laptop, recommendations?

On Tue, 28 Nov 2017 16:42:38 -0800, Mike S wrote:

My buddy needs a new laptop, his is over 6 yrs old, runs out of RAM and
slows down often, and crashes when more than 2GB RAM is installed! A
computer shop spent 2 hrs with him trying to install more RAM, then get
it working again when it crashed each time. Due to its age we think it's
smart to get a new computer and sort out the RAM issue later, or just
use it as a backup with enough s/w removed that it's still usable.

I found this - looks like a decent, affordable machine, to get him
through the next 5 yrs.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Dell-Insp...Drive/54906451

He doesn't do much more than email (Outlook), browse the web, save tons
of pictures, and do a little Photoshop (CS2 or higher).

I've never bought anything at Walmart before, so I don't know if that is
in itself an issue, or if the machine itself is good. It looks like good
speed for the price, and I wanted to get one with enough RAM that it is
not an issue in future. Do I need to be concerned about buying h/w from
Walmart? And are there better deals in roughly this price range? Money
is definitely an issue.

TIA,
Mike



I have had good luck with the re-furb re-sellers.
... but I'm a cheap-skate, low-tech user. no photo shop
~ 2 years ago - I got my current ThinkPad T500
- it cost me $ 140. plus a new battery ~ $ 40.
.. it's still going strong ...
.. still out-performing my wife's newer Dell .
... just say'in maybe your buddy's problems are not
- hardware - at all - maybe he's click-happy ?
John T.

  #5  
Old November 30th 17, 06:22 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware
Mike S
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 78
Default friend needs new laptop, recommendations?

On 11/28/2017 9:00 PM, wrote:
On Tue, 28 Nov 2017 16:42:38 -0800, Mike S wrote:

My buddy needs a new laptop, his is over 6 yrs old, runs out of RAM and
slows down often, and crashes when more than 2GB RAM is installed! A
computer shop spent 2 hrs with him trying to install more RAM, then get
it working again when it crashed each time. Due to its age we think it's
smart to get a new computer and sort out the RAM issue later, or just
use it as a backup with enough s/w removed that it's still usable.

I found this - looks like a decent, affordable machine, to get him
through the next 5 yrs.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Dell-Insp...Drive/54906451

He doesn't do much more than email (Outlook), browse the web, save tons
of pictures, and do a little Photoshop (CS2 or higher).

I've never bought anything at Walmart before, so I don't know if that is
in itself an issue, or if the machine itself is good. It looks like good
speed for the price, and I wanted to get one with enough RAM that it is
not an issue in future. Do I need to be concerned about buying h/w from
Walmart? And are there better deals in roughly this price range? Money
is definitely an issue.

TIA,
Mike



I have had good luck with the re-furb re-sellers.
.. but I'm a cheap-skate, low-tech user. no photo shop
~ 2 years ago - I got my current ThinkPad T500
- it cost me $ 140. plus a new battery ~ $ 40.
.. it's still going strong ...
.. still out-performing my wife's newer Dell .
.. just say'in maybe your buddy's problems are not
- hardware - at all - maybe he's click-happy ?
John T.


How many refurbished laptops have you had good luck with? The computer
has too much stuff running, and he can't seem to pick anything to let go
of. I don't see anything too egregious, and since the machine is older
instead of beat it to death he'll just pick up something with more RAM.

  #6  
Old November 30th 17, 06:25 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware
Mike S
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 78
Default friend needs new laptop, recommendations?

On 11/28/2017 9:00 PM, wrote:
On Tue, 28 Nov 2017 16:42:38 -0800, Mike S wrote:

My buddy needs a new laptop, his is over 6 yrs old, runs out of RAM and
slows down often, and crashes when more than 2GB RAM is installed! A
computer shop spent 2 hrs with him trying to install more RAM, then get
it working again when it crashed each time. Due to its age we think it's
smart to get a new computer and sort out the RAM issue later, or just
use it as a backup with enough s/w removed that it's still usable.

I found this - looks like a decent, affordable machine, to get him
through the next 5 yrs.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Dell-Insp...Drive/54906451

He doesn't do much more than email (Outlook), browse the web, save tons
of pictures, and do a little Photoshop (CS2 or higher).

I've never bought anything at Walmart before, so I don't know if that is
in itself an issue, or if the machine itself is good. It looks like good
speed for the price, and I wanted to get one with enough RAM that it is
not an issue in future. Do I need to be concerned about buying h/w from
Walmart? And are there better deals in roughly this price range? Money
is definitely an issue.

TIA,
Mike



I have had good luck with the re-furb re-sellers.
.. but I'm a cheap-skate, low-tech user. no photo shop
~ 2 years ago - I got my current ThinkPad T500
- it cost me $ 140. plus a new battery ~ $ 40.
.. it's still going strong ...
.. still out-performing my wife's newer Dell .
.. just say'in maybe your buddy's problems are not
- hardware - at all - maybe he's click-happy ?
John T.


Found a used machine that looks good for $300

HP Elitebook Workstation Laptop Model 8560W
Windows 10 Pro 64bit
Intel Core i5 2540M 2.6GH-3.3GHz
500 GB SSD 6 mo's old
6 Gigabytes DDR3 RAM

On paper it looks great, and should do everything he needs very nicely.
I'd be happy to hear any opinions on this model.

Thx, Mike

  #7  
Old November 30th 17, 08:15 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware
Paul[_28_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,467
Default friend needs new laptop, recommendations?

Mike S wrote:
On 11/28/2017 9:00 PM, wrote:
On Tue, 28 Nov 2017 16:42:38 -0800, Mike S wrote:

My buddy needs a new laptop, his is over 6 yrs old, runs out of RAM and
slows down often, and crashes when more than 2GB RAM is installed! A
computer shop spent 2 hrs with him trying to install more RAM, then get
it working again when it crashed each time. Due to its age we think it's
smart to get a new computer and sort out the RAM issue later, or just
use it as a backup with enough s/w removed that it's still usable.

I found this - looks like a decent, affordable machine, to get him
through the next 5 yrs.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Dell-Insp...Drive/54906451


He doesn't do much more than email (Outlook), browse the web, save tons
of pictures, and do a little Photoshop (CS2 or higher).

I've never bought anything at Walmart before, so I don't know if that is
in itself an issue, or if the machine itself is good. It looks like good
speed for the price, and I wanted to get one with enough RAM that it is
not an issue in future. Do I need to be concerned about buying h/w from
Walmart? And are there better deals in roughly this price range? Money
is definitely an issue.

TIA,
Mike



I have had good luck with the re-furb re-sellers.
.. but I'm a cheap-skate, low-tech user. no photo shop
~ 2 years ago - I got my current ThinkPad T500
- it cost me $ 140. plus a new battery ~ $ 40.
.. it's still going strong ...
.. still out-performing my wife's newer Dell .
.. just say'in maybe your buddy's problems are not
- hardware - at all - maybe he's click-happy ?
John T.


Found a used machine that looks good for $300

HP Elitebook Workstation Laptop Model 8560W
Windows 10 Pro 64bit
Intel Core i5 2540M 2.6GH-3.3GHz
500 GB SSD 6 mo's old
6 Gigabytes DDR3 RAM

On paper it looks great, and should do everything he needs very nicely.
I'd be happy to hear any opinions on this model.

Thx, Mike


It's from May 2011.

https://www.cnet.com/products/hp-eli...nch-tft/specs/

QM67

Memory Max Total 32 GB

DDR3 SDRAM 1333 MHz / PC3-10600

Form Factor SO-DIMM 204-pin, Slots 4 -- could be 2x2 + 2x1 = 6GB now...

https://ark.intel.com/products/50072...up-to-3_30-GHz

Base 2.60 GHz
# of Cores 2
# of Threads 4 = 2C 4T

Processor Graphics - Intel HD Graphics 3000

That should be "OK" for Windows 10, but not "Stellar".
It's probably 3X as fast as my laptop :-/

It also has a discrete graphics chip. I guess that's
what makes it a workstation ? The discrete graphics
has memory chips soldered somewhere next to the GPU
chip. It's probably not an MXM module, but the chips
could be right next to the GPU die or something.

Graphics Processor NVIDIA Quadro 1000M - 2 GB DDR3 SDRAM

Quadro 1000M

https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php

Quadro 1000M Bench=747 -- discrete GPU is 3X
Intel HD 3000 =313 -- the CPU GPU

Modern web browsers take pleasure in abusing the GPU,
and I wouldn't really care what GPU is in a computer
except for the fact that software developers are carrying
their bad GPU habits over from mobile platforms, to desktops.
And that means, we do have to care about "tick box compliance"
when it comes to getting the best performance out of
platforms other than mobile phones. The older your
desktop world gets, the "less compliant" it is with the
latest GPU feature.

We look for a driver for the graphics:

http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

Quadro
Quadro Series (Notebooks)
Quadro 1000M
Windows 10 64-bit
Optimal Driver Enterprise
English

http://www.nvidia.com/download/drive...x/104400/en-us

Version: R361 U5 (362.77) WHQL
Release Date: 2016.6.15

Since that's an old driver, my guess is the GPU has gone
out of support. It means there is *some* driver for Win10 (good)
but you won't be able to get the new "GPU utilization" graph
on Task Manager shown in the latest Win10 OS Upgrade (16299).

My purpose in mentioning this, is to show how Microsoft
"gradually shades out" the old hardware when it comes to features.
I have no hardware in the house, that can show Win10 GPU usage
in Task Manager.

As for the chipset...

First link gets us a datasheet link.

https://ark.intel.com/products/52813...xpress-Chipset

This link, page 2 shows a block diagram. CPU has GPU, QM67 drives the graphics outputs.
When the Quadro 1000M is in the picture, Optimus can be used, to
cause frame buffers full of 1000M data, to be displayed on the
QM67 graphics ports. The 1000M doesn't drive the panel directly,
and the data is DMA transferred until it finally comes out of the
QM67 panel bus.

https://www.intel.com/content/dam/ww...form-brief.pdf

Again, we wouldn't care except when Optimus driver quality
sucks, or when using BumbleBee in Linux (the optimus driver
they've got) has a problem. While these "dual GPU, small BIG"
designs are fun, it's the slightly bad driver quality that
****es people off.

*******

It's thick like a tank. That's what a worstation laptop
should look like. It probably won't flex like a
"Walmart Black Friday special". That's good.

https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2400124,00.asp

"The 15.6-inch widescreen display is no joke either,
with 1,920-by-1,080 resolution, LED backlighting,
and a matte finish. The backlighting could be just a
bit brighter, but it still offered lively colors, deep blacks,
and crisp details."

So we still don't know the panel type.

For some reason, this review shows different hardware inside ???

https://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/la...litebook-8560w

Still cannot find a declaration of panel type. But...

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Review...k.67994.0.html

"The viewing angles are better than in most laptops. Even
larger deviations from the sides and from above at an angle don't
lead to a change in the picture. There's only a bit of room for
improvement from an oblique perspective."

That means it's not conventional TN, which suffers quite
a bit from color shift. It might even be usable.

At $300, it's a bare pass in terms of "future compliance"
and should have no problems as a web surfer. As long as
you remember it's from the year 2011, you'll be OK.

The SATA ports will be SATA II, so if you bench the SSD
with HDTune, it'll read ~220MB/sec rather than ~450MB/sec
that a SATA III connection would have given. But that's
not what SSDs are for - it's the low latency which counts
and makes Win10 bear-able.

Paul
  #8  
Old November 30th 17, 02:47 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware
[email protected]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 33
Default friend needs new laptop, recommendations?



My buddy needs a new laptop, his is over 6 yrs old, runs out of RAM and
slows down often, and crashes when more than 2GB RAM is installed! A
computer shop spent 2 hrs with him trying to install more RAM, then get
it working again when it crashed each time. Due to its age we think it's
smart to get a new computer and sort out the RAM issue later, or just
use it as a backup with enough s/w removed that it's still usable.
I found this - looks like a decent, affordable machine, to get him
through the next 5 yrs.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Dell-Insp...Drive/54906451
He doesn't do much more than email (Outlook), browse the web, save tons
of pictures, and do a little Photoshop (CS2 or higher).
I've never bought anything at Walmart before, so I don't know if that is
in itself an issue, or if the machine itself is good. It looks like good
speed for the price, and I wanted to get one with enough RAM that it is
not an issue in future. Do I need to be concerned about buying h/w from
Walmart? And are there better deals in roughly this price range? Money
is definitely an issue.
TIA,
Mike



I have had good luck with the re-furb re-sellers.
.. but I'm a cheap-skate, low-tech user. no photo shop
~ 2 years ago - I got my current ThinkPad T500
- it cost me $ 140. plus a new battery ~ $ 40.
.. it's still going strong ...
.. still out-performing my wife's newer Dell .
.. just say'in maybe your buddy's problems are not
- hardware - at all - maybe he's click-happy ?
John T.



How many refurbished laptops have you had good luck with? The computer
has too much stuff running, and he can't seem to pick anything to let go
of. I don't see anything too egregious, and since the machine is older
instead of beat it to death he'll just pick up something with more RAM.



I've bought 4 - 2 were ThinkPads for my college kids ;
1 HP, 1 ThinkPad for myself. My third kid got a new Acer that
had good specs for the money and it started to fail at 13 months -
1 year warranty of course.
The reputable refurb guys will offer ~ 6 month warranty - so you
aren't getting stuck with a known lemon - like a private sale.
Here's a couple of examples - note - Canadian dollars.
http://www.eco-techrecycling.com/pcsales.php
http://www.wifinut.ca/laptops.html
John T.

  #9  
Old December 1st 17, 06:46 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware
Mike S
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 78
Default friend needs new laptop, recommendations?

On 11/29/2017 11:15 PM, Paul wrote:
Mike S wrote:
On 11/28/2017 9:00 PM, wrote:
On Tue, 28 Nov 2017 16:42:38 -0800, Mike S wrote:

My buddy needs a new laptop, his is over 6 yrs old, runs out of RAM and
slows down often, and crashes when more than 2GB RAM is installed! A
computer shop spent 2 hrs with him trying to install more RAM, then get
it working again when it crashed each time. Due to its age we think
it's
smart to get a new computer and sort out the RAM issue later, or just
use it as a backup with enough s/w removed that it's still usable.

I found this - looks like a decent, affordable machine, to get him
through the next 5 yrs.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Dell-Insp...Drive/54906451


He doesn't do muchÂ* more than email (Outlook), browse the web, save
tons
of pictures, and do a little Photoshop (CS2 or higher).

I've never bought anything at Walmart before, so I don't know if
that is
in itself an issue, or if the machine itself is good. It looks like
good
speed for the price, and I wanted to get one with enough RAM that it is
not an issue in future. Do I need to be concerned about buying h/w from
Walmart? And are there better deals in roughly this price range? Money
is definitely an issue.

TIA,
Mike


Â* I have had good luck withÂ* theÂ* re-furbÂ* re-sellers.
.. but I'm a cheap-skate, low-tech user. noÂ* photo shop
Â*Â* ~Â* 2 years ago -Â* I got my current ThinkPadÂ* T500
Â* -Â* it cost meÂ*Â* $ 140.Â*Â* plus aÂ* new batteryÂ* ~Â* $ 40.
Â* ..Â* it's still going strong ...
Â* ..Â* stillÂ* out-performing my wife'sÂ* newerÂ* Dell .
.. just say'inÂ*Â* maybe your buddy's problems are not
Â* -Â*Â* hardwareÂ* -Â* at allÂ* -Â*Â* maybe he'sÂ* click-happy ?
Â*Â*Â*Â* John T.


Found a used machine that looks good for $300

HP Elitebook Workstation Laptop Model 8560W
Windows 10 Pro 64bit
Intel Core i5 2540M 2.6GH-3.3GHz
500 GB SSD 6 mo's old
6 Gigabytes DDR3 RAM

On paper it looks great, and should do everything he needs very
nicely. I'd be happy to hear any opinions on this model.

Thx, Mike


It's from May 2011.

https://www.cnet.com/products/hp-eli...nch-tft/specs/


Â*Â*Â* QM67

Â*Â*Â* Memory Max Total 32 GB

Â*Â*Â* DDR3 SDRAM 1333 MHz / PC3-10600

Â*Â*Â* Form Factor SO-DIMM 204-pin, Slots 4Â* -- could be 2x2 + 2x1 = 6GB
now...

https://ark.intel.com/products/50072...up-to-3_30-GHz


Â*Â*Â* Base 2.60 GHz
Â*Â*Â* # of Cores 2
Â*Â*Â* # of Threads 4Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* = 2C 4T

Â*Â*Â* Processor Graphics - Intel HD Graphics 3000

That should be "OK" for Windows 10, but not "Stellar".
It's probably 3X as fast as my laptop :-/

It also has a discrete graphics chip. I guess that's
what makes it a workstation ? The discrete graphics
has memory chips soldered somewhere next to the GPU
chip. It's probably not an MXM module, but the chips
could be right next to the GPU die or something.

Â*Â*Â* Graphics Processor NVIDIA Quadro 1000M - 2 GB DDR3 SDRAM

Â*Â*Â* Quadro 1000M

Â*Â*Â* https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php

Â*Â*Â* Quadro 1000MÂ*Â* Bench=747Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* -- discrete GPU is 3X
Â*Â*Â* Intel HD 3000Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* =313Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* -- the CPU GPU

Modern web browsers take pleasure in abusing the GPU,
and I wouldn't really care what GPU is in a computer
except for the fact that software developers are carrying
their bad GPU habits over from mobile platforms, to desktops.
And that means, we do have to care about "tick box compliance"
when it comes to getting the best performance out of
platforms other than mobile phones. The older your
desktop world gets, the "less compliant" it is with the
latest GPU feature.

We look for a driver for the graphics:

http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

Â*Â*Â* Quadro
Â*Â*Â* Quadro Series (Notebooks)
Â*Â*Â* Quadro 1000M
Â*Â*Â* Windows 10 64-bit
Â*Â*Â* Optimal Driver Enterprise
Â*Â*Â* English

Â*Â*Â* http://www.nvidia.com/download/drive...x/104400/en-us

Â*Â*Â* Version:Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* R361 U5 (362.77)Â* WHQL
Â*Â*Â* Release Date:Â* 2016.6.15

Since that's an old driver, my guess is the GPU has gone
out of support. It means there is *some* driver for Win10 (good)
but you won't be able to get the new "GPU utilization" graph
on Task Manager shown in the latest Win10 OS Upgrade (16299).

My purpose in mentioning this, is to show how Microsoft
"gradually shades out" the old hardware when it comes to features.
I have no hardware in the house, that can show Win10 GPU usage
in Task Manager.

As for the chipset...

First link gets us a datasheet link.

https://ark.intel.com/products/52813...xpress-Chipset

This link, page 2 shows a block diagram. CPU has GPU, QM67 drives the
graphics outputs.
When the Quadro 1000M is in the picture, Optimus can be used, to
cause frame buffers full of 1000M data, to be displayed on the
QM67 graphics ports. The 1000M doesn't drive the panel directly,
and the data is DMA transferred until it finally comes out of the
QM67 panel bus.

https://www.intel.com/content/dam/ww...form-brief.pdf


Again, we wouldn't care except when Optimus driver quality
sucks, or when using BumbleBee in Linux (the optimus driver
they've got) has a problem. While these "dual GPU, small BIG"
designs are fun, it's the slightly bad driver quality that
****es people off.

*******

It's thick like a tank. That's what a worstation laptop
should look like. It probably won't flex like a
"Walmart Black Friday special". That's good.

https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2400124,00.asp

Â*Â* "The 15.6-inch widescreen display is no joke either,
Â*Â*Â* with 1,920-by-1,080 resolution, LED backlighting,
Â*Â*Â* and a matte finish. The backlighting could be just a
Â*Â*Â* bit brighter, but it still offered lively colors, deep blacks,
Â*Â*Â* and crisp details."

So we still don't know the panel type.

For some reason, this review shows different hardware inside ???

https://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/la...litebook-8560w

Still cannot find a declaration of panel type. But...

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Review...k.67994.0.html


Â*Â* "The viewing angles are better than in most laptops. Even
Â*Â*Â* larger deviations from the sides and from above at an angle don't
Â*Â*Â* lead to a change in the picture. There's only a bit of room for
Â*Â*Â* improvement from an oblique perspective."

That means it's not conventional TN, which suffers quite
a bit from color shift. It might even be usable.

At $300, it's a bare pass in terms of "future compliance"
and should have no problems as a web surfer. As long as
you remember it's from the year 2011, you'll be OK.

The SATA ports will be SATA II, so if you bench the SSD
with HDTune, it'll read ~220MB/sec rather than ~450MB/sec
that a SATA III connection would have given. But that's
not what SSDs are for - it's the low latency which counts
and makes Win10 bear-able.

Â*Â* Paul


Paul,
that was an impressively rigorous analysis, thank you so much. I'll
recommend newer hardware.
Best Regards,
Mike
  #10  
Old December 2nd 17, 01:10 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware
John McGaw
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 732
Default friend needs new laptop, recommendations?

On 11/28/2017 7:42 PM, Mike S wrote:
My buddy needs a new laptop, his is over 6 yrs old, runs out of RAM and
slows down often, and crashes when more than 2GB RAM is installed! A
computer shop spent 2 hrs with him trying to install more RAM, then get it
working again when it crashed each time. Due to its age we think it's smart
to get a new computer and sort out the RAM issue later, or just use it as a
backup with enough s/w removed that it's still usable.

I found this - looks like a decent, affordable machine, to get him through
the next 5 yrs.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Dell-Insp...Drive/54906451


He doesn't do muchÂ* more than email (Outlook), browse the web, save tons of
pictures, and do a little Photoshop (CS2 or higher).

I've never bought anything at Walmart before, so I don't know if that is in
itself an issue, or if the machine itself is good. It looks like good speed
for the price, and I wanted to get one with enough RAM that it is not an
issue in future. Do I need to be concerned about buying h/w from Walmart?
And are there better deals in roughly this price range? Money is definitely
an issue.

TIA,
Mike


This any help?

https://www.consumerreports.org/lapt...r-500-or-less/
 




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