My ancient hand-me-down laptop appears to be on it's last legs and I have not payed much attention to computer hardware in years. Any particular brands/models of entry/mid-range laptops to avoid or gravitate towards?
My ancient hand-me-down laptop appears to be on it's last legs and I have not payed much attention to computer hardware in years. Any particular brands/models of entry/mid-range laptops to avoid or gravitate towards?
Depends on what you do. My guidelines usually are, don’t spend less than $600 on a laptop no matter what, and newest generation of cpu for the given budget is best. While it may not be a thing anymore, I’d still make sure the machine has an SSD and at least 16GB of memory.
Yes! That is what I’m running, their business stuff is not pretty but it’s made to deal with a lot of travel. Other alternative would be Thinkpad (NOT IdeaPad), but in my experience they cost more. Another benefit of business grade laptops from not Apple is that they typically have user replaceable components. So if you can’t afford/don’t want to spend more for 16GB RAM or bigger SSD you can do those laterDell Latitude 5400 ($760): I asked someone who does computer maintenance for a living and he recommended a business-class laptop from Dell
My work laptop is a Precision 7520 and it's been pretty bad. Motherboard replaced under warranty and the service tech installed a fresh copy of Windows to the HDD, which I did not even know was present because I had been booting from an SSD. Luckily resolved by changing the boot order and now I unlocked a bunch of storage space I guess. The ongoing issue is the fan pulses instead of spinning consistently, always has a CPU fan error at boot. Co-worker has the exact same problem.Yes! That is what I’m running, their business stuff is not pretty but it’s made to deal with a lot of travel. Other alternative would be Thinkpad (NOT IdeaPad), but in my experience they cost more. Another benefit of business grade laptops from not Apple is that they typically have user replaceable components. So if you can’t afford/don’t want to spend more for 16GB RAM or bigger SSD you can do those later
Anything ultraportable is not likely to have user serviceable components, keep that in mind.
I had a previous model at previous job and it was starting to develop fan issues. I think with Precisions they tried to copy Apple too much and stuffed too much shit into too small a package, it doesn't work for Apple either...My work laptop is a Precision 7520 and it's been pretty bad. Motherboard replaced under warranty and the service tech installed a fresh copy of Windows to the HDD, which I did not even know was present because I had been booting from an SSD. Luckily resolved by changing the boot order and now I unlocked a bunch of storage space I guess. The ongoing issue is the fan pulses instead of spinning consistently, always has a CPU fan error at boot. Co-worker has the exact same problem.
Swap it for a noctua![]()
Well, in the case of SFF PCs it's a matter of balancing speed and silence. If they stuffed an 80-100mm fan in there there's only so much you can do between the point where your computer will thermal throttle and where you will be able to notice the fan ramping up.
Swap it for a noctua![]()
My 13” MacBook Pro is faster and doesn’t make noise unless I actually put some load on the thing. The PC starts whirring randomly with only outlook and a dozen browser tabs open.
My 13” MacBook Pro is faster and doesn’t make noise unless I actually put some load on the thing. The PC starts whirring randomly with only outlook and a dozen browser tabs open.
Yeah, one of the reasons why MBPs desolder their own shitMBPs (and Apple products in general) have generally preferred a lower fan curve which emphasizes silent operation over cooling performance. This is based on the reasonable assumption that people will generally do things which load the CPU in bursts rather than continuously. When they don't, the fan ramps up. The CPU will likely throttle to minimize heat output anyway as well. I am guessing the fujitsu is less generous and has an inferior cooling solution anyway.
I bet they know very little about what makes a PC work, and went for the cheapest good looking box that was small.
Fujitsu, a major (well) PC maker, wouldn't know "what makes a PC work"? And the box is their own design, of course.
I guess it's just a shit computer.