Hunting for a new 2-in-1 for my daughter's birthday in about 10 days...

[Deleted member 13524]

So now I'm looking at this Lenovo Flex 4 14", i3 6100U, 14" 1920x1080 IPS with multitouch, 4GB, a gigabyte lan, backlit keyboard.

Although it's very large and heavy for tablet use, the specs seem okay.

It's better to double-check on the drive accessibility if you're thinking of changing it, though. It's probably carrying a standard 2.5" drive, but some of these thin notebooks put the drives on the top side of the motherboard, below the keyboard, so they're inaccessible unless you void the warranty by taking off the screen, then the keyboard, etc.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Apparently you have to basically take it apart to get at the HDD, then Lenovo has a whitelist so only certain SSDs work with them.

Damn it, I'm caught between the daughter who wants more features/better quality and my wife who wants to go to Florida next week and wants it cheap. My daughter doesn't really want it for a tablet, just so she's not worried about breaking the hinge and can have a few more options, but I'm now adamant that it has to be IPS 1920x1080. The NIC is optional since there are plenty of cheap USB dongles that can be NICs, but it has to have "real" USB ports on it at least.

I'm gonna have another f-ing long day of looking at laptops. <sigh>

 

[AlNom]

What about this: https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-Flex-...&qid=1481303239&sr=1-2&keywords=lenovo+flex+4

 

[digitalwanderer]

What about this: https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-Flex-...&qid=1481303239&sr=1-2&keywords=lenovo+flex+4

I just removed that from my cart because it's just out of my price range. $450 is pushing it right now, $600 is out of the question.

I was looking at this one:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M18WT58/

 

[Davros]

so only certain SSDs work with them

Why would only certain ssd's work ?
is it not sata, I was going to put a ssd in my laptop only to discover the hdd is 1.8 inch zif

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Why would only certain ssd's work ?

Maybe because of drive thickness.
The real ordeal is having to take apart the whole thing and most probably losing warranty in the process, though.

@digitalwanderer did you explain your daughter that the Spectre bundles a USB-C to USB-A?
USB-C peripherals shouldn't be a problem, since that connector type is bound to replace both regular USB-A, mini-USB and micro-USB all at once.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Why would only certain ssd's work ?
is it not sata, I was going to put a ssd in my laptop only to discover the hdd is 1.8 inch zif

Manufacturer being a prick, there is a whitelist in the BIOS of "approved" HDDs and SSDs and if the drive you put in isn't one of those it won't work.

And no, they don't publish the whitelisted drives...you just gotta poke around on forums to see what works.

Maybe because of drive thickness.
The real ordeal is having to take apart the whole thing and most probably losing warranty in the process, though.

See above for the drive reason, the SSD I got her is an ultrathin one since her previous 2-in-1 needed a thin one.

@digitalwanderer did you explain your daughter that the Spectre bundles a USB-C to USB-A?
USB-C peripherals shouldn't be a problem, since that connector type is bound to replace both regular USB-A, mini-USB and micro-USB all at once.

Yeah, but she doesn't like the idea of having to have a dongle hanging off the side of her monitor that she has to hook up her devices to. She'll be using this in school so there's a lot of pulling it out and putting it away, and any extra steps/things suck apparently.

I feel trapped in hell for the last 20 hours. Between my daughter's reasonable requests (imho) to my wife's insistence on cheapness I am just going NUTS! If I find one that just barely fits the bill for my daughter at $450 my wife will say, "Couldn't you find one just a LITTLE bit cheaper?". I've wanted to scream FUCK NO for the last 16 hours so bad, there is just a price line you can't get under and get what you want new. (I don't want to go open box or refurb, I've been burned before)

 

[AlNom]

I don't suppose there's some really really really short USB-C to A adapter that is basically attachable to the USB-A device

 

[digitalwanderer]

I'm not sure. She's a bit nervous about any of the ultra-thin ones just because they tend to break easier, she almost prefers the bulk of a thicker one plus it does give her a lot more compatibility options. (She uses a Wacom pen/pad pretty regularly for art so she needs something she can plug that in to easily...the big reason I was hoping for a decent 2-in-1 with a pressure sensitive stylus. )

Some good news, my wife just booked a trip to Florida next week from Tues-Fri! That should give me a bit of guilt leverage to get her at least something decent. (Like the last two I listed, probably the $450-500 range...but no more)

I can't decide if I want to melt my brainballs more looking at laptops, or say fuck it for a while and play hooky and finally game a bit with this monster of a viddy card I got since my wife left for work and my daughter is sleeping. Decisions, decisions.

 

[Pixel]

Can I suggest a forum wide announcement for this? The more members who are altered about this thread the more will come and help (even if its a 9:1 attach ratio). Only 3 days left. Only 6 members have contributed.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Nah, it's all good. Her BD isn't until the 17th, and I don't have to make a firm decision until Sunday I'm pretty sure.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Ok, I just found this one on TechDeals. an Ideapad Mix 700 for $525?!?

It has a core M5-6y54, 8gb, 256ssd, 12" IPS 2160x1440 display that is compatible with a 2056 pressure sensitive stylus that can be gotten with the laptop for an additional $25us. It also has two regular sized USB ports, what is it missing besides being a bit too expensive?!?

 

[orangpelupa]

It's made by Lenovo

 

[digitalwanderer]

Ok, let's pretend I suck with laptops since I prefer desktops and I know very very little about the various manufacturers...why does Lenovo suck? (Honestly curious, I really don't know)

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Lenovo had some problems with using draconian software pre-installed, about a year ago. They're mostly fine now, imo, but you know the saying "fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice".. Some people now refuse to purchase anything Lenovo.


It's not a bad choice hardware wise but I'd never choose it because it has a single audio speaker, so it's a no no for any kind of media consumption without headphones.

At $525 you're already on the same segment as the Acer Switch Alpha 12, which imo is a substantially better product, imo only bested by the Surface Pro 4.

 

[digitalwanderer]

The Acer Switch Alpha only has USB type C on it so that disqualifies it for my daughter, and she always uses headphones with her laptop so the single-speaker is no problem. The draconian pre-installed software I can probably deal with, I'm used to unbloating new laptops, but is Lenovo quality/support ok?

 

[orangpelupa]

The Acer Switch Alpha only has USB type C on it so that disqualifies it for my daughter, and she always uses headphones with her laptop so the single-speaker is no problem. The draconian pre-installed software I can probably deal with, I'm used to unbloating new laptops, but is Lenovo quality/support ok?

In Indonesia, Lenovo quality consistency, durability, and support is spotty.

Still miles better than Sony Vaio tho. Asus is light years better than both of them at customer support.

But you live in a country with good consumer protection right?

 

[Pixel]

The Acer Switch Alpha only has USB type C on it so that disqualifies it for my daughter, and she always uses headphones with her laptop so the single-speaker is no problem. The draconian pre-installed software I can probably deal with, I'm used to unbloating new laptops, but is Lenovo quality/support ok?

A few years ago there was a consumer report study on Lenovo, HP, Dell, Toshiba etc laptop failure rates and they put every brand of PC on the same failure defect rate of a few percentage points iirc 2-3%. From a certain standpoint I can see this. They are all manufactured at Foxconn. I would assume motherboard components and all the other circuitry is pretty standard.

But then I wonder in the era of declining print/magazine revenue if they are reliable and haven't been money hatted. I say this because there was the nvidia Mobile gpu lineup soldering issues and some older studies showing that a few years ago Seagate had some pretty bad failure rates on some of their hdds. That and Consumer reports would literally lie about Apple performance giving their performance 5/5 even though in they had inferior i3/i5 cpus and integrated graphics vs IN THE VERY SAME ISSUE a dell/hp/lenovo which had a faster more powerful i3/i5 and a few had dedicated gpu yet none of them would get 5/5 like apple. Then at the end they had a nice grid table for easy comparison. Sure a techie might know this is blatantly wrong but not grandma. Back in 2006 when print was declining PC Gamer which historically had been pretty good caved on its integrity when it was moneyhatted by Nvidia, and gave the GTX 280 its highest review ever 98%, when most online reviews said ignore this overpriced hardware and go for AMDs flagship instead.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Pretty decent consumer protection, so yeah. Shouldn't be too bad, and I'm pretty good with dealing with support people.

I could believe that failure rate study, I was just curious if there was something particularly odorous about Lenovo but it doesn't seem so.

One more thing that makes me think this is the one is that it's only available in gold which is the one thing I wasn't too wild about, except this is my daughter's 17th birthday on the 17th so it's her golden birthday so I might just be able to wheedle my wife in to this one.

 

[orangpelupa]

@Pixel @digitalwanderer Asus is an exception. They made their products themselves, at least the mainboard, etc. Heck, they also made PS3 mainboard.

In my country they also one of the weirdest: you are allowed to bring back home the product in service while waiting for the spare parts to come.

While other companies (I have experience with Sony, Lenovo, Acer, FSP, Biostar, etc i forgot) will hold your device hostage for 1-3 months.

Asus also doesn't blame the user for anything. They easily accept your complaints (Samsung and LG also good in this).

Heck, on the fifth month, I simply go to them and asks for a new battery. BAM, I got one. On the 11th month I asked for a new LCD screen, bam! They give me one with no hassle. On the 23th month, 1 day before the warranty expires, I ask them to completely clean my laptop. They did it without hassle.

Asus = 2 years warranty (1 years for low end models) including spare parts except battery (6 months).

Now I'm sounding like an Asus fan boy lol