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Me too! In the past I've shied away from laptops because they're not enough iron for my needs (which aren't much to start with).
/ravi
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I have an (older) laptop now, but it is 8GB, i7 and I got it very cheap originally (only $799). I removed the old HDD and replaced with 500GB SSD and it still does very well.
The most intensive dev I do is Android Development with android Studio and associated Android Emulator running at the same time. The old laptop keeps up fairly well for all that. Mostly needs more ram.
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I have an old Dell laptop, eight years old, 17" screen, i7, 16GB, 500GB SSD and it runs like stink (that means really well and fast). The SSD and increasing the memory from 8GB to 16Gb made a *huge* difference. The battery is a bit worn down, only lasts 3 hours instead of 4.5 hours but I use it on mains power nearly all the time so it doesn't really matter. The screen is just now starting to show a bright patch at one corner occasionally.
No touch screen but the pointing stick and the touchpad work very well along with a standard old Dell mouse. Lots of USBs and supports three screens via the docking station.
It's eight years old but stands up well against my lenovo work lappy which still has only an i5 and a 250 SSD.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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Agreeing w/below, I have a Dell Precision M6500[^] laptop. It's part of a series that is described as a portable desktop - pretty accurate description
Bought refurbished for $400
17" screen, two HDD (can configure to raid 1 if you wish).
A real keyboard (! ! ! ! !) that feels great.
It's heavy and battery life is shortish - but when buying I considered that, for the most part, I and other laptop users keep it plugged in whilst working, anyway.
I did update the boot HDD to SSD. Came with Win7 Pro when I bought it and will stay that way.
Probably newer and faster version available - i7's versions are available.
A have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too solution.
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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I have a gaming laptop from MSI and it is quite capable. I do programming in CUDA and OpenGL and it handles those nicely.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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Get a tab with a "proper" keyboard - using the Win10 soft keyboard for coding is an exercise in frustration. If nothing else, you need the "full layout" for most of the coding symbols, and that takes nearly half the screen in landscape mode. This Type Cover isn't too bad at all: the keys are nice and large, and I'm typing with pretty high accuracy on it already, which is unusual for me.
VS2019 install is done now, and a quick test says "It works" - Hello World ran as a winforms app, but I don't have "serious" source on it yet so I can't test a real world app.
The VS Winforms designer doesn't work too well with touch, either - I had to use the touchpad to drag a button from the toolbox and "hold and drag" didn't work. There may be a setting buried there somewhere but you know what VS settings are like these days ...
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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There is just one USB port right (3.0)?
What about if you add a mouse, does that take up the USB port?
Or will a wireless mouse connect directly to the onboard bluetooth? I'm not sure how that works.
I'm sure a bluetooth keyboard will pair right? But can you do both mouse and keyboard on the onboard bluetooth? Thanks
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You could plug in a hub, or use one of those radio keyboard / mice adapters.
Not sure about dual device bluetooth - I've only one BT KB and it's paired with my Fire TV stick - but my general experience with BT is that it's generally flaky at best ...
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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OriginalGriff wrote: Not sure about dual device bluetooth - I've only one BT KB and it's paired with my Fire TV stick - but my general experience with BT is that it's generally flaky at best ...
Thanks, that's kind of what I thought.
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You just use a hub and the keyboard ( type cover as they call it ) that comes with it - I hate bluetooth
"We can't stop here - this is bat country" - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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Probably not - and it's still an expensive addon. I'd recommend it so far though.
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Beware poor battery life in old tablets...
The Beer Prayer - Our lager, which art in barrels, hallowed be thy drink. Thy will be drunk, I will be drunk, at home as it is in the tavern. Give us this day our foamy head, and forgive us our spillage as we forgive those who spill against us. And lead us not to incarceration, but deliver us from hangovers. For thine is the beer, the bitter and the lager, for ever and ever. Barmen.
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Mike Mullikin wrote: Beware poor battery life in old tablets...
Good to know. Thanks for giving the alert.
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Make sure it comes with the pen and type cover otherwise you will only have half the package
"We can't stop here - this is bat country" - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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Good to know. THanks.
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I love mine , the only trouble I've had is a dead charger ( which they're known for apparently ) in a totally different league to any tablet I've used
"We can't stop here - this is bat country" - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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It only looks good on the Surface 
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I agree!
I got a Surface Pro 4 on eBay for about $400 last year. I enjoy the Type Cover, too. The Surface Pen has been surprisingly useful - although it's not as fluid and nice to use as the Apple Pencil on an iPad Pro, the iPad + Pencil combo would've cost 3x what I paid for the Surface, so all things considered, I can't complain.
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It used to be I read a lot about people having all sorts of weird issues with Windows Update. I must've been lucky, because I rarely had any problem with them.
These days however...I can almost guarantee I'll always have at least one or two VMs that will encounter some problem. And not old systems that have been suffering through years of bit rot...right now, I'm looking at Server 2019, which I've installed when it came out, and have practically not used since. Relatively speaking, it's still in a pristine state.
The update history screen says KB4511553 (new from yesterday) failed with 0x8024001e. I figured I'd download the patch as a standalone file, rather than update directly through WU (which has typically been working fine as a workaround for me). That installer insists the update is already there...
And these cumulative updates can't be uninstalled.
I can wait until next month (as mentioned, I hardly use that VM) and hope for the best...but I'm tempted just to restore from my latest backup (nothing new's been added to it since the backup was made) and retry...
TL;DR version: As far as I'm concerned, it's no myth that MS's quality control has gone downhill over the last few years. And I'm being polite about it.
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dandy72 wrote: it's no myth that MS's quality control has gone downhill over the last few years
Hmmm, maybe that has something to do with my current dilemma...VS 2019 completely frozen. I even left it for a half hour to see if it would 'come back'. Nope. For the record, in 20 years, I've never had VS.Net crash or become totally unresponsive.
My cohort has been pushing me to use new widgets which pushes me off of my very favorite and fast IDE of choice, VS 2010. VS 2015 and 2017 are much slower to start. VS 2019 seemed to be a bit better, until now...Time to fire up task manager and kill it. Thankfully, I'm not losing any work. 
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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dandy72 wrote: TL;DR version: As far as I'm concerned, it's no myth that MS's quality control has gone downhill over the last few years. And I'm being polite about it.
Message Signature
(Click to edit ->)
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Patching, and automated/scheduled patching in particular, is an admission of ineptitude.
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By that measure, Android must be near-perfect, because none of my 4 Android-based tablets ever got an OS or security update. Except for one, which was upgraded from 4.1 to 4.2, I believe.
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That's Russian security. If you don't admit it it doesn't exist.
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