csdio

@RojiK, @Kon-Tiki Thank you both for the feedback! I was getting hopeless, it is so annoying that SSD manufacturers can't be bothered to include a couple of <$1 parts that would make the product "complete"...

Hello, I have bought a new M2 SSD and as it is a common problem I am missing the screw and standoff (not pre-installed on motherboard, nowhere to be found in packaging). I live in Greece and needless to say there are absolutely no options to buy from eg amazon in my country, and even if it was possible it would cost a fortune for shipping. So, after hours of searching locally and on internet shops in my country, I found an online store selling an M2 standoff: I'm not too knowledgeable with electronics in general, and what I'm worried about is if the electrical conductivity of brass and nickel matters for this specific usage. Every M2 ssd standoff/screw I see on big retailers like amazon targeted specifically to SSD installation are stainless steel which makes sense, so I thought I'd ask before making such a purchase to avoid doing something stupid that would short my Motherboard and/or SSD. So, does the material of the standoff and the screw actually matter? And if it does, are there any suggested alternative ways I could install the SSD without having to worry too much about damaging it given that the absolute letdown of a country I live in doesn't really offer many tooling and part options? Thanks in advance.

Thanks for the feedback! Even if Dells (eg XPS 13) was not out of my budget (in Greece they start from 1300€), I wouldn't really pay that for a laptop with a cam constantly featuring my chin Don't get me wrong, I've read way too many good reviews about Dell's XPS series to be a fan, still I would recommend the latest models to noone! I'm not saying I use the camera that often, but if I'm going to use it, I'll probably be using it for meetings, interviews etc, and the end results I've seen make Dell look bad for such a terrible design anyway (seriously, who thought this was a good idea? ). From GeneXiS_X's suggestion above, I'm currently looking into the reviews on Notebookcheck, and I'm leaning towards the Lenovo Yoga. Even though I'm still considering the other options as well. As for TB3 eGPUs, I just would like to have the option/possibility of doing that in the future. In my opinion (not being a gamer) an actual dedicated GPU pre-installed would be absolutely worthless for my use-cases and I would still have to pay for it in both money and probably battery life as well. As stated in OP, I am currently learning ML using mainly free online resources for GPU acceleration which has been more than enough for now. If/When those stop being enough for my needs, I'll have to review my options (eg Cloud Providers) and it would be nice to have TB3 as a +1 option when that time comes.

That is one amazing source of information! Thanks a lot!

Thanks for your suggestions! Does the fact that RAM is soldered also mean that it runs in single channel mode?

Yes, I'm fine with low sRGB, as long as it is towards the mediocre rather than awful level. Good luck with your exams!

Are there no recommendations meeting my needs? What about the options I've referred to, are they any good?

Weird... ? Are you referring to stable branch?

I second Manjaro! It has rapidly raised in popularity over the last couple of years and it's community has grown with it. For me ubuntu always felt outdated, and having "updates" was a joke (mostly security updates, you're stuck to old versions of everything, your best bet to get actually new features is ~once a year and that required pretty much a re-installation of the system). Manjaro is a Leading Edge rolling release distribution, feels WAY MORE fresh and brings in many nice-to-haves of the Arch family, while improving stability and making everything way simpler from installation to package management, to kernel management. I'm not saying it is an install and forget scenario... you might have to mess around with configs etc from time to time, but this helps you understand your system way better. Also, since it is closely related to Arch, almost all (if not exactly all) information of the AMAZING Arch wiki is applicable, so expect to be able to solve any issues if you can search, read and follow directions And for anything that might be an exception to the above, the Manjaro community is (in my personal opinion) way more friendly and willing to help than Arch, where (I don't blame them, that's their target group and their "vision"(?) ) you are expected to have gone through the entire Arch wiki before even thinking of making a question . In my entire 3 years of experience with Manjaro, I have only had an issue once and was able to resolve it with a live usb and a search of "Manjaro <error_message>". Overall experience has always felt nicer than Ubuntu, which has for long been the de facto go-to for new Linux users.

Preferred weight as close to 1kg as possible. I'd say no more than 1.4kg for sure, light weight is of high importance! As far as the screen is not awful I'm ok with it.

Just adding the following as an alternative idea I had, which I'm not really able to evaluate (never done it before, not sure if it's a valid option). So, I've also though of buying a very cheap (for comparison I estimate this arround 300€) very lightweight laptop instead (those usually come with Celerons, 32-64GB SSDs or eMMC and 4-6GB RAM) and setting up an ssh on my Desktop so that I can do my heavy tasks there. I really have NO IDEA though how those perform (eg lagging on simple tasks other than browsing or any other issues I haven't thought of). Plus I'd be highly Internet-Dependent which I'm not sure I like. The benefit of this being I could invest the saved amount of money on upgrading my main machine sooner. Any thoughts on this scenario? Anyone tried it before?

I think 4GB is out of date, 8GB should be enough. Shouldn't it? I've got 16 on my Desktop and almost never seem to be using more than half.

Hi all, I currently have an old Lenovo laptop (6yo) (i3-3110M, 4GB RAM, 1TB HDD) which has been a pain functionally (~2h of battery, lags, slow boots, problematic WiFi! ...) and for my back (2.5kg / 5.5 lbs). I was thinking about getting a new one. My OS choice is Linux, so regardless of pre-installed OS it's going to be formatted first thing once bought. I do not have a strictly set budget, but I would like it to be on budget (maybe 1000 max?). I'm still thinking if it's worth paying for much so I'm open to all kinds of suggestions as long as they are VFM... I also have a Desktop PC which is my main machine and might be upgraded as well in a couple of years. Use-cases are mainly: Studying / Programming It's VERY important to me that the laptop is lightweight, as close to 1kg as possible. The laptop MUST have an SSD 250GB+ I would prefer integrated graphics + optionally external GPU support would be nice (I'm not a gamer, for now I'm learning ML but currently using online resources) I'm open to both Intel and AMD ( i5+ / Ryzen5+ ) The longer the battery the better... It would be amazing if I could carry around the laptop without the charger (eg 6h-8h + ) I'm from Greece, here is a list of shops: https://www.skroutz.gr/c/25/laptop.html ( A search engine of online shops, compiles products from different sources and lists shops availability by price ) https://www.public.gr/cat/computers-and-software/laptops/ ( tech physical store ) https://www.plaisio.gr/desktop-laptop/laptops/all-laptops.htm ( tech physical store ) https://www.kotsovolos.gr/site/computing/laptop-tablet-ipad/notebook-macbook-ultrabook ( tech physical store ) First one that caught my eye was this one: https://www.skroutz.gr/s/16071585/Lenovo-IdeaPad-530S-14ARR-2500U-8GB-256GB-FHD-W10.html#specs However I've read that there might be issues with throttling + the RAM is single channel. I've also noticed some Zenbooks that look nice: https://www.skroutz.gr/s/16271184/Asus-ZenBook-S-UX391UA-EG020T-i5-8250U-8GB-256GB-FHD-W10.html#specs https://www.skroutz.gr/s/14211898/Asus-ZenBook-UX430UA-GV415T-i7-8550U-8GB-256GB-FHD-W10.html#specs Any help and feedback would be highly appreciated! Thanks in advance!