[UPDATE: Ordered WM2, see post 20240305 0032Z] Should I replace 8yo 15.6" Clevo laptop (6700K,64G,12T,970M,1080p) w/GPD Win Max 2 (7/8840U,64G,2/4T)?

[PianoPlayer88Key]

Spillover from edited title: It's closest I find to my need, in budget.

 

 Hi ...

 

I'm looking at replacing a Clevo P750DM-G laptop (15.6" 1080p, 6700K, 64GB, 12TB, 970M 6GB) with a GPD Win Max 2 (7/8840U, 64GB, 2/4TB).  The Clevo's battery dies in a few minutes, it's unwieldy to carry around, and pretty slow. Also I want to be able to have internet when away from WiFi (& not limited to 50-100GB/mo hotspot allotment), desktop apps, virtualization I can't do on my Pixel 6a and other things. (Gaming isn't important, I might play older/casual titles sometimes though.)

 

I'm thinking of ordering the WM2 (when in stock, currently on backorder) from GPDstore.net or Droix Global, should I?  I'd be keeping it until at least early-mid 2030s. (What I really need doesn't yet exist, and when it does my needs may be more, but that WM2 is the closest compromise I find.)

 

Okay this lacks detail (want whole post to fit on my phone screen, otherwise my posts tend to be WAY too long, wish I could fit entire post just in title), so I put the rest in spoilers below.

Spoiler

Previous title: [Laptops] Want to replace 8 year old Clevo desktop replacement laptop with something much smaller, considering GPD Win Mini or Max 2 (7840U+64GB+2TB)

 

Okay so I've had this topic sitting in test posts for about 2½ months now, thinking about things, researching a bit more ... and I need to figure out what to do here.  I'll have a very condensed post here, with a LOT more details in spoilers at the end.

 

Anyway, I'm wanting to replace my Clevo P750DM-G laptop (i7-6700K, 64GB RAM (have used as much as 308GB pagefile on top of that), 12TB in 4 SSDs, GTX 970M 6GB, 1080p 15.6", battery life in minutes) with something a lot easier to carry around with me.

 

I'm looking at the GPD Win Max 2 (7840U, 64GB RAM, 2TB SSD), and I hear rumblings about an 8840U coming soon, and saw a vendor mentioning a 4TB SSD but no option to buy it.  I also considered the Win Mini, but I think the keyboard would be a bit small.  (I guess I'll just have to spend the $50-60/pair on the Carhartt cargo pants (with a big enough pocket for the WM2) I saw at a local sporting goods store.)

 

There's also a 4G LTE addon available, but I saw a lot of complaints about it.  I'd like to be able to use the internet when I'm away from WiFi without having a 50GB hotspot limit, and having full desktop interface and multitasking / virtualization you can do on a laptop and can't do on a phone.

 

I may want to stream from it in 4K with a few cameras and microphones plugged in. (Mostly I'd be stationary / plugged in, streaming playing an acoustic piano (like my Baldwin uprights), but could envision "roaming around" streaming situations and/or using my digital piano when I don't have access to an acoustic.)  I do have a Sabrent 7+3 port powered USB hub.

 

Also I'd like a way to bring my existing SSDs with me (maybe a USB enclosure) and a battery bank to be sure I have all day plus battery life.  Also I've been generally seeing good reviews on both the Win Max 2, and on Droix, so I think I'd have some confidence there.

 

I've been considering waiting until Q3 2025 to get one (hoping that something would come out in the size range of the GPD Win Max 2 or Mini with at least 40-48+ CPU threads, 384-512+GB RAM, 8-12+TB SSD for <$2.2K), but I'm getting tired of my current laptop's limits. I'm planning to not replace this until probably at least the early 2030s, and would be upset if the configuration I really want came out within a couple years.

 

I'm looking at buying from GPDstore.net or Droix Global, as I've heard good things about them and they have a 2 year warranty.  Should I order one as soon as the variant I want is in stock?

 

Next spoiler is from a previous (2½ months ago) short-but-not-short-enough draft:

Spoiler

I'm looking at replacing my 8 year old laptop hopefully fairly soon.  It's just way too big, way too little battery life, and while it was fairly high end when I originally got it, I have long since far exceeded its capabilities.

 

 

I adapted some combinations of questions from various forums that had "what laptop should I buy? fill out this form" sections, and will put my answers inside a spoiler a bit farther down, since that section is pretty long.   I'll post a few basic things here first...

 

My current laptop is a Clevo P750DM-G, same as the Sager NP9753, Eurocom Sky X4, Origin EON15-X, configured with an i7-6700K, 64GB DDR4-2133 (4x16GB), total of 12TB of SSDs (2TB & 4TB each M.2 NVMe & 2.5" SATA), GTX 970M 6GB, 1080p 60Hz display, 230W power brick, etc.  I've already replaced the battery once, and I recently tried powering it on with just battery and it died as it was getting to the Windows login screen.

I'll be doing a fair bit of multitasking, running virtual machines (with discord running in each, or possibly 1080p video encodes), among other things, and I'll want to be able to carry it with me.  

I realize that I probably won't find "the perfect" laptop for my needs.  (For example, I've seen my committed usage reach 370+ GB a couple times a few years ago, and I don't know of any laptop with enough RAM so that I wouldn't need pagefile at all.)

 

That said, I'm particularly eyeing the GPD Win Mini, specifically the 7840U + 64GB RAM + 2TB SSD variant, probably without the grips, as I want something that will fit in my pants pockets  I currently wear Wrangler relaxed flex 38x30 jeans or cargo pants, but I wonder if there might be some other pants with slightly bigger pockets that might fit the Win Max 2 in one pocket and a DSLR camera (or maybe a Panasonic LX10 if I also get one sometime, idk yet but that's off topic for this post, my Panasonic FZ1000 doesn't fit) in the other.  As I said, I'd also consider the WIn Max 2, main thing I want is portability, be able to carry it with me without having to wear a case all the time, etc.

 

My budget will allow for those GPD devices, and if I could find a better config, for example more RAM, more CPU cores and threads, etc, in the same physical size, I might be willing to consider going as high as what I paid for my current laptop's configuration (about $2200 or so, as upgraded).

 

I might be fairly flexible on when I buy - anytime between later this month and Q4 2025, but leaning toward no later than Q1 or early Q2 2024.  (I would prefer to order something like the GPD Win Mini when it's readily available, and not have to wait weeks or months for it to ship after ordering.)

I'm located in southern California, a bit east of San Diego (near the edge before it starts going from suburban to rural), about an hour and a half or so without traffic from the Tustin Micro Center, if that would influence where I buy from.  (I'd prefer to not do overseas shipping, like Ali Express.  A Reddit post I saw mentioned Droix and Indiegogo, or are there other options for GPD or similar devices?)

 

Should I consider going with one of those GPD devices, or is there something else I should look at instead? 

 

The Win 4 is kind-of the wrong form factor for me, and I need a physical keyboard.  Also having internet / cell data on the go (that's not limited by some hot spot plan) would be very nice.  (I'm currently with T-Mobile on my Pixel 6a phone.)

 

More details / form mentioned above in the 3rd spoiler:

 

Spoiler

 

 

1. What is your budget?

I’m thinking around $1000-1300 or so (price of top variant of GPD Win Mini / Max 2), but would be willing to consider up to about $2200 (what I paid for my current laptop config including upgrades), or would prefer as low as $300-550 (prices that netbooks were in the mid 2000s or smartphones in the early 2010s, I think) but don’t think I’ll find what I’m looking for in that range.

2. What (screen) size laptop do you prefer?

Netbook / handheld PC size, like around 7” screen but might consider 10” screen too.

3. What country do you live in / would be buying the laptop?

USA.  I’m about an hour and a half (or more with traffic) from the Tustin, CA Micro Center.

4. Any brands you prefer or don’t like?

No specific preferences now.  I had some ideas several years ago but things change and those preferences are likely obsolete now.  (If prompted, I could possibly answer some questions as to what I’m looking for in whether to buy from a particular brand.)

5. Would you consider a refurbished laptop?

No, I’d prefer new with a full warranty.  (And I don’t think what I”m looking for exists in a laptop that’s old enough to be refurbished anyway.)

6. What are some primary tasks you’ll be doing? (besides or in addition to games)

Oh boy, where do I start, or how do I condense it.  Basically everything that I’ve done with my current laptop, and then some.  I do a ton of multitasking, might have several (I anticipate upwards of 20 or 30 or maybe more) virtual machines running.  Each of them might have a discord app plus a few office apps or browser tabs open, or, some live video playing, while simultaneously encoding 1080p 60fps 6-8 mbps H.264 video.  

I could consider doing some of the multi video encodes on my existing desktop, but the way I want to do it doesn’t work at all.  (It has a Ryzen 5950X, 128GB DDR4-3600, GTX 1060 3GB, a 1TB NVMe boot SSD and several 8-18TB hard drives.)  I want to keep each audio/video source isolated for the video encodes, so was thinking of doing them in separate VMs since I don’t otherwise know how to keep different browser sources separated.  And, I’d like to be able to have a one-button kill-all, without killing everything else, so I was thinking of running those VMs nested inside another VM, which I could then kill if I wanted to without affecting everything else.  Problem is, just PLAYING video inside a nested VM in my desktop is like a few seconds per frame or something like that.

 

7. Will you be taking the laptop with you or leaving it on your desk?

I’ll be carrying it with me pretty much all the time, so it needs to be portable, that’s why I’m looking for a small one.  I want to be able to carry it hands free without having to carry a case, whether it be a sling type case or a backpack.  I currently wear Wrangler 38x30 relaxed flex pants, either the regular jeans / denim type, or cargo pants, so I’d want it to fit in one of the front pockets of those.  (I’d also be open to considering other pants with larger pockets if I could find them, but I won’t be putting it in a back pocket.)

 

8. Will you be playing games with the laptop? If so, what games or types of games, resolution, settings, fps is desired?

Gaming isn’t very important for this, so an iGPU would probably be fine.  If I do play games, it would mostly be older ones, like early 2000s and older, at lower resolutions and settings like 720p or 900p and 30 or 60 fps, as long as it’s locked at that fps and not jumping all over the place.  (A few example games include Team Fortress Classic, Total Annihilation, Commander Keen, Castle of the Winds, Sopwith 2, Alleycat, and others from that general era, mostly retro games.)

9. How much battery life do you need?

I’d like it to last all day if possible, with charge to spare. I mean, from very early in the morning before early shift workers (like managers at restaurants that serve breakfast) are rolling out of bed, until after bartenders have gotten home and settled into bed after bars close.  I’d be willing to consider supplementing a built-in battery with an external battery pack, like the same concept as the power banks I have for my phone.

 

10. Would you prefer to see the notebook first, or be willing to buy it online without handling it first?

I would prefer to see and try it first, but would be willing to buy one that’s not available locally.  (It would help if it has a good return policy that basically means if something doesn’t work out, I’d only be out time, not money, if I get one then return it.)

11. What operating system do you prefer?

I’d prefer WIndows 10, and would also be fine with Linux.  I dont’ really like WIndows 11 or any OS for PC that requires a cloud account, and Mac or Chrome OS wouldn’t work for me.

 

12. What ports do you need? (for example USB, headphone, display, etc)

I’d like at least a few USB ports (I do have a 7+3 port hub too), and a 3.5mm jack for sure.  As for display, those aren’t as important but if it does have something I’d want HDMI or DisplayPort.

13. What screen resolution do you prefer?

I’d like a minimum of 1920x1080.  I’d also consider 2560x1440, and might not reject 3840x2160, but, with the size laptop I’m looking for, 4K might be a little too high resolution.  I’ve been able to read text that’s like 0.5 to 0.8 mm tall, or see an individual pixel on a 538 ppi phone screen, but, I’m 42 and my eyes aren’t expected to get better as I age, so those days are probably numbered.

14. Do you prefer a glossy or a matte screen?

I’d prefer a matte, non-reflective screen.  I might be using the laptop outdoors a lot, and don’t want the direct sun to be glaring in my eyes off the screen.

15. Is looks or style important?

No, except I don’t want fancy RGB or gamer-like styles.

16. How much storage space do you need?

I already have 12 TB of SSDs in my current laptop, which I would like to be able to take with me and use with the new one.  (There’s two 2TB and 4TB SSDs, one each M.2 NVMe and 2.5” SATA.)  I don’t think any laptops the size I”m looking at exist with two 2.5” bays and two M.2-2280 slots, so I’d be fine with getting an external enclosure or a few that would let me use them.  (I’d just prefer that they be no slower with the external interface with the new laptop, than they were with the internal interface with the old laptop.)

17. How soon do you plan to buy the laptop?

It could be as soon as later this month (but I don’t really care about any Christmas rush), or as late as a couple weeks before TwitchCon 2025 or 2026, whichever is the next one I go to.  (I’m thinking of skipping 2024, as my experience at 2023 and 2022 weren’t the greatest, but still may want to go again sometime cause 2019, 2017 and 2016 were awesome for me, especially 2019.)  I’m leaning toward possibly Q1 2024, maybe spilling somewhat into Q2 2024.

18. How long do you want to keep the laptop?

I’d like to keep it longer than I’ve had my current laptop (since late 2015), so more than 8 years.  I had been planning to wait to replace my laptop until DDR6 was widely available, but that’s not happening.  Maybe this one could last me until DDR7 or DDR8 RAM is out?

19. How long could you do without the laptop if it failed?

It depends on where I am and what’s going on when it fails.  If it’s at home (or I’m just out on the town during a normal day), I could just use my phone or desktop PC for some things, and wait a while to have it repaired.  But, if I’m at some event (whether it’s across town, or out of town or out of state), I’d  need something working within a few hours or so, with my data, apps, settings, open tabs, etc.

20. Would you be willing to pay extra for on-site warranty?

I’d prefer something that’s good enough quality so I don’t have to worry about that, or something that’s easily repairable.  If I had to though, I don’t ant to spend more than about 5% the total cost of the laptop or something like that.

21. What stores would you consider buying the laptop from?

I’d prefer established / well known stores, like Amazon, Newegg, Micro Center, Best Buy, Adorama, B&H, and would be willing to consider others if I knew more about them, heard consistent good reports on their reputation, etc.  (For example i’ve seen antonline mentioned various places but know pretty much nothing about them, and there might be others.)

 

22. Do you need an optical drive?

No, I rarely use them anymore.  If needed, I have an external ASUS DVD Writer I could plug in.

23. Do you prefer any particular form factor, for example 2-in-1?

I’m mostly looking at standard landscape clamshell laptops, but would also be willing to consider a 2-in-1 or detachable device.  (Come on now, why is a King Missile song from 1992 coming to mind….)

24. How / would you prioritize things like build quality, performance, battery life?

I’d prefer a balance of all 3, and don’t want anything to suck but would prefer them be fairly good all around.  I can be El Klutz-o, so I don’t want something that readily breaks.

 

25. Do you need certain other features, like touch screen, fingerprint reader, good keyboard / touchpad, color, webcam, speakers, etc?

Most of those aren’t necessary, but what it does have, I want it to be good quality and reliable.  (I suppose a touch screen would be nice, and I’d prefer the touchpad have very good palm rejection, or be behind the keyboard.)  A webcam would be nice, 720p 30fps or 1080p 60fps would be good enough.  Hopefully the speakers, if it has any, don’t suck too much.  For color, black is preferred but I’d maybe consider other dark colors like blue, green or a few others.  

I’m fine with a smaller than normal keyboard, would like to be able to reach all the way across it with my four fingers not including the thumb.  I can reach Win+L with the 2nd and 5th finger on the same hand with some stretch, or almost L-Shift+Backspace with thumb + 5th finger on my desktop’s Logitech K270 (but I mash a few keys in between on that one).  If I could reach R-Ctrl+Esc or L-Ctrl+F12 with the 4 finger span, that might be nice, as long as i’m not mashing keys in between.  (Back in the late 1990s to early / mid 2000s, I had a TI-92 Plus graphing calculator, and could type well enough on that.  Actually still have it but don’t use it hardly at all anymore.)

Also a numpad would be nice, and I’d be fine with an external one since laptops as small as what I’m looking at don’t have one built in.

26. What are some other specs you’re looking at, for example CPU, RAM, or other specs?

I’d like at least a Ryzen 7840U and 64GB RAM at minimum, but would prefer enough cores, threads and RAM for the extensive 20 or 30 or more virtual machine multitasking I mentioned earlier.  Also I’ve had a couple occasions with my current laptop where I blew way past its 64GB RAM, and counting the pagefile, had 370+ GB RAM committed.  If I could avoid using pagefile completely that would be really nice.
I’ve been thinking recently, I’d like something responsive enough so that once I’ve ever opened / loaded something once, whether it was 0.08 seconds or 8 decades ago, I could ever after recall that same resource right away - faster than my display’s refresh rate.  (Now what do do about the bottleneck that is my own memory, remembering WHAT I want to re-open or alt+tab to )

 

27. Any additional info you want to share?

I’m honestly doubtful that anything on the market today will come all that close to meeting my needs.  I’ve been eyeing the GPD Win Mini, specifically the 7840U, 64GB RAM, 2TB SSD variant, or if it’s not too big, might consider the Win Max 2 with the same specs.  I’d like to know if there’s something better that’s either available, or coming soon (and I’d be willing to wait as late as 2025 or 2026 if there’s a huge improvement coming, for example a GPD Win Mini with a 40-48+ thread CPU, half a TB of RAM, workstation-level GPU, etc), or should I just go ahead and buy something like the current Win Mini or Max 2?  (I’d prefer to buy one when it’s actually available, looks like for now it’s a bit too early to put in an order for the Win Mini yet.)

 

 

[tkitch]

for mobile internet, you'd need to pay for a separate data line for your handheld, you know that right? 

[da na]

Would be much cheaper to replace the Clevo's battery and install SSDs if it doesn't already have them. A 6700K shouldn't be "slow".

[jaslion]

The gpd win isnt super strong. It being in a pocket isnt a ideal case and it would be much better off in a backpack as it is a thin and light device really.

 

For 4g data modems you can easily try it with a sim 4g/lte usb stick. If it triggers usage then in the win it will too

[BahnStormer]

If it wasn't for the fact that the laptop seems to be too big and bulky for you, I would have said that a light refresh would be better.

 

I was in a similar position to you as I wanted to keep one of my laptops relevant for light usage, except it was an i7-3520M (Lenovo X200) - I put a SSD, 16Gb RAM and a new battery and it still runs perfectly! That said it's a very reasonably slim and light laptop that had my desired form factor already.

[Agall]

36 minutes ago, da na said:

Would be much cheaper to replace the Clevo's battery and install SSDs if it doesn't already have them. A 6700K shouldn't be "slow".

6700K just doesn't hold up in 2024, even to a lower power CPU. 

 

42 minutes ago, PianoPlayer88Key said:

 Hi ...

 

I'm looking at replacing a Clevo P750DM-G laptop (15.6" 1080p, 6700K, 64GB, 12TB, 970M 6GB) with a GPD Win Max 2 (7/8840U, 64GB, 2/4TB).  The Clevo's battery dies in a few minutes, it's unwieldy to carry around, and pretty slow. Also I want to be able to have internet when away from WiFi (& not limited to 50-100GB/mo hotspot allotment), desktop apps, virtualization I can't do on my Pixel 6a and other things. (Gaming isn't important, I might play older/casual titles sometimes though.)

 

I'm thinking of ordering the WM2 (when in stock, currently on backorder) from GPDstore.net or Droix Global, should I?  I'd be keeping it until at least early-mid 2030s. (What I really need doesn't yet exist, and when it does my needs may be more, but that WM2 is the closest compromise I find.)

 

Okay this lacks detail (want whole post to fit on my phone screen, otherwise my posts tend to be WAY too long, wish I could fit entire post just in title), so I put the rest in spoilers below.

  Reveal hidden contents

Previous title: [Laptops] Want to replace 8 year old Clevo desktop replacement laptop with something much smaller, considering GPD Win Mini or Max 2 (7840U+64GB+2TB)

 

Okay so I've had this topic sitting in test posts for about 2½ months now, thinking about things, researching a bit more ... and I need to figure out what to do here.  I'll have a very condensed post here, with a LOT more details in spoilers at the end.

 

Anyway, I'm wanting to replace my Clevo P750DM-G laptop (i7-6700K, 64GB RAM (have used as much as 308GB pagefile on top of that), 12TB in 4 SSDs, GTX 970M 6GB, 1080p 15.6", battery life in minutes) with something a lot easier to carry around with me.

 

I'm looking at the GPD Win Max 2 (7840U, 64GB RAM, 2TB SSD), and I hear rumblings about an 8840U coming soon, and saw a vendor mentioning a 4TB SSD but no option to buy it.  I also considered the Win Mini, but I think the keyboard would be a bit small.  (I guess I'll just have to spend the $50-60/pair on the Carhartt cargo pants (with a big enough pocket for the WM2) I saw at a local sporting goods store.)

 

There's also a 4G LTE addon available, but I saw a lot of complaints about it.  I'd like to be able to use the internet when I'm away from WiFi without having a 50GB hotspot limit, and having full desktop interface and multitasking / virtualization you can do on a laptop and can't do on a phone.

 

I may want to stream from it in 4K with a few cameras and microphones plugged in. (Mostly I'd be stationary / plugged in, streaming playing an acoustic piano (like my Baldwin uprights), but could envision "roaming around" streaming situations and/or using my digital piano when I don't have access to an acoustic.)  I do have a Sabrent 7+3 port powered USB hub.

 

Also I'd like a way to bring my existing SSDs with me (maybe a USB enclosure) and a battery bank to be sure I have all day plus battery life.  Also I've been generally seeing good reviews on both the Win Max 2, and on Droix, so I think I'd have some confidence there.

 

I've been considering waiting until Q3 2025 to get one (hoping that something would come out in the size range of the GPD Win Max 2 or Mini with at least 40-48+ CPU threads, 384-512+GB RAM, 8-12+TB SSD for <$2.2K), but I'm getting tired of my current laptop's limits. I'm planning to not replace this until probably at least the early 2030s, and would be upset if the configuration I really want came out within a couple years.

 

I'm looking at buying from GPDstore.net or Droix Global, as I've heard good things about them and they have a 2 year warranty.  Should I order one as soon as the variant I want is in stock?

 

Next spoiler is from a previous (2½ months ago) short-but-not-short-enough draft:

  Reveal hidden contents

I'm looking at replacing my 8 year old laptop hopefully fairly soon.  It's just way too big, way too little battery life, and while it was fairly high end when I originally got it, I have long since far exceeded its capabilities.

 

 

I adapted some combinations of questions from various forums that had "what laptop should I buy? fill out this form" sections, and will put my answers inside a spoiler a bit farther down, since that section is pretty long.   I'll post a few basic things here first...

 

My current laptop is a Clevo P750DM-G, same as the Sager NP9753, Eurocom Sky X4, Origin EON15-X, configured with an i7-6700K, 64GB DDR4-2133 (4x16GB), total of 12TB of SSDs (2TB & 4TB each M.2 NVMe & 2.5" SATA), GTX 970M 6GB, 1080p 60Hz display, 230W power brick, etc.  I've already replaced the battery once, and I recently tried powering it on with just battery and it died as it was getting to the Windows login screen.

I'll be doing a fair bit of multitasking, running virtual machines (with discord running in each, or possibly 1080p video encodes), among other things, and I'll want to be able to carry it with me.  

I realize that I probably won't find "the perfect" laptop for my needs.  (For example, I've seen my committed usage reach 370+ GB a couple times a few years ago, and I don't know of any laptop with enough RAM so that I wouldn't need pagefile at all.)

 

That said, I'm particularly eyeing the GPD Win Mini, specifically the 7840U + 64GB RAM + 2TB SSD variant, probably without the grips, as I want something that will fit in my pants pockets  I currently wear Wrangler relaxed flex 38x30 jeans or cargo pants, but I wonder if there might be some other pants with slightly bigger pockets that might fit the Win Max 2 in one pocket and a DSLR camera (or maybe a Panasonic LX10 if I also get one sometime, idk yet but that's off topic for this post, my Panasonic FZ1000 doesn't fit) in the other.  As I said, I'd also consider the WIn Max 2, main thing I want is portability, be able to carry it with me without having to wear a case all the time, etc.

 

My budget will allow for those GPD devices, and if I could find a better config, for example more RAM, more CPU cores and threads, etc, in the same physical size, I might be willing to consider going as high as what I paid for my current laptop's configuration (about $2200 or so, as upgraded).

 

I might be fairly flexible on when I buy - anytime between later this month and Q4 2025, but leaning toward no later than Q1 or early Q2 2024.  (I would prefer to order something like the GPD Win Mini when it's readily available, and not have to wait weeks or months for it to ship after ordering.)

I'm located in southern California, a bit east of San Diego (near the edge before it starts going from suburban to rural), about an hour and a half or so without traffic from the Tustin Micro Center, if that would influence where I buy from.  (I'd prefer to not do overseas shipping, like Ali Express.  A Reddit post I saw mentioned Droix and Indiegogo, or are there other options for GPD or similar devices?)

 

Should I consider going with one of those GPD devices, or is there something else I should look at instead? 

 

The Win 4 is kind-of the wrong form factor for me, and I need a physical keyboard.  Also having internet / cell data on the go (that's not limited by some hot spot plan) would be very nice.  (I'm currently with T-Mobile on my Pixel 6a phone.)

 

More details / form mentioned above in the 3rd spoiler:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

1. What is your budget?

I’m thinking around $1000-1300 or so (price of top variant of GPD Win Mini / Max 2), but would be willing to consider up to about $2200 (what I paid for my current laptop config including upgrades), or would prefer as low as $300-550 (prices that netbooks were in the mid 2000s or smartphones in the early 2010s, I think) but don’t think I’ll find what I’m looking for in that range.

2. What (screen) size laptop do you prefer?

Netbook / handheld PC size, like around 7” screen but might consider 10” screen too.

3. What country do you live in / would be buying the laptop?

USA.  I’m about an hour and a half (or more with traffic) from the Tustin, CA Micro Center.

4. Any brands you prefer or don’t like?

No specific preferences now.  I had some ideas several years ago but things change and those preferences are likely obsolete now.  (If prompted, I could possibly answer some questions as to what I’m looking for in whether to buy from a particular brand.)

5. Would you consider a refurbished laptop?

No, I’d prefer new with a full warranty.  (And I don’t think what I”m looking for exists in a laptop that’s old enough to be refurbished anyway.)

6. What are some primary tasks you’ll be doing? (besides or in addition to games)

Oh boy, where do I start, or how do I condense it.  Basically everything that I’ve done with my current laptop, and then some.  I do a ton of multitasking, might have several (I anticipate upwards of 20 or 30 or maybe more) virtual machines running.  Each of them might have a discord app plus a few office apps or browser tabs open, or, some live video playing, while simultaneously encoding 1080p 60fps 6-8 mbps H.264 video.  

I could consider doing some of the multi video encodes on my existing desktop, but the way I want to do it doesn’t work at all.  (It has a Ryzen 5950X, 128GB DDR4-3600, GTX 1060 3GB, a 1TB NVMe boot SSD and several 8-18TB hard drives.)  I want to keep each audio/video source isolated for the video encodes, so was thinking of doing them in separate VMs since I don’t otherwise know how to keep different browser sources separated.  And, I’d like to be able to have a one-button kill-all, without killing everything else, so I was thinking of running those VMs nested inside another VM, which I could then kill if I wanted to without affecting everything else.  Problem is, just PLAYING video inside a nested VM in my desktop is like a few seconds per frame or something like that.

 

7. Will you be taking the laptop with you or leaving it on your desk?

I’ll be carrying it with me pretty much all the time, so it needs to be portable, that’s why I’m looking for a small one.  I want to be able to carry it hands free without having to carry a case, whether it be a sling type case or a backpack.  I currently wear Wrangler 38x30 relaxed flex pants, either the regular jeans / denim type, or cargo pants, so I’d want it to fit in one of the front pockets of those.  (I’d also be open to considering other pants with larger pockets if I could find them, but I won’t be putting it in a back pocket.)

 

8. Will you be playing games with the laptop? If so, what games or types of games, resolution, settings, fps is desired?

Gaming isn’t very important for this, so an iGPU would probably be fine.  If I do play games, it would mostly be older ones, like early 2000s and older, at lower resolutions and settings like 720p or 900p and 30 or 60 fps, as long as it’s locked at that fps and not jumping all over the place.  (A few example games include Team Fortress Classic, Total Annihilation, Commander Keen, Castle of the Winds, Sopwith 2, Alleycat, and others from that general era, mostly retro games.)

9. How much battery life do you need?

I’d like it to last all day if possible, with charge to spare. I mean, from very early in the morning before early shift workers (like managers at restaurants that serve breakfast) are rolling out of bed, until after bartenders have gotten home and settled into bed after bars close.  I’d be willing to consider supplementing a built-in battery with an external battery pack, like the same concept as the power banks I have for my phone.

 

10. Would you prefer to see the notebook first, or be willing to buy it online without handling it first?

I would prefer to see and try it first, but would be willing to buy one that’s not available locally.  (It would help if it has a good return policy that basically means if something doesn’t work out, I’d only be out time, not money, if I get one then return it.)

11. What operating system do you prefer?

I’d prefer WIndows 10, and would also be fine with Linux.  I dont’ really like WIndows 11 or any OS for PC that requires a cloud account, and Mac or Chrome OS wouldn’t work for me.

 

12. What ports do you need? (for example USB, headphone, display, etc)

I’d like at least a few USB ports (I do have a 7+3 port hub too), and a 3.5mm jack for sure.  As for display, those aren’t as important but if it does have something I’d want HDMI or DisplayPort.

13. What screen resolution do you prefer?

I’d like a minimum of 1920x1080.  I’d also consider 2560x1440, and might not reject 3840x2160, but, with the size laptop I’m looking for, 4K might be a little too high resolution.  I’ve been able to read text that’s like 0.5 to 0.8 mm tall, or see an individual pixel on a 538 ppi phone screen, but, I’m 42 and my eyes aren’t expected to get better as I age, so those days are probably numbered.

14. Do you prefer a glossy or a matte screen?

I’d prefer a matte, non-reflective screen.  I might be using the laptop outdoors a lot, and don’t want the direct sun to be glaring in my eyes off the screen.

15. Is looks or style important?

No, except I don’t want fancy RGB or gamer-like styles.

16. How much storage space do you need?

I already have 12 TB of SSDs in my current laptop, which I would like to be able to take with me and use with the new one.  (There’s two 2TB and 4TB SSDs, one each M.2 NVMe and 2.5” SATA.)  I don’t think any laptops the size I”m looking at exist with two 2.5” bays and two M.2-2280 slots, so I’d be fine with getting an external enclosure or a few that would let me use them.  (I’d just prefer that they be no slower with the external interface with the new laptop, than they were with the internal interface with the old laptop.)

17. How soon do you plan to buy the laptop?

It could be as soon as later this month (but I don’t really care about any Christmas rush), or as late as a couple weeks before TwitchCon 2025 or 2026, whichever is the next one I go to.  (I’m thinking of skipping 2024, as my experience at 2023 and 2022 weren’t the greatest, but still may want to go again sometime cause 2019, 2017 and 2016 were awesome for me, especially 2019.)  I’m leaning toward possibly Q1 2024, maybe spilling somewhat into Q2 2024.

18. How long do you want to keep the laptop?

I’d like to keep it longer than I’ve had my current laptop (since late 2015), so more than 8 years.  I had been planning to wait to replace my laptop until DDR6 was widely available, but that’s not happening.  Maybe this one could last me until DDR7 or DDR8 RAM is out?

19. How long could you do without the laptop if it failed?

It depends on where I am and what’s going on when it fails.  If it’s at home (or I’m just out on the town during a normal day), I could just use my phone or desktop PC for some things, and wait a while to have it repaired.  But, if I’m at some event (whether it’s across town, or out of town or out of state), I’d  need something working within a few hours or so, with my data, apps, settings, open tabs, etc.

20. Would you be willing to pay extra for on-site warranty?

I’d prefer something that’s good enough quality so I don’t have to worry about that, or something that’s easily repairable.  If I had to though, I don’t ant to spend more than about 5% the total cost of the laptop or something like that.

21. What stores would you consider buying the laptop from?

I’d prefer established / well known stores, like Amazon, Newegg, Micro Center, Best Buy, Adorama, B&H, and would be willing to consider others if I knew more about them, heard consistent good reports on their reputation, etc.  (For example i’ve seen antonline mentioned various places but know pretty much nothing about them, and there might be others.)

 

22. Do you need an optical drive?

No, I rarely use them anymore.  If needed, I have an external ASUS DVD Writer I could plug in.

23. Do you prefer any particular form factor, for example 2-in-1?

I’m mostly looking at standard landscape clamshell laptops, but would also be willing to consider a 2-in-1 or detachable device.  (Come on now, why is a King Missile song from 1992 coming to mind….)

24. How / would you prioritize things like build quality, performance, battery life?

I’d prefer a balance of all 3, and don’t want anything to suck but would prefer them be fairly good all around.  I can be El Klutz-o, so I don’t want something that readily breaks.

 

25. Do you need certain other features, like touch screen, fingerprint reader, good keyboard / touchpad, color, webcam, speakers, etc?

Most of those aren’t necessary, but what it does have, I want it to be good quality and reliable.  (I suppose a touch screen would be nice, and I’d prefer the touchpad have very good palm rejection, or be behind the keyboard.)  A webcam would be nice, 720p 30fps or 1080p 60fps would be good enough.  Hopefully the speakers, if it has any, don’t suck too much.  For color, black is preferred but I’d maybe consider other dark colors like blue, green or a few others.  

I’m fine with a smaller than normal keyboard, would like to be able to reach all the way across it with my four fingers not including the thumb.  I can reach Win+L with the 2nd and 5th finger on the same hand with some stretch, or almost L-Shift+Backspace with thumb + 5th finger on my desktop’s Logitech K270 (but I mash a few keys in between on that one).  If I could reach R-Ctrl+Esc or L-Ctrl+F12 with the 4 finger span, that might be nice, as long as i’m not mashing keys in between.  (Back in the late 1990s to early / mid 2000s, I had a TI-92 Plus graphing calculator, and could type well enough on that.  Actually still have it but don’t use it hardly at all anymore.)

Also a numpad would be nice, and I’d be fine with an external one since laptops as small as what I’m looking at don’t have one built in.

26. What are some other specs you’re looking at, for example CPU, RAM, or other specs?

I’d like at least a Ryzen 7840U and 64GB RAM at minimum, but would prefer enough cores, threads and RAM for the extensive 20 or 30 or more virtual machine multitasking I mentioned earlier.  Also I’ve had a couple occasions with my current laptop where I blew way past its 64GB RAM, and counting the pagefile, had 370+ GB RAM committed.  If I could avoid using pagefile completely that would be really nice.
I’ve been thinking recently, I’d like something responsive enough so that once I’ve ever opened / loaded something once, whether it was 0.08 seconds or 8 decades ago, I could ever after recall that same resource right away - faster than my display’s refresh rate.  (Now what do do about the bottleneck that is my own memory, remembering WHAT I want to re-open or alt+tab to )

 

27. Any additional info you want to share?

I’m honestly doubtful that anything on the market today will come all that close to meeting my needs.  I’ve been eyeing the GPD Win Mini, specifically the 7840U, 64GB RAM, 2TB SSD variant, or if it’s not too big, might consider the Win Max 2 with the same specs.  I’d like to know if there’s something better that’s either available, or coming soon (and I’d be willing to wait as late as 2025 or 2026 if there’s a huge improvement coming, for example a GPD Win Mini with a 40-48+ thread CPU, half a TB of RAM, workstation-level GPU, etc), or should I just go ahead and buy something like the current Win Mini or Max 2?  (I’d prefer to buy one when it’s actually available, looks like for now it’s a bit too early to put in an order for the Win Mini yet.)

 

 

If you get one of those GPD WM2, consider looking into occulink. I haven't tested it myself, but it seems to be a great alternative eGPU setup to thunderbolt. It should have far better latency characteristics to thunderbolt, which last I tested, had horrible overhead in the realm of 50ms. 

 

You could get that WM2 and any dGPU with a relatively inexpensive DIY occulink enclosure. Really depends on how much you're willing to spend on the dGPU.

[8tg]

9 minutes ago, Agall said:

6700K just doesn't hold up in 2024, even to a lower power CPU. 

Yeah but it’s not like it’s going to stop doing what it always did.

A 6700k and GTX 970m will do 1080p gaming of its era and newer no problem.

And general use is not even a concern with hardware like that.

It’s not reasonable to expect a system like that to play the current games in 1080p amazingly, but for anything else? Should be perfectly fine.

[Agall]

5 minutes ago, 8tg said:

Yeah but it’s not like it’s going to stop doing what it always did.

A 6700k and GTX 970m will do 1080p gaming of its era and newer no problem.

And general use is not even a concern with hardware like that.

It’s not reasonable to expect a system like that to play the current games in 1080p amazingly, but for anything else? Should be perfectly fine.

I'm well aware that it'll function to a standard that some might feel is acceptable, but ignorance is bliss.

 

6700k in a laptop is likely even worse than a desktop 4790k, those two CPUs not being far apart in performance and a desktop 4790k easily overclocking to 4.6GHz. Just because it can reach acceptable framerates, doesn't mean its a smooth or acceptable experience overall.

 

 

[8tg]

52 minutes ago, Agall said:

I'm well aware that it'll function to a standard that some might feel is acceptable, but ignorance is bliss.

I am currently posting to this thread from a 2ghz Pentium M, on a thinkpad from 2005, running windows XP

Spoiler

I think you may be vastly overestimating the type of hardware you need for anything other than games.

53 minutes ago, Agall said:

6700k in a laptop is likely even worse than a desktop 4790k

It is a desktop 6700k in that clevo, thats the point of that system, a laptop with socket 1151 in it. It performs better than a 4790k without question.

Not that it matters much because anything in the realm of quadcore hell that intel put out for years is all still equally usable for again, anything other than modern games for the most part.

A 6700k is going to have zero issues with video streaming, anything you can do in a web browser, most productivity software, office suites, media encoding or modifying tags, whatever the use case may be.

And its still a high end gaming laptop from 2015, so its still going to be playing games like GTA V, Rainbow Six Siege, The Witcher 3, RotTR, Fallout 4, etc the list goes on.

 

I think you may be a little bit confused by the jump of a 4790k to a 7950x3D "oh how did i ever live with this" mentality 

[Agall]

28 minutes ago, 8tg said:

I am currently posting to this thread from a 2ghz Pentium M, on a thinkpad from 2005, running windows XP

  Reveal hidden contents

I think you may be vastly overestimating the type of hardware you need for anything other than games.

It is a desktop 6700k in that clevo, thats the point of that system, a laptop with socket 1151 in it. It performs better than a 4790k without question.

Not that it matters much because anything in the realm of quadcore hell that intel put out for years is all still equally usable for again, anything other than modern games for the most part.

A 6700k is going to have zero issues with video streaming, anything you can do in a web browser, most productivity software, office suites, media encoding or modifying tags, whatever the use case may be.

And its still a high end gaming laptop from 2015, so its still going to be playing games like GTA V, Rainbow Six Siege, The Witcher 3, RotTR, Fallout 4, etc the list goes on.

 

I think you may be a little bit confused by the jump of a 4790k to a 7950x3D "oh how did i ever live with this" mentality 

I don't underestimate performance outside of games. I actually have a lot of recent experience min-maxing older hardware for various purposes and roles with the +100 systems I manage, most of which being older hardware.

 

One of many examples:

 

I generally don't get rid of hardware unless its non-functioning, so there's a hierarchy of performance requirements that'll trickle down hardware as things are upgraded.

[PianoPlayer88Key]

Okay why are the emojis becoming absolutely gigantic when I copy/paste from drafts to here   Also another in-line image was supposed to be like 320x256 pixels.  Does the forum software not remember every nuance from where I copied from, when I'm copying / pasting with formatting preserved?

 

 

3 hours ago, tkitch said:

for mobile internet, you'd need to pay for a separate data line for your handheld, you know that right? 

Yes I know, I'm thinking around $60-80/month would be fine, maybe even $100 on months that I have heavy usage.  TBH I'm not sure how much data I'll need ... sometimes I'll just be running discord, web browsers, occasional light video, and sometimes I might be streaming 4k several hours a day.

My current cell provider is T-Mobile, so if I could go with one of their plans that might be alright.  I do see what looks like a hotspot plan from Verizon with 150GB/month for $100/month, as well as 100GB for $60 or 50GB for $40.  AT&T looks like they have 100GB for $90/mo or 50GB for $55/mo, but all I see from T-Mobile is 30GB for $10/mo, or less.  (There's a tablet plan with 20GB for $35/mo, but besides not being nearly enough, idk if that's the TYPE of plan I need.)  Another option would be upgrading my phone plan from a 50GB/month prepaid unlimited (but I think without hotspot) plan to the $90/month Go5G Plus plan, but it only has 50GB/month hotspot, and it also has other things I don't need like netflix, and Apple TV, although the AAA membership would be nice, I already have that standalone.  (It still won't allow me to do daily full backups (full backup to me meaning a bit-for-bit clone of everything on the physical media) and hourly / realtime incremental backups to Backblaze or similar, though.)

 

3 hours ago, da na said:

Would be much cheaper to replace the Clevo's battery and install SSDs if it doesn't already have them. A 6700K shouldn't be "slow".

I've already done that once, and i have four SSDs in it already.  The current battery has gotten to the point where it dies as I'm getting to the Windows login screen, if I power it on unplugged after it's been plugged in.  (It also sometimes takes upwards of 30-45 seconds to POST.)

 

3 hours ago, jaslion said:

The gpd win isnt super strong. It being in a pocket isnt a ideal case and it would be much better off in a backpack as it is a thin and light device really.

 

For 4g data modems you can easily try it with a sim 4g/lte usb stick. If it triggers usage then in the win it will too

Yeah, but backpacks currently aren't allowed at some conventions I've recently gone to and sometime want to go to again (and when they were allowed in previous years and I had one, I found it was pretty awkward to carry around).

 

3 hours ago, BahnStormer said:

If it wasn't for the fact that the laptop seems to be too big and bulky for you, I would have said that a light refresh would be better.

 

I was in a similar position to you as I wanted to keep one of my laptops relevant for light usage, except it was an i7-3520M (Lenovo X200) - I put a SSD, 16Gb RAM and a new battery and it still runs perfectly! That said it's a very reasonably slim and light laptop that had my desired form factor already.

Yeah, idk about a light refresh though  I've already upgraded this laptop a few times along the way -- went i3-6100 to i7-6700K, 8GB to 40GB to 64GB RAM, started with a 2TB 5400rpm Samsung/Seagate Spinpoint M9T HDD and ended up with a total of 12TB SSDs (in 4 & 2 TB 2.5" SATA & M.2 NVME).

I'd really like enough CPU to eventually run like 20+ VMs at once (for now I could get away with 5 or 6 or 8), and enough RAM to not have to use pagefile all the time, like this,

But that doesn't exist, outside of systems that support ECC RDIMMs.

 

2 hours ago, Agall said:

6700K just doesn't hold up in 2024, even to a lower power CPU. 

 

If you get one of those GPD WM2, consider looking into occulink. I haven't tested it myself, but it seems to be a great alternative eGPU setup to thunderbolt. It should have far better latency characteristics to thunderbolt, which last I tested, had horrible overhead in the realm of 50ms. 

 

You could get that WM2 and any dGPU with a relatively inexpensive DIY occulink enclosure. Really depends on how much you're willing to spend on the dGPU.

I don't really need a portable powerful GPU - I'm not as much into gaming as I used to be, and most I play are older (mid 2000s or older) or casual games that run just fine on my old desktop's Intel Haswell iGPU.  I believe the 780M in the 7840U is about 10X stronger than that.   (Even a few older games I play could run "okay" on my dad's old Core 2 Duo laptop's iGPU.)

 

2 hours ago, 8tg said:

Yeah but it’s not like it’s going to stop doing what it always did.

A 6700k and GTX 970m will do 1080p gaming of its era and newer no problem.

And general use is not even a concern with hardware like that.

It’s not reasonable to expect a system like that to play the current games in 1080p amazingly, but for anything else? Should be perfectly fine.

Yeah  I don't game much these days, so the iGPU would be just fine.

2 hours ago, Agall said:

I'm well aware that it'll function to a standard that some might feel is acceptable, but ignorance is bliss.

 

6700k in a laptop is likely even worse than a desktop 4790k, those two CPUs not being far apart in performance and a desktop 4790k easily overclocking to 4.6GHz. Just because it can reach acceptable framerates, doesn't mean its a smooth or acceptable experience overall.

 

 

Interesting thing, I got generally comparable performance when OC'ing both CPUs, if I remember, or within a few % of each other.  I think the 6700K was slightly ahead, as I could manage to get I *think* close to 1000 in Cinebench R15, and touched 200 in single-core, but couldn't quite get that with the 4790K.  I think I could reach 4.7 GHz on the 4790K with a 212 Evo, or 4.8 if I pushed the voltage to 1.35V.  On the 6700K in the laptop, I could get up to about 4.6 GHz or so, maybe 4.7 if I very carefully finessed the balance between voltage, temperatures (including ambient), etc.

I found that it was much better for me to undervolt the 6700K than overclock it, though - I've been running about -150mV offset, and the CPU power generally doesn't exceed 65-70W under load, as long as it's not Prime95 Small FFT.

 

 

1 hour ago, 8tg said:

I am currently posting to this thread from a 2ghz Pentium M, on a thinkpad from 2005, running windows XP

  Reveal hidden contents

I think you may be vastly overestimating the type of hardware you need for anything other than games.

It is a desktop 6700k in that clevo, thats the point of that system, a laptop with socket 1151 in it. It performs better than a 4790k without question.

Not that it matters much because anything in the realm of quadcore hell that intel put out for years is all still equally usable for again, anything other than modern games for the most part.

A 6700k is going to have zero issues with video streaming, anything you can do in a web browser, most productivity software, office suites, media encoding or modifying tags, whatever the use case may be.

And its still a high end gaming laptop from 2015, so its still going to be playing games like GTA V, Rainbow Six Siege, The Witcher 3, RotTR, Fallout 4, etc the list goes on.

 

I think you may be a little bit confused by the jump of a 4790k to a 7950x3D "oh how did i ever live with this" mentality 

Yes you're right, it's a socket 1151 desktop 6700K.  I remember the primary reason I got it at the time was not so much because of the desktop hardware and it being a gaming laptop, but it was one of the only / few laptops I could find at the time that supported installing two 2.5" hard drives, which I anticipated needing at the time due to doing a lot of 4K video and SSDs still being pretty expensive then.
As long as I'm not doing too much, it does fine for video streaming - in fact I used it in December 2020 to stream to Twitch while simultaneously encoding locally in 4K for upload to youtube, and I don't think I had any dropped frames or blotchy quality.  I was careful to not have much else running though.  Normal use for me, though, involves a lot of multitasking (and I've seen it take a few MINUTES to alt+tab from one task to another sometimes).   And it played GTA V, Witcher 3, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Ark: Survival Evolved, etc just fine.

I actually jumped on my desktop from the 4790K to the Ryzen 9 5950X (with 128GB RAM, and I could do some of the at-home heavy lifting on that), but that wasn't as big of a jump as in past memory.  I came to the 4790K from my dad's Core 2 Duo T7250 (which was an interim for a few years after the motherboard died in which was my Athlon 64 X2 4000+, also the 4790K was 2.2x faster in single-core than the T7250 was in multicore, and about 10X faster in multicore.)  Also in my childhood / teens, my dad upgraded from an Intel 286-10 to an AMD 486 DX4-120 after about 6 years 9 months, for probably about 1/3 the price and about 75-80X faster if my estimations are anywhere close to the ballpark.  (I'd like to see THAT level of a jump today.)  In between the 486 DX4-120 and my Athlon 64 and his Core 2 Duo, he had a Pentium 166 MMX, and a Socket A Athlon 1.4 GHz, and his current laptop has an i7-8550U.

 

 

 

Anyway, one thing I'd use the Win Max 2 for would be when I'm at conventions like TwitchCon (although I'm thinking of skipping this year for reasons outside the scope of this post), and keeping up with the discord servers / chats for the channels I follow, and I'd need to be able to have multiple discord accounts open simultaneously without having to log out and back in.  (Also if I could tame my notifications to only ping me when someone directly pings ME and not including everyone and here in my pings, unless it's by the streamer themselves announcing when they're going live or where / when a meetup is, then I could turn notifs back on.)
Also I'll be using it for general use when I'm away from the desktop, and oh btw, for several months I might not have my desktop PC with me, as I'll be going to another state to do an internship at a piano shop, and I want to pack light, not take much extra stuff with me.  (I'd get the rest of my stuff once I settle into a place for a longer period of time.)

Also I might want to stream piano music with it as well, and my current laptop is a bit bulky to put where I want it on my acoustic Baldwin upright piano, as you can see in the picture in the spoiler.  (Also I think it'd be a bit big to rest on my Roland FP-60X if I use that when I don't have access to the Baldwin, but the WM2 might be fine.)

Spoiler

 

 

 

There's several shots there cause I was trying out different camera angles, but I think I'd be going with B or C or something between those when I stream with the acoustic piano.  You can see the laptop overhangs the piano action & strings quite a bit, I anticipate the Win Max 2 would be quite a bit smaller and not overhang nearly as much.  And if it would open up to 180° I could even put it on the music shelf probably.

 

 

Here's the Clevo sitting on the Roland.  (Ignore the wood stand it's sitting on, I would be using an X style keyboard stand, not the wood nightstand thing.)

 

 

 

 

I could get into a bit more   but it's probably a bit much to expect for this laptop  (For example, being able to instantly re-open / switch to literally ANYTHING I've EVER opened / accessed previously, or encoding uncompressed / lossless 4K faster than real time (my 4790K in one test took 4 days to transcode a 4 minute video to 4K H.265, encoding a dozen or more 1080p 4-8mbps videos in VMs, which themselves are running nested inside another VM, and so on.)

 

 

 

 

 

57 minutes ago, Agall said:

I don't underestimate performance outside of games. I actually have a lot of recent experience min-maxing older hardware for various purposes and roles with the +100 systems I manage, most of which being older hardware.

 

One of many examples:

 

I generally don't get rid of hardware unless its non-functioning, so there's a hierarchy of performance requirements that'll trickle down hardware as things are upgraded.

 

My family generally does the same thing - keeping things until they die or no longer do what we want.  My dad in the past used to fix things (like appliances and tools) when they'd break even when they were well beyond their service life, although he's getting up in years now and has the beginnings of Alzheimer's so I don't expect him to do much more of that.  My brother recently told me he was upgrading his system from an i7-4770K and GTX 1080 Ti to an i7-14700K and RTX 4070 (or Super or Ti, I don't remember which.)

I wish I had a place to keep older hardware around and experiment with it  (A couple things I'd like to test would be multitasking capability on an older system vs a modern phone - not how fast it is, but whether you can do certain things at all, and also testing the total time to write / read an entire 20MB or 40MB MFM or IDE HDD, vs a modern 18TB HDD or 4TB SSD, and if I kept thinking about it I could keep going.)

 

[jaslion]

18 hours ago, PianoPlayer88Key said:

Yeah, but backpacks currently aren't allowed at some conventions I've recently gone to and sometime want to go to again (and when they were allowed in previous years and I had one, I

Ya might want a purse then. Works great and keeps it better protected.

 

 

[PianoPlayer88Key]

It's on the way.  

 

I'll also want to get a case for it, I've generally been happy with my Case Logic case for my current 15.6" laptop, although it's kinda falling apart some.  (Probably cause I pack too much into it.)  Hopefully I can find something locally.  Or maybe I should plan a trip to the Tustin Micro Center in the next week or two, as after that I'll be going to Utah (Orem / Provo / south Salt Lake area) and probably staying there several months or so.  (Also I should get a couple pair of cargo pants, Big 5 locally has some Carhartt pants that have pretty big cargo pockets that I'm pretty sure would fit this laptop.)