| Brandon | My Latest Laptop PurchaseI collect computer hardware, and since I started college (just finished up my 2nd year) I have went through a number of laptops. And often times the problem with them was linux or Minecraft compatibility, obviously to the average user the ability to run Minecraft doesn't matter, but to me, a college student with nothing better to do at the end of the day, it does.
Lenovo X220- The main problem here was that it was too new and linux drivers for the graphics card would artifact under linux.
Lenovo X120e- Although it had an AMD processor and Graphics card, it just wasn't as nice as the x220.
ASUS Transformer TF101- Ran android, which crashed/froze a lot and couldn't even run "real" Minecraft.
Lenovo T60- Intel graphics meant that Minecraft could be run windowed with low details.
ASUS G73- This is a real gaming machine, however it was heavy and had poor battery life, and the trackpad didn't work well under linux.
Lenovo T410- With Nvidia graphics this machine played Minecraft fairly well, and I only got rid of it because I bought the next machine.
Macbook (Aluminum 2008)- OS X made life so much easier, no playing with graphics drivers, no crap artifacting, but with an old Core 2 Duo wasn't the fastest laptop for doing anything else.
What that list doesn't show is that the original X220 was kept for the entire time, and as each laptop was replaced, the last one was sold. Sometime last fall, I decided that I wanted one good laptop, and to stop filtering through "crap" laptops. So I started making excel spreadsheets comparing performance vs price for various laptops. Sometime I'll do a write up on my favorite benchmark sites. I had the sheet set to compare CPU and GPU benchmarks as well as the height of the laptop (to prevent big heavy laptops from winning, I have a desktop, btw). And usually depending on how I tweaked it an Acer Ultrabook with Nvidia graphics would win, so I ordered one from Newegg. Then I realized that it had nvidia Optimus, no where in the description did it mention that, but certain Nvidia cards just have Optimus. And after reading about what hassle it is under linux I cancelled the order.
That left me in an interesting situation, I didn't want a laptop with Intel graphics, because the X220 displayed artifacts, and I didn't want Nvidia graphics, because I'd either get Optimus, or a "Gaming Laptop" that wouldn't be portable or cheap. That left me with AMD, whose Linux drivers I've never been happy with, running Windows or buying a new 15" Macbook.
I ended up with a Macbook and although OS X isn't perfect is does work right most of the time and the machine I got has a quad core i7, and graphics switching technology so that when I go to play Minecraft or another game, my AMD card kicks in.
List of secondary laptops since the Macbook:
ASUS EEE X101-Atoms are too slow to do anything, I ended up hackintoshing it, and although there is no graphics acceleration, it works for web browsing (It's my sisters now).
ASUS Nexus 7- Android didn't get any better over the last year, applications still crashed on me.
Alienware M11x r1- Surprisingly didn't play Minecraft well, I was impressed by the build quality, but bought it mainly for Minecraft.
Sony Vaio P- Atoms are still too slow to do anything, although that laptop does have a nice form factor, I'm still not sure what to do with it.
Emachines Dual Core AMD,2GB RAM- Was my sisters, right now it's acting as a nice minecraft server.
Including the macbook that's 13 laptops over the last 2 years. I've had the Macbook for about 7 months now and I have to say it's the best machine so far. | 2013-05-28 | 11:10 AM |
