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Re: Should I buy a tablet?

I recently bought a new laptop, Lenovo Z50-75, and i am very happy with it. I am now running kubuntu + windows 8 multiboot. It costed 600 € in finland then, but now you can find it for 450 €, even cheaper in central europe and USA probably. Like many Lenovo models, it came with superfish adware/spyware preinstalled, but it was easy to remove. I initially considered buying i7 version, but ended up buying AMD A10 version because of slightly better graphics card (i also use it for gaming).

Like most of you there, i think tablets are mostly procrastination devices, not good for working on doing any creative things (based on my own experience). Best tablet i ever had was the HP TouchPad, with android and webos multibooted. For first time tablet buyer, i would recommend Nexus 7, because of it's amazing price-quality ratio.

I never believed a laptop/tablet hybrid would be useful, but judging by feedback by guys here in this thread, i may be wrong.

Re: Should I buy a tablet?

Quote:

Originally Posted by juiceme (Post 1465899)

I've always had IBM's and later Lenovos when they changed the brand. Now I needed a new computer and all that was available was a selection of HP's and Dells. Both are crap

Please elaborate!

I have experience with several older Dell Latitudes (Exx00/Exx10 generations) and Precisions and found the build quality quite good.
Last year I bought a Thinkpad T430 and I must say I'm not impressed. It's not bad either but the build quality isn't as good as that of the Dells I know. For example the T430's display bezel isn't very stable and the designers really screwed up when positioning the USB3 ports. It's roughly on par with my old FSC Amilo Si 1520. Amilo is a consumer series.
I also know how a T60 looks like from the inside. It's built well, but not better than the Latitudes!

From HP I only really know the Pavilion DV6000. This is indeed a "plastic bomber" of the worst kind, but one shouldn't mix apples and oranges. If you want to compare IBM/Lenovo to Dell and HP then compare Thinkpads T/X with Latitudes/Precisions and EliteBooks. Or compare Thinkpads R/L with Vostros and ProBooks, or IdeaPads with Inspirons and Pavilions.
But don't compare series from different levels of "professionalism" (whatever that means).

Re: Should I buy a tablet?

Quote:

Originally Posted by sulu (Post 1465936)

But don't compare series from different levels of "professionalism" (whatever that means).

Indeed. The same goes for Copernicus' cheap Android vs. expensive iPod. It is not about Android vs. Apple, it is about cheaply bashed together vs. well built.

Yes, the cheapest is always the worst. But that does not mean that the most expensive is always the best.

Re: Should I buy a tablet?

Well, thanks for a lot of feedback!

I'm really thinking about a laptop with a touchscreen. It'd be great to have a device for comfortable reading of pdf ebooks (the e-readers don't cope well with them).

AFAIK, now there are apps for interpreting the touch gestures (e.g. touchegg) for Linux, even if the DE doesn't provide a sane support. So wouldn't be forced to switch to Windoze ;)

What's more, the law in Poland is such, that you may simply refuse to take the Windows with your computer and the seller has to give you the money difference back (at least it was so a couple of years ago). So, most probably, I'll stay with a touch-enabled Linux distro, most probably Mint + MATE.

Are there any key features that a touch laptop should have? Detached kbd?

Re: Should I buy a tablet?

Quote:

Originally Posted by marmistrz (Post 1465960)

What's more, the law in Poland is such, that you may simply refuse to take the Windows with your computer and the seller has to give you the money difference back (at least it was so a couple of years ago).

I'd check that again if I were you.

Until a few years ago this was the situation in Germany too, but then the sellers had the glorious idea that they're not selling a laptop with an OS but an "integrated device". According to that point of view the laptop and the OS form a common entity that cannot be taken apart without destroying the product. In this product there is no laptop that's bundled with an OS (which would be forbidden) because there is no laptop to begin with.
As a result you can still refuse to accept the Windows EULA, ask for a refund and the seller will ask you to return the product to grant you the refund. The problem is, the product is the "integrated device" and not some "OS part" so you'll have to return the laptop too.

As you'll see here [1], the FSFE has no reports of successful returns in Germany after 2008. That of course doesn't mean there were none, but given the nature of the topic I'd call that a pretty strong indication.

[1] https://wiki.fsfe.org/WindowsTaxRefund/Germany

Re: Should I buy a tablet?

Quote:

Originally Posted by sulu (Post 1465322)

The same goes for tablets.
Imagine the price of a tablet that could keep up with your desktop! I'm almost certain it doesn't even exist.

Business laptops usually have user-controllable fans and under light workloads these fans don't even need to run.
If you have a fancy slim laptop on the other hand that might be different because good cooling systems usually don't mix well with slim devices.

They produce the same amount of heat that goes in as electricity. So it's only a question of efficient components.

I own a 12" subnotebook for almost 8 years now. It weighs 2kg. Weight has never been an issue for me. Size on the other hand is.

True. But in this case the situation is not as bad as it might seem.
For myself and some friends I bought several laptops (Dell and Lenovo) from professional refurbishers during the last years. On all of them the Windows was optional.
All these devices were in excellent condition or any unforseen problems were easily resolved. I think this is a good alternative for anyone who doesn't need the latest hardware.

Then why would you buy a Chromebook?
I don't see how this situation differs from a Windows-bundled device.
The big disadvantage Chromebooks tend to have hardwarewise is their lack of mass storage. You can find similar "real laptops" that don't have this problem (if you care).

Does that matter? In my view the problem is not in the price but in the freedom of choice.
There's no logical reason why I should buy a device that's bundled with any OS.

I accept most of your points (and pichlo's) but my main incentive for going for a Chromebook is that it will be a replacement for my tablet, not my desktop and the key factor here is the price. The one I've been considering is the Toshiba Chromebook 2 (full HD/4GB version) and only costs 330USD making it a good tablet alternative. The specs are decent and I have my desktop if I need something more powerful. Storage is limited as you mentioned but it can be expanded with an SD card. The form factor is very nice (think MacBook Air) and it's fanless which means silent operation. I've not yet bought it because some have experienced audio problems when booting into a full Linux distro and the community have been less than responsive when I've tried to help them to solve these problems.

Find me a similarly priced non-Chromebook laptop with a similar spec, form factor, battery life, without the MS tax and by all means I would consider it. Unfortunately I haven't come close with my attempts to find something.

Re: Should I buy a tablet?

Quote:

Originally Posted by wicket (Post 1465965)

I've not yet bought it because some have experienced audio problems when booting into a full Linux distro and the community have been less than responsive when I've tried to help them to solve these problems.

What community is that? Is there a Chromebook community? Or are you talking about some sort of Linux community?

Quote:

Originally Posted by wicket (Post 1465965)

Find me a similarly priced non-Chromebook laptop with a similar spec, form factor, battery life, without the MS tax and by all means I would consider it.

No way with a FHD display.
If you drop that I'd say look for an Acer Aspire E3, ES1 or V3.
If you need the FHD display, increase the display size to 14", drop the passive cooling and go for a Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 2.

Re: Should I buy a tablet?

Quote:

Originally Posted by sulu (Post 1466075)

What community is that? Is there a Chromebook community? Or are you talking about some sort of Linux community?

The community is a bit disperse. There are various threads on Google+, Reddit, an Arch Linux wiki and a dedicated thread on the Ubuntu forums for booting Linux on Toshiba Chromebook 2 using the "Chrubuntu" method.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sulu (Post 1466075)

6 hour battery life? 600USD? Ouch! That's a shame, suddenly I've lost interest in regular laptops once more.

The Chromebook market is just starting to heat up. The recently announced Asus Chromebook Flip which can be converted to a variety of form factors including tablet, looks quite appealing at only 250USD. I'm not too sure about the CPU/GPU combo through as I'd rather have x86 with Intel graphics. If you're after something high-end and have a bit of money in your pocket then the 2015 edition of the Chromebook Pixel is just gorgeous with its 2560x1700 display.

Re: Should I buy a tablet?

Quote:

Originally Posted by wicket (Post 1466109)

a dedicated thread on the Ubuntu forums for booting Linux on Toshiba Chromebook 2 using the "Chrubuntu" method.

I've read about that some time ago. Wasn't that essentially replacing the ChromeOS userland with an Ubuntu userland while keeping the ChromeOS kernel? iirc that seems like a very poor alternative because at some point in the future you'll run into the same kind of problems with this ChromeOS kernel as we are here with our ancient Fremantle kernel on our N900.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wicket (Post 1466109)

6 hour battery life?

In advance: Sorry for the partly German links. I'm too lazy right now to check for English versions.
Notebookcheck says the CB30 runs 7 hours with wifi on battery [1]. The same goes for the ES1 [2] and I think 6.5 hours for the V3 [3] still counts as similar.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wicket (Post 1466109)

600USD? Ouch!

I don't know the US market. I only checked the German/EU market. Here your CB30 costs 320 Euros. All the alternatives I mentioned cost between 250 and 400 Euros.

[1] http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-....113401.0.html
[2] http://www.notebookcheck.com/Test-Up....128962.0.html
[3] http://www.notebookcheck.com/Test-Ac....122339.0.html

Re: Should I buy a tablet?

Quote:

Originally Posted by sulu (Post 1465962)

According to that point of view the laptop and the OS form a common entity that cannot be taken apart without destroying the product.

But the courts have already seen through this kind of shenanigans when Microsoft claimed that IE was an integral part of Windows and cannot be removed without crippling Windows. Claiming that the laptop and the OS are an integrated product is even more feeble, and even easier to disprove.

Quote:

As a result you can still refuse to accept the Windows EULA, ask for a refund and the seller will ask you to return the product to grant you the refund. The problem is, the product is the "integrated device" and not some "OS part" so you'll have to return the laptop too.

As long as the manufacturer or the reseller pays the postage then it would be good fun to keep buying and returning those machines until the manufacturer stop being such d*cks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wicket (Post 1465965)

Storage is limited as you mentioned but it can be expanded with an SD card.

That is until Google release an update that renders your SD card useless like they've done with Android 4.4.2 (and probably subsequent versions).