What hardware are you using?

Discussion of hardware related issues
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tlmiller
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Re: What hardware are you using?

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I wasn't really fond of the e7270 insofar as it's other, larger, generational brothers were concerned. Might have been my imagination, but it seemed like while the e7350 > e7370 and e7450 > e7470 both got smaller footprint by having smaller bezels, the e7270 didn't seem to have ANY smaller bezels than the e7250. Not willing to rule out my imagination, but that's what it seemed to me.
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crosscourt
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Re: What hardware are you using?

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The 7270 and 7370 actually share the same footprint but the 7270 has the thicker bezel 12.5 versus the 7370 very thin bezel 13.3. As you mentioned the 7270 has a better variety of ports even though its not USB-C and does have an ethernet port. 7270 has two memory slots and a wide open underneath once the panel is taken off, offering some upgrading and the processor is better than the 7370.
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tlmiller
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Re: What hardware are you using?

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Here on my again happy T14. Was draining the battery while powered off, so restored Windows to verify it was hardware not something with Debian. After verifying, checked Lenovo's forums and lo and behold, 1.30 BIOS update caused it. Downgraded to 1.29 this morning, and reinstalled Debian.

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Re: What hardware are you using?

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Ive never had that happen with any of my laptops. Generally the bios updates have been excellent overall.
I use Q4OS Gemini as my Debian install, but typically spend most of my time in Ubuntu based distros.
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Re: What hardware are you using?

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Lenovo has been famous for it. Tx80 and Tx85 both had it happen to them at release, and while the release of the T14 twins didn't have it, it was introduced in the latest BIOS update on both (Intel & AMD both called T14 now).
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crosscourt
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Re: What hardware are you using?

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Ive never used Lenovo. IBM, Acer and Dell thats about it.
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tlmiller
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Re: What hardware are you using?

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I'm a big fan of the Lenovo Thinkpads myself. Not as durable or as unbreakable as when they used to be IBM, but they still have BY FAR the best keyboards of any major OEM laptop, and the touchpads are GENERALLY near the top of the stack too. And of course, they're the ONLY ones that offer touchsticks still, since Dell with the 7x00 has completely abandoned touchsticks on their Latitude line (the 5000 series stopped having them several models prior). But the BIOS don't seem to be the best versions, as since going to UEFI Lenovo has had an unusually large amount of fairly major issues when compared to Dell & HP. None of them have been unfixable, but it is highly irritating when you shut your laptop off @ 100% battery, and a week later you can't even turn it on because the battery is stone dead.
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Re: What hardware are you using?

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Ive had a lot of experience with Lenovo desktops of various form factors and it wasnt good overall. As with most OEMs the majority of systems are fine, but there is always a certain percentage with more issues, and with Lenovo, that was a bit on the high side. Ive had the best luck with HP and Dell overall.
With laptops Ive had some really nice experiences with Acer laptops and thats continued with my Chromebooks. My old IBM Thinkpads unfortunately were destroyed in the fire but were amazingly tough and well built.
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Re: What hardware are you using?

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I've had exceedingly bad luck with HP laptops. The desktops have been amazing, the laptops have been...really horrible, mostly. Other than my super-budget 14-an013nr (despite being $200 brand new, this was far and away the BEST purchase from HP I ever made) and my Chromebooks, almost everything I've owned by HP has been a horrid letdown. They use(d) REALLY weird touchpads that had VERY poor performance for quite a few years. I've heard from other people that use them regularly that they've improved that, but I gave up on the things.

I do wish they'd take and re-release the 14-an013nr with just 1 or 2 minor changes. Junk the e9000 processor and put a Athlon 300u (or Athlon 3050e if going for super low power since those are 6w chips) in there. Dual core w/SMT Zen1 budget chip. Cheap, but effective. And then increase the eMMC from the 32GB that it had to 128GB. Brutally good budget laptop, even if it wasn't super small and light. The keyboard and touchpad on that thing was AMAZING for it's price, as was that 1080P screen at $200!!!
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Re: What hardware are you using?

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HP desktops are excellent but the few laptops Ive had were good except for the Nvidia based one where the gpu slipped out of its socket and became quite a mess for HP. It was a huge mess requiring thousands of laptops be fixed.
Acer laptops have been excellent as my wifes laptop we replaced after the fire with an Acer and it lasted 6 years with her, then I used it another 4 years with the original battery. When I was working at the local tech shop, we had the fewest returns with Acer laptops.
Dell laptops at least between my tech shop time and my own experience have been rock solid and easy to repair. Very few issues and the systems age very well. Desktop Dells were very popular and the largest seller refurbished at our shop.

Now lets go back some years and the worst laptops ive ever used were Compaq.
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