Lenovo intros choose-your-own-adventure Yoga Slim 7: Ryzen spend $360 less on shiny or take a dip in Intel's Ice Lake? Lenovo has always been a bit of an aberration, as far as PC manufacturers go. While its rivals have pushed consumers towards one-size-fits-all boxes, Lenovo has steadfastly offered punters a choice of configurations. The new Lenovo Yoga Slim 7, just unveiled at the CES trade show in Las Vegas, embodies that philosophy, touting …
I've just bought Lenovo's 'military grade' education/enterprise 1080p 14" chromebook 14e which is £250 before discounts and it's OK. Correction, it's gloriously well built and boring and, crucially, is designed to drain liquid through the chassis if you spill a mugful on the keyboard. £1500 is crackers though.
It depends on what you want from a laptop.
You can get a cheap and cheerful machine with a low-end processor, small RAM and an HDD for little money, subsidized by installed crudware. If you want high quality components in a high quality case with lots of RAM and fast SSDs, touchscreen, 360° hinge etc. you have to pay for it.
I find the prices a little steep, but within the acceptable range for what you are getting. I think that the starting price is, maybe, a couple of hundred dollars too much, but we are talking about ~10%.
If I compare my 2010 laptop with the Yoga, the old laptop cost a couple of hundred dollars less than the Yoga, came with a plastic case, no touch screen, only FullHD, no 4K option, was thicker, heavier and, naturally, slower. My 2016 laptop cost about the same as the 2010 laptop, has a UHD display and SSD, an aluminium case, 360° hinge, is much smaller and lighter. The Yoga is a little more expensive, but offers faster connectivity, is faster, slimmer and lighter, again,
The prices haven't changed much, but the quality has increased...
"The prices haven't changed much, but the quality has increased..."
Also, as always when these comments come up, it's important to remember that inflation is a thing. A £1000 laptop in 2007 should cost about £1400 today. That means if prices haven't changed much, in fact the effective price has dropped very significantly. You're not actually getting a lighter, faster, generally better laptop for the same price as a decade ago, you're getting it 30% cheaper.
How much extra for the Intel version! Wow that's a massive markup especially now that the AMD version also supports LPDDR4 and with much better gpu performance it should wipe the floor with Intel Iris. Why are they not offering the better screens?
Also 'After a false start with Windows 8 RT, Windows on ARM finally looks like a viable option,'
I suppose if you have gone office 365 and just need a Web browser maybe it is viable. Just for giggles I duck ducked 'Windows arm Libre office'. Apparently you can BUY for a massive 79p an unofficial version from the MS Store?
It appears intel still has some hooks, because the article states the AMD version is gimped at 1080p. That's kind of ridiculous considering 1080p is what, 16 years old.
Has 1080p been the common res longer than any computer res? It's kind of odd that the only place you'll find such a low resolution (1080p) is on a PC (well, laptop but still). Digital pictures, TVs, mobile phones... everything else has moved on.
All my older computer gear is BETTER than 1080. The 1080 was so as to use cheap panels and controllers for video. EIGHTEEN years ago computers and laptops were better than 1080.
A 16:9 HiDPI / Retina panel at 14" or 15" isn't much improvement for PDFs or spreadsheets, you want 4:3 @ 15.5" or the SAME HEIGHT of a 16:9 panel, maybe 17"?
There are Newish laptops only 768 high with 17" screens. What madness is that?
I don't think so. Android or Linux.
For me Windows on x86-64 is no longer viable due to Windows 10.
Obviously if you are using online CRM that insists on Edge or IE + Silverlight, or a Windows accounts or payroll etc, you are captive to Redmond. But most 3rd party business local applications don't work on ARM either.
Nor is ARM[64] based general purpose computing 99.99% of the market. Those of us who do use the architecture tend to go straight for something which works, has useful applications and doesn't depend on The Cloud™ which rules out Google and Microsoft right from the get-go.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
