[nfbcs] Choosing a Laptop

Sun Mar 18 22:47:51 UTC 2018

I don't notice a great deal of difference in performance between my home 
computer which has a 2TB spinning drive and the computer I use at the 
office, which has a 128G SSD drive. I know the SSD is faster, but it 
isn't fast enough that I notice it as I'm using my computer. I assume 
that's because the increase in performance is masked by things like 
caching, the operating system, screen reader and so on.

The one thing I do notice is that the battery life on my laptop with an 
SSD drive is amazing. I can basically go all 8 hours in the office 
without needing an outlet.

BTW, I went with a spinning drive on my personal lapttop because I 
wanted room to run and store multiple virtual machines, and I didn't 
want to pay the money needed to get a 512G SSD drive or larger. I was 
also a bit worried about the performance of running a virtual machine 
from a external drive.

On 03/18/2018 03:21 PM, Jeffrey D Stark via nfbcs wrote:
> Compare speed of SSD vs standard HDD.  I can't live on a pc with a standard
> HDD for load speed and responsiveness.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nfbcs <nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Jude DaShiell via nfbcs
> Sent: Sunday, March 18, 2018 3:13 PM
> To: Nicole Torcolini via nfbcs <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>; 'undisclosed-recipients:'
> <MISSING_MAILBOX at panix.com>
> Cc: Jude DaShiell <jdashiel at panix.com>
> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Choosing a Laptop
>
> Before buying any solid state drive, I'd check based on price for similar
> capacity drives in older technology.  Reason for that is solid state drives
> have failed to live up to their hype and are no more reliable than the older
> technology they try to replace.  At least one report to this effect was in
> the howtogeek.com newsletter but even before that, I have a source still
> working for the Navy who is definitely on the side of technical things tell
> me this as well.
>
> On Sun, 18 Mar 2018, Nicole Torcolini via nfbcs wrote:
>
>> Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2018 14:02:15
>> From: Nicole Torcolini via nfbcs <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
>> To: 'NFB in Computer Science Mailing List' <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>,
>>      "'undisclosed-recipients:'" <MISSING_MAILBOX at MISSING_DOMAIN>
>> Cc: Nicole Torcolini <ntorcolini at wavecable.com>
>> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Choosing a Laptop
>>
>> 	Be careful if you buy a Lenova. Their battery life is great, ut some
>> of them have really weird keyboard layouts.
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Jeffrey D
>> Stark via nfbcs
>> Sent: Saturday, March 17, 2018 4:29 PM
>> To: 'NFB in Computer Science Mailing List'; undisclosed-recipients:
>> Cc: Jeffrey D Stark
>> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Choosing a Laptop
>>
>> I'd never buy a laptop without a SSD.  I just finished a purchase
>> about a year ago of Lenovo T500 series laptops for myself and both of
>> my parents.  I ended up replacing the hdd in the laptop with a SSD
>> because I really wasn't happy with the performance without the SSD.
>> They ended up replacing theirs too, for each of their laptops.
>>
>> Why I bought this 1 was the fact that while it was heavier/larger, it
>> had a full size keyboard with numeric keypad and was designed to run all
> day.
>> Most companies sell both a consumer and corporate series.  The
>> corporate devices are designed to last longer and be used more frequently.
>>
>> The consumer devices tend to have better video cards and the corporate
>> devices tend to be more upgrade-able.
>>
>> Our IT shop buys Lenovo for similar reasons.  I did not buy my ram or
>> SSD from Lenovo but bought these afterwards and added them to the
>> device manually to save tons on the cost.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: nfbcs <nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Lanie Molinar via
>> nfbcs
>> Sent: Saturday, March 17, 2018 12:01 PM
>> To: undisclosed-recipients:
>> Cc: Lanie Molinar <laniemolinar91 at gmail.com>
>> Subject: [nfbcs] Choosing a Laptop
>>
>> Hi, everyone. This is Lanie Molinar. I'm sending this to a lot of
>> lists at once. Some are tech-related, some are related to software
>> development, and some are for students. I might have to get a new
>> laptop soon and have a few questions. First, let me give you a little
>> background info to help you understand what I'm looking for. I'm a
>> college student getting a degree in Software Engineering, so I'll be
>> working with code and developing things. I also have several
>> disabilities and health issues in addition to my blindness, so I can't
>> do much physically and spend a lot of my day on the computer doing
>> schoolwork, taking surveys for extra money, gaming, and doing lots of
>> other stuff. I'm fairly sure that I want a computer with Windows 10,
>> not a Mac, although I'm willing to look into a Mac if that seems
>> better. I would also be happy with something running Linux. I
>> definitely want something new, not used, with plenty of RAM. There are
>> so many options that I'm just not sure what to look for or where to
>> get it. Again, I also need something that can handle being used all
>> day, gaming, and developing software. My family is low-income, so I
>> need to get it from somewhere that offers good payment plans. Can
>> anyone give me some advice on how to choose a laptop, good places to
>> buy one from, and what I should get? For those on software development-
> related lists, I'm interested in what would be best for a developer. I would
> really appreciate any help. Thanks.
>>
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-- 
Christopher (CJ)
Chaltain at Gmail