Vinay AravindOne of the things I do for a living is reviewing gadgets. Right now I've reviewed the Xiaomi Notebook Pro 120G, which is a powerful compact laptop with a pro-grade screen and a couple of suprises up its sleeve. Do have a look in case you're in the market for a laptop. And I'd be grateful if you could Boost for reach!
Radio Tulsa@vinayaravind I'm not even in the market for a laptop and I still read the whole thing. Great writing.
@WA5PSA Thank you so much! I am so glad you liked it.
@vinayaravind Really. Seriously good writer.
Pavithra Suryanarayan@vinayaravind good to know! do let us know if you ever review a reading tablet like the ReMarkable or Kobo. Really want one and cannot figure out if they are really worth it.
@Pavithra_Suri unfortunately I don't think ReMarkable or Kobo operate in India. Virtually the only e-ink products you get here officially are Kindles, afaik.
pavi@vinayaravind I am also looking for devices with good e-ink screens like @Pavithra_Suri All I find is those kindles. This monopolistic control of market is really painful for customers who are looking for alternatives. 😕
সিদ্ধার্থ Siddhartha@vinayaravind Oh damn this looks really great. I am pushing very hard for BYOD at my workplace (with reimbursement, of course). This one (the non-G version) should be perfect - I don't need anything more than basic integrated graphics.
@quinoa_biryani oh yeah then this should be a good fit! Battery life isn't anything to write home about. Without the discrete GPU it should be better, but not sure by how much.
@vinayaravind Battery life is a problem, but only for people who travel a lot. As I have not travelled even once in the last 2.5 years+, I don't mind it right now.
@vinayaravind Ahh you tagged "windoze" 😛 What about GNU/Linux support? Thats something many #freesoftware people would like to hear about. People should be careful with the integrated GPU versions due to #driver support.
@pavi I know I know. sadly I haven't tinkered with Linux in many years. bit too comfortable in the macOS world unfortunately.
Diabolic Preacher ♒@vinayaravind NL does gadget reviews?! never got mails about these..
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for sharing.
@dpreacher Haha yes, we've been doing this for a little over a year now. Do let me know what you think!
@vinayaravind in my not-a-reviewer opinion, it is a fabulously wriiten review. :)
honestly, it was a joy to read. it was one of those articles, i didn't feel like dropping midway because I won't be looking for a Windows laptop. :D Nice flow.
I don't even know what's PCIe 4.0 storage, but I'm gonna guess it is PCI Express based NvME?
I was just trying to plug in a USB-C charger to my work Windows laptop, but it looks like the charger was not able to supply enough current.
honestly, it was a joy to read. it was one of those articles, i didn't feel like dropping midway because I won't be looking for a Windows laptop. :D Nice flow.
I don't even know what's PCIe 4.0 storage, but I'm gonna guess it is PCI Express based NvME?
I was just trying to plug in a USB-C charger to my work Windows laptop, but it looks like the charger was not able to supply enough current.
@dpreacher yes absolutely! and PCIe 4.0 is the new standard that doubles the bandwidth from PCIe 3.0 that is the norm otherwise.
USB-C is a bit of a mess. various compatibility issues and yes of course the current also matters. But with the right adapter and cable it should work, how to figure out which is right is anyone's guess :P
And also thank you for the really great feedback. I really appreciate it.
@vinayaravind if you write any better, cache-22 is going behind the paywall. :P
thanks for enlightening about the PCIe standards. I know how far more confusing are USB versions and their names, if you ever got a chance to explore that.
Do you get special bigger adapters for charging laptops with USB-C. I just tried the phone charger I had around. not enough
I'm guessing xiaomi left out battery and perhaps even screen size to fit within the target weight. The full sized 2.5kg laptops are painful
thanks for enlightening about the PCIe standards. I know how far more confusing are USB versions and their names, if you ever got a chance to explore that.
Do you get special bigger adapters for charging laptops with USB-C. I just tried the phone charger I had around. not enough
I'm guessing xiaomi left out battery and perhaps even screen size to fit within the target weight. The full sized 2.5kg laptops are painful
@dpreacher usually the 33w and above usb adapters have worked with laptops, in my experience but this is purely anecdotal.
@vinayaravind like the laptop sleep experience? 3 weeks of anecdotes (iirc from the article)
@dpreacher hehe yeah. usually within 3 weeks you'll see a windows laptop misbehave with sleep/wakeup 2-3 times at least, in my experience.
@vinayaravind hibernate is another beast, isn't it? I used to prefer to enable it and use it especially over the weekend, because saves more battery and i still get a quick start on monday, until it just stopped working. re-did the hiberfil, but kept corrupting the file. those (when it worked) days were good. now sleep/standby/suspend to ram lasts the wekend if fully charged. it does forget to keep things safe once in couple months though. so it's always a surprise, which wallpaper will come up.
@vinayaravind to continue on the weight thing, will there be a future in laptops, where everything is glued shut like our phones with the reason/excuse that they need to maintain the weight while giving bigger battery? or will the glue melt off?
@dpreacher there are already many ultra compact laptops where everything is soldered and some stuff is glued. but the good thing is there's still a whole range of form factors and approaches in the laptop world. hopefully it remains that way