Need a new laptop - nothing seems to hit the mark!

[robbo]

The vents are on the top by the way. it sucks air down and vents it through the bottom and sides. so a cooler pad wont really do the trick i dont think.

Aren't there some cooler pads that have fans that suck instead of blow? (cue ras dirty innuendo...) sure there were some years ago as the reviews said they did. If not, maybe turn a normal one upside down?!

[scarbunny]

I wasn't thinking of a cooling one, just a hard surface to keep the vents clear and the heat off my lap, maybe one with a padded underside for comfort. Like this one

Although Kit Guru recommend this cooling one in their review of the MSI GS60.

I am going to miss some of the features of OSX especially the integration with iOS, iMessages, access to Photo Stream through iPhoto, and all the up coming features with Yosemite like calls and messages from your phone via your Mac. Is there a Windows VW program that has Coherency/Unity like Parallels/VMWare Fusion on the Mac?

[robbo]

I did try and get OSX running on Windows 7 years ago but couldn't get the audio working - most probably a Sony hardware/driver issue - but everything else seemed to work ok although that was just desktop stuff. No idea what's about now though.

[scarbunny]

Cheers for the input Robbo, looks like it might be possible then. I was about to say sound isn't much of an issue but if I want to use the calling features it sort of vital, I'll look into it once Yosemite is released.

The laptop has been shipped !

It's being shipped with Yodel !

I doubt I'll be getting delivery before the end of the week if I'm lucky. I actually paid extra for this delivery as well. Actually it shouldn't be that bad, Yodel is handled by a reasonable local company, it normally just means an extra day in transit.

[robbo]

Hmmmm, it's that time again: the every few months Robbo 'shall I buy a Surface cos there's a deal/offer?' post.

This time it's the Surface Pro 3. Student pre-order and £100 cashback with Quidco (runs out in two days). £575.10 - £100 = £475.10 for the i3 version. Plus £98.99 for a type cover so pretty much back to £575. Hmmm. My lappy is nearly 4 years old now but is an i3 enough? Read the AnandTech i3 review but not sure still. I hardly use my laptop for anything other than browsing, emails, music and streaming these days. Wonder how it compares to my i5 520M at the moment. Then there's the (lack of) RAM.

Big £190 jump for the i5.

Argh!

[Replicant]

The i3's hard drive capacity is too small as a very large chunk is taken by the OS.
Have been thinking about this myself as well.

[Tappy]

I hardly use my laptop for anything other than browsing, emails, music and streaming these days.

Sounds like you need a Surface, not a Surface Pro!

I was looking at Surface 2's yesterday, £100 off, so £259 atm - likely reduced in anticipation of the Surface 3. (Un)fortunately, the Surface RT does everything I need it to. So there's no requirement to change.

[robbo]

The i3's hard drive capacity is too small as a very large chunk is taken by the OS.
Have been thinking about this myself as well.

I'm not too fussed about the small hard drive capacity as I could put in a microSD card to bump it up.

As for not needing a pro... Yeah, that's been crossing my mind too. The student cost is a few pounds cheaper again. There a Spotify metro app yet?

[robbo]

Well that decision has been made for me: the i3 is out of stock now. I always do this. Sleep on it and the thing goes out of stock. Never mind.

[EviL Ras]

Get a mans laptop instead! MSI GS60 ghost pro!

[robbo]

Slight overkill, Ras. Unless I get one for free

[scarbunny]

Do it Robbo, I reckon 3 of us with one we could have a candidate for official Tech Pond laptop 2014.

[Replicant]

Robbo, you could go for the heavily discounted Surface Pro 2 but this does not have Office installed. The Surface 2 (RT and even cheaper) does have this installed.

[scarbunny]

Ok so its arrive and I'm not sure if I like it yet. There are a few little niggles I have had so far most of which I have fixed but there is one that is annoying me beyond reason and I can't for the life of me figure out. The touch pad is unbearable, the sensitivity is all over the place, there is no precision to it, when trying to do small movements it seems to lock into grid lines so if the pointer is slightly above what i want to click it's impossible to just nudge it down, its a case of a massive movement to get some freedom back then hope I can land it where I need it. I remember turning off a Windows feature that forced slight trackpad inputs to be straight, some sort of smoothing, but I can't find the feature or any reference to it on google.

Also the lack of autocorrect in Chrome /Windows is a minor pain, as I'm used to OSX capitalizing "I" and adding apostrophes.

Not had a chance to game yet as it's taken all night to make it usable.

[scarbunny]

Okay, a few tweaks and the touchpad is bearable, I've tweaked some settings to try and get autocorrect to work, fiddled with the chrome://flags settings for autocorrect but still nothing. Not sure if my issues with the touchpad is mainly due to how good the Macbook touchpads are, everything else sort of pales in comparison.

So the actual laptop is in mint condition, fully boxed, all the protective films still in place. The hardware is lovely, solid and light, the keyboard has a nice feel, the layout is a little odd, the return key is half size and they have stuck a specific # key in above it which could be annoying.