[lca2018-chat] Arjen's new laptop

[Joel Wirāmu Pauling]

As someone who watches consumer kit quite closely, this looks really
good, but for a fairly critical omission. No thunderbolt3.

If you want the low-down on why I have the opinion that is a
'must-have' port and why plain ol usb3/usbc is problematic; then go
3/4th through my talk on 10Gbit to the home where I give a brief
comparison between the two.

A lot of people still really like the PCIMCIA/Expresscard
functionality on their older laptops - thunderbolt is better and gives
you direct external PCI-Bus expansion; and as bonus Free 10Gbit
networking AND UsbC 3 compatibility.

https://youtu.be/0xSA0ljsnjc?t=2075

-Joel


On 30 January 2018 at 14:38, Arjen Lentz <arjen at openstem.com.au> wrote:
> Hi all
>
> Some people were interested in my new laptop and its good behaviour as well as upgradeable insides.
> I promised to give some more info about it, so here it is...
>
>
> I recently got a new laptop (previous one having done well for about 5 years!)
> The new one is a Lenovo Yoga 520.  The exact one is:
> https://www.jbhifi.com.au/computers-tablets/laptops/lenovo/lenovo-yoga-520-14-2-in-1-laptop-onyx-black/503711/
> Yes, I bought it at a local JB Hifi. Bear with me.
> Price right now is $1099 incl.GST (special sale thing going on).
> (there are other models around, including ones with i3 CPU and non-FullHD, so be very careful!)
>
> It comes with Win10. I left it there, but you can choose to not set it up - in which case the license won't activate and thus you won't have a EULA arrangement with Microsoft. Your choice.
>
> It has a quad core Intel i5 8250U 1.6GHz (turbo to 3.4GHz) which is a quad core + hyperthreading.
> Why not an i7? Because you will mainly kill your battery life, in return for very little extra performance - remember it's a mobile CPU infrastructure.  A desktop replacement approach will always be bigger, heavier and eat more power (been there, tried that).
>
> It comes with 8GB RAM.  However, physically it's a replaceable module and you can upgrade it yourself to 16GB. Unfortunately only 1 module so single channel (=slower), but it performs decently anyhow.
> I haven't yet done a RAM upgrade on it as the 8GB will do me for now.
>
> Then, the model linked has 128GB SSD, it's actually an M.2 module.  You could upgrade it.
> But, the laptop actually has a full 2.5" space inside, occupied by a heavy stainless steel bracket to keep the structural integrity.
> So I put an SSD in there (960GB actually, a Sandisk I snaffled for only a few hundred dollars the previous year on black friday), and boot my Linux straight from there.
> That only 'cost me' 5 grams, as the SSD is barely heavier than the steel bracket I took out.
> My total laptop weight now is 1.785 kg.
>
> Battery is built-in. Can be replaced though.
> You can get in to do the RAM/SSD upgrade and other internal trickery by removing 10 little Phillips screws and carefully unclicking the bottom panel from the rest. It's very straightforward.  You just need to be gentle.
>
> The screen is 14" Full HD (1920x1080), touchscreen if you want to use that capability.
> It actually has a Wacom digitiser in the screen for an ActivePen (2048 different pressure, for real drawing) but I haven't acquired an ActivePen yet - Linux does report the Wacom though.
>
> Then, you'll be happy to know that everything works, mostly out-of-the-box.
> I installed Xubuntu 17.10 (xfce desktop).
> I tweaked a few things: power management can be improved (others had already done the homework on that), some tweaks for better SSD behaviour, and if you want to have the automatic screen rotation working (for tent/tablet modes) you also need to install some bits for that.
>
> The battery life is fantastic, I've got 6-10 hours generally. At LinuxConf I just made the point to myself by actually leaving the charger in my hotel room every day, and I had 4+ hours spare at the end of a day even with presentations and videos having run on it.
>
> The laptop has full-size HDMI, and USB-C (as well as regular USB).
> The HDMI out works out-of-the-box for me, both video and audio. Brilliant. Oh it's an Intel integrated graphics, runs on the clean free/GPL drivers.  I've tested it with Runescape and it performs quite adequately.  It's not built to be a gaming laptop so it's actually more than reasonable for graphics needs.
> It won't charge via USB-C, but you can connect an Ethernet port if you need it (I snaffled a USB hub + gigE for $10 from Tim Ansell, rarely need it but it's useful) and of course these lightweight laptops don't have a CD/DVD/BluRay but you can get those very cheaply on USB if you really need to. I won't bother with that at all.
>
>
> You may have spotted me running around at the closing lightning talks to help fix up the video output.
> The NextDay Video HDMI capture resolution is not natively supported by the laptop's own screen, thus it's not possible to mirror in that context. Use one of the split screens options, and it works perfectly.
>
>
> I'm pleased with this acquisition.
> I find it a very good laptop for a very decent price.
> There's always some trade-offs.
>
> Regards,
> Arjen.
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