Something better then the X220?

I just finished a CS degree, and now I'm starting a masters. So far I've been using my X220 for work and a tablet for taking notes.

I've been looking at the xps 13, or Spectre x360. Should I keep the X220, or buy something new?

Attached: x220.jpg (500x416, 21K)

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don't buy something new, they're all awful.

Get a W520

You'll know for sure when you need something new, otherwise you be just trying to entertain yourself by looking at other devices

an X230

This.

I know that my x220 is good for now. I was just wondering because I might need some more power next year, and all the good refurb sales are going to start soon.

This might sound like sacrilege but I bought an M6800 for $600 last year.. A mobile workstation/thinkPad duo works quite well.

I got bad news, user. It really doesn't get any better. I mean, yeah, you can find something that is better at certain things. Need horsepower, get a gaymer laptop, need Apple shit, get a Macbook, need a great screen, get a Surface, Still, all around, the x220/t420 is as good as it gets. It's the keyboard, repairability, durability that does it.

One of my profs said something similar. I guess I'll just replace the thermal compound and hope the x220 lasts me a long while

How much did you get the X220 for and the specs?

x220 has been my bread in butter though I work in the material science research field mostly on Linux though. x220 would be perfect for me if the battery life was better and there was USB3.0 on the i5 variant. Not missing out on much in modern laptops. CPU performance has only gone up around 20-25% over 5 years, though it's about twice as power efficient. Hardware evolution means way faster GPUs (e.g. video decode is way better), M2 storage, LPDDR4, better CMOS camera tech, and being way lighter. However, honestly I find XPS and spectre to have awful trackpads, very bad Linux support (wifi mostly), being quite difficult to upgrade, and still not having great battery life (esp. in comparison to MacBooks) for a ludicrous pricepoint.

I got a few upgrades for my x220 to keep it living on, though it's only been 4 yrs. 9-cell is obligatory (~8hrs of working battery life fresh), a slice battery if you can find one under 50 (they're ridiculously expensive now, takes me up to 11hrs of working battery life fresh), mSATA and SATA SSD (mSATA is limited to SATAII though so just pick a cheap one), expresscard USB3.0 card and eGPU, and up to 16GB DDR3 (speed will be limited to 1333MHz). It is very annoying to have to buy a new authentic 9-cell every 2 or so years due to wasting charge, the Li-Ion tech is not very good...

When you say you need more horsepower, is that just for big project work you'll be doing off campus?

Why not pick up an old optiplex or Z300 tower and RDP into it

I've had it for a while. But I paid $450 CDN for the x220, a dock, and two power adapters

The x220 came with the i7-2620M, 8Gigs of ram and a 128gb ssd.

I'm going to try to find another battery for it, since the i7 is pretty power hungry

My masters is in cognitive computing, so I'll be working with really large data sets. Even in my last year my laptop was always thermal throttling, and the battery life was terrible. That's why I was considering a new laptop since the they're supposed to be more power efficient, and hopefully throttle less.

I haven't really thought about RDP, it's been a while since I've had a desktop. I guess that might be something to look into.

I bought a gaymer laptop with the 7700HQ specifically to avoid throttling. It works and is fast as fuck. Maybe look at the Lenovo Y520

Just buy w520 if you need workstation class laptop.

This

pcpartpicker.com/list/4Xxn7W

how bad did I fuck up?
I have everything already, but the graphics card and mobo.
I have a full atx case also, if you guys think i should go full size atx instead. That way i could actually put this together this month.

Attached: 20952763_1419673318151341_658741803024908288_n.gif (500x508, 66K)

You fucked up by not buying a Graphics card two years ago, you could just wait for the new models at this point

The only thing I would worry about is the case. Vega cards run really hot, and that case doesn't look like it'll breathe very well.

Do you really think I should wait? I really wanted to get the AMD because I want to be a computer scientist. This one is at an ok price currently.
So I should go full size ATX, right?
I was concerned about the little motherboard not being good enough to handle all this high end schtuff. There are currently no microATX(the most sensible form factor for a single gpu setup) motherboards available with the X470 chipset.

Nah I'd go for it in that respect, to get the best bang-for-your-buck gaming-wise you would have to wait for the next series of Nvidia cards, purely due to market inflation

If you read my original post, I did an entire CS degree and will be doing a masters on as old laptop. Having and Gaming PC wont help you become a computer scientist, and using AMD in particular won't help either.

This should help
reddit.com/r/buildapc/

This

This.

not that bad but the ram is pretty gay, and i'd switch the case for something that cools better

ssh into your desktop

2012-2015 macbook pro

upgrade the ram, add an ssd if it doesn't have one, and dual boot or VM linux