Yes, but that may change in the future - with smartphones all popular, who wants a feature phone these days? In a year or two it'll be an iPhone 3GS that's "at the end of its life", and that'll be worth much more than $5 (or at least I should hope so)...
"I carry a tablet with me everywhere these days. 7 inch tablets fit nicely in my pants pocket, the battery lasts 8+ hours of *active* use. What's not to like?"
That's the problem though - for that one advantage, you're giving up a real operating system with proper multitasking (that doesn't just close apps you were still using in the background), and tactile feedback, and a windowing/tiling system... the list goes on and on.
If only netbooks that fit in pockets (like that Sony one) weren't so horrendously expensive...
So do you just drop your phone in a bucket of this stuff and let it dry for an hour? Or how exactly do you coat the phone yourself with the "direct to the consumer" variant?
He's talking about replacing his "back room file server" with something noiseless... SSDs would allow that.
You won't be plugging them into a dumb player of any kind (HiFi, car stereo, AV receiver), but hey, I doubt that most "dumb" players with USB ports will read a 1TB Flash drive:p
If you're just looking for silent replacements for hard drives, just get a few SSDs. 1TB should barely come to $1500 (thinking two Intel 320 series 600GB drives), and it'll be MUCH MUCH MUCH faster than a dinky oversized thumb drive.
Funny, I have both and would get rid of the desktop in a second if I could have only one.
If raw grunt is what you're after, sure, a desktop is the way to go, but for work where a few seconds less processing time doesn't translate into increased productivity, a laptop is fine - and that's 99% of all office work.
As for your laptops not lasting long: Stop buying cheap crap. Investing in a well built machine (current option would be a Thinkpad X220, T420, T520, W520, or an Elitebook, or a Dell Precision... there are others out there as well) with on-site repair service is cheaper in the long run. Or, if the cost is too high, buy used.
"Android actually has some very useful features, such as playing notifications and ringtones through the loudspeaker even when headphones are connected - extremely helpful if you forgot to unplug the headphones."
Funny that you should mention it - my old HTC Prophet (WinMo 5/6) actually did that too.:p
You know what the saddest thing is? This still happens - on Android. Random reboots also aren't unheard of... okay, my old WinMo6 phone was much worse in these respects (happens once in a blue moon on Android), but these problems are not as long gone as we should like them to be.
Haven't used WinPhone7 or iOS long enough to see it happen there though... and don't get me wrong - I love Android, and there is no alternative, because it allows me to do whatever the **** I want - but there *are* still mission-critical bugs in the core Android system. They're sporadic, difficult to reproduce and occur seldomly, but they're there.
Is the MS Flight Sim series really so multi-monitor-optimized that playing them on a single screen would be so horrible? Really curious here, because I only have one monitor hooked up to my desktop right now (been using laptops exclusively for a few months, and those only have one monitor port) - although I do have like 5 CRTs in the closet. Where are those DVI=>VGA adapters I used to have?
Yes, but check the power rating on that "USB Solar Cell Phone Charger With Humungous Battery" solar panel - they provide a tiny trickle charge that takes multiple days (!!!!) to charge up the built in battery. The panel I linked to puts out 800mA @ 5V (USB) - with optimal conditions, you can charge an average smartphone (~1200-1600mAh @ 3.7V) battery within a few hours.
With the cheap battery packs with built-in solar panels, you'll never manage to charge your phone unless it's a dumbphone, because most smartphones draw more power in standby than those dinky tiny little solar panels can provide.
The panel I linked to is the cheapest one I've found so far that might actually be usable.
The appeal of solar power is that you can leave it anywhere you feel it's safe - not just in the car.
Also: Don't most cars cut power to the cigarette lighter unless at least the iginition is on? I'd be afraid of draining the battery in my POS that way, tbh....
Add a ~5000mAh battery pack (good for about two or three charges of my smartphone) and I'm set for camping, festivals and the like... panel + battery pack are placed in the car during the day, and the phone gets charged off of the (hopefully full) battery pack at night.
That's a good point many people tend to forget... myself included. Overclocking is fun, especially if you start seeing the benefits quickly. Overclocking a graphics card that's just on the verge of making your game playable... and then having the game run butter-smooth afterwards. Or seeing 3 hours shaved off of your 12 hour encoding time...:)
I should probably add: For particularly failure-prone hardware, that makes sense, of course. My graphics cards are always underclocked and undervolted as far as possible during idle... because I've had 3 die on me already.
The problem is, some machines already run for 10 years straight (maybe with a mainboard battery swap) - so you might just be giving away performance that wouldn't have reduced your hardware's useful lifespan anyway.
To be honest: If this were a mission-critical machine, I wouldn't be overclocking it either. Then again, if it was mission-critical, it'd be a Thinkpad or Thinkstation with next-business-day on-site support, and those generally aren't overclockable in the first place;)
For my day to day work machines, I agree 100%: Stability, longevity of components, low power usage and a general sense of a lack of risk are just too good to pass up.
Then again, I've had many non-overclocked systems exhibit instability too... currently my Thinkpad X200 is making me a bit doubtful, because it's freezing (really full-on freezing) in the occasional Starcraft 2 bout - it's almost definitely Intel's graphics driver that's causing it (and it only happens on one single map), but even though I can just avoid that specific map and that specific game, it's causing some trust issues - what if the machine starts freezing in $VideoAcceleratedApplicationX 3 months from now? Yes, I know, Intel has never had decent support for games in their drivers yadda yadda, but full-on freezes (with looping sound and whatnot) are just not allowed in this day and age.
Even worse: With overclocking instability, I could fix the problem myself by clocking down to stock... here I'm fucked unless Intel decides to fix their driver - unlikely considering the last driver release was from about 1.5 years ago.
Slashdot Mirror
They look like crap. Google the Notion Ink Adam.
Yes, but that may change in the future - with smartphones all popular, who wants a feature phone these days? In a year or two it'll be an iPhone 3GS that's "at the end of its life", and that'll be worth much more than $5 (or at least I should hope so)...
"I carry a tablet with me everywhere these days. 7 inch tablets fit nicely in my pants pocket, the battery lasts 8+ hours of *active* use. What's not to like?"
That's the problem though - for that one advantage, you're giving up a real operating system with proper multitasking (that doesn't just close apps you were still using in the background), and tactile feedback, and a windowing/tiling system... the list goes on and on.
If only netbooks that fit in pockets (like that Sony one) weren't so horrendously expensive...
So do you just drop your phone in a bucket of this stuff and let it dry for an hour? Or how exactly do you coat the phone yourself with the "direct to the consumer" variant?
Well... the moisture will have even less chance of getting inside the gadget and wreaking havoc. 1 cellphone death less per 10 years, hooray!
"Compare to the many slots and compartments on a typical smartphone which often are required to be easily user-accessible."
Like on that hugely popular whatchamacallit... iPhone? :p
It's not like waterproof gadgets aren't available... see Moto Defy and Defy+... it's just that they're crippled in all other respects.
Because it's so expensive you'll never use it near water anyway?
He's talking about replacing his "back room file server" with something noiseless... SSDs would allow that.
You won't be plugging them into a dumb player of any kind (HiFi, car stereo, AV receiver), but hey, I doubt that most "dumb" players with USB ports will read a 1TB Flash drive :p
If you're just looking for silent replacements for hard drives, just get a few SSDs. 1TB should barely come to $1500 (thinking two Intel 320 series 600GB drives), and it'll be MUCH MUCH MUCH faster than a dinky oversized thumb drive.
Funny, I have both and would get rid of the desktop in a second if I could have only one.
If raw grunt is what you're after, sure, a desktop is the way to go, but for work where a few seconds less processing time doesn't translate into increased productivity, a laptop is fine - and that's 99% of all office work.
As for your laptops not lasting long: Stop buying cheap crap. Investing in a well built machine (current option would be a Thinkpad X220, T420, T520, W520, or an Elitebook, or a Dell Precision... there are others out there as well) with on-site repair service is cheaper in the long run. Or, if the cost is too high, buy used.
Who the hell games on a satellite connection?
"Android actually has some very useful features, such as playing notifications and ringtones through the loudspeaker even when headphones are connected - extremely helpful if you forgot to unplug the headphones."
Funny that you should mention it - my old HTC Prophet (WinMo 5/6) actually did that too. :p
You know what the saddest thing is? This still happens - on Android. Random reboots also aren't unheard of... okay, my old WinMo6 phone was much worse in these respects (happens once in a blue moon on Android), but these problems are not as long gone as we should like them to be.
Haven't used WinPhone7 or iOS long enough to see it happen there though... and don't get me wrong - I love Android, and there is no alternative, because it allows me to do whatever the **** I want - but there *are* still mission-critical bugs in the core Android system. They're sporadic, difficult to reproduce and occur seldomly, but they're there.
Is the MS Flight Sim series really so multi-monitor-optimized that playing them on a single screen would be so horrible? Really curious here, because I only have one monitor hooked up to my desktop right now (been using laptops exclusively for a few months, and those only have one monitor port) - although I do have like 5 CRTs in the closet. Where are those DVI=>VGA adapters I used to have?
Thanks for the link dude. :)
Yes, but check the power rating on that "USB Solar Cell Phone Charger With Humungous Battery" solar panel - they provide a tiny trickle charge that takes multiple days (!!!!) to charge up the built in battery. The panel I linked to puts out 800mA @ 5V (USB) - with optimal conditions, you can charge an average smartphone (~1200-1600mAh @ 3.7V) battery within a few hours.
With the cheap battery packs with built-in solar panels, you'll never manage to charge your phone unless it's a dumbphone, because most smartphones draw more power in standby than those dinky tiny little solar panels can provide.
The panel I linked to is the cheapest one I've found so far that might actually be usable.
The appeal of solar power is that you can leave it anywhere you feel it's safe - not just in the car.
Also: Don't most cars cut power to the cigarette lighter unless at least the iginition is on? I'd be afraid of draining the battery in my POS that way, tbh....
You know you can buy solar panels with buffer cells and ~1000mA USB output for about $200, right?
I'm looking at getting this next time I have a little too much cash laying around: http://www.amazon.de/Aurora-Solarladeger%C3%A4te-Handys-iPhone-MP3-Player/dp/B0049U3GQC/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1319908425&sr=8-6
Add a ~5000mAh battery pack (good for about two or three charges of my smartphone) and I'm set for camping, festivals and the like... panel + battery pack are placed in the car during the day, and the phone gets charged off of the (hopefully full) battery pack at night.
Go ahead and try two-pass high profile 1080p... encoding for mobile phones is fast on my setup too, and I only have two CPU cores :p
That's a good point many people tend to forget... myself included. Overclocking is fun, especially if you start seeing the benefits quickly. Overclocking a graphics card that's just on the verge of making your game playable... and then having the game run butter-smooth afterwards. Or seeing 3 hours shaved off of your 12 hour encoding time... :)
I'm sure they have better tools for checking stability than Prime95 and Furmark though :D
Are you talking about traders as in... stocks?
Oooof, that's a very good question. It's not like there's many games with hardcore graphics to stress test with either...
Install Windows? :p
I should probably add: For particularly failure-prone hardware, that makes sense, of course. My graphics cards are always underclocked and undervolted as far as possible during idle... because I've had 3 die on me already.
CPUs on the other hand? Meh :p
The problem is, some machines already run for 10 years straight (maybe with a mainboard battery swap) - so you might just be giving away performance that wouldn't have reduced your hardware's useful lifespan anyway.
To be honest: If this were a mission-critical machine, I wouldn't be overclocking it either. Then again, if it was mission-critical, it'd be a Thinkpad or Thinkstation with next-business-day on-site support, and those generally aren't overclockable in the first place ;)
For my day to day work machines, I agree 100%: Stability, longevity of components, low power usage and a general sense of a lack of risk are just too good to pass up.
Then again, I've had many non-overclocked systems exhibit instability too... currently my Thinkpad X200 is making me a bit doubtful, because it's freezing (really full-on freezing) in the occasional Starcraft 2 bout - it's almost definitely Intel's graphics driver that's causing it (and it only happens on one single map), but even though I can just avoid that specific map and that specific game, it's causing some trust issues - what if the machine starts freezing in $VideoAcceleratedApplicationX 3 months from now? Yes, I know, Intel has never had decent support for games in their drivers yadda yadda, but full-on freezes (with looping sound and whatnot) are just not allowed in this day and age.
Even worse: With overclocking instability, I could fix the problem myself by clocking down to stock... here I'm fucked unless Intel decides to fix their driver - unlikely considering the last driver release was from about 1.5 years ago.
Sorta puts things in perspective :(