lettersquash
Active member
- Local time
- 11:43 PM
- Posts
- 45
- OS
- Windows 11 Pro
I'm not sure if I should post this here, so my apologies if not, and please move to a more appropriate area.
It's a bit of a moan, but I'd appreciate any thoughts on what to do from here.
Wrong Info and Laptop?
I think I'm going to have to return the laptop I just got about a week ago from CeX in Harrogate. It's a Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5/Ryzen 3 4300U/4GB Ram/128GB SSD/14"/Windows 11. I particularly needed a convertible (flex, yoga, 360-flipping type) for use on my piano music stand and because I'm developing an app based on music notation, the market for which will include a lot of tablet and convertible users.
I went in to the shop specially because I was confused by all the different spec on the website, and the guy in the shop suggested this one. I said I was dubious about the 4 gig memory, having had to upgrade my last one to 8 GB to run Windows 7, but presumably I can add another 4 in a second slot? "Yeah, or replace the 4 with an 8," was his reply. No problem then. Except you can't. I now discover (I think) it's soldered in, so can't be added to. I saw someone say this on a video review just after I bought it, but hoped it was a different version for another market, but the Lenovo site detected the machine and says it has zero memory slots.
With my usual number of Firefox tabs open it's at about 85%. I could limit the tabs (I usually get to about 100), but it doesn't bode well for video editing (which I also told the guy about in the shop).
Thankfully, CeX are good about full refunds, and I probably need to take it back. It's a big dent in my confidence in the place. This guy seemed experienced, intervening in my dealings with another lad who was fairly new and showing how to look for the sort of spec I had asked about! The fact he was wearing a wooly hat indoors probably should have been a clue.
Wrong OS?
Anyhoo, making this thread slightly more appropriate, I'm regretting going for 11 now as well. I did a quick check online and found a pile of articles saying Windows 11 improved on 10 quite a lot, faster, leaner, better UI, got rid of Cortana and a few other irritations. Since I bought the laptop, of course, I've found all the moans and groans, but also had the experience of trying to use it. I mean, if I was 100% happy with the laptop, I'd manage, it's not a deal-breaker, it's just as you'd expect from the experience of Windows since 1995 - every new release is worse than the last.
My current machine is Win 7, and I'm reluctant to move on, although the lack of official support hasn't affected me one bit so far, but the chassis is falling apart and I've repaired it several times. I'm wondering how long Win 8, or other versions, might be supported (and if I care). I particularly hate the increasing dependence on MS services, an account and their selling of your data to provide you with ads, etc., and I've only set up a local account thanks to earlier help here.
Any advice would be most appreciated on a good machine to get (laptop-tablet with touch screen) instead, and what OS you prefer (if that's allowed on elevenforums!). Or maybe you've a favourite supplier of refurbished machines to suggest? I'd like to buy from CeX again, or at least get a refurbished machine, rather than buying new (it slows down the environmentally unfriendly production of new machines a bit, I suppose), and they have Windows 8 machines, as well as 10 and a few 11s.
I'm not too clear on how much the speed of a machine depends on the memory and how much on the CPU - the guy in the shop was comparing CPUs and suggested a recent one, but it's going to be slowed by the 4GB memory. And I see some of them with 16 GB memory, which might suit me even if the CPU is slower? It's not for anything like gaming, so it doesn't need blistering graphics display, but video editing and then saving is pretty demanding. I know SSD is much faster for the read-write operations.
Thanks for reading!
It's a bit of a moan, but I'd appreciate any thoughts on what to do from here.
Wrong Info and Laptop?
I think I'm going to have to return the laptop I just got about a week ago from CeX in Harrogate. It's a Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5/Ryzen 3 4300U/4GB Ram/128GB SSD/14"/Windows 11. I particularly needed a convertible (flex, yoga, 360-flipping type) for use on my piano music stand and because I'm developing an app based on music notation, the market for which will include a lot of tablet and convertible users.
I went in to the shop specially because I was confused by all the different spec on the website, and the guy in the shop suggested this one. I said I was dubious about the 4 gig memory, having had to upgrade my last one to 8 GB to run Windows 7, but presumably I can add another 4 in a second slot? "Yeah, or replace the 4 with an 8," was his reply. No problem then. Except you can't. I now discover (I think) it's soldered in, so can't be added to. I saw someone say this on a video review just after I bought it, but hoped it was a different version for another market, but the Lenovo site detected the machine and says it has zero memory slots.
With my usual number of Firefox tabs open it's at about 85%. I could limit the tabs (I usually get to about 100), but it doesn't bode well for video editing (which I also told the guy about in the shop).
Thankfully, CeX are good about full refunds, and I probably need to take it back. It's a big dent in my confidence in the place. This guy seemed experienced, intervening in my dealings with another lad who was fairly new and showing how to look for the sort of spec I had asked about! The fact he was wearing a wooly hat indoors probably should have been a clue.
Wrong OS?
Anyhoo, making this thread slightly more appropriate, I'm regretting going for 11 now as well. I did a quick check online and found a pile of articles saying Windows 11 improved on 10 quite a lot, faster, leaner, better UI, got rid of Cortana and a few other irritations. Since I bought the laptop, of course, I've found all the moans and groans, but also had the experience of trying to use it. I mean, if I was 100% happy with the laptop, I'd manage, it's not a deal-breaker, it's just as you'd expect from the experience of Windows since 1995 - every new release is worse than the last.
My current machine is Win 7, and I'm reluctant to move on, although the lack of official support hasn't affected me one bit so far, but the chassis is falling apart and I've repaired it several times. I'm wondering how long Win 8, or other versions, might be supported (and if I care). I particularly hate the increasing dependence on MS services, an account and their selling of your data to provide you with ads, etc., and I've only set up a local account thanks to earlier help here.
Any advice would be most appreciated on a good machine to get (laptop-tablet with touch screen) instead, and what OS you prefer (if that's allowed on elevenforums!). Or maybe you've a favourite supplier of refurbished machines to suggest? I'd like to buy from CeX again, or at least get a refurbished machine, rather than buying new (it slows down the environmentally unfriendly production of new machines a bit, I suppose), and they have Windows 8 machines, as well as 10 and a few 11s.
I'm not too clear on how much the speed of a machine depends on the memory and how much on the CPU - the guy in the shop was comparing CPUs and suggested a recent one, but it's going to be slowed by the 4GB memory. And I see some of them with 16 GB memory, which might suit me even if the CPU is slower? It's not for anything like gaming, so it doesn't need blistering graphics display, but video editing and then saving is pretty demanding. I know SSD is much faster for the read-write operations.
Thanks for reading!
My Computer
System One
-
- OS
- Windows 11 Pro
- Computer type
- Laptop
- Manufacturer/Model
- Lenovo Thinkpad L390 Yoga
- CPU
- Intel Core i7-8565U
- Motherboard
- 20NT0019UK
- Memory
- 8 GB
- Monitor(s) Displays
- 14"
- Hard Drives
- 500 GB SSD