@Bob LOL, you mean the ones that struggled to render a GPU-accelerated, composited desktop at 1024x768 in ~2008 while dGPUs were using Compiz or Vista's DWM smoothly? :D
also, with a 3440x1440@100Hz single display setup, I have absolutely zero motivation to upgrade my GPU from the 1080 FE (at stock speeds) for anything I do... the only thing that would be nice to improve perf on would be Ethereum, but the 1080 Ti is about the least cost-effective way to do that short of running it on 1000 Pentium 4s
it's literally perfect for all my gaming, virtualization, etc. needs
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...okay. So there are a few motivations for purchasing the cheap laptop.
1) I wanted a system I could easily take with me. If anything, I could just use RDP to access my main laptop away from home (and I have done this several times). 2) The main laptop is one of the reasons my bedroom gets absurdly hot during the summer months. It's a power hog and I wanted a more efficient system. 3) I was looking for a better use for my portable SSD, and I figured I could offload some of the system's I/O onto it to work around the limited hardware.
I was looking for a cheap, on-the-go productivity solution along the lines of @JourneymanGeek's HP Stream 11 and found this little gem. Usual caveats, 2GB RAM, slow Celeron, blah blah blah, but 64 GB of eMMC, which is better than the mere 32 GB I see on lots of these cheap machines and enough to let me install my core apps with some space to spare.
you need about 300-500 MH/s to solo mine and be able to mine out at least a block per month; a successful solo block mine rewards you 5 Eth, or between 500 and 1000 dollars US, depending on the conversion rate which is confusingly volatile (and falling a lot) of late
People looking for <$300 laptops are usually looking for a bottom-bin solution that does basic web browsing and productivity, and not much more. A touchscreen tends to be considered a premium feature.
This system is a 2-in-1, although the alternate modes are not particularly usable.
I bought this system with full knowledge of the performance limitations associated with Atom-type processors and 2 GB of RAM. Two years in, I'm not upset at all about what I got for $230.
It sips power and does what I expect it to do. That's what matters.
I've been trying to use lower-power devices mainly because of the scorching New York summer heat, which has steered me away from my main laptop. It's also better for the environment.
@bwDraco Yea, but these days I'd call the U-series "full-fat" as in what you'd likely see on a 'typical' laptop. Which physically look like almost-ultrabooks.
This isn't a 15W CPU. This is a 47W CPU, and I used to keep the system running all the time. Nowadays, I keep it in sleep most of the time, waking it up only as needed to check email, do heavy tasks, etc.
@bwDraco I bought this system with full knowledge of the performance limitations associated with Atom-type processors and 2 GB of RAM. Two months in, I'm not upset at all about what I got for $230. (source)
The other part of the issue is that my bedroom faces west so it gets lots of heat from the sun, and that it traps heat and is inadequately cooled by the house's HVAC system. Part of the renovations involves replacing carpeting with hardwood flooring, which should alleviate these issues a bit as carpet tends to trap heat. My room will also be rearranged so that the bed doesn't block the only HVAC register in this room.
(right now, the bed is in the airflow path of the register, partially blocking it)
@JourneymanGeek I know. It sucks compared to even my main system's wide-gamut 1080p display, but I don't really care if all I'm doing on it is surfing the web.
That's one reason I was able to pay $230 on it and not $400+.
I used to walk a lot when I went to college and my shoes typically lasted me well over a semester.
I also tend to wear down my shoes much farther than most before I replace them.
@JourneymanGeek Regardless, low cost was the overriding factor here and I just wanted to get the most bang for the buck under $300.
64 GB of storage was one of the deciding factors, considering that lots of machines of this sort have just 32 GB, with the NAND endurance issues that brings.
> [...] one SSD vendor told us about an OEM 2D TLC SSD that will burn through the rated endurance in a little over a year. The SSD has to last a year because of the notebook's one-year warranty, but anything beyond a year's worth of use is up to the user to fix. Tactics like that are the driving forces behind putting cheap DRAMless SSDs in $500 notebooks.
(though note that the endurance limitations associated with these sorts of configurations are often due to the average consumer tending to fill these small drives nearly to capacity, which dramatically increases write amplification)
Typical consumer use case: 3 GB/day on a near-full 32 GB eMMC, so we'll assume 5x WA (which is actually a bit conservative). That's 15 GB/day, which is about 0.5 DWPD; with TLC NAND, this should be good for about 2-3 years. Just how in Oblivion are they exhausting the SSD's endurance inside of an 18-month period?
As a power user, I can pull lots of tricks to greatly extend endurance, but that this race to the bottom is creating such extraordinarily low endurance is quite disturbing.
Consumers are oblivious to the fact that in trying to shave every last cent possible from the BOM, manufacturers are designing them with planned obsolescence.
Most folks don't realize that cheap TLC NAND storage, especially in such low capacities, has very limited endurance. Issues like this are readily addressable by tweaks to the browser settings, but the ordinary consumer does not know how to do this.
Low RAM also seriously hurts endurance because it greatly increases the amount of paging required. That, too, can be addressed (through browser plug-ins) but most consumers aren't even aware that low memory can hurt SSD endurance.
Low-cost planar TLC NAND + DRAMless controller + low capacity + high write amplification (because the drive is often close to full) + low RAM + software not designed to minimize writes = bad SSD endurance.
Unlike with better-configured systems where most of these factors are not present, a low-cost netbook is a worst-case scenario for SSD endurance.
> [...] one SSD vendor told us about an OEM 2D TLC SSD that will burn through the rated endurance in a little over a year. The SSD has to last a year because of the notebook's one-year warranty, but anything beyond a year's worth of use is up to the user to fix. Tactics like that are the driving forces behind putting cheap DRAMless SSDs in $500 notebooks.
@bwDraco lz4 landed in Nightly a week ago, I thnk. The other patch is still in progress and hasn't landed yet - there's some argument over implementation (compare with prev version in memory, or rewrite sessionstore so it's trigger-based rather than timer-based)
@bwDraco no, it's the cheapest way to get enough storage in
it's not like they went out of their way to replace a HDD with an SSD just so they can claim SSD
I remember reading that the mechanical components of an HDD impose a ~$40 minimum cost but SSDs have no such limitation - might need some time to find the source.
> Unfortunately for HDDs, there is roughly a $40 price floor that they simply cannot get under. That's the minimum dollar amount needed to provide the HDD casing, motors, heads, and other components--regardless of how low the capacity is. SSDs can scale well below $40 in smaller capacities, which is important in the cost-sensitive notebook market.
@FaheemMitha NAND flash memory has been in short supply for more than a year already due to skyrocketing demand for high-performance NAND in devices like smartphones and SSDs, and flash memory manufacturers have had far more trouble than expected transitioning to 3D NAND.
@Bob I'm not quite sure about the impact of the whole Galaxy Note7 recall. Did that account for a large portion of the high-performance NAND in production?
It's Samsung's own NAND we're talking about here, which pretty much no drive manufacturer other than Samsung uses. However, lots of OEMs do use Samsung NAND and SSDs...
> Oddly enough, Samsung's Note 7 recall also complicated matters; it effectively removed at least a hundred million gigabytes of NAND from the market, many of which Samsung replaced--and then removed again. This might've been an annoyance during normal market conditions, but Samsung is already dealing with shortages, so it is particularly painful.
> Component orders for the iPhone 8 are creating a worldwide shortage of DRAM and NAND chips, with competitors struggling to secure their own supplies, says a report.
> Huawei has already used less advanced chips in its flagship P10 model, while component shortages are said to be limiting production of Nintendo’s Switch.
> And, he notes, Samsung doesn’t want to “flood the market” for DRAMlike it has in past, and manufacturers in China are “non-credible” as a threat in terms of supply.
@Avery Because it takes time (and money) to increase supply.
> [...] investments in the Pyeongtaek facility will total ₩30 trillion ($26.1 billion) by 2021, making the complex the most important semiconductor manufacturing facility ever.
I have got somewhat wary of the "messed up police shootings", since they quite often turn out not be messed up at all and instead are misrepresented by media ... I guess to get more eyeballs
