Beaten down by the Billy club

[mountainman bob]

Bill Gates WINs again!

My detest of windows has been overwhelmed by my need for it, too many things are slowing my roll by trying to stay free from its grasp.

My main concerns are being able to use hornresp, my new dats v3, and some sort of box calculator……...question is what laptop to get during the Black Friday deals? I’ve narrowed down performance/price point to this (see pic)………
Will i5/8gb/512gb be enough or will i regret not going for broke on a i7/16/1tb ? It will be for audio related use only and not cluttered with anything else.

Does this one look decent? I like the fact it converts to a pad…….reviews praise speed/ease of use, biggest complaints are heat/battery life (4-5hrs)
battery life isn’t really a big issue for me but heat may affect longevity?

thx, Bob

 

[phase]

Ugh, looks like a decent buy, but may want to research what bloatware comes with an hp these days, have heard some stories…
SSD is a huge upgrade.

 

[mountainman bob]

Seems HP is in the lower half of offense regarding bloatware, and much of it can be removed without upsetting functionality. I‘ve had several HP products over the years and were happy with them.

 

[YashN]

Try using your software with Linux/Ubuntu and WINE. Install it as a dual-boot.

 

[mountainman bob]

Thats why i’m at this point! I’ve been trying to make wine work on my mac mini unsuccessfully (three attempts) and have concluded from this is that if one can barely make a computer do what it’s supposed to, one shouldn’t ask it to do something its not. I’m not cut from computer cloth and find this all quite stressing to tell the truth, but no pain no gain!

edit; “ease of use” in the reviews was a big drawing point! 😉

 

[Marcus Halberstram]

Thats why i’m at this point! I’ve been trying to make wine work on my mac mini unsuccessfully (three attempts) and have concluded from this is that if one can barely make a computer do what it’s supposed to, one shouldn’t ask it to do something its not. I’m not cut from computer cloth and find this all quite stressing to tell the truth, but no pain no gain!

edit; “ease of use” in the reviews was a big drawing point! 😉

I would take a look at VirtualBox.

 

[mountainman bob]

I appreciate the suggestions but at this stage the decision has been made to just comply, no more fight left in me.

 

[AllenB]

that if one can barely make a computer do what it’s supposed to, one shouldn’t ask it to do something its not. I’m not cut from computer cloth and find this all quite stressing to tell the truth,

Then I appreciate you hesitating... but the point about VirtualBox would be that I use it to run windows 7. I see you concerning over which modern machine to get but it's not really that critical for running hornresp, crossover simulators, Autocad and those other things I can't do the other way.

 

[YashN]

Thats why i’m at this point! I’ve been trying to make wine work on my mac mini

I used WINEBottler to install Win software like LTSpice on macOS and it ran well (I know there's a Mac version, that's besides the point here). For other software, I used Virtual Box, but this requires installing Windows itself as well.

 

[mountainman bob]

I wondered if just picking up a good used one from a pawn shop might save a few dollars, but honestly most every time i try to save money in that way it bites me in the behind and ends up costing more in the long run.

Yasn, tried the bottler and some other “helper” i cant recall at the moment………no bueno!

 

[AllenB]

Capabilities wise, that could be a good choice.

Assuming it functions... I do like to install a fresh operating system when I start working with a used computer, often too when re-purposing one of my own. It's not always essential. Sometimes it will have been done for you by someone who was just being thorough on their end.

 

[A Jedi]

Ugh I keep around a 20 year old windows XP machine just for VituixCAD. Have never been able to get it to work using WINE.

 

[mountainman bob]

Coming down to the wire! Looking at many horror stories of refurbished laptop failure with no support after the sale, so thinking (as I originally assumed) probably not worth the savings.

The choice between windows 10/11 pro and 11 home isn‘t clear to me which might be better for my situation……is one or the other easier to use/more idiot proof? 🙂

would seem to me the ‘pro’ version might not be as burdened by bloatware and such or is that just wishful thinking?

 

[mountainman bob]

Ok well, pulled the trigger on this one just a minute ago…….went with the 15.6” version for a couple reasons, one being it has a calculator pad on the keyboard (figured that‘d be handy with all the math involved) and figured a little more breathing room might be nice.
Upgraded it to 16 ram/512 ssd and still kept it under 6 bills……..there were no real deals out there (that i could find) for the black friday/cyber monday weekend.