Tag Archives: laptops

Future-proofing against Windows 11

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Ooh yeah so I needed to upgrade some hardware to be able to cope with Windows 11, which would f*ck me up when I shift to it. Because company IT may ask us to do it sooner or later since support for Win 10 will end 4 years from now. And our entire system is unfriendly to non-Microsoft users. Integration with my Android phone is pretty bad, but it’s worse with Mac OS and iPhone. Linux? Don’t get me started.

Ewwww. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I opened up the Acer gaming laptop I hijacked from J and cleaned its guts. Look at that exhaust fan. Ugh. I used a thin but stiff paintbrush to clean it and all the vents. I used my vacuum cleaner (good thing I bought a rechargeable one and ditched my old clunky one) to clean the rest of my laptop-turned-desktop’s innards.

Then I checked the RAM slot if I can still add. It currently has 8GB, which is decent for Windows 10.

Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I still can, so I ordered another 8GB DDR3, 1600 Mhz SODIMM RAM stick fron Lazada and I think by next week I can already plug it in that second slot.

The laptop runs on Core i5 5th gen (we’re already on the 11th gen; my new laptop is 10th gen) but I think it will still be all right. When Microsoft says min specs should be 4GB, that means you have to have 8GB of RAM for your computer to be serviceable, 16GB for it to be comfortable. I remember they said minimum for Windows 8.1 was 2GB and my hybrid tablet only had that and was running on Intel Atom. It was killing me. I had to run Outlook on it and MS Teams and it was freezing. All. The. Time. I only bought that thing as a backup to my Asus when I worked in Japan for two weeks in 2017. Which was wise of me because my Asus became temperamental during the most critical time.

Anyway, I spent majority of my Sunday (yesterday) poking into laptops. I just installed a fresh copy of Ubuntu in another laptop that my househelp uses for her online school.

Then the rest of yesterday was spent on revenge shopping. So don’t ask me how I ended up buying a new area rug and new pillows. 🤦🏻‍♀️ I only intended to buy a gas regulator for my LPG tank.

At least now the bigger rug will not roll and unroll and get displaced all the time because the wheels would no longer catch the edge of the rug. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

Speaking of which, I thought it was my regulator that’s problematic. It turns out it’s my stove! It’s a Rinnai stove, by that Japanese MNC whose gas stoves are so ubiquitous in Japan. But then that stove suffered so much abuse that it’s about time that I retire it.

I am now eyeing this model that is common in Japanese kitchens, the one with an oven to cook fish and a grill on top.

I no longer have to grill skewered meat outside. Or yakitori. Or dried squid. But then no one is eating dried squid here anymore… So dried fish is it then; I could shred and make an olive oil-based pasta dish.

Greenhills vs Lazada/Shopee

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Since my Lenovo Miix 3 is already on its last legs, I had been spending hours at night scouring online marketplaces for a replacement laptop. Last Friday has proven to me that I shouldn’t delay this further because I went to the interview with a humongous laptop with me that I had to unplug from the back of my table and I wrestled with the peripherals that I had to disconnect so I can be mobile. When my Miix was still serviceable, it was just grab and go.

One of the laptops I was checking out was Lenovo Chromebook, mainly for its portability and battery life.

But the specs are really low-end and old, I doubted whether I would be productive given the lack of computing power.

Then I checked out Chuwi Aerobook because I am shallow since its form factor is imitating Macbook Air. However, the processors are old generation, that’s how they kept it somewhat affordable.

I figured I could get more decent specs for almost the same price. So I found Machenike, a Chinese brand of gaming laptop. The specs and price hit the sweet spot.

The only thing that made me hesitate is that it ships from China and the probability that some fuck ups will happen is very, very high. It’s too much of a risk. Another concern is the warranty. Although Lazada says it has local warranty, there is something dodgy about a vendor that says there is local warranty but does not publish where the local office is located. What if there are dead pixels? What if the keyboards are problematic? I could not find any other reviews about its reliability aside from those written on Lazada so that’s another red flag for me.

I searched for tablets bigger than 10″ since the one I’m going to replace is a Lenovo Windows tablet anyway, but most of them either have very old processors or keyboards are going to be an issue since some of them do not come with keyboards (unlike Lenovo Miix3). Chuwi tablets looked like they could be alternatives to Microsoft Surface hybrid tablets but again, I’m going to pay for old processors for the same price as a full laptop.

I was about to give up and succumb to ordering the Machenike laptop when I found the Lenovo Ideapad 3

This seems to be the best deal: Core i3 10th generation for less than PHP 25,000, even if you add RAM. Before pulling the trigger, I decided to go to Greenhills today to check out if I can buy it for the same price as those sold on Lazada. Because I have low EQ when it comes to important purchases, I am willing to shell out a little more instead of risking it getting lost or damaged by the courier.

Lo and behold, I was able to buy one from PCX in Greenhills for the same price, also with free mouse and bag. However, I settled for 128 GB ROM and paid cash so the price would stay under 25k.

Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Photo by CallMeCreation.com

It looks unsexy (kinda like the old IBM Thinkpads) and the body is all plastic (vs Chuwi Aerobook, which has a metal body like Macbook Air) but its battery life is around 6 hrs, around the same as or longer than that of Chuwi Aerobook or Ubook. Its innards are pretty standard, 8GB DDR4 2666 RAM, 128 GB SSD (can be expanded to make it hybrid) and everything else (screen, sounds,microhpne, etc) is not much of an issue for me since I will just use this for writing and editing on the go. It’s relatively lighter than the Acer gaming laptop that I hijacked from J that I’m using now as permanent desktop computer. It only weighs 1.6 kg, which is manageable and it won’t destroy my leather laptop bag that was just purchased right before the pandemic hit. I’ll just probably use the free laptop bag when I travel until I replace it with a better one that is roomy enough for a laptop and clothes that I can just chuck in the overhead bin of a plane because there are trips that only warrant a handcarry luggage. Just like the last overseas trip I had, which was like ages ago–Jakarta in July 2019, which was just under 48 hrs.

Overall I’m quite satisfied with the laptop’s performance. It can handle multitasking (messaging apps, multiple tabs of firefox, spotify, outlook, etc.) I cannot imagine running everything on only Celeron. The 10th gen Core i3 will be serviceable for at least 3 years; I’ll just add RAM or convert this into a Linux machine if this thing slows down. Even the Chuwi uses 6th gen Core i5 processors and they sell them at almost the same price as this Lenovo that I have. No wonder their laptops only get less than 5 hrs of battery life.

Anyway, face to face interviews are slowly picking up. This new laptop would soon be in service.