Hacker News Reader

Comment by singlow | Hacker News Reader

I really wanted to consider the X1 Carbon this last spring but two things stopped me. The function row and the 8GB RAM.

I ended up with a w540 - it has 2880x1620px 15.4" screen and the battery life has been great under Ubuntu (5-6hrs) if a bit less than it gets under Windows (6-7hrs). But I got 16GB of RAM and it can go up to 32GB.

View on HN

I got my Gen1 Carbon X1 -laptop two years ago, and remember wondering how on earth they could release such a great piece of hardware with such a crappy 8GB RAM limit.

And exactly one year ago also tweeted (https://twitter.com/pyrylahti/status/420565944776155136) about the crappiness of the 2nd generation 8GB-limit.

Aaaand.. third time's no charm either. I'd upgrade in a heart beat if it had more memory (otherwise it's the best laptop I've used). Probably have to start googling for an alternative hardware (for running Xubuntu). sigh...

I'm also disappointed at the 8GB ram.

As someone that programs in R it is also a no go for me.

I have been using w540 with 2880x1620px for about year and I really like it. Everything works well with Ubuntu 14.04. My only complaint is mouse buttons are merged with trackpad buttons, but I don't use trackpad because it gets in a way when typing. So if I disable the trackpad, I cannot use point-mouse in the keyboard.

> My only complaint is mouse buttons are merged with trackpad buttons

TrackPoint buttons are back in the W550.

My MBP Retina is similarly powerful, 16G, and gets 10 hours of browsing or document editing.

Also heats up like crazy and battery life goes to about 1.5-2hrs if all cores are used. I don't get the powerful part if you aren't using the power.

I haven't had this experience at least. I get about 7 hours if I'm doing light web browsing, and about 3.5 if I'm working (Xcode + Parallels running Win7 which is running CodeComposer). First gen MBPr.

10 hours with OSX or with Linux? Linux is known to have a poorer power performance than win or osx.

How long does it take to replace the drive?

The SSD? 15 minutes not including how long it takes for you to order a replacement SSD on eBay and a pentalibe screwdriver.

Ugh...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com