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I need HELP with finding a new laptop

CrAsHnBuRnXp said:
I cant recommend Lenovo laptops enough.
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Sure, if you want to help the state-sponsered communist China's cyberwarfare attack on the free nations of the world, go ahead and support Lenovo and buy their products.

Please! Do NOT believe me! Bing, DuckDuckGo and Google it yourself. It is not a 1 time thing but a long history of Lenovo repeatedly planting various types of malicious code (Trojans, rootkits, and spyware and more) on consumer computers they sell to unsuspecting and naive users across the rest of the world.

Do they make good computers? Yes. That's the sad part. Does that mean you should buy them? No.
 
Bill_Bright said:
Sure, if you want to help the state-sponsered communist China's cyberwarfare attack on the free nations of the world, go ahead and support Lenovo and buy their products.

Please! Do NOT believe me! Bing, DuckDuckGo and Google it yourself. It is not a 1 time thing but a long history of Lenovo repeatedly planting various types of malicious code (Trojans, rootkits, and spyware and more) on consumer computers they sell to unsuspecting and naive users across the rest of the world.

Do they make good computers? Yes. That's the sad part. Does that mean you should buy them? No.
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Format the machine. Done.
 
Hardly the point, is it? I note a complete format and reinstall is no easy task - considering computers these days do not come with OS installation media. That leaves users the options of buying a fresh "clean" copy of the OS from Microsoft, or use potentially suspect media creation utilities from the untrustworthy Lenovo itself and risk re-installing the malware. No thanks.

Like I said, they make good products, but there are other good makers too.
 
Vayra86 said:
On this budget, cram a full fat quad core Intel Skylake or newer in there, 8 GB Dual Channel, and the SSD and you've got a wonderful machine.

I paid 1200 EUR for such a setup with 940 MX for graphics @ BTO.eu. It won't be the flashiest looking laptop but it will be extremely functional.

Would recommend you pick your parts like this instead of getting a misleading OEM P.O.S.
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Is there a 910?
 
Bill_Bright said:
Sure, if you want to help the state-sponsered communist China's cyberwarfare attack on the free nations of the world, go ahead and support Lenovo and buy their products.

Please! Do NOT believe me! Bing, DuckDuckGo and Google it yourself. It is not a 1 time thing but a long history of Lenovo repeatedly planting various types of malicious code (Trojans, rootkits, and spyware and more) on consumer computers they sell to unsuspecting and naive users across the rest of the world.

Do they make good computers? Yes. That's the sad part. Does that mean you should buy them? No.
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You do realize that this goes both ways, I hope? There is a good reason China is heavily sponsoring its own chip manufacturing capacity for some time now.

It comes with any OEM laptop, don't kid yourself that its just Lenovo. They're just the worst at hiding it. 'Helping state sponsored communist China'... give us a break :p The NSA is much better at it. Let's stop buying Intel? :laugh:
 
Vayra86 said:
You do realize that this goes both ways, I hope?
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No it doesn't. It could, but it's not. If US or UK or German or Taiwan or South Korean, or Dutch computer makers (or software developers like Bridge Global) were repeatedly planting malicious code on the computers they were selling to consumers, it would be all over the news too. But you don't see where Dell or Acer or Samsung, etc. computers, or have repeatedly and intentionally (and note Lenovo admitted it!) infected their systems with malware such that countries like the US, UK, Australia and others have banned their use in government offices.

Please do your homework before trying to compare NSA with Lenovo.

There's a big difference between what NSA did and what Lenovo is doing. NSA is NOT planting "malicious" code on computers in the factories at Dell, Acer, HP, etc. So don't even try to rationalize one with the other. There is no comparison.

I NEVER said anything about boycotting Chinese products. They can and do make top quality products. This is only about the company, Lenovo and their products.

Like I said, do your homework and research Lenovo for yourself. And for sure, if can find where NSA has planted malware in NSA branded products, by all means, don't buy them! ;)

Now I suggest we get back on-topic.
 
Bill_Bright said:
No it doesn't. It could, but it's not. If US or UK or German or Taiwan or South Korean, or Dutch computer makers (or software developers like Bridge Global) were repeatedly planting malicious code on the computers they were selling to consumers, it would be all over the news too. But you don't see where Dell or Acer or Samsung, etc. computers, or have repeatedly and intentionally (and note Lenovo admitted it!) infected their systems with malware such that countries like the US, UK, Australia and others have banned their use in government offices.

Please do your homework before trying to compare NSA with Lenovo.

There's a big difference between what NSA did and what Lenovo is doing. NSA is NOT planting "malicious" code on computers in the factories at Dell, Acer, HP, etc. So don't even try to rationalize one with the other. There is no comparison.

I NEVER said anything about boycotting Chinese products. They can and do make top quality products. This is only about the company, Lenovo and their products.

Like I said, do your homework and research Lenovo for yourself. And for sure, if can find where NSA has planted malware in NSA branded products, by all means, don't buy them! ;)

Now I suggest we get back on-topic.
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No, not at the factory, they intercept the hardware and do it afterwards ;) And they want to do it at a large scale, dragnet surveillance style, and they already have, too.

https://www.cnet.com/news/nsa-reportedly-installing-spyware-on-us-made-hardware/
http://www.spiegel.de/international...back-doors-for-numerous-devices-a-940994.html

Additionally:
"In the context of criticism of the Intel ME and AMD Secure Technology it has been pointed out that the NSA budget request for 2013 contained a Sigint Enabling Project with the goal to "Insert vulnerabilities into commercial encryption systems, IT systems, …" and it has been conjectured that Intel ME and AMD Secure Technology might be part of that programme.[85] "

The NSA implements HAP on specific devices to exclude them from this vulnerability.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Management_Engine

Sorry Bill, but 'suggesting' to get back on-topic after such statements, isn't really fair now is it. It IS all over the news, and before you say 'but the NSA never admitted it' (lol!), take a long look at legislation in the US. I'm not sure how close to openly admitting it we need to get to see the obvious. There are no limits to the information hunger of intelligence agencies and we all know this, we also know there is no escaping Big Brother unless you fully disconnect. Its an uncomfortable truth I know, but denial isn't the answer to that.

So its not so much a choice of whether or not you'll have a compromised system, its about who you allow it to be compromised to. I'll agree right away about Lenovo's practices being bad, but we cannot be blind for the corruption that exists in our own backyard.

In all fairness what Lenovo's been accused of doing is child's play. Some Superfish /commercial spyware and malicious code that is easily discovered, versus covert, targeted and dragnet surveillance methods protected by (often unwritten) law? Choose your poison... At least you can format a Lenovo machine... ;)

Offtopic, but I just can't let this slide.
 
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You are talking apples and oranges. Read your own links. Your own link talks about NSA accessing primarily "networking" equipment targeting specific users or organizations intent on conducting criminal or terroristic activities or espionage. That is, "intelligence targets". That's a huge difference from Lenovo infecting private citizens and consumers of their products for greed, and to aid the Chinese government in spying on "our" governments.

If you think the NSA's methods (which I am NOT defending, BTW) were as malicious to the common user/private citiizen as Lenovo's activities, then I think you have a sad perspective of things. NSA was out to prevent death and destruction of innocent lives - another 9/11, for example. Lenovo is a company out to deceive its customers for profit, and to aid in the spying on the enemies of China - which includes your Netherlands. The USA is not the Netherland's enemy. If Russia decides it is going to take claim of Netherland's crude oil reserves, do you think China is going to come to your aid?

Governments conducting cyberwarfare between "nation states" is one thing. Companies spying on customers and infecting customer computers with malware is another.

Like I said, apples and oranges.

Now again, I suggest we get back on topic. I am.
 
Bill_Bright said:
Please read through threads before responding. quirky already replied to that.
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I think if you you go back and read the thread ... in order, you might understand better. I asked the question is post 7.

"But without knowing what "work" involves, it's just about impossible to make a recommendation. "

You had respnded to another poster saying "Ummm, he said right off the bat, "

My 2nd response, if ya bothered to notice, was directed **to you** in Post 13 addressing that point

In response to the above, that 1st part of my post was to address that in the original post he clearly did not say it "right off the bat", ... fact is he did not address anything until Post No. 19... 6 posts later. And while that 1st sentence was directed only to the part of your post that I quoted, the rest of the post's purpose was to indicate to the OP what type of work, specifically **what application usages** would need to be identified in order to answer the question properly. Been building PCs for 25 years and to properly select components, I need to know what apps are being used. If someone said they needed a set of hand and power tools for work ... could you answer ? ... if subsequent clarification was "will be working on commercial buildings, new construction, remodeling" ...Ok that's a start ... we talking wood or steel framing, roofing, siding, foundations, plumbing, electrical ???? Doesn't each each requires a different set of tools ?

And even after post 19, I still don''t know what applications are being used.

work- editing content - in what .... CAD, Desktop Publishing, web site creation, videos, word processing ?

creating tables & presentations .... again, spreadsheets, word processing, web sites, CAD, Powerpoint , Web Video, web pages ?

on line working ... creating web web sites ? working on remote office suite files, researching on the web ?

We select components by looking at the software applications or specific tasks being used ...each has it's own system requirements and for which the published "minimums" are hardly capable of production level performance.

On my box I do all of the stated tasks, I edit content, create tables, prepare presentations, work on line researching product and equipment specs. My main application is AutoCAD.... revise building layouts, make presentations for alternative designs, add spec tables, My office manager also does all of those things, her most used application is an Office Suite and Quickbooks. If we need renderings for presentation purposes, I farm that out to someone else. Those 3 machines while all performing work that falls into the described categories use very, very different applications and have vastly differetnt system requirements. For my 2D / 3D CAD work, GTX cards rule, for my farm out CAD rendering stuff, they use Quadro....so even "CAD" requires further definitions as GTX can not perform productively in rendering and Quadro is poor in 2D / 3D.

The point I am trying to make is we can all guess what we think is meant for these descriptions but if it's a wrong guess, then the OP is not well served ... Google "System requirements - Editing content" ... "System requirements -tables and presentations" .... "System requirements - online working" and ya won't find any component recommendations. Put in the application names and the necessary answers will be forthcoming.

Without definitive information, I therefore took my best guess and provided basic recommendation where he could get a custom built laptop... starting at $900 and up to $1250ish with upgrades, if his application's system requirements demanded. While I think it was a pretty safe bet, the caveat still exists that if I underestimated his necessary applications, that recommendation could still come up short.

As for the latter "ooh scary scary" stuff, I think that's clearly outside the context of the thread but that's the wonderful thing about custom built lappies. You don't have to buy or have to have an OS has installed. You can buy the media from seller or buy your own... or buy a license and just d/l ya self.

Also please note... 1) Lenovo doesn't actually "make" a single laptop and 2) whose laptop isn't made in China ? Again

"The vast majority of laptops on the market (94% in 2011) are manufactured by a small handful of Taiwan-based ODMs, although their production bases are located mostly in mainland China. Major relationships include:
  • Quanta sells to (among others) HP, Lenovo, Apple, Acer, Toshiba, Dell, Sony, Fujitsu and NEC
  • Compal sells to (among others) Acer, Dell, Toshiba, Lenovo and HP/Compaq
  • Wistron (former manufacturing & design division of Acer) sells to Dell, Acer, Lenovo and HP
  • Inventec sells to Toshiba, HP, Dell and Lenovo
  • Pegatron sells to Asus, Toshiba, Apple, Dell and Acer
  • Foxconn sells to Asus, Dell, HP and Apple
  • Flextronics (former Arima Computer Corporation notebook division) sells to HP"
So if Lenovo is bad ... doesn't that also rule out all the brands made in the same factories, with the same parts, on the same productions lines, by the same peoples as HP, Apple, Acer, Toshiba, Dell, Sony, Fujitsu, NEC, Compaq. All the others are also made by folks with production facilities in mainland China. You can use Bing, DuckDuckGo and Google it yourself. Last I heard, MSI moved it's production facilities to Taiwan.
 
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John Naylor said:
So if Lenovo is bad ... doesn't that also rule out all the brands made in the same factories, with the same parts, on the same productions lines, by the same peoples as HP, Apple, Acer, Toshiba, Dell, Sony, Fujitsu, NEC, Compaq.
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No. Not in this case. That would assume it is the factory personnel who have secretly implanted the malicious code on the drives during the production runs. In this Lenovo scenario, that's not how it works. Lenovo, Dell, HP etc, all develop their proprietary code (for disk images and BIOS setup) and supply those images to the factory. Lenovo, Dell, HP, etc. supply and dictate which components to use, not the factory.

When the factory retools for Dell, they use Dell supplied components and images for Dell computers. When that production run is complete, they retool for HP and use HP supplied components and images for HP computers.

Lenono, Dell, HP, etc. do the design. The factory does the assembly. A "flaw" in production might manifest and appear across all brands. But the designs are unique to the brand. And we're not talking about an unintentional "flaw" or factory "defect". But rather intentionally embedded malicious code.

Just because the same factory makes products for different brands, does not mean the factory controls the production process from Step 1 to the final step. When a company contracts a factory to assemble a product for them, the company is the one who does the designing and designates what parts goes into them. It is also the company who has final quality control over the product to ensure parts coming off the production line meet their specs.

If all those other makers' computers were compromised too, they would have been discovered by outside security watchdogs, just as Lenovo has been.

In any industry, it is very common for companies to NOT own their own factories. And it is very common for factories to produce/assemble products for several companies. That does not mean the factory is deciding what goes into those products.

Look at refineries. It is commonplace for one refinery to refine raw crude oil to make gasoline for Exxon Mobile today, Phillips 66 tomorrow and Chevron the next day. That does not mean it is the refinery that is deciding which additive to add to each run. It is Exxon, Phillips and Chevron doing that. And it is Exxon, Phillips and Chevron responsible for the verification and quality control too.

Bakeries do the same thing. You might have a big bakery in your town that makes "fresh" bakery products for Sara Lee, Rotella, King's Hawaiian, Wonder and Pepperidge Farm. It is Sara Lee, Wonder, King's etc. who supply the basic and proprietary ingredients, and the recipes to the bakery. It is up to the bakeries to bake the products as per the recipes. And it is up to those brands to ensure the bread coming off each run meets their "designs" and standards.

Could a disgruntled worker poison everything? Sure. But the source of that poisoning would quickly become apparent, just as the source would quickly become apparent if Lenovo, Dell, HP, Acer computers were all infected with malicious code. Like poisons, malicious code has a "DNA" that can be traced.
John Naylor said:
You had respnded to another poster saying "Ummm, he said right off the bat, "

My 2nd response, if ya bothered to notice, was directed **to you** in Post 13 addressing that point
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And if **you** had bothered to read the second sentence in that same Post 13, and my comment in Post #18, you would have seen where I agreed with Aquinas' post #17 and his comments about "work requirements" and **you** would have seen that I said "we need more information" from the OP 3 days before **you** decided to join the thread. And if **you** had read through the thread, **you** would have seen where the OP already answered before you joined with,
quirky said:
$1000-$1500 will be fine
Also, about the work- editing content, creating tables & presentations, online working.
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I also recommended Lenovo wholeheartedly, but I also thik one should always get rid of the bloatware on new laptop by format + reinstall using laptop's win10 key ... Lenovo or not
 
Good point about bloatware. That's why I build my own PCs - no bloatware at all. But sadly, there is no ATX Form Factor standard for notebooks like there is for PCs. So the self-build industry for notebooks is almost nonexistent. :(
 
So I took some of your suggestions and I decided to go with Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon. From the reviews I found it should meet all of my expectations. Thank you for all of the recommendations!
 
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