Laptop/2 in 1 - What do I want?

[Baboontyme 2832]

My Surface Pro 2 that I have used for quite a while and have loved is finally crapping out, it seems. Probably time to upgrade. 

It has a 10.1" screen. I like the screen size. If I want to go tab mode with it and rip off the keyboard it's not super awkward. I have a newer 12" Surface Pro for work that seems so much bigger to me and I don't really like it. I can travel with this SP2 with almost a pocket bag. 

I've been looking at the Surface Go. It maxes at 128GB HDD. I know SSD is the way to go for speed but I don't really care. HDD is plenty fast for me. My SP2 is 256 and I'm full in terms of storage right now. I don't even have a ton of waste on here. I run office. I run Photoshop. And mostly Chrome other than that. I've exported most of my photos and videos to Google or an external HDD. It seems that most of what I run takes up a lot of memory. I could go SP6 with 256 but it's a little bigger than I want. 

Anyone have anything in this realm that they like a lot?

[Lobwedgephil 1139]

As you mentioned, would look at the SP6 first, probably checks most of your boxes. Lenova Yoga might be another to look at. 

[elfenix 34366]

1 hour ago, Baboontyme said:

My Surface Pro 2 that I have used for quite a while and have loved is finally crapping out, it seems. Probably time to upgrade. 

It has a 10.1" screen. I like the screen size. If I want to go tab mode with it and rip off the keyboard it's not super awkward. I have a newer 12" Surface Pro for work that seems so much bigger to me and I don't really like it. I can travel with this SP2 with almost a pocket bag. 

I've been looking at the Surface Go. It maxes at 128GB HDD. I know SSD is the way to go for speed but I don't really care. HDD is plenty fast for me. My SP2 is 256 and I'm full in terms of storage right now. I don't even have a ton of waste on here. I run office. I run Photoshop. And mostly Chrome other than that. I've exported most of my photos and videos to Google or an external HDD. It seems that most of what I run takes up a lot of memory. I could go SP6 with 256 but it's a little bigger than I want. 

Anyone have anything in this realm that they like a lot?

neither version of surface go uses an HDD.  the cheaper one uses 64GB of eMMC (basically the same stuff phones use), and the 128GB model uses a proper SSD. 

[Baboontyme 2832]

7 hours ago, elfenix said:

neither version of surface go uses an HDD.  the cheaper one uses 64GB of eMMC (basically the same stuff phones use), and the 128GB model uses a proper SSD. 

Interesting. Didn't know that. Trying to figure out if I can get by on 128GB running proper office (not 365) and Photoshop, etc. If I can the Go would be a no brainer. 

[TwiceHorn 31653]

You wouldnt want an HDD in a tablet thing.  First it would make it intolerably thick.  Second,  HDDs don't like to move around the way tablets move around.

With a bit of discipline and use of cloud storage (dropbox, google drive, etc.) you should be able to get by on 128 easily.  I have most of a law practice plus apps (no porkers like Office or PS, though) and OS in 40GB.  And that's with a local copy of most of the documents.  Things used less commonly are cloud-only.

Do you really run PS on a tablet with a 10" screen?  I am guessing you need to offload some photos and videos.

Edited October 5, 2018 by TwiceHorn

[Dahobbs 17753]

9 hours ago, Baboontyme said:

My Surface Pro 2 that I have used for quite a while and have loved is finally crapping out, it seems. Probably time to upgrade. 

It has a 10.1" screen. I like the screen size. If I want to go tab mode with it and rip off the keyboard it's not super awkward. I have a newer 12" Surface Pro for work that seems so much bigger to me and I don't really like it. I can travel with this SP2 with almost a pocket bag. 

I've been looking at the Surface Go. It maxes at 128GB HDD. I know SSD is the way to go for speed but I don't really care. HDD is plenty fast for me. My SP2 is 256 and I'm full in terms of storage right now. I don't even have a ton of waste on here. I run office. I run Photoshop. And mostly Chrome other than that. I've exported most of my photos and videos to Google or an external HDD. It seems that most of what I run takes up a lot of memory. I could go SP6 with 256 but it's a little bigger than I want. 

Anyone have anything in this realm that they like a lot?

Your size constraints are a bit unusual. If the Surface Pro 6 and the like are too big, you're really limited to the cheap (both in price and quality) devices. Dell, Lenovo, and HP all make very nice convertibles (frankly, all better than the Surface Pro devices now because Microsoft refuses to provide features like USB C and Thunderbolt ports). But unfortunately I think you may find all of the premium products slightly larger than you are looking for. You absolutely do not want a spinning disk in a laptop 2 in 1. As TwiceHorn said, it just doesn't work. And, 3 minute boot times for a tablet like product would be intolerable. Some of the nicer products have SSDs in the 512gb range that may solve your problem. Or, you can get one with 128gb and an SD card reader and buy a large size SD card. 256gb ones are pretty common now and not too expensive (for the slower speed ones). 

[TwiceHorn 31653]

10 hours ago, Baboontyme said:

My SP2 is 256 and I'm full in terms of storage right now. I don't even have a ton of waste on here. I run office. I run Photoshop. And mostly Chrome other than that. I've exported most of my photos and videos to Google or an external HDD. It seems that most of what I run takes up a lot of memory.

Something in these sentences is false.  I'm not sure what.   What it might be is that you may have multiple copies of Office of different versions.  But those applications and their files (other than a shit ton of photos and videos for PS), do not take up 256GB.

[Baboontyme 2832]

This is what I'm looking at. Yeah I could reduce my pictures but let me see if I can find out what that 90+ GB bloat is.

[Baboontyme 2832]

85.8 GB in "System Files". All it tells me is "These Systems files help Windows run properly. Your PC won't work without them."

[TwiceHorn 31653]

Your photos should be backed up somewhere.  And once backed up, why have 1/3 of your storage dedicated to them?

[TwiceHorn 31653]

4 minutes ago, Baboontyme said:

85.8 GB in "System Files". All it tells me is "These Systems files help Windows run properly. Your PC won't work without them."

Probably a good chunk of that is an installation copy of Windows, maybe Office too if it came with it.  You're stuck with that.

Also, your email is gargantuan.  Since this isn't your work machine, there's no need to download all of your mail over time and no need to download and store every attachment.  I assume that's outlook or something, I would ditch that entirely or remove the email account and use a web-based version.

If you take and keep that many photos, and use photoshop, you need to look at some dedicated storage for them.  Like NAS or a harddrive hanging off your router or something.

Get and run CCleaner.

Edited October 5, 2018 by TwiceHorn

[TwiceHorn 31653]

Also, for the peanut gallery, is that 90 someodd GB for system typical of W10?  I had a windoze "ultrabook" running windows 7 and it was fairly comparable to my MBP with less than 20GB to system and applications.  That would seriously piss me off.

[Baboontyme 2832]

Yeah I run dual full suite outlooks, one on my work machine and one on my personal and even though probably a no no from IT's perspective I like doing it that way. I do probably 70% of my emails from my personal machine, and when I travel I can take everything with me that I need with the exception of a couple of Office Pro apps. Even some non client work travel I will only bring my 10" SP2 with me. 

I suppose I could/should figure out a way to store everything larger than a couple MB on a HDD tied to my router. 

[TwiceHorn 31653]

8 minutes ago, Baboontyme said:

Yeah I run dual full suite outlooks, one on my work machine and one on my personal and even though probably a no no from IT's perspective I like doing it that way. I do probably 70% of my emails from my personal machine, and when I travel I can take everything with me that I need with the exception of a couple of Office Pro apps. Even some non client work travel I will only bring my 10" SP2 with me. 

I suppose I could/should figure out a way to store everything larger than a couple MB on a HDD tied to my router. 

Well on your personal machine, you should turn it down so it only retrieves a week or so of email and doesn't download attachments automatically.  22GB of email on a non-work machine is absurd.  Also, unless you are frequently without internet, last time I checked, the Outlook web app was pretty good and I am sure it has only gotten better and it takes about none of your precious SSD space.

Also, check your installed programs and see if you don't have multiple versions of Office installed.  It's my understanding that the more recent versions do not replace the older ones.

If you were able to clean up your storage, would you still want a new machine?

First thing you ought to do is look into a dropbox or google drive or onebox or whatever account, and sync your important folders to it.  And upload your big folders and delete them (don't sync because sync = local delete = cloud delete).

Edited October 5, 2018 by TwiceHorn

[Baboontyme 2832]

Gotcha. Yeah sometimes I do need to check my Outlook history from here, I guess I can do that in the Web Version? I used to not use the web version because search was clunky, the signature did not look proper and it was obvious you were writing from the web version which I can't have. Also I'm not sure if it supports the plugin for GoToMeeting, which I use often to schedule meetings in Outlook. I'm pretty sure I need the full version. 

Storage is part of the issue but only part so yeah I'm pretty sure I need a new machine. My SP2 doesn't hold a charge anymore. It's lights out when I unplug it. 

[TwiceHorn 31653]

Well for future reference then.  SSD space is still pretty expensive so 512 is going to cost a pretty penny yet and probably is only available on premium machines anyway.  With just a bit of thought and effort (that pays dividends other ways, e.g. backup, more permanent storage, access from anywhere, etc.), you should easily get by on 256.

Run CCleaner. 

[Dahobbs 17753]

12 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Also, for the peanut gallery, is that 90 someodd GB for system typical of W10?  I had a windoze "ultrabook" running windows 7 and it was fairly comparable to my MBP with less than 20GB to system and applications.  That would seriously piss me off.

90GBs for Windows 10 is very high. It should be closer to 16-30 at most. Something is off there. Also, do not run CCleaner. (1) certain versions were compromised last year by sophisticated malware; and (2) it really doesn't serve any purpose in Windows 10 anymore. 

[Baboontyme 2832]

9 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

90GBs for Windows 10 is very high. It should be closer to 16-30 at most. Something is off there. Also, do not run CCleaner. (1) certain versions were compromised last year by sophisticated malware; and (2) it really doesn't serve any purpose in Windows 10 anymore. 

How might I dive in to figure out what that 90 GBs is comprised of?

[Lobwedgephil 1139]

Just get a SP6 with 512 or 1TB of storage, problem solved and you don't have to make any compromises on what you do currently. But yeah, your 90 GB is way to high, not sure what is going on there. 

[Dahobbs 17753]

1 minute ago, Baboontyme said:

How might I dive in to figure out what that 90 GBs is comprised of?

First thing I would do is look at your installed programs and see if there is anything there you don't need. I'm not sure what would be clogging up your system files. Could be a page file size setting or something random. You'd probably have to dig through your Windows folder to figure it out. 

[elfenix 34366]

2 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Also, for the peanut gallery, is that 90 someodd GB for system typical of W10?  I had a windoze "ultrabook" running windows 7 and it was fairly comparable to my MBP with less than 20GB to system and applications.  That would seriously piss me off.

 

Win 10 seems to expand to fit available space. I wouldn't be shocked if it were using 100+ gigs, especially if the WinSxS directory is full of update cache. For whatever reason it doesn't get counted when you look at folder properties, so even if windows says it's taking 20 GB, it could be taking 50 or more. Treesize will tell you how much room it's actually taking.

Anecdote: on one computer with a 128 SSD I had Windows, the usual collection of apps, and a game that took up about 25 gigs.  Usually have about 15-20 gigs of free space available.  One day started getting low on space alerts, and see that I've got less than 500 megs.  Empty the recycle bin, run disk cleanup and crapcleaner; that frees up a little space.  It fills up again.  So I moved the game off, ran virus scanner just to make sure it wasn't a virus, etc.  Windows then did an update and suddenly 45 gigs was free. 

That said, Windows doesn't have any problem running off of my old Dell 8" tablet with 32 GB of eMMC. 

Edited October 5, 2018 by elfenix

[TwiceHorn 31653]

Fair enough on CCleaner.  I forget that I am virtually immune, although I think if you get it from piriform you are clear.

Another option is to run Disk Cleanup from disk properties.

[Baboontyme 2832]

I cleaned it up using CCleaner. I didn't see hobbs post. It cleared about 5 GB. I'm still running really heavy in that Systems folder. 

I wish I could edit my OP. I did not realize that my SP2 was using a SSD. Which is why I said HDD was plenty fast for me. So yeah I guess I want to stick with SSD. 

[SDG 3319]

7 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Your photos should be backed up somewhere.  And once backed up, why have 1/3 of your storage dedicated to them?

Waiting for nudes of wife to show up from hacked cloud account....

[Dahobbs 17753]

29 minutes ago, Baboontyme said:

I cleaned it up using CCleaner. I didn't see hobbs post. It cleared about 5 GB. I'm still running really heavy in that Systems folder. 

I wish I could edit my OP. I did not realize that my SP2 was using a SSD. Which is why I said HDD was plenty fast for me. So yeah I guess I want to stick with SSD. 

It very well may be related to your email. Don't worry about the CCleaner thing. The malware issue is old at this point, so I'm sure you're fine. It still isn't necessary for windows 10. You might try the desk cleanup tool that comes with Windows and see what that does. 

[TwiceHorn 31653]

DId you check installed programs and see if perhaps you have multiple versions of Office?  I am given to understand that the last few versions did not replace prior versions, but went in side-by-side.  You might well have two or three.

 

But the weirdness is that 90GB system "folder."  The "you're a data slob" is the 22GB of email and 80GB of photos.  Sort those out, and you have plenty of room in 256GB.  I haven't used Outlook in quite some time, but seem to recall that you could download only going back a few weeks or months, yet still be able to search archives and pull up something older.

Edited October 5, 2018 by TwiceHorn

[Baboontyme 2832]

Yeah it doesn't appear that I do have multiple versions of Outlook. Windows? I might have the old copy before I updated to 10. I'm not sure how to check. The folders look empty. 

[TwiceHorn 31653]

23 minutes ago, Baboontyme said:

Yeah it doesn't appear that I do have multiple versions of Outlook. Windows? I might have the old copy before I updated to 10. I'm not sure how to check. The folders look empty. 

That I don't know.  I have never upgraded an OS that way, except Macs.

[elfenix 34366]

On 10/5/2018 at 8:14 PM, Baboontyme said:

Yeah it doesn't appear that I do have multiple versions of Outlook. Windows? I might have the old copy before I updated to 10. I'm not sure how to check. The folders look empty. 

 

https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-delete-the-windows-old-folder-from-windows-10/

 

[Baboontyme 2832]

I wound up getting the heftiest of the Surface Gos. I just did not want to cope with the size of the 12" Surface Pro. I've had it about 10 days. I have 4 more days to return it if I want to. At this point I'm leaning towards keeping it. 

I like that it's small. It's VERY small. Smaller and lighter than my SP2. I don't like that the touch cover/keyboard is so small that I have to compact my hands and sometimes fat finger the Qs, Ps and other 'pinky' keys. 

I ran with the MS account and Office 365 and it really has made for a slim install. The Office 365 version of Outlook is pretty full suite, the only thing I can't do is install my G2M plugin. I looked that up and you need a full copy of Office to run it. I guess I can use the actual G2M program if I need to do it from this machine. I'm currently using 33 GB of 128. 

It does seem a bit slower than my SP2. That was also 8 GB RAM, but 256 GB SSD. Would the extra 128 GB of storage make a difference? I don't know what is what anymore. 

Speaking of storage, what is the best way to hook into an external hard drive for images, music, etc? Or is the cloud the way to go? I do have a lot of large image files from my DSLR that are not backed up on the cloud. They currently reside on an external HD but not hooked into it wirelessly. 

I did do some research trying to find the most spec'd out 2 in 1 out there, with 256+ and 8 or 16+ that was < 12". Not much out there if anything. It seems Acer offered something at one time but it was sold out everywhere online and also in the $1200 range. 

[TwiceHorn 31653]

Yeah, seems like 13" is the standard-ish small screen for a fully functional machine.

For storage, there are a couple of ways to proceed.  One is to get a USB HDD and hang it off your router, assuming it has a USB port.  You may have to flip a switch on your router settings to have it appear, but then it looks like a "network drive" to all the machines on your home network.  Cheap and should work pretty well, depending on storage demands (how often are you using it).

The other option is NAS, which is a hard drive with its own network capability.  Bit more expensive.  Also more robust.  What you would want if you were streaming movies all over the house or constantly editing videos and photos.

[Baboontyme 2832]

Thanks Twice. I'll check it out. 

[BNB 100]

I have a surface and it has a micro SD slot on the back under the stand flap I have a 256 gb card. Do others not?

[Dahobbs 17753]

On ‎10‎/‎21‎/‎2018 at 8:04 AM, Baboontyme said:

It does seem a bit slower than my SP2. That was also 8 GB RAM, but 256 GB SSD. Would the extra 128 GB of storage make a difference? I don't know what is what anymore. 

The SSD size isn't going to affect performance. The primary limiter on the GO is that the Pentium 4415Y processor is limited to 1600mhz with no turbo boost. It is a much newer architecture, but it simply can't match the 2.9ghz turbo of the Core i5 4300u in your surface pro 2. It is about 65% of the speed based on most benchmarks. 

Edited October 22, 2018 by Dahobbs

[Baboontyme 2832]

2 hours ago, Dahobbs said:

The SSD size isn't going to affect performance. The primary limiter on the GO is that the Pentium 4415Y processor is limited to 1600mhz with no turbo boost. It is a much newer architecture, but it simply can't match the 2.9ghz turbo of the Core i5 4300u in your surface pro 2. It is about 65% of the speed based on most benchmarks. 

Thanks hobbs, appreciate you helping me out here, obviously I'm not very educated in this particular area. This confirmation actually has me leaning strongly towards returning it. I am going to look at some of the 12" 2 in 1s I guess, including the SP6. 

[Dahobbs 17753]

11 minutes ago, Baboontyme said:

Thanks hobbs, appreciate you helping me out here, obviously I'm not very educated in this particular area. This confirmation actually has me leaning strongly towards returning it. I am going to look at some of the 12" 2 in 1s I guess, including the SP6. 

Yeah, the no turbo boost is really unfortunate. Oddly enough, the 4415Y does include hyperthreading, which means even though it is dual core like the 4300u, it actually supports 4 threads. Unfortunately, most normal tasks rely heavily on single core speed, and the 4415Y just doesn't have a lot of horsepower in that regard. Even a modest turbo boost to 2 ghz would have helped a lot. It is certainly a lot faster than the old atom chips, but it is underpowered compared to even (newer) smart phones.  

Edited October 22, 2018 by Dahobbs

[Baboontyme 2832]

Thoughts on this one? https://www.bestbuy.com/site/acer-switch-alpha-2-in-1-12-touch-screen-laptop-intel-core-i7-8gb-memory-256gb-solid-state-drive-gray/6214901.p?skuId=6214901

[Dahobbs 17753]

1 hour ago, Baboontyme said:

Thoughts on this one? https://www.bestbuy.com/site/acer-switch-alpha-2-in-1-12-touch-screen-laptop-intel-core-i7-8gb-memory-256gb-solid-state-drive-gray/6214901.p?skuId=6214901

Well, it is an Acer, so that always makes me suspicious of the build quality. The internals are a couple of generations old, but certainly faster than your old SP2. Personally, I would look towards a 8th (or soon to be 9th) generation Intel processor if going that route. Intel essentially doubled the number of cores with their 8th generation, which is the biggest generational change in Intel processors since at least 2012. You could also look at AMD laptops with Ryzen processors. Processors are good, but may be buggy with some applications (just a downside to brand new architecture). That being, said, the Acer has pretty nice internals for the price. And apparently it features liquid cooling, which means it should run silent. Downside is that its battery life isn't great in reviews (under 5 hours depending on workload). As you've noticed, you are pretty limited at the size you are looking for, so I'm not sure I have something else to recommend. 

[Dahobbs 17753]

6 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Well, it is an Acer, so that always makes me suspicious of the build quality. The internals are a couple of generations old, but certainly faster than your old SP2. Personally, I would look towards a 8th (or soon to be 9th) generation Intel processor if going that route. Intel essentially doubled the number of cores with their 8th generation, which is the biggest generational change in Intel processors since at least 2012. You could also look at AMD laptops with Ryzen processors. Processors are good, but may be buggy with some applications (just a downside to brand new architecture). That being, said, the Acer has pretty nice internals for the price. And apparently it features liquid cooling, which means it should run silent. Downside is that its battery life isn't great in reviews (under 5 hours depending on workload). As you've noticed, you are pretty limited at the size you are looking for, so I'm not sure I have something else to recommend. 

Damn edit limit.

If I were you, I'd either look at the Surface Pro 6 or the competitors from Dell, HP, and Lenovo. All are going to be a bit bigger than you like, but you'll have more choices and can get more modern hardware. I haven't shopped in awhile, but if I had to rank:

(1) Dell/HP (surprisingly good products the last couple of years)

(2) Lenovo (always good build quality, but small risk of Chinese spyware)

(3) Microsoft (good hardware, but some dated design decisions. I think Microsoft didn't want to compete too heavily with its OEM partners)

For good measure, Acer and Asus have some good value products. I generally buy ASUS for desktop components, but I haven't been terribly impressed with their laptops. Both Asus and Acer are still fine for laptops, but definitely a couple of large steps behind the above. Fortunately, they are typically priced that way as well. 

 

[52-80 19276]

10 hours ago, Dahobbs said:

Damn edit limit.

If I were you, I'd either look at the Surface Pro 6 or the competitors from Dell, HP, and Lenovo. All are going to be a bit bigger than you like, but you'll have more choices and can get more modern hardware. I haven't shopped in awhile, but if I had to rank:

(1) Dell/HP (surprisingly good products the last couple of years)

(2) Lenovo (always good build quality, but small risk of Chinese spyware)

(3) Microsoft (good hardware, but some dated design decisions. I think Microsoft didn't want to compete too heavily with its OEM partners)

For good measure, Acer and Asus have some good value products. I generally buy ASUS for desktop components, but I haven't been terribly impressed with their laptops. Both Asus and Acer are still fine for laptops, but definitely a couple of large steps behind the above. Fortunately, they are typically priced that way as well. 

 

listen to this man

 

[Dahobbs 17753]

On ‎10‎/‎22‎/‎2018 at 1:46 PM, Baboontyme said:

Thoughts on this one? https://www.bestbuy.com/site/acer-switch-alpha-2-in-1-12-touch-screen-laptop-intel-core-i7-8gb-memory-256gb-solid-state-drive-gray/6214901.p?skuId=6214901

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/10/hp-updates-spectre-x360-2-in-1s-with-webcam-privacy-switch-more-battery-life/

Two 13inch possibilities. Or, you can probably get the previous versions at a slight discount when these are released in November. As I said, HP and Dell have been on fire recently. 

[Baboontyme 2832]

I returned my Surface Go today at Best Buy and looked at a couple of the display models. I'm just not willing to go above the 12.3 size of the SP6. Already too big in my opinion but I've resigned myself to the fact that I'm going to have to deal with it. I wish they made the 128 GB SP6 with the i7 processor. It looks like I have to go 256 if I want the better processor and I'm into the $1500 range, not including the type cover. 

[Dahobbs 17753]

6 minutes ago, Baboontyme said:

I returned my Surface Go today at Best Buy and looked at a couple of the display models. I'm just not willing to go above the 12.3 size of the SP6. Already too big in my opinion but I've resigned myself to the fact that I'm going to have to deal with it. I wish they made the 128 GB SP6 with the i7 processor. It looks like I have to go 256 if I want the better processor and I'm into the $1500 range, not including the type cover. 

Well, I doubt you need the i7. Frankly, it is thermally limited in that form factor anyway and isn't going to perform much better than the i5. Not worth the premium as all it really gets you is a ~20% increase in max turbo, but again, you'll be thermally limited and pretty much never get there. You also get slightly more l3 cache in the i7, but I don't think that matters for your usage. Both are 4 core 8 thread processors.  Just get the i5. Oh and the i5 is passively cooled (no fan) so will be quiet. I'm pretty sure the i7 gets a fan, which means it may be faster, but also noisier and last less time on battery. 

 

 

[Irish Wrist Watch 1401]

Using a profile folder, I can transfer years of stored emails (favorites and the like) for three accounts from one computer to another (I use Thunderbird) and it's never bigger than 1 Gig as long as I clean out Trash and Junk folders. I don't think Ccleaner clears those out.

 

The rescue partition in your computer is no bigger than 20 gigs or so, I think. So your Windows Operating System couldn't take up more than that in the main partition.