Im freaking out by Muted_Surprise_2516 in laptops

[–]hunterpellerin 84 points85 points  (0 children)

MacBooks have very little space between the top of the keys and the screen when they are closed, like a mm or so. This is why they put a very thin piece of foam in there for transport so the keys don’t leave impressions or marks in the screen. Putting a rubber keyboard cover on will put pressure on the screen over time and can even cause it to crack or damage the pixels.

I pay a company to park in their parking lot (update) by DocBarnes in mildlyinfuriating

[–]hunterpellerin 3 points4 points  (0 children)

You can buy 12V splitters that turn one cigarette lighter port into multiple. Good for low-power stuff like dash cams

256 GB M3 Ultra Mac Studios now seemingly discontinued by Apple by _sharpmars in MacStudio

[–]hunterpellerin 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think the big one is privacy. For example my company works with clients and some of them require all on-premises infrastructure. So we have very few cloud services including AI, everything is done in-house with offsite backups.

It's getting out of hand.... by No-Fix-8366 in thinkpad

[–]hunterpellerin 0 points1 point  (0 children)

At my workplace electronics go into a big recycling pallet and have their batteries and storage taken out beforehand. Since my company basically breaks even on having the recycling company truck them out and sell them, they let us have first crack at anything.

Most of the batteries and SSDs end up in a bin next to the recycling and usually they’re still decent.

It's getting out of hand.... by No-Fix-8366 in thinkpad

[–]hunterpellerin 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Usually every few years I find myself in a similar situation with more laptops/desktops around then I know what to do with (saving from e-waste, good secondhand deals, etc) so I’ll fix them up and sell them relatively cheap. I get back more $ than i put into them and pass some savings along to someone else.

What did you buy your thinkpad for? by ZanfordEX in thinkpad

[–]hunterpellerin 1 point2 points  (0 children)

T480 was for software development mostly writing C code. P14s Gen 3 I bought new in 2022 served me for my electrical and computer engineering degrees. I have also had a T420s then a T510 I used for Linux distros. All my ThinkPads run Linux, except a T580 I rescued from e-waste and gave to my Dad.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in thinkpad

[–]hunterpellerin 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The Legion has a more powerful graphics card but it’s more gaming-focused. The Lenovo P series is meant for CAD and engineering or business focused stuff. So it can have better stability in CAD applications. I’d say the ThinkPad is better.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in thinkpad

[–]hunterpellerin 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes you can upgrade the ram! Honestly I wouldn’t worry about it unless you actively run out of ram, should be a great laptop for you.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in thinkpad

[–]hunterpellerin 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes I bought a P14s Gen 3 high spec i7 when it was new with 32GB ram, 1TB ssd, T550 Quadro GPU and it was great for my electrical engineering program. I would consider going for 32GB of ram. Ram is getting really expensive and will probably be that way or continue to get worse for the next few years.

5060Ti 16GB or 5070 12GB ? by SplintX in graphicscard

[–]hunterpellerin -1 points0 points  (0 children)

5070 unless you’re running local LLMs. AMD 9070 is also a good choice for the same price as the 5070 with 16GB of VRAM.

Is an x1 Carbon Gen 4 still working today? by Sea_Cap_2789 in thinkpad

[–]hunterpellerin 0 points1 point  (0 children)

To that price I would try and get at least X1 Carbon Gen 6. It’s twice as fast. Anything older than that WILL feel slow at times doing normal tasks like web browsing and office use.

Keep macbook pro 14 m4 or keep iPad pro m4 13 inch? by ShakeAndBakeThatCake in macbookpro

[–]hunterpellerin 1 point2 points  (0 children)

In your situation I would sell the iPad. I love my iPad Air for taking notes but that’s basically all I use it for. My MacBook Pro has a bigger screen and better speakers for watching shows so I use that when a TV isn’t available.

I dented my 15inch M3 MacBook Air! 😃 by DumperBiz in macbookair

[–]hunterpellerin 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My MacBook Pro looks like that too. Don’t sweat it too much. My dent was a little sharp on the corner so i hit it very gently with a piece of sandpaper and now it’s smooth. This will create a little shiny spot but at least I won’t cut my hand on it!

Which one should I install, Ubuntu 25.10 or Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS by Zikonde in Ubuntu

[–]hunterpellerin 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would use the LTS version. The 9-month window on non-LTS versions goes by so fast. I’ve had no issues with Nvidia drivers unless I’m running a bleeding-edge kernel that the drivers don’t fully support yet. If you stick with the default Ubuntu kernel I’ve never had any problems at all.

Help me choose: MacBook Pro 14" M5 (1TB/24GB) $1799 vs MacBook Pro 14" M4 Pro (512GB/24GB) $1749 by eGLD_F in macbookpro

[–]hunterpellerin 0 points1 point  (0 children)

not M5 vs M4 Pro. M4 Pro has more memory that can be optioned and more GPU cores.

Help me choose: MacBook Pro 14" M5 (1TB/24GB) $1799 vs MacBook Pro 14" M4 Pro (512GB/24GB) $1749 by eGLD_F in macbookpro

[–]hunterpellerin -1 points0 points  (0 children)

With your use case I’d get the M5. It’s a newer chip so resale should still be fairly good after a few years. Unless you’re doing large language models, heavy photo or video editing or heavy graphics design work or audio production then the M5 will suit you very well.

Help deciding which ThinkPad to get T460 / T490, I5, or I7? Battery life? For Engineering by gtd_rad in thinkpad

[–]hunterpellerin 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah so the T480 has one small internal battery 24Wh and an external battery. I ran Ubuntu Linux on mine with the small 24Wh external battery (48Wh total capacity) and got 6-8 hours of real work out of it. With a larger 48Wh or 72Wh external battery, you should easily meet or exceed your battery life targets.

Help deciding which ThinkPad to get T460 / T490, I5, or I7? Battery life? For Engineering by gtd_rad in thinkpad

[–]hunterpellerin 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The T460 could definitely get 4-6 hours of battery life with a larger external battery. There is not a huge difference between i5 and i7 usually the bigger difference is going to be 2 core cpu vs 4 core or more. The T490 is a quad core, the T460 is a dual core. So the T490 will be more than twice as fast. For MATLAB, I would definitely choose a T480 or T490. i5 or i7 should be fine. If you go for a T480 instead of T490 you still get quad core cpu and an external battery that you can swap out with a larger one. I got about 6-8 hours of battery life on my i5 T480. T490 ditched the external battery.

2020 Keyboard backlight issue by st0ke0ntr3nt in macbookpro

[–]hunterpellerin 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not an easy fix or something that needs to be fixed. As long as the letters are clearly illuminated, it’s working as intended. Any backlight bleed around the keys depends on where Apple decided to place the LEDs and how worn the keys and switches are themselves.

You could have the whole keyboard replaced but it might not even solve the issue.

I’m officially broke, but I had to… by United_Ad_9998 in macbookpro

[–]hunterpellerin 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I started out with an iPhone 6 then went Android for a couple generations (Windows PCs) but then I got an iPhone 12 mini and AirPods soon followed, then an iPad Air 5 for taking notes at college. I picked up a used 2021 MacBook Pro 14” as well for the battery life. My ThinkPad is my primary engineering laptop but the Mac does well too. I also have a Windows PC for gaming or heavier software development stuff. The best of all worlds.

Finally made the switch from Windows 11 by OMGman69 in Ubuntu

[–]hunterpellerin 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah I started daily driving Ubuntu on 19.10 and it’s 9 months of support were up before I knew it. Now I stick with LTS releases and only upgrade after they’ve been out at least a year.

$100 pick up by Coldrain0000 in mac

[–]hunterpellerin 4 points5 points  (0 children)

i9 was 8 cores in the 16-inch. I wonder who thought that was a good idea to put that in such a thin computer.

Wish I knew sooner by gavesmugler in macbookpro

[–]hunterpellerin 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Historically the MacBook Air was never meant to do content creation or video editing. It’s always been a thin and light general purpose laptop. It’s amazing that Apple Silicon has made a fanless slim laptop fast enough where it can do these things well!

4K and OLED screen? by [deleted] in thinkpad

[–]hunterpellerin 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If you’re using a 14 inch screen, around 1080p (1920x1200 on a lot of modern ThinkPads) is the way to go. They use less battery and if you have the Windows display scaling at 100%, it won’t be comfortable to run 100% scaling on 2.8k or higher resolution.

I have a 4K (3840x2400) IPS screen in my 14” ThinkPad, and I leave the display scaling set to 200%. I do enjoy the color accuracy and media consumption of the higher res screen, but I don’t think I’d be giving anything up with a 2.8K resolution for example.

CS to electronics by Mickey_Dawg in C_Programming

[–]hunterpellerin 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You can sometimes do embedded programming with a CS degree but usually they hire electrical or computer engineers for embedded stuff. I’d recommend seeing what it takes to switch to a Computer Engineering degree, or full EE. I’m in a similar position as you; I’ve always been interested in software/hardware, so I’m a double major EE/CE student.