Buying a laptop - used

[parv]

in message <20150201154129.J14378 at sola.nimnet.asn.au>,
wrote Ian Smith thusly...
>

Hi Ian,

> On Sat, 31 Jan 2015 04:51:30 -1000, Parv wrote:
...
>  > I am currently using a used Lenovo Thinkpad X200 with FreeBSD
>  > 8. I have not tried using or setting at all any suspend-resume
>  > setting. A 9-celll battery ([0], "47++", apparently bought new
>  > about 2-3 years ago along with the 'puter) lasts for 4.5 hours.
>
> I bought a used X200 a year ago without AC adaptor or battery, so
> bought it a new 6-cell battery (47+) and 65W P/S (about AU$150).
> Using powerd - but not p4tcc or acpi_throttle - it runs almost 6
> hours on battery just idling and over 4 hours with moderate use,

Sweet, Ian! Which version of FreeBSD are you running? 8-STABLE is on
my X200 for now; have been thinking (for a while) to update to
10-STABLE.

> so your 9-cell battery may be getting a bit old, and/or you
> haven't optimised power usage?

No, I have not used any power related things in FreeBSD itself. I do
have BIOS setup to maximum performance when connected to AC power;
optimize battery otherwise. One thing I am not sure is what happens
when booted up on battery & some time later connect to AC, and vice
versa.

In any case I will try powered, and possibly other things.


> After a problem that affected many/most modern T and X series
> Lenovos regarding losing external USB ports on resume was resolved
> last year, suspend and resume work flawlesly; they're really nice
> little machines.

Good to hear. Would that be suspend-to-RAM?


> Arnab may not wish to buy anything as old as an X200 (C.2008),

Oh, I remembered later somebody was running FreeBSD 11 on Macbook
Pro 2011 ...

  http://blog.foxkit.us/2015/01/freebsd-on-apple-macbook-pro-82-now.html?spref=tw


> but could likely pick up an X210/220/230, or the larger
> T410/420/430 models at a good price.

Sure. (I am also looking for another one, this time much lighter
than X200. Is Thinkpad X1 Carbon II any lighter, I wonder.)


> Very latest models may still have some issues with video?

Well, somebody had reported success|progress with Intel i915 on
11-CURRENT (and somebody else had working suspend-resume with
"recent HEAD" on X230) ...

  https://twitter.com/etnapierala/status/561500382850215936


  - parv

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