Last night me and dad were sitting in our new car, setting media system up. Connected both of our phones
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New car? What did you go for?
Well, our previous was pretty old… so we got a Volvo XC90 2019. A cool car
Panoramic rooftop
Speed up to 260km ph, 2.0 l. engine
Media system, auto parking, automatic road control
Lights control, headlight following, automatically switches off when it “sees” a car going forwards you, the sector of the headlights where the car is turns to so-called “closer light” - to avoid blinding people
Cruise-control, satellite tracking guarding system
Lights under the handles, doors and inside of the car
A moving sensor to open the back door
The car itself inside is giant , really comfortable( i got around 5 cm above my head !)
Front seats massage, electronic pedals, three patterns of settings for different drivers
Warming wiper blades
Phone control
Auto recognizing
Automatic children locks
Panoramic rooftop
4WD, a few different driving modes
And a gigantic trunk. I bet a Daewoo Matiz can fit into it:)
Plus - very important for me LMAO - a 12v socket in the back of the car. Phone charging:)
And a pretty good deal - we got free winter tires, additional gifts and … lemme count … 40% discount (including trade-in)
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Nice, but isn’t 2L a bit small?
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I might’ve mistaken … need to check
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A 2L may well be sold, and that’s what you might have, it just seems like an underpowered engine to have in a car that big.
Were I tend sheep right now, I have not much Internet connection. Can’t go online and even WhatsApp works not well. One moment messages coming through, the other nada. When it is my send message, I at least see it. But of course not the not incoming ones.
Strangely when I turn the phone off and on again, then massages pop in. Just to stop again after a while.
So, the question is, can I do something about this on my phone?
No, it happens on my phone too at the rock job 
there’s a dead spot in that area and it’s annoying to work the signal
I do the same, turn airplane mode on/off to get it to run to make sure I’ve received recent messages when I check
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You should see what campus is like. We’re still in London (Heathrow airport is like 2 miles down the road), but the dead zones are everywhere. Some can be 5m in diamater others are 50m. It’s annoying because it’s probably the worst in the engineering towers…where I spend 98% of my time when not in lects. It’s so bad that I usually have to go hardwired with the laptop.
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And I thought it’s a German thing 
But what’s the reason, you have to turn the phone off and on again?
I assume the act of powering up forces the signal
Rob prolly has more on that but yeah it’s normal unfortunately
And I use at&t which here is supposed to be top tier service provider with Verizon 
no difference whatsoever
It’s funny though because that dead spot i mentioned is one of the few in the area and it’s the rich area i’d half expect the homeowners to pay for their own private tower
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It’s official, I have now been inside every laptop in this house.
Spent the day going into, cleaning and attempting to repair the hinge of the family laptop. This has got to be the worst one to get into yet. Typical HP plastic multi-panel build with a million clips and hidden screws. The main issue it had was that something was up with the hinge and it couldn’t be be closed without the casing flexing to the point of breaking. I thought one of the screws had just backed out over time.
Turns out the ‘fixture’ in which the metal thread for the screw sits was made entirely of plastic and had snapped on both sides. Yes…some retard thought that bolting the screen hinge to a plastic mount was a good idea. 
I didn’t manage to fix it (there’s no reliable fix for it), so the laptop is still only a desktop. Putting it back together was a pain, given the hinges.
I did however clean out the dust (not anywhere near as much as I’d expected) and repasted it. It now runs about 10-15C cooler than it did before. This one also has a socketed CPU to my surprise and the heatsink screws had springs, like on a desktop.
Laptop specs are as follows:
- HP Pavilion G7 2150sa 17" (it’s from like 2012 or something)
- i5 3210M
- No GPU, it uses the integrated graphics of the CPU
- 8GB 1600MHz DDR3 RAM
- 1TB Seagate ST1000LM024 HDD
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Yeah! now i;ve finally got a spare sim card lol
Set up my D-Link DIR456 router in LAN-only mode with 3G connection and connected it to my PS4. The speed isn’t that fast, but still better than WI-FI. Plus much MUCH more stable
And finally, network services on the console itself are working properly
One thing… it’s gonna cost me lmao. An unlimited 3G/4G connection ( for laptops. For phones only it costs less but doesn’t allow to share the network so none of the modems work) costs around 7,6 dollars (yeah, doesn’t sound too much but it’s 500 rub lol)
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So yeah, today I got myself a new camera - Canon EOS 4000D.
As I have mentioned in the When and Where thread, this is not my very first experience. My girlfriend has a EOS 400D Canon which is a different class camera.
To be honest, most of the YouTube videos about it were vids from the sellers where they were saying “alright, this one is cool, but look what other Canons can do” showing a different class camera which costs like 4-6 times more without mentioning the price
So, as I got my hands on this one I think I should leave some specs:
Alright, let’s move along from numbers to experience!
First of all, camera’s body is really small. Almost full plastic, so it feels like a toy. Even looks like a toy a bit. It’s on/and off switch is based on a mode-switching wheel in the middle of it. Sounds stupid, isn’t it ? But. This camera is for noobs. On the other side of the “off” position are semi-manual and manual modes , non-automatic. Sounds logical than a newcomer wouldn’t even touch these within first weeks, right ? And if the user is more experienced- and gets more experienced- he won’t come back to childlish auto modes :))
Plastic body gets us a better weighting machine. My gf’s camera weights a ton, especially if you’re carrying it on your neck(and that’s like 80 percents of time).
Let’s move on. The shooting in auto modes is close to intuitive… semi-autos get you a better control. I haven’t touched full manual mode - not yet, have to get used to it.
Zooming - is pretty decent, but if it’s not enough you can always get a different objective. Sometimes zoom wasn’t good enough… but I got the best mechanical zoom ever - my legs.
Let’s move on to none-shooting features. The one that got my heart is WI-Fi, getting your pics to your phone/PC/ or even printer instantly. Murphy’s law - you get the best shot once your storage is full!
Haven’t tried all the features yet. Yet I say night mode for underground lights looks badass.
And there’s also a video shooting feature which looks pretty useless to me
Oh and the main plus of the machine that covers nearly all the minuses - is the price
I got mine for 303$, including a 16GB SD card which literally makes it the cheapest of Canons…
Some of the first touch pictures…
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A mark of a good camera is ergonomics and a million buttons on the outside. Why? Because everything is where you’d expect it to be, want a button for something specific that you often use? A good camera will have it at one of your fingertips. If you have to dig through menus, the camera has failed.
Think of it like gaming with a standard mouse and then gaming with a gaming mouse that has extra buttons.
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I think I haven’t mentioned the fact that this one HAS a million buttons(mostly for manual modes)
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I was just on the Apple site looking for the 4TB SSD specs of the Donglebook pro (no idea why I expected to find them there) when I felt a disturbance in the force. The price of a maxed out MPB 15 2019 has gone down from £6074 to £4914. This prompted me to do a definitive and extensive comparison of just how stupidly overpriced the Donglebook is. The rival? The Dell XPS 15 7590…obviously. What else would it be?
Base loadouts:
The XPS has the advantage already with its upgradeability. That immediately allows you to go for the cheapest version of the CPU, GPU and screen combo you want. Below are the base specs and prices of the models compared.
Stock laptops
| Component: | XPS: | MBP: | Notes: |
|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | Intel i9 9980HK | Intel i9 9980HK | Identical CPU, but the XPS has a marginally better heatsink. |
| GPU | Nvidia GTX 1650 4GB (mobile) | AMD Radeon Pro Vega 20 4GB | GPUs are pretty much identical. |
| SSD | 2TB | 4TB | Soldered on the MBP, but slightly faster. XPS has 2.5” bay with a smaller battery. |
| RAM | 32GB (2x16GB) 2666MHz | 32GB 2400MHz | Soldered on the MBP. |
| WiFi Card | Killer AX1650 | Unknown, assumed Apple/Universal Scientific Industrial (USI) 339S00428 | XPS is WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5 capable. Soldered on the MBP. |
| Screen | 15.6” 4K OLED 16:9 | 15.4” 2880x1800 IPS 16:10 | Both have 100% DCI P3 accuracy, XPS more accurate on other colour scales. |
| Battery | 97WH | 83.6WH | XPS available in 56WH and is easily replaceable. |
| I/O | USB 3.1 Type A (x2) / Thunderbolt 3 / HDMI 2.0 / SD Card reader / Combo jack / Charging port / Kensington lock / Battery indicator | Thunderbolt 3 (x4) / Headphone jack | |
| OS | Windows 10 Home | macOS Mojave | |
| Price from official site: | £2449.01 | £4914 |
Upgrades / Modifications:
This is where the XPS decks the Donglebook in a single punch. Here’s a list of all the XPS upgrades and modifications…and then some.
Modifications
| Component: | XPS: | MBP: | Notes: |
|---|---|---|---|
| SSD | Samsung 970 Evo Plus 2TB NVMe (x1) / Samsung 860 Evo 2TB SATA (x2) | - | |
| SSD Adapter | StarTech dual M.2 to 2.5” | - | |
| RAM | Samsung 64GB (2x32GB) 2666MHz | - | |
| WiFi Card | Intel AX200 | - | WiFi 6 and BT 5 capable. Killer cards are unreliable. |
| External Mouse | Corsair Ironclaw wireless | - | |
| Battery | 56WH | - | Smaller battery needed for 2.5” bay. |
| OS | W10 Pro | - | |
| External Monitor | Philips 276E9QJAB 27” FHD (x3) | - | |
| Monitor mount | Triple monitor desk mount, gas actuated arms. | - | |
| Thunderbolt dock | Dell TB16 240W | - | |
| Cables | Mini DP to HDMI / DP to HDMI | - | |
| Thermal Paste | Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut (liquid metal) / Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut (thermal paste) | - | |
| Thermal Pads | Gelid solutions 80x40x0.5mm (x3) / Gelid Solutions 80x40x1.5mm (x3) | - | |
| Other | MG Chemicals silicone conformal coating / 18 pack precision paint brushes / 6 pack Kapton tape / 2.5” drive brace & SATA cable / 10 pack adhesive rubber sheets | - | A lot of the items here are in multi-packs because they come in different sizes or aren’t available as single items. |
| Price: | £2345.14 | £0 |
Final specs:
So, after all the modifications and upgrades, we’re left with the below.
Final Specs
| Component: | XPS: | MBP: | Notes: |
|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | Intel i9 9980HK | Intel i9 9980HK | Unchanged. |
| GPU | Nvidia GTX 1650 4GB (mobile) | AMD Radeon Pro Vega 20 4GB | Unchanged. |
| SSD | 6TB | 4TB | XPS has 2TB NVMe and 4TB SATA in RAID 0. MBP is now slower |
| RAM | 64GB (2x32GB) 2666MHz | 32GB 2400MHz | Soldered on the MBP. |
| WiFi Card | Intel AX200 | Unknown, assumed Apple/Universal Scientific Industrial (USI) 339S00428 | XPS is WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5 capable. Soldered on the MBP. |
| Screen | 15.6” 4K OLED 16:9 | 15.4” 2880x1800 IPS 16:10 | |
| Battery | 56WH | 83.6WH | XPS is now smaller due to extra SSDs. |
| I/O | USB 3.1 Type A (x2) / Thunderbolt 3 / HDMI 2.0 / SD Card reader / Combo jack / Charging port / Kensington lock / Battery indicator / Combo jack / Audio out jack (x2) / Mic in jack / Charging port / USB 3.0 Type A (x4) / USB 2.0 Type A (x2) / HDMI / DisplayPort / Mini DisplayPort / VGA / Thunderbolt 3 / Ethernet / Kensington lock | Thunderbolt 3 (x4) / Headphone jack | Extra XPS I/O is on the thunderbolt dock and screen mount. |
| OS | Windows 10 Pro | macOS Mojave |
Final prices:
Seems I was wrong, the Donglebook didn’t get decked before, it got murdered. Below is a summary of the prices of both laptops. But, before I give them, I want to say that the stock parts of the XPS can be sold and have an approximate re-sale value of about £360.
| Laptop: | Price (to nearest whole number): |
|---|---|
| XPS | £4794 |
| XPS after parts re-sale | £4434 |
| MBP | £4914 |
The difference between the XPS and the MBP is £120. But if you sell the stock XPS parts, the difference goes down to £480! Both of those prices should be enough to cover a custom designed and custom machined heatsink for the XPS.
It doesn’t matter which spec you go for, the MBP will ALWAYS be a total rip-off.
TL;DR:
Why would I ever want to buy a MacBook Pro?
P.S. I never did get to find the SSD specs.
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So much time spent to bash on a company lol
Edit:
3% price difference between both?
Did you count the time and labor it takes to do the upgrades? 
To someone with money, a 3% increase to not fuss with upgrades is nothing 
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Actually this kind of ties in to what I have planned for my project LOL. I can afford to max out my laptop and get 3 external screens, a thunderbolt dock and desk mount for the screens and still spend less money than buying a stock mac.
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Half an hour to open it, swap out some chips and re-paste it.
Correct, but look at what you’re getting though.