As someone who is constantly on the road, having a built in sim card for connectivity is something I'm super excited about. This could be the 2016 MBP we wanted, but switching to windows still sounds difficult.
I use a T460s with a Google Fi SIM card in it running Debian. It works really well and Google lets you get up to 10 free data sims so you don't need another account.
If you are a project fi account holder, you can get an additional data sim cards (up to 9) to put in devices like iPad, other tablets, or in this case the laptop. It will be linked to your main account and share the data budget of your main phone, at the same rate of $10/GB.
Agreed. I am constantly out and about and much prefer carrying a Wi-Fi hotspot or a secondary phone, for the following reasons:
- I can upgrade the hotspot/phone separately (right now I'm at 150Mbps LTE, which is very nice, and I started doing this in 1998 with the Ericsson SH-888... a few orders of magnitude slower)
- I can place the hotspot/phone away from me (typically near a window), and get excellent mobile signal regardless of where I have to sit
- I can share the bandwidth among multiple devices
Having spent over fifteen years at telcos and mobile operators, I can assure you that this is the sanest option both due to mobile hardware deprecation (you will _never_ be able to upgrade embedded 3G/4G/LTE in the same way), performance (embedded designs are a lot more trouble to get right) and, yes, price gouging from telcos.
Even before leaving the sector, I never saw SIM slots as an advantage in laptops -- they're just a way to charge you more for an effectively worse mobile experience.
I have a 4th generation x1 carbon, and having a built in sim card is way nicer. With 2 clicks I can connect to 4g vs getting my phone out, turning tethering on, and then connecting to my hotspot. (Not to mention the extra battery drain from tethering).
Project Fi allows you to add extra data sims for free, so the cost is the same as tethering.
Here is why I don't like mobile data peripherals on laptops: it causes the software to firm incorrect beliefs about the link state. With a mobile modem the OS will decide the link has gone down, and sever all connections. With wifi tethering the laptop has no idea what the link state on the phone might be, so it rides out brief loss of signal events.
Not saying you're wrong, but I was pleasantly surprised that I only had to plug my iPhone 6S+ in via USB and it just showed up as an additional network connection and "just worked" in Ubuntu 16.10. I've never had an easier tethering experience. FWIW it also did not work at all over Bluetooth (couldn't even see my phone).
Phone tethering tends to eat through the battery, also, there's just a difference in how you use it and how it feels.
On the one hand you've got a laptop that is online the whole time, on the other hand you've got a situation where you have to have to fiddle with two devices to get online.
Moving onlineness from a deliberate, modal thing to a continuous thing changes the way you interact with the network.
Not the parent, but for me, a reason would be to have a dedicated, company-paid data-only subscription. I work from coffee shops a lot, and my personal T-Mobile subscription doesn't have enough data. Right now I'm considering getting an external Verizon "JetPack" for this, but it's another little device to pack and charge.
Read my other comment on this thread. I find that the pros vastly outweigh the cons, and I've been doing phone tethering in earnest since Ericsson shipped their first decent 2G phone with a data modem (the SH-888), back in 1998. :)
I understand that you like those features, but I was offering a reason why, for me, an integrated device is much more convenient. I don't want to think about an external device. When I settle down in a coffee shop, an airport, on a train or bus, etc. I already have to deal with my earbuds (noise-canceling, requires occasional charging) and external MacBook charger. I don't relish the idea of yet another device to unpack.
The laptop can remain connected even when you leave the desk. No need to wire the phone (my iPhone battery does not last too long with active tethering use)
Separate device would be one extra thing to carry and remember.
I'm typing this on a Lenovo x230, having owned an x210 and x220. However, when such a statement above is made I was hoping that, like Dell, Lenovo had started to officially support Linux.
Hence the question.
Furthermore, Lenovo has been in the news late 2016 for not allowing Linux to run on some of their (Microsoft certified) laptops. And when the t460's and x260's came out early 2016, the Linux distros available at the time had all kinds of issues. Black screens, no Wifi, iirc.
So, again: is there any article that actually point to this laptop running Linux well? Or is it merely based on historical data and personal opinion?
As far as I'm aware laptops of new generations practically never ran Linux well out of the box from day one. It always took some time to adjust stuff to the new chips of a new generation. Only after some time you can just stick Linux into it and it'll just all work.
I bought my T440s pretty much on day one and didn't know this. If I recall correctly the following Ubuntu release almost half a year later was the first time I managed to get a system where both the 3G and wifi worked.
I kept hearing the same thing and seeing mixed reviews on the Linux commitment since Thinkpad left IBM and went to Lenovo. Seems like there was a big push around Yoga tablet-hybrids that were not Linux friendly for a while.
I ended up going with the Dell Developer Edition Ubuntu laptop line after talking to a few people who swore that their XPS 13 was the greatest thing they'd ever owned. Personally, I went with a beastly 17" Precision because I wanted a desktop replacement. Should be delivered any day now, but I'm excited. Btw, I'm switching from a Mac.
Thinkpads are still reliable for Ubuntu, but I went with a Dell for the 4k IGZO display, four DIMMS, and 1.8 teraflops of GPU. Battery is not great. It's not light. The keyboard is ok, but not a Thinkpad...but it does have a track-stick.
It's the third time I've bought a machine from the outlet and I've always been satisfied. I had spec'd out a base m7510 with Ubuntu, 70% gamut touchscreen, larger battery, and lighted keyboard. This one came up with the IGZ0, Windows 10, 4GB Quadro 2000, i7-6820HQ instead and was a bit less money. The base unit was still a good machine.
The 5510's are more Macbook like...slimmer, limited expansion, less powerful CPU's and graphics cards at the top end of the line (slim light cases limit thermal capacity).
The 7000 series are heavier and support ECC RAM and have four DIMM slots and can accomodate a conventional SATA drive plus an M42 x 80. For me heavy is relative. My first three laptops were 7 pounds, 6.5 pounds, and 8.5 pounds. The first one was light, the second was about a pound over light, and the third was svelte for a 17".
I've been running Debian on my X1 gen 3 since the day I got it. The only problem was Debian doesn't ship with drivers for proprietary NICs and you have to supply them separately, but that's a Debian problem, not an X1 problem.
I'm currently typing this while USB-tethered through a stock Android phone, which 'just worked' when I first tried it - the only settings screen I've ever seen when USB tethering is the one that toggles it on.
It is normal for linux to perhaps have a driver issue with a very new laptop, but it's usually sorted out in a month or two, especially with thinkpads as they have a large linux-using population.
When I was shopping for a laptop recently, I was told that to order one with Ubuntu pre-installed I needed to call sales during business hours. Ultimately, I went with a Dell Precision T7510, left Windows 10 in place, added an NVME ssd, and installed Ubuntu on that (Dell Precisions also offer Ubuntu pre-installed and at a discount).
i'm using a 4th gen x1 carbon as my work laptop. it's the machine google settled on as their 2016 linux laptop after doing a bunch of research on current models from various manufacturers, and it's worked perfectly for me. i used the 1st gen for a few years before that, and that was a great experience too. (the 4th gen has worse speakers than the 1st gen, which was kind of weird to realise, but other than that i've been happy with the upgrade too)
