I've been using that for a minute as well; there was something that didn't work for me on it which caused me to change but I don't remember what it was. I might pick it up again, but I really love the amount of customization Vilvadi has.
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Flip Flopping between macOS and Windows
- Thread starter LiE_
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I think someone mentioned Brave, I might try that next. I really like the fact that Vilvadi doesn't let a single youtube ad get through, when I had Chrome even if I kept adguard updated sometimes an ad will popup.
I tried a Pixel 10 a few weeks back but it wasn't for me, so I moved from a 15 Pro to a base 17. Since I almost exclusively use Google apps on my iPhone and Windows desktop I thought I'd see if I could switch for tighter integration. It didn't take long for me to realise Android isn't for me and I prefer iOS, despite my mixed feelings towards Liquid Glass.
My son turned 10 a week ago and used all his birthday money to pay for half of a gaming laptop. It was used at £510, which I think is a good price as I was looking previously at building him a machine which looked closer to £800.
So we now have 2 gaming PC in the house and no Mac computers. I have 1 at the business still that my wife uses but that doesn't count
Lenovo Legion 5
CPU: Ryzen 5 5800H (8 Cores, 16 Threads, Radeon Graphics)
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 (8GB, GDDR6, 130W)
Display: 15.6", 1080P, IPS, 165Hz
OS: Windows 11 (Activated)
RAM: 16GB DDR4 RAM (2 x 8GB So-DIMM)
Storage: Samsung 980 1TB NVMe SSD
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My son turned 10 a week ago and used all his birthday money to pay for half of a gaming laptop. It was used at £510, which I think is a good price as I was looking previously at building him a machine which looked closer to £800.
So we now have 2 gaming PC in the house and no Mac computers. I have 1 at the business still that my wife uses but that doesn't count
Lenovo Legion 5
CPU: Ryzen 5 5800H (8 Cores, 16 Threads, Radeon Graphics)
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 (8GB, GDDR6, 130W)
Display: 15.6", 1080P, IPS, 165Hz
OS: Windows 11 (Activated)
RAM: 16GB DDR4 RAM (2 x 8GB So-DIMM)
Storage: Samsung 980 1TB NVMe SSD
no Mac computers YETSo we now have 2 gaming PC in the house and no Mac computers. I have 1 at the business still that my wife uses but that doesn't count
Congrats on that Legion, imo, that's one of the better gaming laptops at a good price. I don't miss seeing all of those stickers on my shiny new computer though
Enjoy your new baby, when it comes time for you to sell that laptop in a few weeks, let me know, I might be interested
I needed a piece of networking gear and ran to Best Buy this morning as I didn't want to wait for Amazon.
The cashier tried to up-sell seven items. I just said no to all of them or clicked no on the payment pad.
I rarely go to Best Buy - the only time is when I want to look at laptops or when I need something the same day where the price is reasonable at Best Buy. I know what I want and just want to get out of there as quickly as possible. Apple does a much better job at getting your transaction done quickly and you're out the door.
The cashier tried to up-sell seven items. I just said no to all of them or clicked no on the payment pad.
I rarely go to Best Buy - the only time is when I want to look at laptops or when I need something the same day where the price is reasonable at Best Buy. I know what I want and just want to get out of there as quickly as possible. Apple does a much better job at getting your transaction done quickly and you're out the door.
I hardly go to Best Buy after a Microcenter opened up nearby, I really really love that place...
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Back a few years ago, when GPUs were impossible to find, because of mining, best buy had the great idea of forcing potential buyers to spend 200 dollars a year for a subscription, otherwise they would be blocked from buying a GPU.
That horrible move, basically sealed the deal with me - not going to reward such greedy and anti-consumer behavior.
How low can these go? My only pause on getting one of these to use as a desktop is the limitation of 32 GB of RAM. Panther Lake isn't going to use RAM on the SOC which will provide better options. I've read that multicore performance on Panther Lake isn't going to be much better than Lunar Lake but I can live with that. One of the reviews I saw on the Acer Aspire said that they got 19 hours of battery life in running their office tests.
That's four about six hours more than what I get so I assume that their model has a bigger battery.
That's four about six hours more than what I get so I assume that their model has a bigger battery.
I did some googling, and that seems to be from Costco, which is a fantastic deal. I've seen prices on Amazon between 800 (1TB version) to 1049 (2 TB version). I googled, geekbench/cinebench and 3d mark benmarks and where's what I found and how it measures up against the other machines I have benchmarked/researched
From what I can see, the results are what you would expect from the M1 MBP.
Microcenter has all Mac desktops on sale for 15% or more. Base M4 mini is 25% off. Base M4 Studio is 15% off.
RAM cost has doubled since September:
The bundle we bought in July 2025 of 9900X, MSI Tomahawk and G-Skill DDR5 32 GB for $500 is now $689 at Microcenter. Blame it on AI which is sucking up DRAM.
The bundle we bought in July 2025 of 9900X, MSI Tomahawk and G-Skill DDR5 32 GB for $500 is now $689 at Microcenter. Blame it on AI which is sucking up DRAM.
Actually ram and storage prices are going through the roof, and AI is to blame. There's been a number of articles, and YTs over this as hobbyiests lament the price increases. We'll be seeing them on prebuild machines as well.
Throw in the tariffs and that just makes it all the more painful for US citizens
I built my current system earlier this year on fear of price increases. Well that and cause I wanted an all air system.
I'm happy that I got my studio when I did, though I am eyeing the steam machine, I'm a bit concerned the continued inflation of component prices will push it out of reach to what I'm, willing to pay.
Valve seems to think that the Steam Machine will be equal to or better than 70% of gaming PC's. So I wouldn't expect a console price.
I'm not expecting game console pricing, but I am expecting less then a typical gaming pc. I'm not sure what to expect, though I think it will be more then 1,000. How much more is anyone's guess.
The new unnamed/unreleased new Xbox console is rumored to be upwards of 1,500, I think if valve prices their steam machine below that they'll have a winner on their hands.
I would be amazed if it's more than $1000. You can get RTX 5060 laptops with 16GB RAm for around that, similarish but better mini PCs like the Atom man G7 PT is about $1000 with much better specs (Ryzen 9 7945HX, 32GB RAM).
AtomMan G7 PT Mini PC AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX, 16C/32T,8 GB GDDR6 AMD Radeon RX 7600M XT, 32GB DDR5 RAM 1TB PCIe4.0 SSD Mini Gaming PC, HDMI2.1/DP2.0/USB-C,WiFi7,BT5.4,2.5G LAN,2xPCIe4.0&PCIe5.0 SSD Slots
Processor:AMD Ryzen9 7945HX Processor, 16 Cores/32 Threads (64M Cache, up to 5.4 GHz) GPU:AMD Radeon RX 7600M XT (GDDR6 8G) Memory:DDR5 Dual channel (SODIMM Slots×2, Up to 5200MHz, Max 96GB) Storage:M.2 2280 PCIe4.0 1TB SSD Storage Expansion:M.2 2280 PCIe5.0 SSD ×1 Wireless Connectivity:M.2 2230 ...
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Yeah I pulled the trigger on an open box M4 Macbook Air 15" 16GB/512GB for like $1050. I will use this for everything but gaming. I tried to use an M4 Mac Mini and an iPad Pro 12.9" for on the go, but I really find the iPad in kind of an "uncanny valley" situation. The more it tries to be a Mac, the less it actually feels like it is. I will now just use it like a tablet and take the Macbook Air with me everywhere.
For gaming, I still have my Acer Predator 16" RTX4060 with 2TB of SSD and 32GB RAM. Given the state of everything, I might just hang on to it for a while.
(Of course there is a small chance that my wife takes the M4 Mac Mini as Lightroom Classic is still locking up for her on her Windows desktop--in spite of the fact I put a really fast NVME drive for her catalog and a 5060Ti 16GB card in there. If I switch her to a Mac, I will take the desktop and turn it into a badass gaming PC LOL...we will have to see.)
For gaming, I still have my Acer Predator 16" RTX4060 with 2TB of SSD and 32GB RAM. Given the state of everything, I might just hang on to it for a while.
(Of course there is a small chance that my wife takes the M4 Mac Mini as Lightroom Classic is still locking up for her on her Windows desktop--in spite of the fact I put a really fast NVME drive for her catalog and a 5060Ti 16GB card in there. If I switch her to a Mac, I will take the desktop and turn it into a badass gaming PC LOL...we will have to see.)
I am so close (as almost clicking the BUY button now)
to purchasing an ASUS zenbook 14" OLED swappable drive, INTEL or Ryzen
with a nice ponder blue color
but Windows 11 is getting worse than for AI and crapiness!
I needed to tell my MBA2010 that please don't auto update of switch that to auto update
and how stupid is......i'm ruining Mojave, and they wants me to install Seq?
to purchasing an ASUS zenbook 14" OLED swappable drive, INTEL or Ryzen
with a nice ponder blue color
but Windows 11 is getting worse than for AI and crapiness!
I needed to tell my MBA2010 that please don't auto update of switch that to auto update
and how stupid is......i'm ruining Mojave, and they wants me to install Seq?
That's what ultimately drove me back to the Mac. The AI, Snapshot, lack of privacy, pushing the online account, and of course showing ads
I am a firm believer in using macOS for my day to day stuff an gaming on my Desktop PC. It has served me quite well from a quality of life standpoint.
This is the big problem. I have decided that even if the hardware upgrades (RAM and SSD) are overpriced and the design is a little old, Apple is still so superior in the ways that matter with the OS, that I can’t do it.
So I only use Windows for gaming and that is it. Maybe if it gets it act together. I would love a non-AI, totally private version of Windows, but it ain’t happening.
Just saw this today so went over to the Dell site and bumped up the options and it came to $13K. This thing beats out any current Mac on GPU because you can get it with an nVidia Blackwell 5000. You can put in 16 TB of SSD and I think that it's Gen 5. You can see the SSD speed comparisons in the video. It also has Thunderbolt 5 and 280 watt USB-C for charging.
That thing is completely insane LOL.
I wonder how cheap you could get a desktop that would directly beat it...