[GTALUG] great boxing week ultrabook deal

[Giles Orr]

On 29 December 2015 at 13:50, D. Hugh Redelmeier <hugh at mimosa.com> wrote:
> | From: Giles Orr <gilesorr at gmail.com>
>
> | I've been looking at the Asus UX305 for the past couple months.  As
> | it's been ~$850 the whole time, I was happy to get it for $650.
> | Thanks for the information.
>
> $850 for the FullHD version (1920x1080) (eg. NCIX right now)?  This is
> $650 for the FullerThanFullHD version (3200x1800) -- 2.7777 times the pixels!
>
> From my experience with the Yoga 2 pro: XTerm with the default bitmap
> fonts is REALLY hard to read on this screen but the pixels are all
> there.  So I've switched to GNOME Terminal.
>
> | Microsoft's site insists you use or create a Microsoft account to
> | purchase from them: there's no guest option.  Presumably because you
> | will of course want that acct when you go online with their fine
> | operating system on your new laptop.
>
> Yeah.  And for support etc.
>
> You may well want to keep Windows in a corner just to do firmware updates.
>
> | They don't accept the "+" symbol in email addresses.
>
> Yeah.  There seem to be a lot of sites that do that (breaking the RFC
> 822 and successor requirements).  I wonder if some Microsoft framework
> does that and hence causes the problem on other sites.
>
> |  They don't
> | accept spaces in their passphrases - so I guess they're only
> | "passwords."  So I took the spaces out of the passphrase ... and it
> | was rejected because they required special characters.  Unimpressive.
>
> Yeah.  But I never talk about spaces in passwords because that would
> tell people something about my passwords.
>
> | The irony of buying a computer from the Microsoft Store so I can
> | install Linux on it isn't lost on me.  I gave them money.  <sigh>  I
> | hope it was below cost and they aren't actually profiting from this.
>
> I've bought several computers from them.  At very good prices.  Not
> all their prices are good but randomly they've had excellent ones.
>
> | From: Tim Tisdall <tisdall at gmail.com>
>
> | No, even better is that you now have a $50 gift card for the Microsoft
> | store...  ^_^
>
> The coupon is only good for credit in the Windows Store (I hope I got
> the confusing name right).  Once you exercise the coupon you get
> credit that only lives 90 days (if I remember correctly -- check the fine
> print).  As far as I know, the credit can only be used for:
>
> - Windows "apps"
>
> - XBox games
>
> - music
>
> I've always chosen the latter because you can buy mp3s without DRM.
> It's the only way of getting something OUT of the Microsoft
> ecosystems.  But you've got to be using some Microsoft system to make
> the purchases and downloads.
>
> And you need a Microsoft account.
>
> Their account identity system pervades all their services.  Kind of
> like Google's and Apple's.  It could be worse: lots of unrelated sites
> let you log in with your Facebook or Twitter identity (I don't have
> those).

The laptop just arrived (very fast delivery!), and has brought home a
couple things I didn't quite realize.  As I mentioned, the UX305 has
been around $850 at newegg and Canada Computers for a while ... but
that's with a 1920 x 1080, non-touch screen.  For $650, this has (as
Hugh spotted and I did not) a resolution of 3200 x 1800.  And it's a
touch screen.

The deal is still available.  The main caveat being that I haven't
even turned it on yet (let alone tried to install Linux).

Thanks again Hugh.

I wonder if I can buy an Arc Mouse with that stupid $50 gift certificate ...

-- 
Giles
http://www.gilesorr.com/
gilesorr at gmail.com