Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

My new AMERICAN-MADE Laptop Computer
Self | 13 April 2013 | Self

Posted on 04/12/2013 3:08:16 PM PDT by Lexinom

I've received my Lotus Solstice-15 with upgraded 1080p display.

These are built in the USA by a small company in Orlanda called LotusPC.

I negotiated a fair deal and received one-on-one help from the owner of the company. He built the machine to our exact specifications, including the absence of an installed OS (for which we were not charged).

This PC is of high-quality, on the order of a Panasonic laptop, in the $800-$1000 range. It's extremely solidly built with keypresses not moving the adjacent keys, has a keypad, and even the base i5 CPU screams. Running Ubuntu 12.10.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Computers/Internet
KEYWORDS: buyinglaptop; computer; laptop; madeinusa; notebook; vanity
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-42 next last
To: Lexinom

We’ve spent a month trying to get a brand new laptop working past the horror of Windows8. Mr. Gates and company are pros at making every new thing they come up with turn out incompatible with the rest of the working cyber world.


21 posted on 04/12/2013 5:10:46 PM PDT by Baynative (Lord, keep your arm around my shoulder and your hand over my mouth.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Lexinom

Thanks. I will forward this to our hardware guy. Maybe Lotus will pick up a bit more business.


22 posted on 04/12/2013 5:38:57 PM PDT by jwsea55
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: Lexinom

Which processor does it use? How about sharing some specs.


23 posted on 04/12/2013 5:40:42 PM PDT by raybbr (People who still support Obama are either a Marxist or a moron. No, they are both.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Baynative
We’ve spent a month trying to get a brand new laptop working past the horror of Windows8.

I tried that for the first time a couple of weeks ago. 8 is the most unuseable OS I have seen. It is an intuitive software that lacks the intuitive.

24 posted on 04/12/2013 5:49:07 PM PDT by jwsea55
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: Kirkwood
He'll ship it with no OS if you ask for it. Saves a few bucks off the price.

Ubuntu does everything I want. I've finally made the switch to 100% linux. For my Windows customers there's Remmina, which lets me log onto their Windows systems each week to do my work.

There's Bumblebee which gets around the nVidia nIdiots' lack of support for Linux so I can run processor-intensive 3D programs and take advantage of the video hardware.

Plus, Linux is about 50% faster out of the box than Windows because it lacks the complex plug-and-play layers that keeps Windows slow and heavy.

25 posted on 04/12/2013 5:54:06 PM PDT by Lexinom
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: Cyber Liberty

Many of them are not. Yes there are still foundries in Arizona and Texas but not all chips are made there and Hong Kong Singapore, and Japan have very active chip production foundries.

The fact that you don’t know that suggests you do not know the field as well as you like to think


26 posted on 04/12/2013 5:54:47 PM PDT by Nifster
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: Lexinom

no disagreement here....will support every possible company I can


27 posted on 04/12/2013 5:55:46 PM PDT by Nifster
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Baynative

Give Linux a chance. It’s not the Linux of 10 years ago. Get the GNOME desktop (avoid Unity like the plague), and I think you might be pleasantly impressed.


28 posted on 04/12/2013 5:55:47 PM PDT by Lexinom
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: andyk

sure


29 posted on 04/12/2013 5:58:34 PM PDT by Nifster
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Cyber Liberty
I can’t believe there are so many on this thread so quick to believe Integrated Circuit chips are no longer made in the US.

List of Fab Plants

30 posted on 04/12/2013 5:59:20 PM PDT by jwsea55
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: nascarnation
Well, there's "made" and there's "made". American engineers work in tools like those by Cadence and Synopsis to create the VLSI design, which they'll often first prototype with FPGAs.

Once the design is done, the task of mass producing the integrated circuits is shipped off to Philippines, Malaysia, or China. Silicon wafers, cut from cleanroom-grown crystals, hold dozens of rectangular future integrated circuits which are precisely machined and sanded, masked per the American engineers' VLSI design, doped with boron and phosphorous to form the N and P channels, masked and etched for the metal oxide gates, packaged into what we think of as an "integrated circuit", QA tested, and delivered.

I believe that at one time Phoenix, AZ was a hotbed for chip fabrication.

The creative and analytical aspects of the development still originate here in the U.S.

31 posted on 04/12/2013 6:04:05 PM PDT by Lexinom
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: Cyber Liberty

IOW, what are we making to justify SV if nothing’s “made” there anymore?
***Intellectual Property. Once that goes overseas, then the property will be cheap again.


32 posted on 04/12/2013 6:23:54 PM PDT by Kevmo ("A person's a person, no matter how small" ~Horton Hears a Who)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: Lexinom

I know desk tops are not as handy as a laptop, but desk tops can be easily upgraded. I had my desk top custom built in 2006 for about $900. I recently moved from Windows XP to Windows 7 and had my son-in-law handle the rebuild. I replaced the mother board and chip set, upgraded my wireless card, added 4GB of faster RAM and upgraded my power supply. My total cost of the upgrade was about $300 not including the Windows 7 software. I was able to reuse my case, monitor and hard drive. The result is fast, stable and runs Windows 7 effortlessly.


33 posted on 04/12/2013 7:29:06 PM PDT by The Great RJ
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: The Great RJ
No, I agree with you on desktops vs. laptops. It's just that I'm separated from my family and living in a small space through the benevolence of extended family, so space is a primary concern.

I couldn't be happier with this laptop. Even the graphics accelerator works under Linux - but only for those apps for which you tell it to work, which I like. "Bumblebee" is the name of the package.

34 posted on 04/12/2013 7:57:22 PM PDT by Lexinom
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 33 | View Replies]

To: Nifster

I guess not. I think I waste a lot of time every week.


35 posted on 04/12/2013 10:18:23 PM PDT by Cyber Liberty (I am a dissident. Will you join me? My name is John....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: raybbr
It's the Solstice-15. The only non-basic option I requested was the high-res screen. It rocks! Other models are even faster.
36 posted on 04/12/2013 11:54:03 PM PDT by Lexinom
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: jwsea55

Windows 8 is crap, arguably worse than Vista.


37 posted on 04/12/2013 11:58:12 PM PDT by Lexinom
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: Lexinom
Windows 8 is crap, arguably worse than Vista.

At this point, it may not even be arguable.

38 posted on 04/13/2013 11:43:19 AM PDT by jwsea55
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 37 | View Replies]

To: jwsea55

Page down.

Looks like most are in Taiwan, and the US plants are increasingly majority older.

We need to turn around America now. We need to bring hi-tech manufacturing back, and we need to return basic manufacturing.

Look in any store now. Look at the “Made in...” stickers.

All in China.


39 posted on 04/13/2013 11:50:48 AM PDT by Cringing Negativism Network
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: Cringing Negativism Network
We need to turn around America now. We need to bring hi-tech manufacturing back, and we need to return basic manufacturing.

Intel talked about wanting to build plants in the US a year or two ago. Basically it came down to the costs of putting a plant in the US are significantly more than outside. The regulatory approval process is upto 5 times as long...with no guarantee of approval. You would think that Americans would be lining up to greet a company that is going to drop $1 - 6 billion in the local community. No, we tell them to go find some place else. People are getting the government they are voting for.

Arizona pulled a big one a couple of years ago... Intel in Arizona Intel basically said never to Kalifornia.

40 posted on 04/13/2013 1:35:32 PM PDT by jwsea55
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 39 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-42 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson