Ejbyoga-build-diary

From Ed's Mediawiki

I replaced my old laptop with a Lenovo Yoga machine that comes standard with a SSD and 16gB of memory.

The new machine

  • Lenovo Yoga 730-15IKB (Yoga 730-15 Series)
  • Processor: Intel Core i7-8550U 4 x 1.8 - 4 GHz, Kaby Lake Refresh (8th gen)
  • Graphics adapters
    • Intel integrated graphics (UHD Graphics 620)
    • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Mobile - 4096 MB, Core: 1493 MHz, Memory: 1752 MHz, GDDR5, 128 bit-wide bus, ForceWare 398.36, Optimus
  • Memory: 16384 MB DDR4-2400, dual-channel, one RAM slot (occupied), 8 GB of RAM soldered-in
  • Display: 15.60 inch 16:9, 3840 x 2160 pixel 282 PPI, capacitive, 10 finger multitouch, native pen support, BOE HF NV156QUM-N51, IPS, glossy: yes
  • Mainboard: Intel Kaby Lake-U iHDCP 2.2 Premium PCH
  • Storage: MZVLB512HAJQ-000L2 Samsung PM981 Series 512GB TLC PCI Express 3.0 x4 NVMe M.2 2280 Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
  • Soundcard: Realtek ALC236 @ Intel Sunrise Point-LP PCH - High Definition Audiocontroller
  • Connections:
    • 2 USB 3.0 / 3.1 Gen1,
    • 1 USB 3.1 Gen2,
    • 1 Thunderbolt,
    • 1 HDMI,
    • 1 DisplayPort
    • 3.5-mm audio jack (trrs)
  • Sensors:
    • Fingerprint Reader
    • Brightness Sensor
    • Motion sensors (3d accelerometer and gyro)
  • TPM 2.0 (Trusted Platform Module required by Windows 11)
  • Networking: Realtek RTL8822BE Wireless LAN 802.11ac PCIe Adapter (a/b/g/n = Wi-Fi 4/ac = Wi-Fi 5), Bluetooth 4.2
  • height x width x depth (in mm): 17.2 x 360 x 249 ( = 0.68 x 14.17 x 9.8 in)
  • Battery: 51.5 Wh, 4520 mAh Lithium-Ion, 11.4 V
  • Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home 64 Bit (Upgraded later to Windows 11)
  • Camera Webcam: HD Primary Camera: 0.9 MPix
  • Backlit Keyboard Light
  • 4.17 pounds
  • Convertible Laptop/Tablet (screen fold flat against the back to make it a big tablet)

Very nice machine with a couple of flaws:

  • the camera is not very good. I use a logitech webcam when it matters.
  • The built in speakers are not very good. When it matters, I use it with a small Taotronics usb powered soundbar, which works great with it.
  • Another "flaw" is that it does not have an RJ45 ethernet port, which I discovered recently. To be fair, this is not really a flaw, because the connector would really be too big for a machine this thin. Lenovo and quite a few other vendors make a USB dongle for this. I got the Lenovo USB C to RJ45 dongle and it works fine right out of the box.

Updates

  • Not really an update, but sometime in 2021 I bought a replacement battery directly from Lenovo's parts supplier. This is just to have it on hand if I need it. This is an OEM battery, an exact copy of the original, and I expect to have this laptop for a long time.
  • Aug, 2023: upgraded the SSD to SAMSUNG 970 EVO Plus SSD 1TB NVMe M.2 to allow plenty of head room for photo updates on vacation. To facilitate this, I got a NVMe M.2 USB enclosure that I will now use with the old SSD for photo backups. For the drive clone, I tried CloneZilla, but it did not work with the BIOS on the machine. So I used Macrium Reflect on a 30 day trial. This worked fine and the new drive, including expanding the partition to use the whole drive, and it booted with no problems. Removing the bottom cover of the laptop turned out to be pretty easy.

Installed Software

  • Adobe Creative Cloud Photography tools (Photoshop, Lightroom, CameraRaw, Bridge)
    • Topaz AI photography tools
  • Vegas Pro 18.0 video editor
  • Solidworks 2019
  • Arduino IDE
  • Amazon Kindle Reader
  • Amok EXIF sorter (sorts files based on EXIF metadata)
  • Better File Rename (handy GUI tool for renaming groups of files and directories)
  • Google backup and sync (backup for this machine)
  • Figlet Generator (for figlet text in source code)
  • Filezilla (FTP client)
  • Git for Windows (for software version management)
  • Google Chrome
  • InkScape (graphics editor)
  • IrfanView (image viewer)
  • Java development platform
  • Jetbrains PyCharm Community Edition (Python IDE)
    • Python 3.7
  • LibreOffice 6.1
  • Logitech MyHarmony (for programming Harmony remote, though I generally do this on my phone)
  • Nikon RAW codec (for raw file thumbnails in file explorer)
  • Facebook Messenger (Mostly for family video meetings)
  • MySQL tools (for learning SQL stuff. I have not really done much with this)
  • Lots of mostly useless Microsoft stuff.
  • Norton Security and LifeLock (internet security, firewall, etc)
  • Notepad++ (text editor)
  • Nvidia support software for the GeForce GTX 1050 video hardware
  • Nikon NX Studio photo editor (just because it is free and supports Nikon raw files.)
  • Oracle VM VirtualBox (For virtual machines, including Ubuntu)
  • Private Internet Access (Virtual Private Network)
  • qBittorrent (BitTorrent client for torrent downloads)
  • VMware Workstation (For virtual machines, none installed right now)
  • Oracle VirtualBox (For virtual machines. I have the latest Lubuntu LTS installed on it)
  • RPN Scientific X (Microsoft RPN calculator)
  • TightVNC (remote display software. I hardly use it)
  • VLC Media Player (My go to for playing and converting video files)
  • Visual Studio Code (Microsoft IDE)
  • WinDirStat (Graphical Disk drive analyzer. Very handy for cleaning up a drive)
  • WinRAR (file compressor/decompressor)
  • Zoom client (Video conferencing)
  • Microsoft Teams (conferencing and team management software for the robotics team)

Updates

  • I got a multiple PC license for UltraEdit and installed it on this laptop.
  • Added Arduino IDE for robotics team projects
  • Multiple Solidworks CAD software updates on the robotics team license. This machine is nice for Solidworks.
  • Upgraded to Windows 11. It is the only machine I have that has hardware to support it.
  • Microsoft Office. Got a non-subscription license at a steep discount. This is the only machine I have with this software, which I rarely use.
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