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Trying out Snapdragon/ARM64 for size, with the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5x Gen 9

Since the Qualcomm Snapdragon was released last year, along with Microsoft’s significant push to make ARM64 an acceptable version of Windows 11, I’ve been intrigued and eager to find out if it would suit my needs. Battery life is the main attraction, despite concerns that not all apps work with ARM64; however, the prevailing sentiment seems to be that most users will be fine. But they would say that, wouldn’t they!?

Like many others, I’ve looked at Apple MacBook hardware, with its long battery life and excellent performance, and been jealous as hell for too long. I’ve considered switching to Apple and macOS, but it would be too much work and expense — especially since I have more than one computer and prefer not to run a mixed environment.

Anyway, ARM64 seems to be the answer from Microsoft. However, the initial hardware releases came at a rather high cost - too high for me to jump in. Also, I currently have a Lenovo X1 Gen 9 that is functioning well; it is wonderfully light (1.15 kg) and still capable, although its battery only lasts about three hours due to degradation to 80% of its original capacity. I also purchased the X1 with a four-year warranty, which is still valid - if it runs out this summer. Whatever, inevitably I’m starting to think what might follow it.

I came across the following HotUKDeal:

IdeaPad Slim 5x Gen 9 Laptop (14”, Snapdragon X Plus, 32GB DDR5-8448, 1TB SSD, 1200p, 57whr) via Student Beans / Perks At Work - £617.50

It’s a fantastic price for a machine with 32GB and a quality screen, so I delved deeper and ultimately purchased one together with a three-year onsite warranty, which is a great bargain in itself. I posted the following comment on the above HotUKDeals thread, which elaborates on my reasoning and details about the deal:

Well I cracked and decided to go for a deal based on the Slim 5.

I wanted one with the 400 Nit OLED display with 100% DCI-P3 - useful for working with colour. I also selected the backlit keyboard option. The page you need (pre any discount from Student Beans / Perks At Work / Discounts For Carers): https://www.lenovo.com/gb/en/configurator/cto/index.html?bundleId=83HLCTO1WWGB4

In the end I went to the Lenovo site via Discounts For Carers and got the above config + I added in the 3YR Onsite warranty upgrade for £50.38. That took the total to £710.38

I decided to go with the low spec Snapdragon after reading this page: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Qualcomm-Snapdragon-X-Plus-X1P-42-100-Processor-Benchmarks-and-Specs.838787.0.html

and also a number of reviews of Laptops with the chip. My general reading is that the single core results are generally pretty good and that multi-core are somewhat down. The main difficulty is that graphics take a big hit from the GPU being 50% down. But in general most reviews say it can do normal workloads (including Photoshop) pretty well and you get the big bonus of long life on battery.

It’s also the case that most reviews of the chip are with only 16GB of memory and this deal has 32GB. I’m hoping that will help take some pressure off the CPU and support slightly better performance in real life.

However this is not a Laptop I have to rely on if I don’t want to. I’m seeing this as a cost effective way of checking out Windows on Arm and how my mix of apps work in that context. Ultimately Lenovo allow returns for 14 days and if it’s too bad I will return.

Final thing - I was a bit surprised the Slim 5 doesn’t include the IR Camera kit needed for Hello Facial recognition. But as a glasses wearer I have found that can be hit and miss and prefer fingerprint log-in - which the Slim 5 does have.

The Slim 5 arrives directly from China via UPS, and I received it about 9 or 10 days after ordering.

Setting it up was largely as I remember for any Windows 10/11 machine. There is a slight oddity regarding Lenovo driver/firmware updates, which are not managed via Lenovo Vantage (the usual method) but are handled entirely by Microsoft Update along with the normal Windows updates. Long-term, I don’t know how effective that will be, but no alternative is readily available.

Naturally, the big question I wanted to answer was whether my usual apps and peripherals would work under ARM64. Here’s a quick rundown - note all apps were latest versions:

• Firefox - ARM64 version - Works fine, with multi-row tabs and Bitwarden, etc.
• Brave browser - ARM64 version - Works fine.
• Affinity Photo 2 for photo editing - Has an ARM64 version and works well.
• UltraEdit text editor - No ARM64 version, but the standard edition works fine with both large (1.5GB) and small files, and supports macros. Performs adequately.
• TextPad text editor - This is my fallback editor if UltraEdit has issues or proves unreliable. I didn’t check TextPad, but they do have an ARM64 version.
• Printing - Can print on my Epson ET 3750 printer, but there is no Epson driver; Microsoft seems to provide a stripped-back and more basic version. It works well enough. Scanning is not supported. Period. I haven’t scanned anything in two years, so while it’s annoying, it’s not the end of the world.
• Apple Music - Works fine, though it could play louder.
• IrfanView - For viewing picture files, it works but lacks an ARM64 version.
• FastStone Photo Resizer - No ARM64 version but worked with a minor hiccup (unrecorded — sorry). However all photos were resized. So seems usable.
• Start 11 - Seems to work as expected.
• Everything search - Works and finds text in daily files and directories fairly quickly. ARM64 version.
• PureText - Yes, works.
• aText text expansion/macros - Yes, works.
• SumatraPDF - Works fine and has an ARM64 version.

My initial conclusion is that all my usual apps function well, and on that basis I wouldn’t hesitate to opt for a Snapdragon/ARM64 machine. Of course, that doesn’t mean there couldn’t be occasional problems if I made the switch, but I’m not overly concerned.

Another observation is that performance was perfectly acceptable. It didn’t feel meaningfully slow — despite concerns about the lower-end Snapdragon. However, I’m comparing it to a nearly four-year-old Intel-powered Carbon X1. There was none of the excitement that usually accompanies a new laptop where everything feels faster than what you had. Overall, it’s fine, especially for the price, but I hoped for a bit more fizz, perhaps.

One more thing I noticed was the weight of the Slim 5x — it feels quite heavy at 1.46 kg (or 3.22 lbs). The Carbon X1 Gen 9 weighs in at 1.13 kg (or 2.49 lbs), making the Slim 5x 30% heavier. Since I carry my laptop everywhere, weight is a significant factor for me. Typically, you pay a premium for something in the 1.0–1.1 kg range, and, if necessary, I could live with a heavier machine… I would just prefer not to.

So, what did I decide to do with the Slim 5x? I returned it for a full refund. Instead, I spent £80 on eBay for a new battery for the X1 Gen 9, hoping to get at least another year out of it. By then, the Snapdragon/ARM64 landscape will have progressed and matured even further.

However, if my X1 fails this summer (after four years and the end of the warranty), I know that ARM64 would be a viable option in the mix of replacements. If that situation arises, I think I would currently opt for an upmarket Asus A14 with a Snapdragon Elite chip, currently priced between £1100–£1300. The main attraction is that they weigh less than 1 kg and offer incredible battery life. And the Snapdragon Elite would offer a bit more pep compared to the more lowly Snapdragon tried here.

Adobe Enshittification and Moving on from Photoshop to Affinity Photo 2

For many years, I have paid Adobe for their Creative Cloud Photography Plan - you can’t buy Photoshop; they have a subscription model. It costs about £80/year, depending on special deals I get¹. Currently, I have annual licences stacked that run through to April 2027, but I’ve always been aware that I was on the edge of what I would pay each year.

My plan, if Adobe got too greedy with full Photoshop, was to go for Adobe Elements as a one-off purchase and reinforce it with Elements+. That would work out cheaper and probably be enough for my simple needs. But I was unpleasantly surprised when Adobe recently announced that future versions of Elements would be limited to only working for 3 years. Effectively it’s moving Elements to a subscription model, as well.

The reality is that with either Photoshop or Elements, a version 5 years old would still handle all my simple needs around cropping and the odd colour adjustment. While the price of Photoshop seemed reasonable per year, I went along with paying, but actually, I just don’t feel I need lots of new facilities that come out each year. I know Photoshop, and I’ve gone with the easy option, I suppose.

What’s really stuck in my throat is that Photoshop has recently started spamming me when I start the app (on Windows 11) - a recent example is shown in the image below.

Adobe spam when I started Photoshop (under Windows 11)

I couldn’t find a way to stop such splash screen spamming. I note in the spam popup itself is a little tick box to stop it from being shown again for 7 days, but that made me even more incensed and I didn’t go along with it. I noticed later the tick box got changed to 30 days, but that’s still deeply annoying behaviour in what is a professional product I pay a non-trivial amount to use. If it was a free app or one I used at a peppercorn cost, I might understand, but this really does seem to be Adobe trying to grab all it can from a captive audience.

The term Enshittification has come to prominence over the last couple of years to describe companies that use their power in ways that make things worse for consumers as they try to maximise their own take as much as possible. Time-limiting Elements, full-size app pop-up marketing, and what seems a gaggle of startup services (on Windows) all feel unnecessary, and I just don’t want all this gratuitous friction, especially when I pay so much.

If you Google for Photoshop alternatives, then Affinity Photo 2 is always mentioned. and I bought a copy on special offer at £33.99. Note that - I bought it - I can use it as long as I want to. It doesn’t install any startup apps, and when I start Photo 2, it doesn’t try and sell me stuff. I can also install and use Photo 2 on as many machines (of the same type) as I want, whereas with Adobe Photoshop, I’m limited to two, and that becomes frustrating when I get a new computer but still have both old ones active, at least for a while.

Affinity Photo 2 is obviously different from Photoshop, and I’m still finding my way around its dissimilar nomenclature and ways of working, but it seems capable of doing what I need. I’m using the holidays to experiment, and barring some big problem, I aim to move permanently to Photo 2 from the start of 2025. I’m sure there will be some occasional frustrations, but I will hack through them, and they won’t be the frustrations of perpetually paying a lot of money and feeling taken advantage of.

Apple Music not playing under Brave Browser

I’ve been trying to play music from my Apple Music account on my Windows 11 laptop with Brave (version 1.56.9) as my preferred browser and visiting the app at music.apple.com

But when I tried to play a song rather than music all I got was a dialogue window with the following text:

          Not available on the web
You can listen to this in the Apple Music app

The solution, for me, was to check that Brave was configured with Widevine support and finding it wasn’t I switched it on. The dialogue is on the Settings/Extensions page and if you change the setting you have to relaunch/restart the browser for it to have effect.

If you have problems I hope it sorts it for you as well.

Great/Poor Spinning Bikes have a real impact on the fitness quality I achieve

See the footnote re dated accuracy and updating¹

I first drafted this in July 2022 and then it got left in a darkened room while a lot of life happened. Well now I’m bouncing back, so here you go…

It’s a long story but for the last few years I’ve been a member of two gyms and that’s made for some interesting comparisons re the spinning bikes they each have and the impact on my training. Long story short it turns out that I work about 15% harder given a better bike with proper real time reporting of cadence and power. I should add that I’m not a super fit person with much Lycra and special cycling shoes etc. I’m very much an ordinary Joe, now retired and is belatedly determined to be fitter than I have been in my life generally.

The gym with the very basic bikes is Datchet and Eton Leisure Health Club (DEL) (https://www.deleisure.com/) at the Thames Valley Athletics Centre (TVAC). The bikes are Schwinn AC Sport models in white but without electronic consols, so they show neither speed or power. They were ‘new’ about 4 years ago and are clearly very well made if with no smarts whatsoever - at least in the basic form DEL bought.

The bikes at Windsor Leisure Centre (WLC) (https://www.leisurefocus.org.uk/our-centres/windsor-leisure-centre/) are Life Fitness IC7’s, from ICG (https://www.teamicg.com/en/bikes/ic7), were new about a year ago and bought because the sister gym at Maidenhead has been using them very successfully since it opened in 2020. They have terrific colour displays (using power generated by the rider) that show cadence and rider power (and much more), talks to your phone for easy recording and setup and also allow Coach By Color (https://www.teamicg.com/en/bikes/ic7/coachbycolor). In this each rider inputs their FTP (Functional Threshold Power) number - it’s basically a number that says how fit you are - and you are told to achieve certain colours/work efforts through the class. The colours go from White (least work) though Blue, Green and Yellow to Red, Red being the highest effort and not sustained for long generally. Because everybody has their own FTP (calculated by the bike or, more accurately, input yourself following a test), when the class is told to go to Red you can all achieve it because you are each doing your own personal maximum. To add motivation the bikes shine out the colour you are currently achieving to everybody else and seeing a sea of Red in class really encourages you to do more, especially if you are not on Red yourself! This video gives you something of the flavour of these bikes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gljgqggincU If you do a Google you find that one-off these bikes are around £2500 a piece. Not cheap but streaks ahead of the DEL bikes, which I’m pretty sure would have been significantly cheaper - £1000?

I always record my heart rate when doing exercise, using a Polar strap (https://www.polar.com/uk-en/products/accessories/polar-verity-sense/) that talks to my phone, and the Polar app turns that into calories burned and so a clear indication of effort put in.

It occurred to me I could do some back to back comparisons of the bikes/classes to see how much extra work I did on a decent spin bike compared to a basic one - I certainly felt (and feel) more drained at the end of a class with the better bike. Of course instructors are all different and so I tried to record across a number of different trainers. This was all done in the Spring of 2022.

I looked at 7 classes at each gym, with the classes given by 4 different instructors in each location - 8 instructors in total. And it turns out that on average I worked about 15% harder on the better bikes. I don’t claim rigorous scientific accuracy for my 15% extra effort (the classes compared weren’t all done at the same time of the day for example and ultimately they are different instructors at each location etc), but it does bare out anecdotally how I feel about the two types of bike.

Time marched on and within weeks I actually found using the basic DEL bikes an increasing turnoff, because of the lack of feedback and the lack of options it gave instructors, to the point where I no longer spin there. I’ve also found that I have been slowly increasing my FTP on the Windsor bikes and so putting more effort into each spin. Coach By Color is a wonderful system, if it comes with a learning curve for instructors and attendees.

If you are looking at doing spinning as part of your fitness regime then do size up the bikes when you are looking at a new gym and don’t assume they are all broadly the same. I would certainly recommend the Windsor Leisure bikes (and their gym facilities more generally). At DEL the spinning classes are popular but it’s a great shame that the bikes are not really very good. Of course that doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t have a terrific workout, but then again that’s where I thought I was until I discovered the joy and impact of using way better equipment.

Advice to Gym Class Instructors

This is generic advice to those who give classes in gym’s from somebody who consumes them and has seen a fair few different instructors over the years. Much of it is common sense and yet it is still easily forgotten.

Start the class on time
Start on time and never wait for people who are late. Waiting only penalises those who bothered to turn up on time. If people are late that’s their problem.

Finish the class on time
Respect attendees time and do not assume they will view you running over time as a free bargain. The one exception may be for a stretch, but even there the best instructors build in time for a final stretch within the allocated time.

Get there early and be fully setup and ready with the sound system
Music and sound systems are often a problem with Bluetooth connection hassles typical. Know who to contact if there is a problem. And hopefully if you got there early these problems won’t be paraded in front of a room full of people twiddling their thumbs. Alternatively be self contained and turn up with your own speaker (large or small) - no hassles then. Also know how to setup and use the head-mic if you are using one.

Know the gym equipment
This particularly applies to spinning bikes which can vary tremendously in their capabilities. If the bikes change or you are new to a gym then find out about the equipment and the culture at the gym re using that equipment. You won’t last very long (in a competitive world) if you don’t know how to get the most from the bike and give a strong class. Be professional and don’t assume you can muddle through on lots of good will or what you have done in the past or elsewhere.

Make sure you have the right equipment for the class you want to give
If you plan a class with steps then make sure steps are there. Or even put the steps out ready. If you plan on using bands, hand weights or bar bells then make sure a rich variety of weight’s/strengths are available without attendees having to rush around elsewhere in the gym complex for this or that.

Don’t spend lots of time explaining what to do
In circuits type classes sometimes much time is lost while explaining in too much detail what is to be done at each station. If possible use recuperation periods to explain what comes next. Look to start quickly and maintain pace.

Full Fibre Broadband in the UK - Poor roll out information and reporting

At the moment we are with Virgin to deliver fast internet to the house. It is indeed fast and seems reasonably reliable but they charge a lot because there is no competition. The answer is Openreach/BT and their roll out of Full Fibre. You can register on BT to be informed when it can be ordered, but what you really want to know is what the plan is and with some sensible accuracy. Of course we also need to be aware that all plans can change etc. What prompts this interest is that Openreach seem to have been doing work in my area of Slough - pulling underground cables along roads etc.

Openreach has a section on its website called “Where and when we’re building” which sounds encouraging. But it’s junk - it chunks out the plans into what is being built into 3 very broad categorises: that between 4/2021 and 4/2024, 4/2022 and 4/2025 and finally between 4/2021 and 4/2026.

Really you’d hope the regulator and/or government would demand the release of more detailed plans and reporting against them, but I won’t hold me breath. For the record Government’s gigabit-capable broadband targets can be found on this web-page “Gigabit-broadband in the UK: Government targets and policy”. And this seems to sum it all up:

“The Government’s manifesto commitment was to deliver nationwide gigabit-broadband by 2025. That target was revised in November 2020 to a minimum of 85% of premises by 2025.”

As I say I can’t see that anybody is sensibly demanding the industry report their plans for achieving this with proper and reasonable granularity.

Currently Full Fibre is due to reach us (and many other towns and cities), between April 2021 and April 2024. While it’s pretty piss-poor reporting, there is not much we can do about it. Fingers crossed that it happens in the next 2 years.