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Lenovo 14w Laptop: AMD A6-9220C, 14" 1080p, 4GB DDR4, 64GB eMMC Expired

$129
$299.00
+ Free Shipping
+303 Deal Score
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Lenovo has Lenovo 14w Laptop (81MQ000JUS) for $299 - $170 w/ ecoupon code THINKPEEK14 = $129. Shipping is free. Thanks tonershop

Specs:
  • AMD A6-9220C 1.8GHz 1MB Cache (Up To 2.7GHz) Processor
  • 14" 1920x1080 FHD Anti-Glare Display
  • Integrated AMD Graphics
  • 4GB DDR4 1666MHz Memory
  • 64GB eMMC
  • 802.11ac Wi-Fi + Bluetooth 4.2
  • Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit
  • Ports:
    • 2x USB 3.0
    • 1x USB Type-C (Charging)
    • 1x HDMI
    • 1x MicroSD Card Reader
    • 1x Audio Combo Jack
  • 3 Cell 57 WHr Battery
  • 3.39 lbs
No longer available:

Lenovo via Newegg also has Lenovo 14w Laptop (81MQ000JUS) for $129. Shipping is free.

Original Post

Written by
Edited October 31, 2019 at 09:29 AM by
Processor Type : AMD® A6-9220C dual-core processor (1.80GHz, up to 2.7GHz Max Boost, 1MB Cache)
Display Type : 14" FHD (1920 x 1080) anti-glare
Memory: 4 GB DDR4 1666MHz (Onboard)
Hard Drive: 64GB eMMC
Liteon QCA 6174A 802.11ac; Bluetooth 4.2
Windows 10 Home
Model: 81MQ000JUS

https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/lapt...81MQ000JUS
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$129
$299.00

Community Wiki

Last Edited by slickkitty July 3, 2020 at 03:26 PM
RAM is not upgradable. There appears to be no SSD connector to add an SSD:
https://slickdeals.net/f/13497700-lenovo-14w-14-windows-10-pro-laptop-129?p=131449135#post131449135

You can use the microSD slot for storage, and some system files.

Using an SD card (or USB) as Permanent Storage in Windows 10:
https://www.radishlogic.com/tools...indows-10/

The simple, minimum steps needed to update the software and settings, withou reinstalling:
https://slickdeals.net/f/13497700-lenovo-14w-laptop-amd-a6-9220c-14-1080p-4gb-ddr4-64gb-emmc-129-free-shipping?p=131637961#post131637961

Also, make sure hardware acceleration is turned on for the browser and apps you are using.
How To Manage Graphics Performance Per App On Windows 10
https://www.addictivetips.com/win...indows-10/

It may also be affected by the battery/performance settings. You may want to keep the settings on max performance, even on battery.

Lenovo Support Page for 14w/Type 81MQ:
https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/us/e...s/14w/81mq

User Guide:
https://download.lenovo.com/consu...201903.pdf

Hardware Maintenance Manual:
https://download.lenovo.com/consu...201903.pdf

You cannot upgrade the SSD in this version of the 14w (the m.2 header is missing)
https://jameshasanswers.com/how-t...mq-laptop/

Bios update link:
https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/us/e...e%3Abv0as6

Windows 10 Debloater - Guide on removing misc items that is not essential to use windows
https://github.com/Sycnex/Windows10Debloater


HotKey
For anyone that's interested in locking the FN key as primary button (Ex. volume , brightness etc).

Hit F2 repeatly to go to bios at the Lenovo screen.
Go to the setting call Hot key and enable it.
Then go to the last page to save and exit.

Here is the link to the manual if anyone needed it:https://download.lenovo.com/consu...201903.pdf
It's page 19 of the PDF, page 13 of the manual, if anyone is looking for it.

Touch pad driver use Elan

Graphic driver:
I went ahead and uninstall the original Radeon software and install the win 10 software (425MB). It did a complete install and updated the video driver.

https://www.amd.com/en/support/gr...on-r5-m430

My graphic driver is date 11/1/2019 version 26.20.13031.10003

Chrome youtube playback issue:
Installed H264ify extension for Chrome to optimize the GPU of this unit instead of using all the CPU's resource.

Chrome Hardware Acceleration turn on/off
https://www.lifewire.com/hardware...me-4125122

For better coloring screen:
Radeon setting and turned on the Virtual Super Resolution (VSR) and the color is completely different.

Orrrrr -
For a way nicer image from defaults:

On the desktop, right click and then clock AMD radeon settings.
Click "display"
Turn OFF varibright, virtual super res, GPU scaling; scaling mode should be full panel.
Click "color" near the top and set color temp to "automatic."

Windows Reinstall-Clean(A lot of people contributed this and put together, thx)
Step 1: download the Windows Media Creation Tool [microsoft.com]
-- plug in your USB, run the Media Creation Tool and select "Create installation media for another PC" and select version Windows 10 Pro x64

Now you have a live USB to install Windows


Step 2: download the Lenovo eMMC driver [lenovo.com]
-- open File Explorer and navigate to your Downloads folder
-- click the File menu (top left corner) > Open Windows Powershell
-- copy/paste the following command to extract the drivers:

.\annt06ww.exe /verysilent /dir=c:\lenovo_14w /extract="YES"

This puts 4 files in a folder called "lenovo_14w" on your C drive
-- When you install Windows, delete the existing partitions, click "Load driver", and navigate to this folder on your USB and select the .inf file to load your eMMC driver

Step 3: download the Qualcomm WLAN Driver [lenovo.com]
-- move this file from your Downloads folder to your "lenovo_14w" folder on the C drive that you created in Step 2
-- drag/drop to copy this whole folder to your USB

Now restart your PC and tap the F12 key while it boots
-- select your USB key from the boot manager menu

Note: Others to consider:
When downloading touch pad dirver use Elan.
When finish all windows updates use Windows 10 Debloater to get rid of junks.
Quote from DealzOnWheels :
It was slow for me too, guys, but if you tweak the system, allocate virtual space for ram, etc., It is actually pretty decent...

My worries were ram and hd, I fixed those though, thankfully.

My secret?:
Tweek (not the powder or rocks, ie ur settings, fix them n00bz)
Create virtual memory from the he, I allocated 16gb so for me I have 20gb of ram on this, 4gb + 16 virtual
Get large memory card, I have 256gb and may upgrade, as needed

...

Linux Distro(installed to eMMC not live usb):
https://slickdeals.net/f/13497700-lenovo-14w-laptop-amd-a6-9220c-14-1080p-4gb-ddr4-64gb-emmc-129-free-shipping?p=132126397#post132126397
Quote from SennamonTea :
Ok so I've had this laptop for a few days now and tested almost all the LInux Distros for those interested.

Here are the list of the best experiences right after install(all are 64bit):

#1 Zorin Lite 15

#1 Xubuntu 18.04, only edit you will need is change touchpad behavior to disable trackpad while typing(enable and set it to 0.2 seconds, increase time if you need to). Other minor gripe is it doesn't come with htop, but it'll prompt you in terminal on how to install. Super fast start up(~5seconds to log in from cold)

#1*Peppermint 10, this distro actually works the best right out of the box, all hotkeys work and everything. HOWEVER, this is a big however. I cannot get this distro to install, it errors out at configing since it doesn't have the controller for the eMMc drive. If you can get it to install I figure it'd be just as good if not better than Xubuntu

#2 Manjaro 18.1.2XFCE, very good but has some screen flicker at max brightness and slower than Xubuntu. Also sometimes on start up it has graphical glitches.

#3 Lubuntu 18.10. Everything good except one thing, which for me is a pretty big no, default driver for touchpad does not enable tap to click on touchpad, I didn't stay long enough to enable it.

#4 Lubuntu Mate18.04.3 :good but slower than previous distros, also has more screen tear for me on youtube

#5 Crunchbang++, keeps freezing and having issues

#6 Debian cannot start
Edit: I haven't tried installing to the eMMC, but the machine runs Debian stable reasonably well installed on a USB 3.0 dongle. I highly recommend the 5.2 backports kernel & the backports firmware-atheros package. Bluetooth is working.

#7Bodhi LInux 5.0.0: freezing/slow/slow startup

#8 PopOS: I tried a heavier OS for fun, this seems to work just fine, a little slower than the rest but as expected for a heavier specced OS

I didn't try Linux mint or Ubuntu, those are heavier distros that I did not want to touch. They usually work with everything but not my purpose of using this laptop. Hope this helps you.
Quote from nnSlick :
MX-Linux installs perfectly on my two lw14s. Even the hotkeys work at the first boot and hardware video decoding works beautifully without requiring any tweak when I tried VLC or YouTube.
Zorin Lite 15 works
Linux Mint Mate 19.3 installs and works.
Ubuntu Mate 19.10 installs smoothly.
xubuntu 19.10 installs but may experience screen tearing when boot up, known issue.
Elementary OS 15.1 installs and browser gpu hardware acceleration optimized.
A lot of distros have problem dealing with the emmc/controller from other user's test.

Interested in Linux and a beginner a quick reading article wrote by Gnudist,
https://slickdeals.net/f/13497700-lenovo-14w-laptop-amd-a6-9220c-14-1080p-4gb-ddr4-64gb-emmc-129-free-shipping?p=131914594#post131914594

Cloudyready (Chromebook alike)
You can install cloudyready
https://www.neverware.com/freedownload

to make it a chromebook (touchpad does not work as of now). You may need this hack(link should be working now):
https://neverware.zendesk.com/hc/...-3-upgrade

Chromium Hardware Acceleration In Linux
Elementary OS 5.1 may have this implemented, according to user tenkay.

tenkay's Chromium Hardware Acceleration:
https://slickdeals.net/f/13497700-lenovo-14w-laptop-amd-a6-9220c-14-1080p-4gb-ddr4-64gb-emmc-129-free-shipping?p=133126067#post133126067
It works and successfully changes the Chromium codec to MojoVideoDecoder in xubuntu 19.10 confirmed by slickkitty.

GPU monitor Radeontop Installation
https://slickdeals.net/f/13497700-lenovo-14w-laptop-amd-a6-9220c-14-1080p-4gb-ddr4-64gb-emmc-129-free-shipping?p=133159409#post133159409

For those still reading July 3rd 2020: Fresh Installed Ubuntu Mate 20.04 LTS runs great for couple of months since the version came out in April. The previous 19.10 had a bit of stability issues but this one is very stable. Trust me I tried to messed it up like how I did to 19.10.

Before Mate I tried xubuntu 20.04, very good and stable too. It is just my personal favor for mate. Xubuntu gives more custom adjustable options which I like. Mate is more smooth more versatile on software packages of how I like to operate. I did notice on comparison of the version that xubuntu used less ram right after boot up. Mate used a bit more but manage seemed smarter after usage.

Happy Fourth, stay healthy, and strong mind(meditation helps a lot, more than you think Wink).

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Featured Comments

Ya. Lenovo.com
VERRRRY SUSPICIOUS. Virus.

Roll Eyes (Sarcastic)
This is a great laptop for basic use. I got it three weeks ago when it was $160 at Lenovo, at this price it's amazing for a basic 1080p laptop with 4GB ram. It's an improvement over most Chromebooks in this price range. The only drawback I've found is that the touchpad, keyboard, and fascia show fingerprints easily. Other than that, it looks and feels like a high quality laptop, with a good screen, with smaller bezels than most.
it's $129...you want 4k ips screen too?

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Joined Sep 2008
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> bubble2 11,115 Posts
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tenkay
12-08-2019 at 08:43 AM.
12-08-2019 at 08:43 AM.
Quote from AmusedJuice4885 :
Getting the same thing here, about 20%, but i can't find nothing about that on the user guide. Weird.
At first glance, that seems to be a lenovo thing. I see it in several of their laptop user guides, with nothing to say it can be turned off.

Black electrical tape. laugh out loud
Reply
Joined Sep 2008
L10: Balrog
> bubble2 11,115 Posts
3,280 Reputation
tenkay
12-08-2019 at 08:54 AM.
12-08-2019 at 08:54 AM.
Quote from F-Zero :
Guys - can you take a look at your LCD and see if you have a 1-2mm black border on the left side and bottom side? Is the LCD supposed to be off center like this?
Describe it more? Mine looks like any of the other 150 laptops I've had. The physical screen on mine goes to the case border on all four sides and the displayed image does as well. Can you snap a photo?
Reply
Joined Sep 2008
L10: Balrog
> bubble2 11,115 Posts
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tenkay
12-08-2019 at 09:00 AM.
12-08-2019 at 09:00 AM.
Quote from slickkitty :
I got it to work thanks to tenkay, not very stable under xubuntu. Currently using Mojovideodecoder. Sorry not going to dance and spin. Wink
Now that I have sync working in chromium, all of my chrome extensions and tabs loaded, including uorigin, go back, html5 autoplay stopper, etc.

Costa rica runs smoothly after a few seconds to get started, 70-95% cpu. Can't see gpu utilization but I know this hits 100% and glips badly without gpu acceleration on the 14w.

It takes around 6-10% of my 3700x desktop's cpu to run and 48% of the rx-550's gpu. The 3700x is about 12x faster than the a6 in passmarks so doing the math (even though its a totally BS metric, gimme some slack! Smilie the 14w's cpu utilization is similar, so the gpu must be floored, as the rx-550 is more than 2x the power of an r5.

Seems all thats different is the underlying linux spin. But sounds like you have a handle on the hardware acceleration so its probably just some more tweaking. Mine is 100%.

Ram usage is good too. With the OS, chromium and 8 tabs, plus a bunch of extensions I have about half free ram. 45%-55% utilization.
Reply
Joined Sep 2008
L10: Balrog
> bubble2 11,115 Posts
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tenkay
12-08-2019 at 09:06 AM.
12-08-2019 at 09:06 AM.
One other thing, it appears that both windows and elementary use the gpu for everyday 2d/3d window display, exclusive of playing media. In fact, seems like the gpu can offset 20% or more of the cpu usage just by watching gpu utilization when media isn't playing.

So an OS with proper gpu acceleration that works not just with video playback, but available to the windows manager, can have a huge bottom line/response time improvement in everyday use.

This may be why things work better for some users than others. Clearly its not a platform that 8 year old kids and grandma's would turn their noses up at as has been claimed. I think windows would have used the gpu out of the box and surely would have with the proprietary radeon driver installed, but alternate OS's as we've found can be squishy.

Saw some fun stuff that chrome about 5 years ago when they were still actually trying to do HW accel in chrome and weren't just pretending they are. Chrome in many benchmarks around HW accel used the gpu just rendering windows, often INCREASING cpu usage when using gpu acceleration. But it was doing more, running the benchmarks faster in the process.

That's the ideal state for this...the gpu doing everything it can and the cpu playing clean-up.
Reply
Joined Aug 2008
L9: Master
> bubble2 4,520 Posts
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Pro
foxfai
12-08-2019 at 09:09 AM.
12-08-2019 at 09:09 AM.
Quote from AmusedJuice4885 :
Getting the same thing here, about 20%, but i can't find nothing about that on the user guide. Weird.
I mean it's not a bad thing. I want to have some indication about low battery instead of something pop on the screen. But that blinking can get a little annoying lol.
Reply
Joined Dec 2007
L6: Expert
> bubble2 1,157 Posts
105 Reputation
slickkitty
12-08-2019 at 09:54 AM.
12-08-2019 at 09:54 AM.
Quote from tenkay :
Hmm, I didn't have ublock installed, just h264ify although ublock may be the unwitting culprit. I've had trouble the last few weeks with youtube videos giving me errors or not wanting to start and I've been thinking it had something to do with my extensive ad blocking.

Did you make a chromium build with the hw accel patch and the flag set? Or did you get mojovideodecoder working on something else?

Could also be the variance in performance/features between xubuntu and elementary?

...
Ublock that's an idea but probably not but I will remove it and try.
I used the chromium dev build in your instruction with hwa patch and flag set to enable, that's why I see Mojo under media-internal.
I have a feeling xubuntu and elementary probably have some major performance variance in them in terms of codecs, driver addon/plugins. I tried mate before, yes xubuntu is light(too light?) but mate felt more smooth. The lack of smoothness could be seen as what ever action you were doing without lubricant that's xubuntu, dry and stiff.
Reply
Joined Sep 2008
L10: Balrog
> bubble2 11,115 Posts
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tenkay
12-08-2019 at 10:04 AM.
12-08-2019 at 10:04 AM.
Quote from slickkitty :
Ublock that's an idea but probably not but I will remove it and try.
I used the chromium dev build in your instruction with hwa patch and flag set to enable, that's why I see Mojo under media-internal.
I have a feeling xubuntu and elementary probably have some major performance variance in them in terms of codecs, driver addon/plugins. I tried mate before, yes xubuntu is light(too light?) but mate felt more smooth. The lack of smoothness could be seen as what ever action you were doing without lubricant that's xubuntu, dry and stiff.
I tried it with and without ublock, same smooth stuff under elementary.

Next project is to build chrome for windows with hardware accel turned on. If I can get that working, non windows OS's may not be needed.
Reply

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Joined Dec 2007
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> bubble2 1,157 Posts
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slickkitty
12-08-2019 at 10:11 AM.
12-08-2019 at 10:11 AM.
Quote from tenkay :
I tried it with and without ublock, same smooth stuff under elementary.

Next project is to build chrome for windows with hardware accel turned on. If I can get that working, non windows OS's may not be needed.
You may check the gpu utilization in chrom/chromium browser under more tools, task manager. With Mojo in my case GPU was doing 50%+ in costa rica. Please check in Elementary ty.
Reply
Joined Sep 2008
L10: Balrog
> bubble2 11,115 Posts
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tenkay
12-08-2019 at 11:10 AM.
12-08-2019 at 11:10 AM.
Quote from slickkitty :
You may check the gpu utilization in chrom/chromium browser under more tools, task manager. With Mojo in my case GPU was doing 50%+ in costa rica. Please check in Elementary ty.
Let me quit watching football a bit and look at that, but I think its a canard. I think the 'gpu process' in chrome is showing cpu usage servicing the gpu processes rather than true gpu usage as windows task manager/performance tab shows. In my case, the gpu cpu use was also 50% but my total cpu was around 70 average. However having run this torture test (which btw isn't supposed to run well on anything but a fairly fast computer) on a larger machine, for it to run smoothly at less than 100% cpu means the gpu is doing everything it possibly can.

Ah! I have it. We want radeontop!

sudo apt-get update -y

sudo apt-get install -y radeontop

sudo radeontop

(open chromium, run video and bring radeontop back to focus)

Mine is showing 83%-96% gpu utilization. So the chrome figure is cpu usage servicing the gpu acceleration, not gpu usage. Still a fun metric if we can keep acceleration but reduce the cpu usage to service it!
Reply
Joined Dec 2007
L6: Expert
> bubble2 1,157 Posts
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slickkitty
12-08-2019 at 12:54 PM.
12-08-2019 at 12:54 PM.
Quote from tenkay :
Let me quit watching football a bit and look at that, but I think its a canard. I think the 'gpu process' in chrome is showing cpu usage servicing the gpu processes rather than true gpu usage as windows task manager/performance tab shows. In my case, the gpu cpu use was also 50% but my total cpu was around 70 average. However having run this torture test (which btw isn't supposed to run well on anything but a fairly fast computer) on a larger machine, for it to run smoothly at less than 100% cpu means the gpu is doing everything it possibly can.

Ah! I have it. We want radeontop!

sudo apt-get update -y

sudo apt-get install -y radeontop

sudo radeontop

(open chromium, run video and bring radeontop back to focus)

Mine is showing 83%-96% gpu utilization. So the chrome figure is cpu usage servicing the gpu acceleration, not gpu usage. Still a fun metric if we can keep acceleration but reduce the cpu usage to service it!
tenkay what's the -y for
Reply
Joined Sep 2008
L10: Balrog
> bubble2 11,115 Posts
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tenkay
12-08-2019 at 01:02 PM.
12-08-2019 at 01:02 PM.
Quote from slickkitty :
tenkay what's the -y for
Yes to any prompt so it just runs.
Reply
Joined Sep 2004
L7: Teacher
> bubble2 2,713 Posts
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spike32
12-08-2019 at 05:05 PM.
12-08-2019 at 05:05 PM.
win 7 doesnt work. Mouse wont work and the installer cant load the emmc drivers. I used the win10 driver. The installer can't see the files , I put it in every folder
Reply
Joined Dec 2007
L6: Expert
> bubble2 1,157 Posts
105 Reputation
slickkitty
12-08-2019 at 05:08 PM.
12-08-2019 at 05:08 PM.
Quote from tenkay :
Let me quit watching football a bit and look at that, but I think its a canard. I think the 'gpu process' in chrome is showing cpu usage servicing the gpu processes rather than true gpu usage as windows task manager/performance tab shows. In my case, the gpu cpu use was also 50% but my total cpu was around 70 average. However having run this torture test (which btw isn't supposed to run well on anything but a fairly fast computer) on a larger machine, for it to run smoothly at less than 100% cpu means the gpu is doing everything it possibly can.

Ah! I have it. We want radeontop!

sudo apt-get update -y

sudo apt-get install -y radeontop

sudo radeontop

(open chromium, run video and bring radeontop back to focus)

Mine is showing 83%-96% gpu utilization. So the chrome figure is cpu usage servicing the gpu acceleration, not gpu usage. Still a fun metric if we can keep acceleration but reduce the cpu usage to service it!
Yeah works GPU and CPU burning both ways 80-90+% reading from radeontop and htop in 1080p60fps it will I guess buffering in every couple of seconds. Although plays pretty smooth in 720p60fps. No problem playing 1080p30.

I did find something interesting, GPU in vp9 only uses 40%+.

Anyway we can increase vram? That 76Meg is so pathetic.
Reply
Joined Sep 2008
L10: Balrog
> bubble2 11,115 Posts
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tenkay
12-08-2019 at 05:20 PM.
12-08-2019 at 05:20 PM.
Quote from slickkitty :
Yeah works GPU and CPU burning both ways 80-90+% reading from radeontop and htop in 1080p60fps it will I guess buffering in every couple of seconds. Although plays pretty smooth in 720p60fps. No problem playing 1080p30.

I did find something interesting, GPU in vp9 only uses 40%+.

Anyway we can increase vram? That 76Meg is so pathetic.
Mine pays well at 1080. GPU is gobsmacked but the cpu is 70-80 most of the time on the torture tests. Eight bit vp9 can be decoded by the r5 but not 10 bit vp9. Most HDR videos on youtube are 10 bit. You need vega or iris graphics to do 10 bit vp9 in hardware.

The driver decides the fixed and dynamic vram. The 76 meg is fixed, the gpu can access up to 2GB IIRC. Either 1 or 2. If we could add 4GB more, it'd default to at least 2. I don't think its adjustable, at least not easily. Mine seems to sip at the dynamic video ram even though half the ram is free.

Its funny because I've often bought machines with great gpu's and just acceptable cpu's and getting stuff to use the frickin' gpu has been a fight every time. My first was a dual core atom with the nvidia ION chipset. Cute little small quiet box with the ability to do many things like h264 in hardware. However it was 2 weeks of banging on it before I could get it to use the GPU to its fullest extent and I needed windows 10 and Edge to really work. Chrome would do h264 if you made it, but it wasn't obvious.

Since then I've been hesitant about machines like this, because I know making the software use the hardware can be a real chore. Microsoft does it with Edge, Apple does it with Safari, elementary did it with Epiphany, but googles pockets seem too small to make it work on anything other than sanctioned chromebooks and then only for 6.5 years...

Looks like someone should buy google a sandwich. They're looking a bit pekid.
Reply

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Joined Sep 2004
L7: Teacher
> bubble2 2,713 Posts
1,830 Reputation
spike32
12-08-2019 at 05:35 PM.
12-08-2019 at 05:35 PM.
Quote from tenkay :
elementary did it with Epiphany
is this something elementary did or is it something that Epiphany did, and it will work on any distro ( eg ubuntu )
Reply
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