One of the issues I noted in my first day with the Asus UX305 was the weird trackpad that had a clunk/click sound when tapped on. I couldn’t understand if it was normal or not; I assumed it was just a poor design decision on Asus’ part. When I posted my first impression review on the Amazon product page, one of the commenters shared that he too had the clicking trackpad issue. When he contacted Asus tech support they told him it wasn’t normal and that he should return the product.
Curious about this, and having the personality type that doesn’t keep a product if I think it’s defective and would need to be returned anyway, I ordered a Microsoft Signature Edition (the UX305FA-USM1). I’d gotten into a somewhat heated discussion over in the Amazon product review comments with someone who insisted that the Signature Edition was a superior product due to the software build Microsoft put on it (bloatware-free). Oh, also some guy who was mocking me for not lying and using the student discount like he did.
Figuring I now had the opportunity to see for myself, I ordered the Microsoft Store version. And, somewhat to my surprise, there was a big difference in the trackpad. Watch the video to see why.
Shortly after doing this video, I returned the Amazon version.
I thought student discounts are for students?
Hi Jason, I am a student who has currently ordered this laptop from the Microsoft store. Apart from Microsoft Office, I also want to install statistical softwares like SAS and RStudio in this laptop. Do you have any idea whether these programs will run smoothly in this laptop? Thanks.
I haven’t used those programs, so it’s hard to say – even if they’re CPU dependent, crunching numbers is something modern CPUs can do fairly well. So I’d cautiously say you shouldn’t have any problems, but take that with a grain of salt.
Exactly. A lot of people still lie though and try to get the discount. I got into a bit of a flame war with one guy about this. A lot of people in their 20s, let’s call them the “Napster Generation”, have a shallow moral code. They think if you CAN do something (i..e: the system lets you easily fake a discount), then you SHOULD. It’s really sad.
Thank you for your reply!
Napster was last decade, and it certainly didn’t stop those in their 30s onward then from using it. I think that there will always be many who’ll do anything to save a buck. I remember reading about cases where there were things like free textbooks (or something useful that’d help the poor) being given out and there were middle-aged people pulling up in Mercedes Benzes to collect them. As you said, just because they could do that, doesn’t mean they should. But they still did.
It has to do with generations and growing up YS – I’m a Gen-X’r, so I grew up using computers in the pre-Internet, boxed commercial software and shareware days.File sharing happened when I was in my late 20’s.
“The Napster Generation” refers to Gen Y (aka Millennials) that, when they were in their formative tween & teen years, were using Napster, Limewire, etc. was common. They grew up in the post-album, post-CD world. The concept of paying for music, movies, TV shows etc. is foreign to many of them, even now that they’re older and have an income stream. Not all of them of course, but I find many commonalities in attitudes of people in this age bracket.
I’m not trying to say that dishonesty and content thievery is purely the realm of Gen Y – people of all ages can and do participate in it – but older people usually *know* it’s wrong. Kids that grew up in the “well, the software let me get all this music, so it must be OK, right?” era have a different perspective. A lot of them just didn’t understand why it was thievery. Plus, parents that were so confused by this new technology, they had no idea what their kids were doing or how to talk to them about this weird new world.
Such a fun sociological topic. 🙂
No Jason, I think that’s just plain unfair stereotyping: Like I said, I’ve met plenty of people who despite their age will cheat to save a buck: You’re right that the younger will pirate music digital because they’re familiar with the tech, but that doesn’t make them any better or worse – it’s just something that’s highly visible and easily tracked.