Category Archives: Copilot+ PCs

Copilot+ PCs, Hardware Reviews, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, WED Blog

Undisappearing X13 Gen 6 PING

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I’m getting ready to return the sweet little review unit Lenovo sent me six weeks ago. It’s a ThinkPad X13 Gen 6 (see First Look from November 7). It’s endowed with an Intel Core Ultra 7 255U, 16GB RAM, and an 0.5 GB NVMe SSD. For size and heft, it’s a nominal 13″ ultra-portable (933g/2.05 lbs) that’s easy to pack up and take with you wherever you go. As I was preparing a final once-over, I found myself faced with undisappearing X13 Gen 6 PING. Let me explain…

Why I’m Undisappearing  X13 Gen 6 PING

For some odd reason, Lenovo instituted firewall rules on this eval unit that I’ve never run into before. You can see them in the lead-in graphic where they show — in brief — that for both Private and Domain LAN namespaces, inbound PING is disabled for both IPv4 and IPv6. That means this PC won’t respond to incoming PING requests from the LAN. Sigh.

That’s how Advanced IP Scanner finds PCs (among other techniques). It also explains why IPconfig on the X13 Gen 6 happily reported itself at a private IP address, but didn’t show up in the scans that tool made on my desktop. Sigh again.

This is easily fixed by changing those firewall rules to enable (YES) them, instead of disabling (NO) same. But I wonder: why did Lenovo do this? I can see this applying to boundary devices (e.g. firewalls) and servers, but haven’t really run into it much on end-user PCs. They’s usually safe behind one or more layers of external protection (2 in my case), and don’t get external PINGs. Maybe it’s a “coffee shop” scenario…? But PING is disabled on Public networks anyway. Go figure!

Closing Thoughts on the X13 Gen 6 ThinkPad

As I get ready to box this unit up, and ship it off, I’ve come to some conclusions. On the plus side, it’s light, compact and reasonably capable. I’d be inclined to upgrade the 0.5 GB SSD to 1.0 GB or bigger (with budget 2.0 GB units selling for under US$100 right now, that’s not a big stretch). Otherwise, it’s more than acceptable as-is.

On the minus side, the X13 is a little behind the curve technology wise. Alas,  this model is NOT Copilot+ capable. With its price now over US$1,500 (+US$8.45 at Best Buy, +US$138.22 at Staples) it’s nowhere near as good a deal as a lightweight Snapdragon X-equipped model in that general price range (e.g. Lenovo ThinkPad 7X or Asus Zenbook A14).

Such models usually come equipped with 1 TB SSDs from the get-go, offer better battery life (12+ hours for SnapdragonX models vs. 7-10 hours for the X13), and are on par or better for performance and capability. That said, ARM PCs still have their Windows quirks and limitations, too. Here in Windows-World choosing a laptop always involves certain trade-offs, eh? I’ve come down on the Copilot+ side of things, and remain amazed that less than 2% of new PC purchased globally qualify as such. Given MS’s emphasis on AI, why buy anything else?

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Copilot+ PCs, Hardware Reviews, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, WED Blog, Windows 11

ASUS A14 Zenbook Travelogue

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From December 7 to 16, my wife and I drove to California to pick up son Gregory upon moving out of his dorm on the 11th. For this 10-day odyssey, we took the new Snapdragon X laptop along. This blog post provides a kind of technical ASUS A14 Zenbook travelogue, as we used that machine in the car, and in 7 hotels on our trip. TLDR version: works well, great battery life, and easy to pack and tote. That said, everybody noticed — and missed — touch screen support.

Snippets from ASUS A14 Zenbook Travelogue

Day 1 (Home to Las Cruces, NM): Unbelievably fast Windows Hello facial recognition. Used less than 15% of battery with Kindle Reader in 4-6 hours in the car. Tried to drive interface with finger on screen only to realize this otherwise excellent US$550 lapop does NOT include a touchscreen. No issues using hotel Wi-Fi.

Day  2 (Las Cruces to Phoenix, AZ):  Took less than an hour to fully recharge PC after extended use in car for reading. No 5G support meant I used my iPhone as a wireless hotspot for Internet access in the car. No issues using hotel Wi-Fi, except I had to run thru the hotspot to grab my Hyatt loyalty club info before I could get free, high-perf access. Sigh: it’s always something…

Days 3 – 6 (Los Angeles/Hollywood, CA): Wife Dina and I made regular use of the A14 in the Loews Hollywood Hotel. Easy Wi-Fi access, decent performance for the lo-fi connection (until I figured out we got high-fi because of our room deal). Only had to charge the laptop once during our entire stay. Great battery life!

Into LA, Then Back Home

Day 7 (Hollywood to Bakersfield): The family indulged my burning desire to visit Cafe Pyrenees and tackle more food than you can believe is included in a “dinner setup” (costs US$24.95 by itself). The garlic fried chicken was astounding, and the A14 likewise, with easy Wi-Fi hookups and great web performance.

Day 8 (Bakersfield to Kingman, AZ): The Holiday Inn Express was a big disappointment. The A14 was not: another day of great battery life, easy Wi-Fi hookup, good Web-based Outlook access and performance, and more. I’m now completely comfortable claiming that for light-duty computing (e.g. email, surfing, basic apps and applications) this laptop can run for a long day (12 hours) on battery. Just in case, though, I brought a RavPower RP-PB41 on the trip (its 26,800 mAh capacity can charge the A14 to 100% in about 7 hours: it’s slow because it outputs 5A where the A14 expects 4X that level).

Day 9 (Kingman to Big Spring, TX): We doubled up the driving for a 12-hour day on Dec 15 (we’d originally planned to stop in Albuquerque, NM). The A14 ran all day during our 12:15 drive, with about 17% battery remaining when we pulled into the beautifully restored Hotel Settles around midnight that day. Phew!

Day 10 (Big Spring to Round Rock, TX): The ~5hr drive home drew only about 25% of battery capacity, as I surfed and looked at the 1,015 email messages waiting for me in my inbox at the Webmail server for edtittel.com. I knew the next would be busy as I chewed through that imposing list, to filter the wheat from the chaff.

Final Thoughts and Concerns

Gosh! I’m hard-pressing to ding the A14 for much at all, except for its lack of touchscreen support. Copilot tells me that such capability adds US$75-150 to the cost of a laptop, but I didn’t really stop to check if that was an available option or not when I jumped on its Best Buy Black Friday pricing. As Copilot would have it, buying a touchscreen A14 model would add anywhere from US$259 to US$500 to the US$550 I paid for my current unit at Best Buy. So much for Copilot’s obviously optimistic US$75-150 incremental cost estimate, eh?

All in all, I find this laptop to be eminently suited for mobile, portable use — as long as you have a cellphone that can provide a mobile Internet hookup. Alas, ASUS does not offer an in-PC M.2 slot into which one might insert a 5G card. So it goes, here in Windows-World. Net results: mostly positive, with only a couple of niggles. Love this new laptop: will keep using it as a road machine.

 

 

 

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Presence Sensing Pitfalls

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OK, then. I just returned from a 10-day hiatus during which time we drove to California and back. Purpose: to pick up number-one son at college and bring him home for the holidays. When I sat down at my desk, I noticed that the ThinkPad T14s would sense my presence, and start itself up unprompted, even though I was busy on my desktop. This illustrates one of the various presence sensing pitfalls that Windows 11 sets up, and the ThinkPad enables. Let me explain…

Working Around Presence Sensing Pitfalls

In theory, presence sensing uses the PC’s camera to figure out when you’re close by, and to start itself up when you move into some distance from the device. (See lead-in graphic.)  In practice, things are a little more complex and interesting. Why so? Here are some reasons:

  • Inside Settings, if you look for presence sensing through brute force, not much appears. If you search, that leads to Privacy & security > Presence Sending.
  • You can’t get to “Presence Sensing settings” directly, because they appear under System > Power & battery > Turn off my screen when I leave. There’s a section entitled “Wake my device when I approach” with other entailments, too. That’s where the real action is.
  • Looks like presence sensing works best when it’s for a primary machine, but not so much when it’s a secondary beast. I’m turning it off on the laptop for that reason.

Long story short: to defeat the presence sensing (I mostly use this unit via RDP anyway), I had to turn off “Wake my device when I approach.” That not only stops it from firing up while I’m sitting at my desk, it also keeps it from popping up and doing stuff every 30 seconds or so (mildly vexing).

It just goes to show that not all Windows controls are completely intuitive. Nor are they always labeled as you think they should be. I’m convinced that’s why MS had to put a link to “Presence Sensing settings” on the eponymous screen (“Presence Sensing”) in the Privacy & Security silo in Settings. Here in Windows-World, the only way to get where you need to go may be indirect. This is one such path…

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Backup/Restore, Cool Tools, Copilot+ PCs, Recent Activity, WED Blog, Windows 11

Another ARM Boot Boondoggle

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Right. So I’m in the process of covering my ARM PC assets to prevent further boot and BCD issues. One important tool in that coverage is backup/restore. Alas, I’m learning that most such toolsets — including all of the free ones I try to use by preference — don’t work (or work well) with ARM PCs. Yesterday, in fact, I got caught in another ARM boot boondoggle. Indeed, it produced the dread STOP error message “INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE” (0X0000007B). Let me explain…

Recovering from Another ARM Boot Boondoggle

Here’s the deal: most of the free backup/restore toolsets — including AIOMEI Backupper, EaseUS ToDo, Paragon Backup and Recovery Free, Cobian Backup and so forth — don’t work (or work well) with ARM-based PCs. What caused the boot error yesterday was EaseUs ToDo, which injects additional drivers into the Windows boot process. Not only does that not work on ARM PCs, but the program offers no warnings, nor informs users that proceeding with install results in an unusable system.

“Good thing I’ve got the Lenovo USB Recovery Key,” I thought to myself. At least I knew how to dig myself out of this mess. As far as I can tell, only the Hasleo Backup Suite Free and Macrium Reflect X (free trial, but pay for real use) offer backup/restore and rescue media capabilities that work on ARM-based PCs. Go figure!

One Reflect X License Left…

I just checked my Macrium Reflect account, and I’ve got one X license left. Right now, I have two ARM laptops here at Chez Tittel. I think I’ll give Hasleo a try on the Lenovo ThinkPad T14s. Shoot! I know from repeated use that the Lenovo USB Recovery Key will bail me out of any trouble I might get myself into.

Stay tuned: I’ll let you know how this adventure continues. It’s started to get interesting. And I mean more interesting than I’d hoped or expected. Sigh.

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Bitlocker Boot Loop Finally Broken

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After at least half-a-dozen failed attempts to build bootable media for the ThinkPad T14s ARM laptop, I finally put a usable UFD together. The secrets? First, I used the Lenovo Digital Download Recovery Service (DDRS) and its associated USB Recovery Creator Tool.  Second, it built me a UFD that actually booted up on the T14s on another ARM laptop (an ASUS Zenbook A14). With the BitLocker boot loop finally broken, the Lenovo Recovery Media successfully reinstalled Windows 11. It was a long, wild and sometimes harrowing ride!

How Was BitLocker Boot Loop Finally Broken?

Because the .wim files for Windows 11 were so huge, I’d been formatting the repair UFD using NTFS. That was apparently not working on the T14s. The Lenovo tool built a UFD using FAT32, and assigned no drive letter to its repair partition. Because the basic Windows 11 .wim files exceed 4GB in size, that means it did some juggling work to create a boot.wim of about 700K, and a Recovery WIM of just under 3.9GB. And then it went through the most complex unattend.xml I’ve ever seen go by on-screen, with no less than six (6!) reboots to get the recovery image installed, updated and ready to run. It took about 100 minutes to grind through its process. Color me impressed.

I had tried using various other tools to fix things on my own, but none of them produced a working and bootable UFD from which to run the Windows installer. I believe all of them foundered either on the use of NTFS. complex partition structures, or lack of complete ARM support:

  • MCT (Media Creation Tool): doesn’t work properly on ARM PCs right now, and cannot generate ARM installation media
  • Ventoy: The UFD could boot initially and select the correct ISO for hand-off, but would not boot into that mounted image. Here, because the Ventoy partition is formatted NTFS, I’m presuming that caused the problems.
  • Rufus: I told Rufus to use NFTS, not realizing this could stymie proper booting into its runtime environment.

One More Thing…

I also learned that ARM PCs want fast, standard UFDs as boot media. Me, I’m fond of those tiny micro-UFDs (in this case, Mushkin Atom devices). Turns out they work fine on Intel and AMD; on ARM, not so much. I ended up using a Mushkin full-size USB 3.0 MKNUFDVP64GB device (or half of it, rather, because its FAT32 partition maxed out at 32GB). It did the job, though, so I’m glad.

This has been one of my wilder, woolier adventures in Windows-World lately. First, I had to find the right medium. Then I had to use the right format. And finally, I had to use the right tool. Only then could I reinstall Windows and put the T14s back into service. Sheesh!

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Escaping BitLocker Recovery Loop Poses Problems

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Apparently, ARM64 compatibility issues can bite in unexpected — and time-consuming — ways. Yesterday, I decided to upgrade the ThinkPad T14s that Lenovo has loaned me to Beta build 26220.7262.  Bad move! Instead of rebooting to the post-GUI installer after the first reboot, I found myself stuck in a boot loop around BitLocker recovery. I’d enter the key, get it confirmed as correct, then circle right back to the initial BootLocker Recovery screen. Safe to say that escaping BitLocker Recovery loop poses problems on this otherwise spiffy little laptop.

Escaping BitLocker Recovery Loop Poses Problems, But…

Indeed, I spent most of the afternoon trying to build and run a suitable bootable UFD from which to re-install Windows 11 on the T14s. Here’s what I learned along the way:

  • One shouldn’t use miniUFDs for bootable media on ARM PCs: they’re too slow
  • The port matters when trying to boot from a UFD
  • It’s necessary to turn Secure Boot off in UEFI before you can boot from a UFD
  • Rufus has problems with building bootable media for UFDs on ARM PCs
  • I couldn’t get Ventoy to mount and run the ISO I painstakingly built via UUPDump to run setup.exe, either

Long story short: it’s incredibly challenging to repair an ARM PC with low-level problems (like my BitLocker Recovery loop) using only Intel and AMD x64 PCs. For the moment, I’m stuck!

What’s Next? Tune in Tomorrow for Pt2

In reading Windows news this morning, I learned that Best Buy is offering Asus Zenbook A14 Snapdragon X laptops for US$550. Further, they’ll give me US$250 to trade in my X380 Yoga. That means, with tax and such, I’ll get another Snapdragon X laptop for Chez Tittel for under US$400. I’m going out to pick it up later today, or tomorrow morning.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to build bootable media for the T14s that actually works using the same architecture to built the tools that I must then run. We’ll see. In the meantime, I’m distressed and amazed that previously dead easy tasks — e.g. building and using recovery media for Windows repair — has completely failed here at Chez Tittel. THIS is the kind of unpleasant surprise that pops up here in Windows-World. Hopefully, I’ll be able to weather that storm. Sigh.

 

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Pricing Rugged Copilot+ Tablets

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Cruising X yesterday, I hit a thread touting Dell’s Pro Rugged 10″ and 12″ tablets. Out of curiosity, I started digging. Want a 12″ Copilot+ Rugged tablet? Think hard, and dig deep! Expect to spend between $4-5K for the privilege of owning one. I costed one out and it came to $3,745, not including the detachable keyboard. So I looked for other makers including  MobileDemand, Getac, and Panasonic/Toughbook. Pricing rugged Copilot+ tablets tells me they’re painfully expensive. That means other makers are charging about the same for comparable offerings as Dell. Ouch!

For the record, spending that kind of money gets you a Copilot+ system with at least 40 TOPS of NPU, bright graphics (has to be visible in sunlight), 32 GB RAM, and at least 1 TB of storage. It also typically includes at least one form of long-haul wireless capability (e.g. 5G). If you’re going this route, you’ll want to spring for a second, hot-swappable battery as well. Don’t want to run out of juice in the middle of nowhere!

Pricing Rugged Copilot+ Tablets Means $$$$

I’ve long been fascinated with powerful tablet PCs that come with detachable keyboards. They make great readers, untethered, and they work reasonably well as laptops with keyboards plugged in. But gosh, this latest generation costs up to 4X as much as any model I’ve ever purchased. I’ve owned or reviewed other Toughbooks, Dell, Fujitsu, and Microsoft Surface models configured to work this way. Of those the Fujitsu Stylistic Q704 was the most costly at just under $3K; the Dell Latitude 5285 was my definite favorite. Neither was ruggedized, though…

The markets for rugged tablets and PCs are usually the military, first responders, field crews for utilities, field scientists and data collectors, FEMA and disaster relief teams of all kinds, and other folks who must work outdoors or in hostile environments (sometimes, literally). Adding expense to achieve reliability and dependability is something that comes with such roles– and related uses, for PCs or tablets.

There are lots of specialized niches in Windows-World. This is one I’m happy to visit when companies like Panasonic want to send me review units. But at those prices, I’m unlikely to buy one myself, unless I get a job that requires me to compute in the field where I might have to work in rainy, dusty, or otherwise hard-to-handle environments. At this stage of my career, that seems kinda unlikely — but you never know.

 

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Copilot+ PCs Hit 25H2

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OK then, yesterday was Patch Tuesday. It included amidst its offerings the eKB enablement package KB5054156. All (both) of my current Copilot+ PCs got the upgrade. The Intel-based AIO got it automatically, with an after-hours upgrade. I just used the self-installing upgrade package (.msu) for ARM64 on the Snapdragon X based ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 laptop. The whole process: download, GUI install, post-GUI install and reboot to desktop took less than 2 minutes. I’ve been waiting for this for some while, so I’m glad that, finally, my Copilot+ PCs hit 25H2 version levels.

When Copilot+ PCs Hit 25H2, Then What?

Time to poke around in Settings (and elsewhere) to see what’s different and potentially new. I just learned that because the AIO doesn’t have a battery I don’t have access to the new Power Mode settings under Settings > System > Power & battery. Go figure!

On the Snapdragon X PC, however, the new “Best Power Efficiency” and “Best Performance” options do indeed appear. I opted into the latter (“Best Performance”) to see what impact it might have.

Learned something else amusing: because I’m remoting into the AIO, I can’t mess with Recall settings (nor, presumably, other AI stuff as well). Apparently, I need to set up Windows Hello authentication locally to make that happen… goes off to do so … OK now it’s working through RDP.

Adventures Ahead, For Sure!

Copilot tells me it’s gained new capabilities (as have other MS app) especially via Click to Do. There’s a new “help agent” in Settings that can actually manipulate Windows configurations and settings to some degree. All kinds of AI stuff all over the place. Now, I just need to find the time to actually DO this. And wouldn’t you know it? Right now, I’m swamped in paying work, so I have less time to learn and play. A welcome change of pace in Windows-World, but one that may frustrate me for a while…

Stay tuned: as soon as I have more time, I’ll share what I’m learning.

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SFF Copilot+ PCs Remain Scarce

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Last year, I really got my hopes up when ARM announced a developer’s kit version of a small form-factor (SFF) PC with Snapdragon X. Alas, it never materialized. I’ve also read about plans from numerous vendors to offer mini but mighty PCs of this type, including Geekom and ASUS. But right now, SFF Copilot+ PCs remain scarce. In fact, I can find only two for sale presently: the Lenovo ThinkCentre Neo50q Tiny (Snapdragon) and the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 2MG (Intel).

Why Do SFF Copilot+ PCs Remain Scarce?

I speculated about this when ARM announced, delayed and then canceled its own SFF SnapdragonX based model. Looking at the enclosures for the 2 aforementioned models, I’m still leaning that way. Mostly, in fact, it has to do with support for only 1 or 2 USB-C ports (typically 40Gbps/Thunderbolt 4/USB4).

Thus, there’s a nearly inescapable add-on expense when buying such a unit — namely, a TB4 or TB5 dock, most of which cost from US$350 to over $500. That’s a big bump in cost, cubic volume, and complexity for PCs designed to be affordable and, above all, compact.

I’m Interested, But Is the Market?

Because of the need for more ports, power, connections and displays, I have to believe the general marketplace finds current Copilot+ SFF PCs unappealing. It’s one thing to get useful capability in a compact and reasonably powerful package. It’s another thing entirely to have to turn around and spend from 44 to 63 percent of the purchase cost on a TB4/5 dock to get all the ports and connectivity modern office workers need.

If these OEMs build such SFFs, will buyers come? Initial excitement and plans said “Yes.” Subsequent actual product offerings, options, and limited choices say “Maybe” at best. Too bad: I like the category and what it brings to the desktop. I may be in a (small) minority, though…

Note Added 9/24: Oops! Wrong One..

As you can see in the lead-in graphic, I’d originally landed on the Lenovo ThinkCentre M75q as a Copilot+ SFF PC. Closer examination researching this topic yesterday showed me, it’s not. It lacks sufficient NPU oomph to qualify as such. But that’s when I discovered that indeed Lenovo DOES have an SFF Copilot+ PC — namely the ThinkCentre Neo 50 (Snapdragon) Tiny now mentioned at the head of this story. I guess I got my minis mixed somehow. Glad to fix it, though…

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Dynabook Tecra A60-M2 Intake

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I guess Sharp/Dynabook must’ve liked my coverage of their Portege X40-M2 unit. Why say so? Because about 2 days after I sent that unit back, they sent me another more powerful laptop to look at. Today’s blog post describes my Dynabook Tecra A60-M intake experience (Model PNL21U-017004). It’s a bigger beast, but a little less sturdy (it’s got what feels like an all-plastic lower/keyboard deck) albeit with minimal flex. For the first time, ever, it comes with Windows 11 24H2 Enterprise loaded as well.

Describing Dynabook Tecra A60-M2 Intake Process

Again and suprisingly, Dynabook uses closed-cell plastic foam inserts to enshroud the unit in an otherwise all-cardboard set of nested shipping boxes. It comes with exactly two parts: the laptop itself and the power brick/power cord. Initial setup was absurdly easy. But, for some odd reason, Intel BE201 802.11 Wi-Fi 7 adapters won’t let me log into the 5GHz band on my Asus router. I have to use the 2.4 GHz band instead. If I need to go faster than that, I can plug my trusty StarTech GbE USB 3 adapter into one of its two 5 Gbps USB 3.2 version 1 ports.

It took me some time to get all the bits and pieces in place for my usual setup. I used Patch My PC Home Updater to bring in 7Zip, GadgetPack, CystalDisk mark & info, CPUID, Everything, Chrome, and more. Because this is an Intel-flavored Copilot+ PC, I also installed Intel Driver and Support Assistant as well, along with the Dynabook Support Utility to check for vendor UEFI, firmware, and driver updates.

A Clean, Clean, Clean Machine

I’ve got to say this is one of the cleanest review units I’ve ever gotten. It required very little by way of update or clean-up to bring entirely up to snuff. It’s also got the fastest and most accurate fingerprint scanner I’ve ever used (Device Manager identifies it as a FocalTech Electronics device). So far, it’s fast, has a nice 16″ display, and does everything I’ve asked it to in short order.

The Tecra A60-M2 Components, Listed

According to the vendor web page, this unit goes for US$1249 (MSRP). I don’t see any major discounts available online but it’s pretty new still, so they may be coming. Here’s what’s inside:

  • CPU: Intel Core Ultra 5 225U
  • OS: Windows 11 24H2 Enterprise (26100.4946)
  • 16.0″ WUXGA display (1920×1200)
  • 16 GB DDR5-5600 (Samsung)
  • 0.5TiB Samsung OEM PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD
  • Ports: 2xUSB4/TB4 USB-C ports, 2xUSB3.2 Gen 1 ports, HDMI, RJ-45 GbE, microSD, mini-RCA (headset) jack
  • 60 Wh Lithium polymer battery; 65W USB-C power brick

What it doesn’t have that I might want? Offhand, I’d say a Hello-capable IR camera, and a touch display. Other than those things, and a bigger SSD, it’s pretty well-equipped. What one gets for US1,250 for this unit isn’t at all bad.

All in all, I like it pretty well so far. I’ll report further as I spend a bit more time with it, and learn more about what it can and can’t do. I’m curious about its SSD speed, USB-C performance, and general processing oomph. Expect to hear more from me on all of those topics, soon. In the meantime, I’m having fun playing with this new toy.

 

 

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