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I finally got sick of this netbook I've been struggling with and ordered an x230 off the lenovo outlet for what looks like about half price. There's not much I can do about it now, but do they all come with IPS screens? Will it take a normal size SSD? Other than that it looks pretty great. Overkill for surfing the net from my bed but I'm sick of having to wait 20 seconds to change tabs in Firefox on this thing. code:
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Jun 8, 2013 23:35
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Brain In A Jar posted:Hey hey, I posted this in the hardware questions thread and they sent me over here. I'm tossing up between two laptops, It's hard to say anything without knowing which models you're comparing. However the Sony E series is a consumer level laptop, I've had one for 3 years and while it's been great for round the house I don't think it would stand up to a significant amount of abuse. I probably wouldn't want to carry it around with me if that's what you're doing. You've chosen one with a 1366 x 768 screen which would be a bad choice for design work. This is probably all redundant because haswell integrated GPUs mean that the choices you've made are obsolete - but I'll let someone else come up with recommendations for what you should get (Vaio Pro looks nice?)
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Jun 12, 2013 10:55
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My x230 arrived yesterday and overall I’m happy with it. The only thing I really dislike is the touchpad, it’s just not a good size or shape and is weirdly rattly. Not good, but not worth returning it and the nipple thing is fine. I started up my Sony E-series to see what applications I should stick on it and in comparison the whole machine is hilariously flexible. The screen on the sony is better though. I’ve just bought a SSD to stick in it and am wondering whether to just do a clean Windows install on it, ghost over the recovery partition and install from that, or just copy over the whole drive as is. There’s a whole load of preinstalled Lenovo software and it’s not really clear whether it’s useful or necessary. On previous machines I’ve been happy to let Windows do everything, but the Lenovo applications look relatively useful and this machine has the Ericsson WWAN card which I’d like to use. So can I ask the Thinkpad people here which of those preloaded applications you keep? I got about 110 services running on startup which isn’t making me very happy. For info the SSD is a Samsung 840 non-Pro 250GB. I was being cheap, don’t hate me.
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Jun 14, 2013 13:46
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Bob Morales posted:No IPS on your X230? No it's just the standard non premium one. It's not terrible, and weirdly seemed to get sharper aftet I updated the drivers, which I don't understand. Vvv that's amazing! Not sure I really want to crack open my new laptop's screen case and start mucking about with it. knox_harrington fucked around with this message at 14:54 on Jun 14, 2013 |
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Jun 14, 2013 14:33
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Mega Comrade posted:I've been hovering over the buy button on that laptop for a week or so now. It's above my planned budget but it's such a highly rated laptop and with such a huge discount I think I'll just spend the extra £100 for £500 extra worth of quality. It's a 7mm 2.5" drive, the same thickness as every SDD I have (Sandisk Extreme, samsung 830 and 840). When I looked earlier it's been reduced a bit more, £529 now. I noticed just now it doesn't have a webcam - but I think it only has the 2x2 antenna so I don't know what's going on there. I had a bit of difficulty copying the system over from the HDD to the new SSD, I tried copying the recovery partition with Ghost but couldn't then boot from it. I used a windows 7 pro iso image in the end, but it's apparently not activated and I need to call microsoft to sort it out :-|
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Jun 15, 2013 15:24
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Mega Comrade posted:No webcam, hmm annoying but I can always just buy a £10 one and keep it in a draw for when I need it. To be honest there really isn't much to fault. The screen isn't very high resolution, it's 1366 x 768, which I thought would be the biggest problem but hasn't bothered me at all so far - I've only been surfing the web though, no work done on it yet. If I had a choice I'd have got a backlit keyboard but not a huge deal I guess. It barely weighs any more than my netbook, I guess it might look a little bit thick next to a macbook air or a new ultrabook, but it's still really small and light. Also because of the construction I wouldn't have a problem with chucking it in a bag where I'd be a bit precious with an Air. Overall I think it's great for the money.
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Jun 15, 2013 18:22
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Damnit there's something rolling around inside my new x230. Sounds like a loose screw or cable inside the front right corner. So annoying! I checked my warranty status and it says 3 year on site, that means someone will come out and mend it, right? Or should I take out the keyboard and have a look? I don't want to void the warranty but at the same time really don't want to send it away for repair / return it.
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Jun 17, 2013 10:28
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Char posted:What's the best place in Europe to look around for prices? In the UK there's a Lenovo outlet which sells new laptops, where abouts are you? My x230 a couple of weeks ago was £550.
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Jun 26, 2013 12:17
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DrDork posted:Depends on what laptop you're getting. Apple? You're fine to leave it as is. ThinkPad? A few things here or there you don't need, otherwise largely fine. Pretty much anything else? Be prepared to spend awhile de-loving the bloatware bombs. For most laptops it's not really required to do a clean install, but the time/effort may be lower by going that route vice trying to pull all the crapware out. If you do decide to do a clean install, just ensure you've already downloaded the network drivers onto a USB drive or otherwise have a copy, just in case Windows doesn't pick them up correctly by default. I was amazed to find that some of the Lenovo preinstalled stuff is genuinely useful - I ended up having to do a clean install anyway, but found myself actually choosing to put some of it back on, which was weird.
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Jun 27, 2013 15:27
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My girlfriend is heading off to medical school and is being provided with a free laptop as part of a grant. The one they’ve chosen is a bit crap, it’s an i3 Fujitsu Lifebook AH512, which as far as I can tell is a Sandy Bridge machine, but you can apparently choose to pay and upgrade it. She doesn’t have a lot of money, say an extra £200 above the cost of the fujitsu at the max, and this would probably be paying list price so no discounts really available. I think 15” is a good size for doing university work – that would be its main use, and also watching movies. I don’t think she’ll be taking the computer to lectures so it doesn’t need to be ultraportable. So with that in mind what’s the best choice for a ~£450 15” laptop? Am I right in thinking the Fujitsu isn’t likely to be a good machine, and that we need to be finding at least an Ivy Bridge processor? Are budget Haswells out yet? I’d like an i3, and for it to be reasonably sturdy as it’s going to be travelling round a bit. How about a Thinkpad Edge 531? Listed on the lenovo website as £409.99 ThinkPad E531 Processor: Intel Core i3-3120M Processor (3M Cache, 2.50 GHz) Operating System: Windows 8 64 Display: 15.6W HD Antiglare, Midnight Black - No WWAN Graphics: Intel HM77 - Intel HD 4000 Integrated Graphics (WWAN or mSATA capable) Memory: 4GB PC3-12800 DDR3L SDRAM 1600MHz SODIMM Hard Drive: 500GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm Optical Device: DVD Recordable 8x Max Dual Layer w/ SW Royalty for Windows 8 Also I can only see that computer on the lenovo website. In case they can't get hold of it what would be good alternatives? I think we should probably order it fairly soon as the wheels of this organisation seem to turn fairly slowly.
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Jul 2, 2013 14:42
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David Corbett posted:Primarily it will be used to do basic computing stuff, such as browsing the Internet and watching videos, but I'd like to play games with it, too. This makes it sound like you will have be connecting it to a TV, and depending on what it is, and your taste, you could build a really small ITX computer and connect that to it instead. I have one attached to my 40" TV for games, with a wireless keyboard and mouse. It's fantastic. The computer case lives behind my TV and you wouldn't know it's there. Text is less good on the LCD TV than a laptop though.
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Jul 14, 2013 22:14
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agarjogger posted:In six months of use in every possible setting, I've found the 2x2 nothing special, and rarely did it find a network that my T61's ThinkPad a/b/g wouldn't have . I would have done much better with the 6300 3x3. Thread pros will remember that I spent many a post trying to justify my choice of the webcam, but I've come to regret it since an external wireless card is so much dumber than an external camera, and I find myself needing one if I want to keep streaming internet radio with the lid closed. The Samsung 840 non-Pro fits in exactly the same way. I installed Windows 8 and haven't had any problems installing any of the Lenovo applications, though admittedly I didn't want all of them and ended up with just the power, network and update apps. No problems with the Ericsson WWAN and win 8 either. The touchpad on the x230 really is very poo poo.
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Aug 6, 2013 13:30
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Cokeysmoke posted:Hi there - I'm most likely going to university in a month, and I'm looking for the standard all-round laptop. Notes, general internet use, and perhaps a bit of gaming (although it's usually low-intensity games, no BF3 or anything). I'm in the UK which is why I'm asking, as I'm unsure if my choices were the same as in America. My budget is £500-£600; $775-$930 according to Google. Of course if there are any suggestions that end up cheaper I won't refuse. It's only the Thinkpad range that's really recommended by this thread. You should check out the UK lenovo outlet website, I haven't looked for a while but there are often really good offers on there. I got a new (not refurbished) x230 for £550 which is about half price, I'd think that would be a good choice for uni if you can stand 1366 x 768 resolution. Not Haswell, of course.
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Aug 12, 2013 16:06
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Mutation posted:I tried Windows 8 with all it's Metroness, I changed my operating behavior and became more win key + typing efficient. I even customized Metro and memorized icon positions on the screen so I can quickly hit the windows key and click an icon. Yeah, same (except without the downgrade to 7). Win 8 + Start8 is really great, installing start8 made me realise how much I'd been being frustrated by the start screen. It also completely distracts you when you're working, if you want to open a new application you have to go into a completely different environment. I also particularly hate how the music app first takes you to the store rather than your music collection. I don't want to give you any more money, fuckers! The Plex app is fantastic though. Seeing the Yoga Pro 2 is making me slightly regret buying this x230... I think it would have been perfect. Ah well.
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Sep 14, 2013 14:52
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89 posted:Alright, I've talked to her a little further and she's open to the idea of a laptop without a touchscreen and thinks a stylus would be more functional for her needs. So, I feel like a jerk asking such a vague question, but with what I listed, what direction do I need to look for maybe a $500-$700 laptop that'll get the job done? You're going to need to give more information about what she's going to use it for - if she needs a stylus does that mean graphic design? Photoshop? It has a big impact on how much power, screen size, etc she needs. Is she going to carry it to classes? What is she used to using? I don't know of any laptops that have a stylus but aren't touchscreen. I'm not in the US but over here Vaio Pros are £750, light, high res, Haswell, touchscreen.
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Nov 12, 2013 13:57
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Lakitu7 posted:The workplace is very strongly Windows. The other folks with Apples pay a hefty tax in software support headaches I don't want to deal with, and honestly I'm just not much a fan, though I totally acknowledge that people are justified in telling me to buy MBA with what I said. Chromebooks and Android Tablets with keyboards would definitely be the way to cheap out, but I've already got an android phone and android tablet and they're lovely for consuming media but don't feel right to me for a business machine. This time around I'm more looking to get something nice than cheap out, I guess, so long as I'm not being ripped off. Sony Vaio Pro? They come in 11" and 13", both have a 1080p screen, Windows, super thin and light.
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Nov 30, 2013 13:38
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Monoclinic posted:This thread is fantastic, and lurking here has helped me select a new laptop after my old Dell Inspiron 1501 finally kicked the bucket. I did this with my x230 earlier this year. I tried and failed to copy the recovery partition over intact and eventually did a clean install of win 8. From there you can install Lenovo System Update which will deal with drivers and lenovo software. I haven't changed this computer to 8.1 yet. I had a problem with the card reader driver which would occasionally run the cpu at 100% but I uninstalled it and I think it's using a native windows one. Unusually the lenovo stuff is quite useful rather than pure bloatware. I've kept the power management, access connections, hotkeys... and I think that's it. Will check when I get home. I ignored solutions center,
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Dec 2, 2013 13:55
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shrughes posted:My lifehack advice is to remap caps lock to ctrl, unless you're one of those Vim users that has already remapped it to Esc. Then, don't whine (at yourself) about how you're not used to it, instead, get used to it. There's instructions on how to do it for every OS on the Emacs wiki. There's a BIOS option on Thinkpads to swap the Fn and Ctrl keys back to where they usually are.
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Dec 2, 2013 20:01
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Hi laptop thread. I have a couple of questions about the yoga 2 pro - was the backlight issue sorted, is there any point going for an i7 over an i5 (pretty normal use, not trying to transcode or anything) and is the ram easily upgradeable from 4gb on the i5 version? Just found I get a good discount and a friend wants one...
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May 22, 2014 10:30
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kaworu posted:This is a bit of a tangent, but I honestly don't get why people view big gaming laptops as so niche or useless. It's because if you basically never move your laptop you can spend less money on a desktop that's dramatically more powerful and quieter. I think mine was £800 and it's completely ridiculous. Probably still have enough money left over for a cheap laptop or chromebook.
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Jun 1, 2014 15:32
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WattsvilleBlues posted:Looking at laptops for my uncle. Has to come from Currys (UK store). Basic use is emailing/photo and music storage/web surfing. Budget is up to £600, though that's probably more than is needed. Why does he have to get it from Currys? They are idiots and it makes this difficult. Bacically he doesn't need much, you can get a Chromebook from there for not a lot of money, or otherwise go and look at anything with an Intel processor and see what the screen is like. If he can possibly buy from not-currys he could get this or this which are great machines for the money. e: this one has a better screen Double edit: Dell business line laptops are also good and cheap from their outlet knox_harrington fucked around with this message at 13:04 on Aug 9, 2014 |
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Aug 9, 2014 11:41
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Mr. Bad Guy posted:Hey goons, I'm preparing for an upcoming deployment, and I'm looking for something simple that I can use to watch I know this is a couple of days old but I have some experience of both laptops and deployments so here's 2p: Generally the environment is pretty much the opposite to what's good for computers so you need something a bit more robust than a standard consumer type laptop. Lots of friends' basic plasticky machines just disintegrated, I'd recommend getting a business type laptop like a thinkpad or dell latitude as it will stand up to the environment and being bashed around a bit. If you get on the lenovo outlet website you will probably find a T or maybe X series thinkpad for around your budget which will do the job. The other models are crappy so avoid them. If there's nothing on the outlet then look through ebay to find recent used models (x230 or x240), they'll be previously used by businesses but that shouldn't be a concern considering what you're about to do to it.
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Feb 3, 2015 08:27
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General_Failure posted:Brief trip report for the Hitachi TravelStar 7200RPM. Why didn't you put a SSD in it? Do you have a space to put a mSATA drive in for your boot drive rather than relying on just a HDD? At this point actual hard disks are pretty old fashioned.
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Feb 4, 2015 00:16
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Hadlock posted:A couple senior managers have E7XXX laptops and from what little I've played around with them they are really nice yeah. Dell's high end stuff has gotten really good post-2012. I just got an E7250 for work, it is pretty nice but the keyboard is a really shallow travel one. Not a patch on my X230.
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Oct 18, 2015 08:50
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Paperhouse posted:Quoting this I have an x230 and while I really like it if you don't need the portability and are used to 15.6" I would get a larger (and 1080p) screen. Also I have a dell e7250 for work which seems to get recommended here, and while it is a bit slimmer the thinkpad is a way better computer to work on. If I needed a new computer it would definitely be a x250 or t450(s).
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Dec 17, 2015 21:23
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fuf posted:I'm looking for a refurbished x220, x230 or x240 and I'm worried about the trackpad. The trackpad on my x230 is terrible and I never use it. I think it's the weird knobbly surface, it's just completely imprecise. I don't think I've ever attempted to use the click function of the trackpad. (edit: just did and it's awful, makes the cursor move when I click) However the trackpoint nipple thing is excellent and I wouldn't use the trackpad even if it was the best available. The x240 (or your previous T440) is the one to avoid or possibly replace the trackpad as it doesn't have the physical buttons of the other versions. The x260 is out now so a new or refurbished x250 could be pretty cheap. On UK ebay they're sub-£500.
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Apr 24, 2016 19:08
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AVeryLargeRadish posted:Ended up buying a refurbished T460 with all the features she wanted other than the backlit keyboard for $620, thanks for the help all. Super late to the game here but Thinkpad keyboards are easy to replace and you can probably pick up a backlit one for a few bucks.
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Apr 6, 2017 17:50
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RobertKerans posted:My GF is looking for a very cheap laptop for basic day-to-day stuff; a lot of typing, Office, web, some videos, listening to music. She sometimes checks out a tiny little 11-12" laptop (some HP or Dell thing I think) for when she's working from home, & is quite enamoured with it in terms of size & usability; it's basically a netbook that interfaces to her work desktop VM. She's on maternity now so doesn't have access to that, so she needs something that'll run Windows (so no Chromebook) with Office, is easy to lug around with a baby on one arm, and can survive the baby. Sitting here typing this on a X230, it's still totally fine for basically everything apart from if you wanted to play games on it. I do quite often think about replacing it with something new but ultimately it would be just because I wanted to rather than any actual need. It's built super solidly and way better to type on than my Dell work computer which is an e7250 - their equivalent machine. I think the x230 got an improvement in battery life over the 220 which was again increased with the 240 etc. I would definitely recommend one.
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Jul 2, 2017 15:15
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Fragrag posted:How future-proof is it at the moment actually? I'm in the same situation as the quoted person, and I found a refurb X230 that I want to recommend to my girlfriend. I'm thinking of mainly sourcing replacements for the battery and such. Well obviously it depends what you want to do but I would think it will still be ok for at least a couple of years. Battery on this thing still lasts a few hours working (I don't really notice a huge difference from new). For office docs and web browsing I can't really see how it would get that far behind the curve. One thing you could do is replace the keyboard, cheap and easy to do and makes it feel quite a bit newer. I replaced mine with a backlit one which is super useful. Oh and of course put in a SSD if there isn't one in already.
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Jul 5, 2017 00:16
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Rushputin posted:Thanks for the input. Maybe I'll look around for university sales or something, but I'm pretty sure I will reconsider what kind of machine I need in the first place. I was going for a good all-arounder (preferably with a numpad, but you can't have everything), but considering I still have a decent desktop PC and don't usually spend extended amounts of time in other locations I will probably focus more on a mix of portability and having the right ports and non-annoying keyboard layouts. Apologies for being a lazy infrequent poster but I'm sure there are both DE Lenovo and Dell outlet sites. The UK Lenovo outlet closed but I thought the euro ones continued. fake edit: I can't make it work from here in the UK but Dell at least must have an outlet. You can get a decent business class lapentoppen for €600, get a 7000 series something
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Jul 13, 2017 22:09
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Jeza posted:Hello laptop-knowers. I'm looking at buying a laptop. I've been on an ancient Samsung Chromebook for a number of years, which I ended up buying twice because I liked it a lot and it was dirt cheap for what it did. However, it is coming apart at the seams more or less literally. I have a UK EPP code that should work for a bit of a reduction, hit me up with a PM if you want it. edit to add that my experience with thinkpads has been great for durability and ease of replacing bits. knox_harrington fucked around with this message at 22:45 on Aug 12, 2017 |
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Aug 12, 2017 22:43
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I didn't see it mentioned but the new X1 tablet looks really interesting: https://www.anandtech.com/show/12253/lenovo-reengineers-thinkpad-x1-tablet I had planned on getting a x1 yoga but maybe this is a better option.
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Jan 16, 2018 14:11
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El Grillo posted:x270 Ohh... where did you see this?
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Jan 31, 2018 11:46
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How easy is it to replace the screen on a x270? I really like my x230 and the only issue is the lovely screen resolution. I'm considering getting one with a 1366 x 768 off ebay and sticking a 1080 screen... I'm not too hamfisted with assembling things but would draw the line at having to modify bits of the computer.
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Feb 1, 2018 22:11
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Awesome thanks.. bit the bullet with a "new: other" x270 for £450. It's an 8GB one, I can't remember how it's arranged on the x270 - any idea if there is always some soldered and 1 slot for a stick, or will it just be the 8GB occupying the only room? Guess I will wait for it to arrive and see what precise model it is and work on upgrading.
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Feb 1, 2018 23:06
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:I did this with an x260, it was absurdly easy and didn't require any tools. The only issue I found is that the 1080p display was slightly smaller than the 768 one, so it didn't clip into the housing properly. Apparently there's a whole other rear display housing part for the 1080p model, but frankly, gently caress that noise. I put some black Sugru into the inside corners and sides of the housing, squished the display in, put the bezel on and made sure it was centered while it was still soft. Now it's rock solid and probably more durable than the original mount, and I can just cut away the Sugru if I need to replace it again. Looks like these are the bits that will fit the FHD screen. Not too painful. Thank you for the heads up. code:
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Feb 2, 2018 10:24
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My X270 arrived. It's certainly a lot slimmer than my X230 and seems super slick in operation. It doesn't have a backlit keyboard as was stated on the ebay ad... it was pretty cheap though and as a bit of a project to 1080p-ify it maybe it's worth keeping. It came with Windows 10 installed (not Win 7) and none of the Thinkpad software so I am going to explore it a bit and see if it's worth keeping. Bit of a pain about that keyboard though.
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Feb 7, 2018 20:38
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AverySpecialfriend posted:I thought backlit keyboard was standard? Does it not work or is there just nothing on fn spacebar? Fn-spacebar does nothing Also the fan seems to be on quite a lot. I like the monastic silence of the X230.
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Feb 7, 2018 21:07
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Google Butt posted:Yeah. I ordered an IPS x230 on ebay today because I needed something now, so I was just curious. This will hold me over until the t480 drops to a reasonable price, figure I can just resell this as they appear to hold their value pretty well. Yeah the x230 is still completely fine for day to day use, though I would think doing the FHD mod is really a waste of time and money. The keyboard is also a bit better than my x270.
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Feb 18, 2018 09:58
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Bob Morales posted:We had an engineer quit and he turned in his laptop, T540p. Because of the lack of physical buttons or the trackpad itself? I think I used the pad on my x230 about 10 times in 5 years it was so inaccurate.
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Mar 4, 2018 13:55
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