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With all this talk of gaming laptops being an unnecessary expense, can anyone recommend a solid, middle of the road laptop? I am changing jobs my work laptop, which I have also been using as my personal one is being taken away from me (I knew this would bite me in the arse but I didn't have the cash to pony up for one of my own at the time). I'm currently using a HP Pavilion G6 which is quite nice but a little bland. I like the 8GB RAM and and the 1TB HD. It does have dedicated graphics but I'd be willing to sacrifice this in exchange for more battery life and maybe a bit more processing power? The computer is used for extensive PHP / MySQL / Apache development, a bit of Photoshop and general browsing / email / word processing gumpf. Nothing too taxing individually but there is potential to have many programs open at once. I also use it for Lovefilm / iPlayer / DVDs and run it through a monitor so the wife and I can watch films and such. I'm not too bothered about gaming, especially anything cutting edge. My budget is a maximum of about £400 (~$600). In the meantime I am using an old HP with Fedora installed on it. It does the trick but it sounds like a jet engine and runs so hot it feels like I may end up sterilised after using it for more than 5 minutes on my lap! Any advice is appreciated! I am in the UK if that wasn't obvious  EDIT - I see there is a lot of love for the Thinkpad range, what are peoples thoughts on Ideapads? Are they worth looking at or are they just cheaper imitations? I can see this one: http://www.ebuyer.com/479749-lenovo-ideapad-z585-laptop-mad6buk which has the 8GB / 1TB combo I have come to love, is it worth it or should I hold out for a Thinkpad with lower specs such as this: http://www.ebuyer.com/429767-lenovo-thinkpad-edge-e530-laptop-nzy3ruk Gruffalo Soldier fucked around with this message at 12:52 on Jul 1, 2013 |
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Jul 1, 2013 09:52
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No, no didn't. Had I got further into the OP before mashing POST I would have probably seen the glaringly obvious 'Thinkpads have nothing to do with Ideapads' statement. What a dick. That said, I see that the thread recommends The T, W and X flavours of Thinkpad, does that mean that I should shy away from the E that I suggested earlier? I can't find any T430s for less than £500 so that's pretty much out of the question unfortunately, plus I have got used to a 15.6" screen as it's useful for the web designing when I don't have access to an external monitor. Are Probooks worth a look then? I checked out Elitebooks and Dell Latitude 6---'s but they both seem to start way above my price range. I did however see this guy on the HP website: http://h20386.www2.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/Product.aspx?id=H5V74EA&opt=ABU&sel=PBNB - within budget and a comparable spec. Any thoughts?
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Jul 1, 2013 13:50
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So after much deliberation I settled for an L430 from eBay - I just couldn't stretch to the T series unfortunately. Does anyone have any experience of these? The Notebookcheck review seems fairly positive. I got an I3 with 4GB of RAM, I plan to whack another 12GB in there (apparently this is possible, though not supported by Lenovo), any idea whether the chip itself would be upgradable? I am torn between finding an I5 chip to swap it out with or an SSD, any thoughts?
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Jul 9, 2013 20:22
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Thanks for the info on the cpu. I would have loved a t series but the 530s rarely come below £500 in the UK so it was out of the question for the time being, the L is 'as new' and only ran me £300 so I figure I've got about a hundred quid worth of upgrading money to play with  With the ram I've always just banged whatever machine I have up to the maximum over time as it tends to be fairly cheap. I was planning on getting an 8 stick to put in to test whether you can go over the stated 8 limit, then maybe go to 16 later... Edit: poast from phone Gruffalo Soldier fucked around with this message at 21:28 on Jul 9, 2013 |
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Jul 9, 2013 21:09
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KingColliwog posted:Old laptop died, it was a "hi, I want to buy the cheapest laptop you have" kind of buy at Best Buy. This laptop was a few years old and was good enough for my needs and I'd still use it if it didn't die. I've had an L530 i3 for just over a year and I've been very happy with it. I sprung for an SSD shortly after getting it and the boot speed is amazing. Build quality is pretty good compared to other 'consumer' laptops that I have had previously, although (apparently) not up to the specs of the T-series.
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Nov 20, 2014 12:56
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Has anyone got any experience with Lenovo laptop docks? I posted this over onthe Lenovo forums, but no joy there as yet so I figured I'd ask here as well. I recently got a second hand 4338-20U dock on eBay and I am having some issue with it. I have a T530 and my wife an L530. The T530 (running Ubuntu 14.11) works perfectly, just drop it into the dock and it charges, picks up the second monitor / ethernet / USB and so forth. The L530 (Windows 7 N) does not. When I put it in the dock the connection light on the dock (the one that looks like a computer, next to the eject button) does not light up. The laptop does not recognise any of the attached peripherals. The only thing that happens it that it claims to be charging the battery through the dock connection, although the battery itself still discharges. The power button on the dock also works to turn the laptop on and off. No monitor / USB / ethernet is detected. I have noticed that when I put the working T530 into the dock there is a very definite click as the connection is made. This does not happen with the L530, there is a click of sorts but it is not as 'satisfying'! It is definitely attached, and will not come off without pressing the eject button, but I have a feeling that the L530 is not fully connecting to the dock for some reason. Looking at the back of both laptops, the interfaces appear to be identical so I don't know why this would be. I have tried updating all drivers, and running Lenovo System update on the L530, as well as using a live CD to boot the L530 into Ubuntu, to no avail. I got the dock so we could have desk in the corner of the living room that either of us could use by dropping a laptop into the dock; if it only works for one of us it seems pointless so it'll go back onto eBay...
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Jan 7, 2015 12:31
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mobby_6kl posted:Since nobody replied with anything more helpful so far - yes, I use it daily with the T520. It works as you describe pretty much, there's a distinct click and then everything just works. Since your T530 works fine, I'd guess that the problem is with your wife's laptop, maybe try it in another dock and then if doesn't work, repair or replace it (with a T-series I already replaced the L series with the T series, that's why my wife has the L530 Thanks for the advice, I will see if anyone else I know has a dock I can try but as you say, it's more likely the laptop. I will further investigate if there is something that is physically preventing a connection. I guess having to plug in a couple of cables isn't the end of the world if all else fails. It really is a very satisfying click though 
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Jan 7, 2015 23:50
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What's the thought on the latest gen of Thinkpads? I've been rolling a T530, which I bought used, for about 5 or 6 years and while its still holding up quite nicely for general browsing stuff I'm looking to upgrade. Budget is max £1000, preferably a bit less. My instinct is to stick with what I know so I'm waiting on a decently specced used T580 to come up on Ebay. I've heard some rumblings of a decline in quality on the T-series lately, is there anything to that? Whats about on Latitudes / Elitebooks? I know they used to be held up as viable alternatives to the T-Series, are there any other rivals in this tier? It'll be used for some programming (PHP / Javascript stuff, some Docker) and music production. The music stuff can be quite hard on the processor, and the quad-core in my T530 has spoilt me. I am looking at T580 as this seems to be the furthest back I can go and get a quad-core processor. SSD / RAM can be cannibalised from my current laptop, maybe screen too, but if possible I'd like to go with FHD on the new one. I had a look at the P-series but they all come with dedicated CAD graphics cards which will be completely wasted on me, I don't do any gaming these days either, and the tiny amount of video editing I do can afford the extra time an onboard graphics card will take. The cost and the hit to the battery don't really seem worth the trade-off. I run Ubuntu as my daily OS and dual-boot with Windows for anything that needs it, so anything I get will have to play nice with Linux. This seems fairly standard these days but something I wanna keep in mind.
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May 23, 2020 12:51
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etalian posted:I'd say the X-series especially Carbon is a better modern re-designed option for most people. I don't really want to go down to a 14" screen, which would put me looking at the X1 Extreme lineup. While they look very tasty they are all about twice my budget!
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May 23, 2020 13:32
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etalian posted:For cost savings always go fishing for refurbs since the last gen often has big price discounts since the companies want to clear out old inventory. Yeah I'll put the feelers out for a 1st gen X1 Extreme on Ebay, it's a long shot but worth a try I guess. Cheers
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May 23, 2020 13:45
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Cough Drop The Beat posted:I'd look into the Asus Vivobook S15, a surprisingly excellent laptop with a speedy quad-core 10th gen i5 and 512GB SSD. It's the best thin and light 15", weighs under 4 lbs, and you can pick one up for $800 or less. https://www.asus.com/us/Laptops/ASUS-VivoBook-S15-S532FL/ Honestly one of the things I like about the T series is they have enough heft that you could kill a man with them if needed. I'm not sure thin and light is one of my priorities! Also that screen pad thing they have going seems to me an answer to a question that nobody asked. It does seem nicely specced though, thank you for the pointer, I'll keep an eye out.
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May 23, 2020 23:34
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Gruffalo Soldier posted:What's the thought on the latest gen of Thinkpads? Just pulled the trigger on a used T580 with an 8th gen I7 in it for £650 on ebay. Pretty happy with that, assuming it turns up.
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May 26, 2020 17:46
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