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I have Lenovo, Dell, and Apple laptops. APPLES are severely OVERRATED BS. I cough at my Macbook Air's 256GB ssd [and it's very hard to upgrade this] but I expanded it through shared use of an attached 4TB Seagate Xbox USB External HD.
Lenovo is the most durable, but their warranty repair is worse than Dell's. I had DELL EPP so I had top preference when my E1705 was in Warranty. Uh, Lenovo laptops are chosen to go up the Space Shuttle and to the Space Station.
02-04-2017, 10:37 AM
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n/a posts
Pretty much every major brand has a quality line.
I'd probably look at Dell XPS, HP Spectre, or maybe Lenovo (though the X1 Yoga in the house is currently out for its second (third?) repair in about six months). Also check out Dell Latitude and HP EliteBook, though you probably don't need that.
HP seems to have the best combination of build quality and price at the moment. An XPS 13 is nice but a Spectre x360 costs hundreds less and is also really well made.
Lenovo seems to be slipping. My last job (huge semiconductor company) used Lenovo when I started there but by the time I left the Thinkpads had mostly been dumped in favor of HP EliteBooks. My current job (also a huge company) is also mostly HP now, with a few older Lenovo laptops still floating around.
If looking at the premium lines, they've honestly all got flaws so you have to pick the one that works for you.
Lenovo X1 Carbon the display isn't bright enough (QHD display) and it's pricey. Stick with a the Thinkpad T/X/W lines. They're Lenovo's best products. Even those aren't the greatest value for the dollar though and certainly aren't as streamlined as you can get for the same money elsewhere.
Dell XPS 13 is probably the best all-arounder. The keyboard isn't very good. Even with the QHD screen battery life is remarkably good for such a small, light laptop and with the FHD non-touch screen it's simply amazing. If you're using it for business though and video conference, you'll need to look elsewhere due to the placement of the webcam.
HP Spectre X360 is likewise a compromised product. Keyboard is even worse than the XPS 13, trackpad is what you'd expect on a $400 product. It's just bad. Also, no pen support. If you want a convertible with no pen support though, that's what you'll put up with to get it. The Spectre (non X-360) and XPS13 would be my choices. Spectre doesn't have the battery life of the XPS13 FHD but it also doesn't have nose hair webcam or mushy keyboard, which is remarkable given the Spectre's size. It's too new to really say much about durability but HP makes good stuff so I wouldn't worry too much. A lot of Lenovo's more consumer-grade let's breath some life into our lineup stuff is crap. HP Elitebook are basically X1 Carbon but better... BUT, Core M processors. If you don't need much under the hood though they're exceptional. I see them all over the place and for a good reason. Light, durable, reasonably priced (real world, list is astronomical). Elitebooks are definitely the most common thing I see from AM Law 100 clients. They're either using Elitebooks or holding on to what's probably a five-year-old Thinkpad T4xx. Hard to tell with Thinkpads as the design doesn't really change.
Surface. Mac pricing and stability issues out the wazoo. Surface Book is what I use 80% of the time. The other 20% I have my old Thinkpad. Once or twice a month the keyboard disconnecting (randomly, not when you detach) crashes the computer and off you go with a hard reset. Vastly improved stability but the touch and digitizer drivers still crash at least once a week requiring a restart. Unless you really want pen input, just don't get a Surface product. They're not stable which is a shame.
I have a Source Pro 3. Had the Pro 2 before. It has bugs. Pages freeze, remote mouse does not always work, software loses connection to internet (this maybe fixed in next windows update), pages do not always respond to touch commands, pen does not always work.
Lenovo X1 Carbon the display isn't bright enough (QHD display) and it's pricey. Stick with a the Thinkpad T/X/W lines. They're Lenovo's best products. Even those aren't the greatest value for the dollar though and certainly aren't as streamlined as you can get for the same money elsewhere.
Thinkpad's really aren't that great. I work for a very large company and we just recently dumped Lenovo (T-series and L-Series) in favor of Dell. There were constant problems with various models of Thinkpads that we had in service.
My personal laptop at home is a Lenovo. The DVD writer was DOA right out of the box, and now 2 years later I have 2 dead USB ports. Needless to say I won't be purchasing another Lenovo.
I only use Lenovo at my work place. One of my old development machine is a T60p with XP. It's my workhorse machine for past 10 years. Been through 3-4 Hard drive and a few CPU fan. I do have 2 extra one as backup. They are in my safe. I've tried all other T and W series since the T60p but don't really like any of them. For lightweight, I use a X1 carbon (1st and 3rd generation). They are good work machine but I don't buy laptop without extended warranty.
In my experience, don't confuse a regular Lenovo with a business machine like a Thinkpad. The price difference is big but they do last.
I can say that others in my office had switched to HP Elitebook for past few years. I personally don't find them as reliable.
Pricewise, I usually spend close to $2K for a Lenovo with extended warranty. They are good for 3-5 years with DAILY use.
Thinkpad's really aren't that great. I work for a very large company and we just recently dumped Lenovo (T-series and L-Series) in favor of Dell. There were constant problems with various models of Thinkpads that we had in service.
My personal laptop at home is a Lenovo. The DVD writer was DOA right out of the box, and now 2 years later I have 2 dead USB ports. Needless to say I won't be purchasing another Lenovo.
Ironic because two of the places I worked at dumped Dell/HP laptops in favor of Lenovo. I suspect we will be dumping Z series HP workstations in favor of Lenovo workstations pretty soon as well.
I have seen USB ports go bad on Dell laptops and netbooks within months as well. I am not sure 1-2 instances is enough to generalize but wanted to share my experience.
Then again, I think it is fairly normal to expect to have -at least- a few out every few hundred to have some issues.
I expect that my next machine will be a Lenovo. That said, Dell XPS and the MS Surface are both excellent lines.
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