[Gllug] Laptop shopping

Sat Aug 15 15:34:27 UTC 2009

James Laver wrote:
> On 15 Aug 2009, at 13:53, Richard Jones wrote:
>   
>> I have an X60s which dates from just after the acquisition by Lenovo
>> (it was bought Feb 2007).  It was delivered with obviously faulty
>> memory which couldn't manage more than a few minutes under memtest.
>> This was replaced by Lenovo.  The battery died after 2 1/2 years.  I
>> don't mean it wore out -- it just suddenly one day ceased working at
>> all, so I suspect an internal connection broke.  It also shuts down
>> hard if it overheats, but I suspect an ACPI / OS (software) problem.
>>
>> I make it sound like a catalogue of failures, but actually this laptop
>> is solid as a rock, far less trouble than my Apple laptops have been.
>>
>> All three Apple laptops that I've acquired over the years (two from my
>> previous job) are currently in small pieces on the floor of my office.
>>     
>
> Okay, it's good to hear anecdotal reliability information.
>
> I've explored the Lenovo website and the option I've put together  
> through them is:
>
> Core2Duo SL9400 (1.86Ghz, 6MB L2 cache, 1066Mhz FSB (not that I  
> imagine it can use all of that))
> 4GB DDR3 RAM
> Quite delicious 1440x900 LED Backlit display (on a 12.1" screen!)
> 250GB 5400rpm disk (I opted to remove the SSD disk in case it's one of  
> the crap ones, reading TomsHardware seems to suggest they're highly  
> variable. This took 220-odd quid off the price!)
>
> Web price on it is £1,175.76 which is a little more than I was hoping  
> to spend, but if the quality is quite that good, thoroughly worth it.  
> They claim 14.1h battery life on the default configuration under  
> typical usage. I don't believe that for a second, but I'm assuming it  
> will be > 10h. It appears to be that they offer a 9-cell battery for  
> this model whereas most of their laptops are 3-cell and some are 6-cell.
>
> Some strangeness going on with windows discs. They offer vista  
> business on the one-touch recover thing, with no disk. They offer for  
> free an XP recovery disc though. What's that all about?
>
> I'm not sure on linux support for the following items of hardware  
> though, could anyone advise?
> - Intel GMA 4500MHD. Last I checked, some models were and others were  
> not supported.
> - Intel Wifi Link 5300. I guess worst case scenario I can use  
> NDISWrapper (or whatever it's called this week), though I'd rather  
> have native support.
> - Fingerprint scanner. Not at all necessary, but since it comes with  
> it, nice to have.
>
> Also, if I opt to purchase this, I'm tempted by their carry-in  
> accidental damage cover. Anyone have any experiences? Or know where  
> their centres are?
>
> Cheers,
> --James
>   

If the new Thinkpads are even half as good as the old ones you can't go
far wrong. My X30 (and X240 before that) has been dragged all round
London in a backpack, often in the p*****g rain and been battered around
no end and it's still very much alive and kicking ( unlike xorg driver
support for it, boo! ). My girlfriend even spilled half a pint into it
last year - the screen went funny for a minute and I thought it was
finally a goner but after pouring the beer out again and swabbing its
innards with some cotton buds it was fine, it's still fine today.

The only hardware failure I've had with it was a hard drive failure
(bloody deathstar!) but that was a 5 year old drive and it was just at
the end of a 3 month tour where I'd been using it for up to 12 hours a
day in the back of a van with less than perfect suspension and a manic
driver (before the days of affordable ssds!)

Lenovo, I suspect, make as many compromise as other manufacturers do on
their normal product line, I've got one in for repair at the moment
which is 18 months old is randomly powering off owing to a dodgy batery,
but Thinkpad are the luxury brand that they paid a lot of money for, and
still charge a lot of money for so I would imagine those are still built
pretty well. Do let us know how it works out if you do get one and
remember the old saying: nobody ever got fired for buying IBM!

Cheers,

Roger.

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