Lenovo T420

[Steven]

Get the latest Macbook Pro and all the machines you have ever owned (including the T420) will look like buying form Toysrus.

MBP was one of my considerations but have ruled it out because of its price (for the same configuration with T series). Also I have a MB (quite old model) and my desktop is an iMac, so I don't really need another apple product line... so far very happy with my new toy and is playing around setting up ubuntu on it...

 

[Steven]

another point: the machine is surprisingly cool even running some heavy applications for long time. I don't know why it is not
taken as selling point (only discover it after few days of usage) as I have some bad experience with other laptops that can really be used to cook.

 

[Forza]

my sister has one. its not a thinkpad. as long as one goes in knowing that, one wont be disappointed. she didnt expect it to be the same quality as a tp and is quite happy with it. my dad saw it and he is a bigger tp fanboy than i am and dismissed it as a plastic chew toy for the dog.

Thanks Cjs for the tip. I just wanted a simple computer with decent speed. Was thinking between a Vostro or Edge, but after seeing a video on youtube about the screen test, I am going to stick with the Edge. Thanks again!

 

[cgorac]

That's great choice, Andy. However I am outside US so there aren't many options.. it took me quite some efforts to search around for bargains already and the machine is priced very competitively in US compared with other countries

Living outside US, I had excellent experience with ForwardIt service for ordering all stuff (including laptops) from US. Their service is rather inexpensive (you pay $10 per package to them, and then postal costs from US to your country), and with current dollar exchange rate, buying all kind of stuff from US stores is bargain.

Back to on-topic - I would never consider Mac machines vs. ThinkPads: MacBook Pro prices are in the range of ThinkPad W520 machine, which is best workstation replacement money could buy at the moment.

 

[onthesc]

I'd have to say that the MB touchpads are niiiicee though, especially the 2-finger scroll. Built-quality is top notch, and you've gotta admit, the dang thing is beautiful. However, now that I've switched to the TP camp, and gotten used to the trackpoint, I am not missing my old MB one bit. That's not saying the macs aren't nice though, just too expensive =[

 

[Steven]

I'd have to say that the MB touchpads are niiiicee though, especially the 2-finger scroll. Built-quality is top notch, and you've gotta admit, the dang thing is beautiful. However, now that I've switched to the TP camp, and gotten used to the trackpoint, I am not missing my old MB one bit. That's not saying the macs aren't nice though, just too expensive =[

I am still having hard time using the trackpoint...isnt it hard to adjust or am I not yet getting the "feel" for it? Apple's trackpad is simply the best. I can used my MB smoothly just using the trackpad alone without a mouse, but I can't speak the same for other laptops.

I'm still stunned by the quality of the tp however....it looks and feels much better than I thought...

 

[Steven]

Back to on-topic - I would never consider Mac machines vs. ThinkPads: MacBook Pro prices are in the range of ThinkPad W520 machine, which is best workstation replacement money could buy at the moment.

An entry level T420 is priced (without coupon) a couple of hundreds cheaper than the MacBook....

 

[alain]

Back to on-topic - I would never consider Mac machines vs. ThinkPads: MacBook Pro prices are in the range of ThinkPad W520 machine, which is best workstation replacement money could buy at the moment.

That's exactly what you are getting with a MBP, the best workstation replacement you can buy.

 

[cgorac]

That's exactly what you are getting with a MBP, the best workstation replacement you can buy.

I don't think so. Basic 15" MacBook Pro model, with 2.0 GHz quad-core processor, is $1799, and I guess one would add at least $100 to escape from silly 1440x900 resolution to 1680x1050. Same money plus $30, gives you ThinkPad W520, with 2.2 GHz quad-core processor, with 1920x1080 screen resolution, and with NVIDIA Quadro 2000M inside, having 192 processing units, usable through both the most advanced GPGPU programming API (CUDA) as well as same API (OpenCL) that is the only one supported by AMD Radeon HD 6490M card (and this card has 160 processing units only), sitting inside MacBook Pro. Plus, this Radeon card has measly 256MB of memory, while Quadro 2000M is delivered with 2GB of memory. The rest of the configuration is rather similar, for example both system have 4GB 1333MHz RAM; but I'd say even some small differences show that W520 is much more balanced machine for serious work (for example, I'd take W520's 320GB 7200rpm disk any day over MacBook Pro 500GB 5400rpm). So - W520 may be challenged by some other laptop machine, but certainly not by MacBook Pro.

 

[Cjs]

i was just about to post that ><

 

[alain]

Very good. At the time I bought my machines (1 year and 2 years ago), the MBP were the best thing. Also, I bought the 17" models with 8GB of memory. My machines both came with NVIDIA GPUs.

 

[cgorac]

Very good. At the time I bought my machines (1 year and 2 years ago), the MBP were the best thing. Also, I bought the 17" models with 8GB of memory. My machines both came with NVIDIA GPUs.

It's not my intention to be picky here, and it's indeed hard to find details regarding specs and pricing of these machines now, but: if I remember it correctly ThinkPad W701 was again in the same price range as previous generation of 17 inch MacBook Pro machines, but offering much better hardware (for example: NVIDIA Quadro FX 2800M/3800M, offered inside W701, were way more powerful than MacBook Pro NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M - 96 and 128 cores, respectively, and with much more memory for Quadro cards vs. 48 cores only for GT 330M card). MBPs were practically always priced as ThinkPad W series machines, but with hardware on the level of ThinkPad T series models (that is/was, in turn, several hundreds dollars less expensive). And note I'm not saying that Lenovo in particular has better offerings: most of other workstation replacement vendors, like HP with their EliteBook 85x0w machines or Fujitsu Siemens with their top-level Celsius machines, have alike offerings most of the time - it's just that MacBooks are plain overpriced.