Does anyone own a Lenovo laptop?

[calmius]

Hello,
since there are already many posts about "whats a good laptop to get" I want to be more specific and ask if anyone ows a lenovo laptop.

I remember that Lenovos have got decent feedback when the brand appeared however seems like they're not as big of a manufacturer as hp, toshiba, or acer.

Thanks

[glc]

Lenovo is still the choice of road warriors. I'll take one of them before I'll touch HP, Toshiba, or Acer. Remember that Lenovo used to be IBM.

[calmius]

Originally Posted by glc Lenovo is still the choice of road warriors. I'll take one of them before I'll touch HP, Toshiba, or Acer. Remember that Lenovo used to be IBM.

Yes, and one of the things I like about lenovo is that their ThnkPad (maybe ideapad) series look like old IBM and have that joystick-like button in the center of the keyboard. They also look square like IBM and not curved looking.

[calmius]

Well I'd like to see if anyone knows about the quality of parts used and the screen. When, awhile ago, I looked at one at the store the screen looked very different and possibly brighter, but I dont know if it was my impression only.

[mblouir]

Although I own a Dell now, my first laptop was a Thinkpad T60, which I purchased my Freshman year of college (~ Aug 2006). Here are my scrambled thoughts on it:

Clemson has a list of recommended laptops by major every year. Generally they have the middle-class laptops for business majors, econ majors, etc and then the high-performance laptops for engineering and science majors. The T60 was the highest performance one they offered. If you bought through the university you received their "discount" price and access to free software and whatnot. They claimed if you bought from anywhere other than them this wasn't possible. Later I learned that this wasn't true and anyone that attends Clemson has access to their downloadable software. I also then learned that the "discount" price was maybe two hundred bucks cheaper...

That small rant out of the way, I will say that the T60 is still running, despite me having replaced it. It is now my desktop workstation (port replicator, monitor, etc). It's had quite an abusive life by a college student that has since learned the proper way to treat a laptop. Before my ascension into proper laptop care, I, being like many college students, didn't worry about cleaning it out or running regular maintenance. So needless to say it got to the point where this "high-performance" laptop would stutter upon resizing pictures in Microsoft Word. This was around the 3-year mark, which is of course conveniently the same time the warranty is over. I then replaced it with my XPS M1530 (that I bought outside of Clemson, oh no! ). When I got the Dell I started researching proper care and maintenance of laptops. It's amazing what three years have done to me and my maturity levels.


Here's my short review on it (keep in mind I'm sure they've changed things around since):


Build:
This thing is studier than my Dell. It has had absolutely no problems whatsoever with physical workmanship. The hinge is as sturdy as the day I bought it and every key works like it's brand new. It's like old cars--they just don't build them like they used to. This thing was designed for abuse and daily transportation.


Keys and Ports:
I wish my Dell had the trackball. It makes it extremely easy to do work without a separate mouse. Everything else is okay. The arrow buttons are a little small, but I rarely used them anyway. All the function buttons are conveniently at the top along the F-keys, but then again, most laptops have that setup nowadays. It's just logical. Nothing special, really.

The ports have been my pet peeve, though. The headphone jack is located directly behind a vertical USB port on the left side. Anytime I had a USB device connected there it made it pretty difficult to plug and unplug my headphones. I've also had a few instances of unplugging a USB device in the library and accidentally pulling out my headphone jack with it, letting everyone on the same floor know what I was listening to. The power cord plugging in the back isn't my favorite location, either. In the case I want to plug or unplug it while still using the laptop I have to shut the screen and reach over the laptop to get to it. You call me lazy, I call it a minor inconvenience.


Speakers:
Laptop speakers--what do you expect? They do get loud, but also distorted. Nothing special.


Screen:
When I compare it to my Dell it's terrible. Then again, it's four years old. Back then it was amazing. Like I stated earlier, I'm sure they've changed things since then. This one, though, is nothing spectacular. One plus is that you can view it from about any angle without any distortion or color loss.


Battery Life:
Oh, the battery. Little bit more involved here, but I'll explain. I purchased the larger battery since I knew I'd be out and about without a power cord most of the day. Over the first year of use I noticed the battery started losing its charge faster and faster, to the point where a fully charged battery would only last me 30 minutes max.

Well, I wasn't the only one. Apparently Lenovo had shipped our campus a bad batch of batteries. Some of the brighter students went to our computer service center on campus and they were forwarded to Lenovo for replacements. Well, despite being under warranty, Lenovo refused to replace them. With more and more students showing up with bad batteries, our university got involved. Keep in mind, all these bad batteries were from the '06 Freshman class only. There was a mass email sent out asking those with bad batteries to respond and be added to a list. Turns out there were approximately 3,000 students with this problem. There were even some reports of exploding batteries. (Some of you more experienced may remember this--I believe it was 500,000 recalled?). Long story short after some persuasion Clemson managed to get Lenovo to send us all new batteries.

The new battery works fine and I have had no issues with it.


Performance:
This is where my choice of laptop came in. I am taking Mechanical Engineering, which is why Clemson recommended this particular laptop. Back in the day this was the workhorse of the ones they recommended. Running programs like Solidworks, AutoCAD, MATLAB, Maple, etc require something a little more powerful than your OTC laptop. The T60 ran well and did what it was supposed to. Nothing else to say here. I rarely had issues with freezing or anything similar due to running the aforementioned programs.


Conclusion:
If someone asked me if this is a good laptop to buy--I'd say yes. Due to all the abuse its taken over the years and its strong will to live, I will say that this is the AK-47 of laptops. My opinion: If you're looking into a Thinkpad, you're making a good choice.




Of course, though, now Clemson is recommending Dells and MACs....

[quartet-man]

We got one at church a few years ago. It is used for a few hours a week for the most part (Power Point presentations etc.) It seems to be good, but they had a problem with batteries and we got a replacement. Then, that one went bad recently (not sure why, but it was after I used it a few days for file back up while my computer was toast.) Granted, it was kept plugged in most all of the time and the battery part was not used too much. I don't know if those conditions or other problems messed up the battery or not.

[jdeb]

I have owned a few of them and I currently have a X60-1706. I love the small size of it and the thing is really fast. I have it maxed out at 4 gigs of ram and it was fast when I had 1 gig in it. It is slightly larger than a net book and is very stable. I used to have a t41 and I sold it, then went to a R60 and sold it. You can buy lease turn in's very reasonable from IBM http://outlet.lenovo.com/ or http://www-304.ibm.com/shop/americas...goryId=2576396 and you will not be disappointed if you are looking for something powerful and reasonably priced. Their components are very high quality and their service manuals are down loadable and very precise. I think they are the best with out question. I also have a Dell Latitude from work and it is excellent as well but I prefer my X60 over it all day long. I would never buy a hp, toshiba, or acer, I have fixed a lot of them and they are not even close to the quality of IBM/Lenevo or Dell.

[nicolaus corelius]

acer has shoddy, tasteless models. they really make steve jobs' negative comments about PCs come true. hp went to the gutter, really. their recent models have abysmally high failure rates. its like the xbox360s, really. toshiba, dell and lenovo have solid, reliable models; but i hate the thick brick inspirons that they had/have.