Briareos H on 5/4/2010 at 12:30
Thinkpads are still exceptional. However, the consumer Lenovo branch makes rather shoddy laptops, I wouldn't really recommend them to anyone.
heywood on 5/4/2010 at 22:49
IMO, Thinkpads still have the best keyboards, and good build quality too, so they make good work machines. But the SL510 is a big, heavy beast with a small battery so it's a really poor choice if you still want something compact that's easy to carry around. And 1366 x 768 on a 15.6" screen is pretty low resolution. And it has integrated graphics. If you really want a Thinkpad that's compact & portable and can do a little gaming, look at the Thinkpad Edge 13 with the AMD Turion X2 and Radeon HD3200. £468 from here: (
http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Lenovo_ThinkPad_Edge_Laptop_in_Red_NUE6WUK/version.asp?PID=1755) http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Lenovo_ThinkPad_Edge_Laptop_in_Red_NUE6WUK/version.asp?PID=1755
I recently shopped for an ultraportable and the Asus UL20 and UL30 were on my list. Asus is a great choice if portability and battery life are most important and you can live with the flexy keyboard, borderless touch pad with limited multi-touch capability, so-so screen, and integrated graphics. The keyboard especially put me off. Many of the reviews claimed no flex, but every single Asus I've tried since they switched to the chicklet style keyboard had poor key action and the plastic piece that surrounds the keys flexed and bounced. I had a similarly bad impression of the keyboards on all the recent Acer models I've seen. And I've heard MSI is even worse.
The HP dv2 is discontinued here, so I haven't seen it. But I've played with its big brother in stores, the 13" HP dm3z with Athlon X2 . It has nice build quality, a good keyboard, and decent screen for this price range. But I didn't care for the glossy touchpad surface and it runs hot. Not hot enough to be bothersome during light use, but I might be concerned about playing games and lots of flash video, and HP had a bunch of issues with overheating in its previous generation of (non-ULV) AMD laptops. The reviews of the dv2 also commented about the heat, which seems to be primarily an AMD issue. We have an Intel version of the HP dm3 available here in the US with optional NVidia G105M graphics, but I don't see that configuration available on the UK site.
Also in the US, there's the Toshiba T115D and T135D, which can be had with dual core AMD ULV processors and ATI HD3200 graphics for reasonable money. But the equivalent UK models only come with low end Intel processors.
Nameless Voice on 6/4/2010 at 13:29
The ThinkPad T series are still meant to be exceptional quality as far as I know, and are renowned for their excellent quality keyboards. My trusty old T43 had some problems with motherboard flex, but the newer models have a reinforced metal chassis to prevent that.
Personally, I like the sound of the ThinkPad T410 or T140s (not available here yet), but they're vastly more expensive than £350... (Something like three times as expensive.)
casalor on 6/4/2010 at 15:30
My girlfriend has just bought a HP Pavilion DV7-3101SA primarily to use as her Photoshop machine but also to play games. After a lot of consideration (and moaning and groaning from me for hogging up my pc for her research) she plumped for this model because of the ATI HD4530 card and the nice bright screen with its 1600x900 resolution. Needless to say it plays her favourite, Oblivion, fine on maxed settings. the general built quality isn't shabby either (the keyboard feels responsive) and the trackpad isn't annoyingly oversensitive. She did pay about £560 but it's definitely worth it in comparison with, say, a similar spec Sony. Oh and it does have a HDMI socket on the side.
bikerdude on 6/4/2010 at 19:32
Quote Posted by casalor
HP Pavilion DV7-3101SA, ATI HD4530 card and the nice bright screen with its 1600x900 resolution. .
I had a look at the spec - very nice!
AMD Turion X2 M520 @2.3 GHz, 1 MB cache
AMD M880G mobo chipset (this is quite new and fast)
320GB 2700rpm HDD
Gigabite LAN
Webcam
17" screen
Shame above the weight though, nearly 3.6kgs
casalor on 6/4/2010 at 19:43
Quote Posted by Bikerdude
Shame above the weight though, nearly 3.6kgs
Yeah, which is why I gave her a long quizzical look when she said - after she'd bought it - she wanted to take it as part of her hand luggage when flying out to her parents in France (10kg limit).
lost_soul on 7/4/2010 at 19:14
I've got two ASUS laptops, and I think they're great. One is the G50V (from a year ago), and the other an EEEPC. I find that these days a sub $1k laptop is powerful enough to do most things well.
Personally, I would stay away from HP. This is because they don't ship recovery disks with their machines, instead requiring YOU to make it yourself. The first thing we want to do after getting a new machine home is spend two hours burning and verifying something that should have been included with the $400+ system. :) Seriously, throw in the 20 cents of plastic, guys!
bikerdude on 7/4/2010 at 21:32
Quote Posted by lost_soul
The first thing we want to do after getting a new machine home is spend two hours burning and verifying something that should have been included with the $400+ system. :) Seriously, throw in the 20 cents of plastic, guys!
To this day I dont know WTF computers makers dont supply install disc, its a complete non sequitur considering how cheap it is...
heywood on 8/4/2010 at 13:53
I suspect they stopped including restore disks because the install image they put on the hard drive is hardware specific and constantly changing. DVD pressing is only economical if you're making a lot of the same disk and there's probably some lead time associated with it.
I sure wish they would drop a vanilla Windows install disk in the package though, like they used to do 10 years ago. I wonder if Microsoft charges them extra if they do that.
bikerdude on 8/4/2010 at 14:32
Quote Posted by heywood
I wonder if Microsoft charges them extra if they do that.
Come o, you already know the answer to that..:cool:
