
Ask HN: Where should I look for high quality laptops in a post-Thinkpad era? - industrialdesgn
I&#x27;ve been a huge Thinkpad supporter up until recent years. The general consensus is that Thinkpads aren&#x27;t what they once were. The final straw for me was the touchpad F-keys on a more recent Thinkpad. Where should I look for laptops with similar industrial design qualities?
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drfritznunkie
I'm right there with you... My Thinkpad fleet is all older models, T42, T60,
T61p, X200 and just yesterday, I added a T420.

The quality difference between even between my X200 and the T420 is
substantial, the T420 has thinner plastics, the keyboard isn't as nice (a
little too bouncy), and the screen is less than impressive. It's the last of
the T-series with the good UltraNav keyboard, so if you're okay with a last-
gen laptop, check it out. If you need dedicated graphics, go look at the
T420s.

What is impressive about my T420 was price (ebay: $200 for one in B+/A-
condition with a core-i5, SSD and the 1600x900 screen), and that it'll take
16GB (~$130) of RAM. My X200 wasn't cutting it as a mobile workstation for
Inventor and doing EDA, and I don't have money for anything more expensive, so
it'll suffice for the next year or so.

I had the opportunity to use the new X1 Carbon a couple of weeks ago... The
keyboard is a step down and the lack of physical trackpoint buttons is
TERRIBLE. I wish Lenovo would grow some goddamn balls and stop attempting to
copy Apple. Their UltraNav design paradigm was perfectly valid in the market,
but they've decided they need to go play me-too even for their core user base.

Sadly, as much as I wish I could switch to a Dell for their screens, their
keyboards are so fantastically bad that it's never even occurred to me to
look. And the same goes for Macbooks, the trackpad and keyboard just don't
work for me. I'm half tempted to pick up an old one and see if I can graft an
UltraNav keyboard onto it...

------
tom_b
I gave up on new Thinkpads and went to a 13" Macbook Pro Retina. I had a hard
requirement to go with something with a smallish form factor and 16GB of
memory.

I _almost_ decided to go with a Thinkpad X230 - I have used a X200 running
Xubuntu for almost 6 years happily. The X200 just started to fall apart and I
was bumping up against the 4GB memory in it frequently enough in the last year
to make a change. The X230 would have been way cheaper and supported the 16GB
of memory I was after. But work was paying, I try to maximize laptop ROI by
not upgrading every year, and the screen on the retina is quite lovely. The
trackpad, not as much. I miss the thinkpad red nub.

But, debian Jessie installed very easily and so far, I really like the
experience. I'm using XMonad, with very little customization, and in general
it seems to be a solid machine. Check back with me in four years. If I'm still
using this machine, the switch will have been worth it.

I'm quite sad about how Thinkpads seem to be transitioning from serious,
hacker-friendly tools to somewhat generic consumer-grade gear.

~~~
Someone1234
Thinkpad has been slowly going downhill year upon year since the sale from IBM
in 2005. Before then you could bludgeon someone to death with a Thinkpad's
metal reinforced body, and it wouldn't even dent.

I own a 2008 Thinkpad (T400) which still had the metal body, zero flex (in
anything, e.g. screen or keyboard), and it is in perfect condition (although
it has been replaced due to the hardware being outdated, even with an SSD and
8 GB of RAM added).

My coworker purchased a 2012 Thinkpad T430 which, frankly, wasn't nearly as
well built (flex and plastic all over the place). Within a year a piece of
plastic side paneling (at the back corner on the right) came completely off.

But even the 2012 Thinkpads weren't THAT bad. Just worse. Since then they've
almost turned into consumer laptops in every way, and the recent touchpad
silliness just goes to show what idiots they have managing that project.

Thinkpad was a niche product for professionals, field techs, the military, and
so on. Their re-aiming it for broad appeal is flawed and dumb.

------
cheez
I'm currently testing out a MSI GS70 and I have the following observations
(coming from a macbook pro 17"):

* The keyboard is fantastic. Feels very natural once you get used to the layout.

* The performance is incredible (3x SSD RAID 0 + 1TB spinner). This has made me much more productive working on a C++ codebase.

* The touchpad FUCKING SUCKS. I think it's a driver issue. I don't say "fucking sucks" lightly. I know how hard it is to hardware and software well but for a laptop as expensive as this one, this really shouldn't be the case. It just randomly decides not to work and it jiggles around a lot. I've had to attach another mouse, it's that bad.

* The sound seems to only come from the right speaker, so I think it's busted.

* The weight is just perfect.

* The drivers come in a CD, but this laptop doesn't have a CD drive...

* The speaker quality is just OK. Nothing amazing.

All in all, if the mouse and sound/speaker issues were not there, I would be
incredibly happy with this laptop as a dev machine. As it is though, I will be
returning the laptop this weekend.

I previously had an alienware m17x but its power gave out so I decided not to
repeat the purchase. The sound on that one though, holy cow, it was amazing
and it too was quite fast.

Look into gaming laptops, those are built for performance (if that is what you
need).

HTH.

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q_no
I'm a happy Dell Latitude user for about 4years know and I can't imagine to
switch brand. The next-day-service (at least in Germany) is great, in case you
experience any issues. I only had to use it once due to a mechanical problem
with closing the lid. Apart from that, never had any real issues and the build
quality is sufficient.

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cryptos
What about Dell Latitude, e. g. 14 7000 Series:
[http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/latitude-e7440-ultrabook/p...](http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/latitude-e7440-ultrabook/pd?oc=sml7440w7p112&model_id=latitude-e7440-ultrabook)

------
DKnoll
1\. Lenovo Thinkpad (Still better than the alternatives at the price-point, in
my eyes)

2\. HP Elitebook (Despite my feelings about HP the Elitebooks have decent
build quality, lower end models however should be avoided)

3\. Panasonic Toughbook (More expensive, semi-rugged would probably be the
best fit)

------
debacle
If you don't want a Mac, ASUS and MSI are the next best choices. ASUS makes
incredible hardware. MSI tends to have a bit higher price point and specs, but
the hardware is equally good.

~~~
runamok
I used to love ASUS because of my experience with their motherboards in the
past. Dealing with their support on an ASUS Zenbook has been quite
disappointed. They decided to use a proprietary SSD form factor that makes
replacing it very difficult. Granted this laptop is a few years old.

------
petecooper
Possibly helpful:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8503439](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8503439)

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detaro
One generation older Thinkpads and hope that they come to their senses in the
future? Sometimes there are really good refurb deals.

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davelnewton
Check out the imports at Dynamism.

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zuck9
Macbook. Nuff said

~~~
industrialdesgn
Macbooks are great in their own right but they don't (in my opinion) fill the
gap left by earlier Thinkpad laptops, for several reasons: Lack of removable
battery, fewer options (msata, main sata, secondary sata, 3g etc), VGA for
presentations, trackpoint, ease of access to internals, value for money, etc.

I have looked into HP Elitebooks but I have been burned by HP and seen so many
others burned by HP that I hesitate to invest in them.

~~~
Someone1234
I'd stay away from HP laptops. They make fine servers and their desktop
machines are acceptable, but HP laptops are pure junk. Dell is better than HP.
Others are better than Dell, but there's no reason to buy a HP.

I agree with most of your points about Macbooks, except the VGA one (Mini
Displayport to VGA is $15) and the price one (Thinkpads are ONLY about
$100~150 cheaper than a comparable Macbook Pro, as long as you compare like-
with-like).

The biggest thing Thinkpad has over Macbook is the huge 9 cell extended
battery, replaceable batteries, and the "slice" battery. You really can get
over a full day of unrestrained usage on a 9 cell Thinkpad with the 4 cell
slice (easily 12+ hours) running Windows. And while the MBP's battery life on
OS X is impressive, if you run Windows on the thing (either bootcamp OR
virtually) you'll cut your battery life down to 2-3 hours.

PS - 3G/4G within a laptop is totally not worth while. Too buggy/problematic.
Just buy a "MiFi"-like device (mini standalone 3G/4G to WiFi hotspot with
battery e.g. TP-Link M5250). They are inexpensive (MUCH less than paying for
the 3G/4G laptop upgrade), can charge over USB (so the laptop's battery can
power it), and provide a nice straight forward WiFi signal "anything" can use.
They "just work."

