Laptop help

Why haven't you purchased the Thinkpad yet?

Because I was being a bargain orientated person and hunting for the best value out there.

Since that post, the laptop is only on sale for about 430 quid (with A6, 500 GB and 6GB RAM), the same price as this HP version with a A8 core and a 1 TB drive.

I am guessing the build quality of the HP is a bit less than the Thinkpad itself?

More than a lot.

Just have to decide whether the trade-off is worth it, that is all.

Yes Thinkpads are built really tough. The one's I've worked on are quite a bit old but had a metal shell, plastic coated layer, and then rubber put on top of that. I took a 6.4GB HDD from a 12 year old Thinkpad 600 and the hard drive was in perfect working condition. I've seen how the latest HP laptops hold the hard drives. The HDD's are held in a cage and that cage has four rubber feet to hold it in the laptop. So personally that is okay by me but I don't like plastic that will take scratches easily and I personally don't like touching glossy plastic. Though the rubber on the thinkpad is really tough(from what I've seen) and would take a long time to take in sweat(My Asus laptop which has a rubber coating on the palm rest is doing this after 2 years).

Submerged

Just have to decide whether the trade-off is worth it, that is all.

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Thinkpad Edge is really more consumer line and not as good as the business line T series. Build quality will probably be similar to HP or slightly better.

Anyway, for you it probably makes sense to get the HP.

I personally don't like touchpads and try and get a laptop with a pointing stick when I do buy one so I would get a Thinkpad if I was in your position.


Don't forget cashback if you do order: http://www.topcashback.co.uk/pc_world/

HP build has one word to explain it. Crap. My family has had multiple HP laptops over the years, and all of them are made of cheap plastic and don't last that long. Let mewrite you a list:

First up: My Father's 1st HP Laptop - Pentium 4 HT 17" inch screen

It was HUGE and bulky. Ran hot, and was made of pretty bad material, even though it was a business laptop. The paint came off pretty easily, and was loud.

Secondly, my brother's HP Tablet PC:

Good thing my brother bought Future Shop insurance. You wanna know why? Because he sent it in... SIX times. Four times was because it fried, once because one of the speakers went out, and finally because the hard drive went out. Oh, and did I tell you that the screen was crap quality and the plastic parts were about to come off? This was on a $1000 laptop.

Thirdly: My Father's HP desktop

Case buttons wiggle like no tommorow, no joke. The mouse feels like its hollow and would break if you rage while gaming. Cheap plastic, once again.

Fourth up: My mom's HP/Compaq laptop:

Cheap plastic, Cheap plastic,Cheap plastic, and you guessed it.. cheap plastic. This thing feels like it will break if you take it anywhere. Its not slow, but it does run quite hot. Also the screen is pretty low quality and the buttons feel like they're going to fall off, like my brother's temporary Acer.

Fifth up: My Dad's Centrino HP:

The touch sensitive buttons near the screen would sometimes malfunction. Remember, this is a business laptop. The screen was great and everything. Really solid laptop. Another problem was that the hard drive went out and liked being hot. Probably wanted to show off its abs? Oh, and did I mention fake metal..made of plastic?

Finally, the only good HP we've ever had: My dad's new HP business laptop:

A 2nd gen i7, Nvidia Quadro 3000m, and other boss componets. Just a great build. This is the only HP laptop line that I would purchase. Good build quality, NO PLASTIC. YES!!!!!! Its even got some Thinkpad features, liek the LED light above the screen. Great laptop, really. However, you have to remember, this laptop is $2000.


I'd also stay away from cheap Toshibas. They have pretty crappy plastic too. My brother's L735, is like, cheap plastic heaven. His temporary $300 Acer even had better plastic.

Managed to stumble across Lenovo manufacturer's website.

Find that they are selling the Thinkpad Edge line for a massive discount. I am assuming it is old stock that they want to refresh on.

Specc'd a 890 quid Thinkpad laptop and got it for 388 quid. Basically they are cutting up to 400 quid off RRP and giving you an extra 50 quid with an e-coupon of NEWYEAREDGE or something like that.

A8-3500M
6 GB RAM
320 GB HDD (only bad thing, but to be fair, you don't need a big storage when you have a desktop too)
15.6 inch screen
Wi-Fi and Bluetooth
Win 7 Home (couldn't take it off, wasn't possible)

It was a bit of a surprise to find something like this for such a relatively cheap price from the manufacturers themselves. Also it was making sense why some retailers were offering some of those laptops for a relatively good price as well.

That is a killer deal straight from IBM!

Yeah, I was well surprised about it all.

http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/gbweb/LenovoPortal/en_GB/catalog.workflow:category.details?action=init&current-catalog-id=FD6DB49790C7411D933567FC361231FB&current-category-id=4BA24D5BEBFD451C8204CB2C74E0D4F8

This is the link to go directly to the website to see the deals. Basically, it the Thinkpad Edge E525 with 437 quid off the normal price (its the web price) and with an extra 50 quid off with the eCoupon code, which they are advertising in the webpage itself, a major manufacturer....

Someone in the company definitely needs to shift all these lappies!

http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/gbweb/LenovoPortal/en_GB/catalog.workflow:category.details?current-catalog-id=FD6DB49790C7411D933567FC361231FB&current-category-id=1441A668C0DDCB8E94985DA650F27F6F&action=init

This is the direct webpage I went to. I chose the laptop on the left side of the screen, as that has a Windows 7 Home Edition, rather than the Professional Edition. Decided that the Professional Edition wasn't really to my taste and wanted to keep cost down. You can pretty much spec the laptop up to A8-3500, 8GB RAM standard for about 420 quid or thereabouts. Obviously you'll have to change out the HDD if you wanted more storage space at a later date.

Just have to wait for the shipping time, which is about a week or two. Not too fussed anyway, I am a patient person.

I wish the US section had those deals. The E525 without any upgrades is 259.99 pounds($400.93 USD) from the UK site but the US section prices the a E525 laptop with a A4-3300M for $519. Though if they are selling them for that cheap in the UK it must mean they might be stocking a new model.

NissanSkylineN1

HP build has one word to explain it. Crap. My family has had multiple HP laptops over the years, and all of them are made of cheap plastic and don't last that long. Let mewrite you a list:

First up: My Father's 1st HP Laptop - Pentium 4 HT 17" inch screen

Secondly, my brother's HP Tablet PC:

Thirdly: My Father's HP desktop

Fourth up: My mom's HP/Compaq laptop:

Fifth up: My Dad's Centrino HP:

Finally, the only good HP we've ever had: My dad's new HP business laptop:

A 2nd gen i7, Nvidia Quadro 3000m, and other boss componets. Just a great build. This is the only HP laptop line that I would purchase. Good build quality, NO PLASTIC. YES!!!!!! Its even got some Thinkpad features, liek the LED light above the screen. Great laptop, really. However, you have to remember, this laptop is $2000.

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Were your family getting them for free, I wouldn't have bothered after the 2nd or 3rd!

nick09

I wish the US section had those deals. The E525 without any upgrades is 259.99 pounds($400.93 USD) from the UK site but the US section prices the a E525 laptop with a A4-3300M for $519. Though if they are selling them for that cheap in the UK it must mean they might be stocking a new model.

Click to expand...

Yeah, other models were going for a discount of some sort, but not as much as that!

Its built to order, so it'll take about 1-2 weeks to ship, then 3-6 days for delivery. Ah well, I'm expecting it in Feb I guess... For that price, I'm happy to wait.

With the HP bashing, I do actually have an HP Compaq that was a business orientated laptop some years back while I was at university. I've still got it, although its a single core and its not as quick as it used to be.... But the build quality itself was pretty good and it did last a long time, being transported everywhere, even to Shanghai in my bag and being subjected to 40 degree heat in the rooms!

I've two worked 5-7 year old HP laptops that used to cost $1K-$1.5K that were built alright. The palm rests were made of some basic metal and had metal grills for the speakers. They both had AMD CPU chips in them and ran hot. I personally don't like use HP or Compaq these days since everything you touch on the laptop is plastic(I know are certain models that might these days but I've not come across them) and I get annoyed by it.

Ironically nick09, there's been times where the US has some insane deals on their laptops and we didn't have anything like that.

Isn't it possible to purchase it on the UK site and see if they will send it to the US? They have to ship it from their manufacturing plant which will either be in Shenzhen/Guangzhou or Taiwan. Or somewhere in South China.

My father got all his HP laptops from work. He used to have a Toshiba that fried.

Just to bump the thread and say that I have now been delivered the laptop today!

However, considering its been a while since I had to install a lot of stuff that I am used to (IM's, VLC, CPUID, Anti-virus and other stuff) its a bit of a slow progress!

Pictures will come later, but I must say, the Heatwave Red colour for the back of the screen is rather flash. And rather quickly, found out that it exposes fingerprints like no tomorrow!

The keypad is actually rather nice and is one of the better keypads i've had the fortune to type on. It has a concave curve on each keys which is enough to grip the individual keys but not so much so that you cannot type quickly.

Although the finger pad mouse works slightly differently than normal. It seems that if you are using the keyboard, the fingerpad mouse is deactivated, so to activate it once you had finished typing, you double tap the fingerpad mouse. A useful thing really, just slightly jarring when you're trying to get the mouse to actually move and the pointer is just sitting there. But I must say, that way is better than the pointer going all over the place!

The laptop runs coolly, which is nice. And the battery seems to last some time which is always a bonus. Although I have noticed a HD webcam does use up the battery quite a bit.

All in all, for 388 quid, its a really good product!

Just a heads up, decided to randomly double check the Lenovo website and they are hosting a deal weekend for their Thinkpad Edge laptops Clicky for some lappy deals.

You can get an A8 AMD processor with 6 GB RAM for just under 400 quid, although you will need to use the eCoupon that they have displayed on the website for you to use (WEEKENDEDGE). This has a 500GB hard drive this time and the A8 is an 3520 version.

To have 8GB RAM will only be 20 quid more, so its not a lot to add it on and have it extremely fast and user friendly. Shipping takes about 2 to 3 weeks and it is rather fast when you consider it is built in about 2 days and installed with all the information required and then shipped out to you on your doorstep.