Looking at the Thinkpad Edge series for Gradschool?

Hi everyone, I've been reading through most of the posts on the Edge laptops and after reading through them I still have a question.

I am looking for a laptop for gradschool and one of my highest priority in a laptop is that I need it to be light!!! My current laptop is awful and heavy (HP dv6000). I've had it for over 5 years now and I am absolutely ready for an upgrade.

The reason why ultraprotability is important to me is because I'm relatively small and I commute a lot to class, meetings, libraries, coffee shops, and etc to do homework, research, read pdfs, microsoft word, etc. I often have to carry textbooks and such with me so the extra weight I've been carrying from my old laptop is putting a strain on my shoulder and back.

I was actually waiting on the u300 but I don't know what happened to that model...for some reason it no longer appears on Lenovo's website. I give up waiting for it, looks like it doesn't exist anymore? Oh well.

I'm looking at the E220s, E420 and the E420s.

The E220s is looking quite good to me because it's small and weighs around 3 lbs. I'm apprehensive about the other two because the E420s weighs around 4lbs, but the E420 weighs 4.6lbs :/.

I don't game so I don't need a great video card honestly. I only need a laptop that's well built, light and thin, and relatively fast and strong enough to run the few programs I need such as SPSS and Nvivo. Nothing too serious. Of course I web browse a lot though.

Good battery would be nice but honestly, anything would be better than my constantly plugged in laptop I have right now.

Office depot is having a sale on the E420 for around $549! Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E420 1141 A24 Laptop Computer With 14 LED Backlit Screen 2nd Gen Intel Core i5 2410M With Turbo Boost 20 by Office Depot

I'm considering it but I wish it was the E420s or E220s :x

But then again, I really don't know how these laptops are in terms of speed...with what I do, I guess i3 would be ok but I rather have something better and faster.

I'm just stuck right now between these three laptops. Any suggestions to help with my decision? I really do love how the Edge laptop looks with the newer keyboard

Thank you.

 

I cannot give you an informed opinion on the laptops- but i can say that the lowest e220s and e420s prices I have seen by far were in the lenovo outlet- however, it seems that the stock has dwindled dramatically since black friday

 

I'm in law school now, and I had almost the same considerations you had in choosing my laptop. I went with the x120e. It's really light and small, so easy to carry around, but it's also really sturdy and well-made and the keyboard is great. The battery lasts for about six hours and it only cost me about $430.

Just make sure you get the one with the E-350 chip, the other one is probably a little too slow for everyday tasks.

 

I've had an e220s since June, and have been very pleased with it. Yes, in an absolute sense the e220s is the thinnest and lightest general-purpose Thinkpad (I don't care to speak of the X1), but in a practical sense it doesn't make all that much difference. If I could do it over again, I probably would have ended up with a T420 or X220: they're more powerful, have better battery options, are more friendly to 9.5mm height hard drives, and the T420 offers higher a resolution display. I would sacrifice a pound or so in order to gain that...

 

Indeed, looks like it IS possible to stuff 9.5mm hard drive:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo-ibm/583998-9-5mm-hdd-t420s-x1-x220.html

 

I would go with x120e if all you're going to be doing is basic web browsing/ms office suite/research. If more power is needed, x220 hands down. Awesome battery life, matte IPS screen, i5. It can be had for around 700-800 if you come across a decent sale (that's how much I paid for mine).