Owned a Macbook Pro. Sold It. Bought a T530. Here's my story :)

Hi all,

New to the forum, just wanted to share my little news that I am a brand new (As of Friday) Thinkpad T530 owner.

I worked in IT for 5 years before going back to Grad School (Still there...ugh). Our shop, before we left, replaced the Toshiba Tablet PC's that our 250+ member sales force used with Thinkpads. I fell in love with them there.

Fast forward 7 years, and I decided I wanted to sell my Macbook Pro and buy a dedicated Windows PC. When it came to build quality, pleasure of use, and professional fit, I only considered the Thinkpad T530's and the Dell Latitude. When I saw that Lenovo was going to redesign the T430s to be more "Macbook Pro"-like, I knew it was only a matter of time before they made the same changes to the T530 line. So I decided to get one of this model line now before they are replaced forever.

I've had some people ask me why I went from a sleek MBP to a "tank" of a laptop. But this laptop is as luxurious as I remember Thinkpads. Love the keyboard. Love the screen and its 180degree hinge. I like the "eraser-nub" and the trackpad is fantastic.

I just love this machine all around

Thanks!

 

And your top 3 reasons for ditching MBP were???

I mean you already owned MBP, so getting rid of it wasn't free.

It's got a 15.6" screen and is not an ultrabook!

The tradeoff being that you can do more with it than the craze over thin and light. I hope you got the FHD screen.

BTW you can make it ~5.5oz lighter by removing the DVD and putting some 3M blue masking tape over the empty DVD bay opening.

FWIW I run mine with a boot mSATA SSD (mSATA is limited to SATA II speed) and a 2.5" SSD (as secondary drive) in the main bay.

I use the DVD bay for temporary stuff; high speed clone backup of boot mSATA to HDD being one.

Same here.

BTW welcome to being a T530 owner!

 

Both are good machines, the nice thing about the MBP outside of the usage and design factors is the fact they hold value and so you can actually sell it without losing too much if you do decide it's not working out. Like you, I can't live without a pointing stick and so it's either a ThinkPad, Latitude or EliteBook as choices. I just hope that Lenovo doesn't take it's "simplifying" and making a clean keyboard to an extreme and remove the pointing stick, we're already watching the dedicated trackpoint buttons disappear.

 

Eh, I started getting annoyed with Lenovo when they got rid of the forward/back buttons that were present in the -20 series and before. I find those incredibly useful when browsing webpages. Let alone the TrackPoint devolution.

 

ALT + Arrow Key backward/forward has the same function.

 

But that's a button combination. It's just not the same...

 

Wouldn't it be easier to just buy the travel cover? Looks better too.

 

I can't get use to the tank effect after using mac product for the last 3 years. I change for a tank but after 2 month can't get use to the size and weight

But I can like with the samsung 9 (13.3 inch) series which is in my opinion a mba clone

 

Don't understand where this idea that it's a tank comes from. The T530 is 5.6lbs and is 1.25" thick (up to 1.4" in the back). For the cMBP 15 (May 2012), the weight is 5.6lbs and is 0.95" thick. IMO, weight is much more important to portability than a mere 0.3" to 0.45" increase in the smallest dimension of a laptop.

 

I tend to find weight and the amount of accessories and adaptors you need to pack affect portability most. hence why I keep saying my X230/x220 is MUCH more portable than my MacBook Air's etc.

 

Visual perception only.

And because of such attraction, Lenovo is trying to "simplify" and "streamline" the ThinkPads.


(Disclaimer: I own and use all sorts of notebooks. I'm not a "fanboi" of any product by any company.)

 

Compared to my T420s, my friend's macbook pro 13 seems pretty unwieldy. Either could be the tank, depending on which model you get.

 

yes the old 13 inch macbook pro is a tank, I still have it, but the MBA like is really light and thin

but as with everything's, it's perception

 

I'm only interested in functionality and light weight, and my T530 is already too heavy, so whatever I can do to reduce it's weight gets high marks from me.

Meaning that looks mean nothing to me.

 

Where would you get one for T530 or other model that would fit the T530?

And what would it cost?

I mean, 3M blue masking tape is cheap and light.

 

It's called UltraBay blank travel cover.

If I should ever use 3M masking tape for the UltraBay gap, I would make sure it's neon pink.

 

You can either order it from Lenovo and pay 100 bucks for a piece of plastic or get it from ebay. I don't see any offers at the moment but this here might fit: New Laptop Ultrabay Blank Travel Cover for IBM Lenovo ThinkPad X220 X230 X220T | eBay

Assuming the X220 Ultrabase has the same Ultrabay as the T530.

EDIT: Kaso was faster.

 

I like blue and you like pink. What else is new?

 

Faster isn't the same as better.

BTW thank you for responding to my last question!

 

Each to their own but honestly to spend over 1.5-2K on a brand new laptop to then go and throw some cheap blue 3M tape on the side to cover the Optic Drive Bay frankly just seems ridiculous to me. - no offense meant.

You can buy a light empty caddy for $10 and if the extra weight of an empty caddy is really that big a deal, I would think that person has the wrong notebook.

 

You can replace the regular hard drive with an SSD that cut at least half a pound and it is way faster.

 

I've already done that with both my laptops; see my sig.

Best bet for reducing laptop weight is to run with only a large boot mSATA SSD.

But with regard to your comment of "cut at least half a pound", most 2.5" HDD weight less than 5.5 oz.

That includes 2.5" 2 platter HDD, and even less for 2.5" 1 platter HDD; haven't checked but odds are any 2.5" SSD isn't much less heavy than 5.5 oz.

 

Yeah, I replaced my bevy of Macs and replaced it with one x220 and a separate monitor, and I love it. I thought I would eventually need another laptop, but my x220 does everything I want it to do. By far, my ThinkPad has been the best PC I have owned (not just laptop). I will say though my father-in-law's Elite Book is also very nice.

 

I'm finding it easy to carry my X220 around, even when I might not really use it.

Which is not something I'd consider with my bigger/heavier T530.

That's an HP laptop?

What size and model number?

 

I just wanted to note, that removing the DVD bay adds for SIGNIFICANT lack of support in the chasi of the laptop

This is what i do, I get an $8 Thinkpad
Amazon.com: Ultrabay SATA 2nd HD Hard Drive Caddy Tray Lenovo ThinkPad T420i T510 W510 T520: Computers & Accessories
caddy and put my HDD into it.

Then i get an after market SSD.

I now have a W530 and this thing is CRUISING with my Crucial m4 and quad core i7 + 12 gigs of ram

I mean... it friken FLIES

Also the K2000 is able to play High end new games like Planet Side 2 at all medium settings with 0 lag.

I picked this thing up on Craigslist for $875 with 3 year warranty and it sure does rock.

 

"That's an HP laptop?

What size and model number?"

I am actually not sure since I wasn't interested in purchasing a new laptop. It was a tablet/laptop with a swivel screen. I found the screen to be of decent quality and the build quality also seemed impressive.

However, like I said, I am not in the market for a laptop anymore and plan to use my x220 until it dies. I realized that I don't need another laptop so I might as well buy myself a desktop to play games and fool around with.