Pls recommend basic Lenovo Laptop

My wife is looking for a PC machine she can use with her Steno software; no high end graphics or anything like that. A simple, reliable, recent build with Windows 7 and 3 gigs of RAM. I'm not familiar with any of the Lenovo lines apart from the Thinkpad, so I'd appreciate some recommendations.

Thanks, much.

 

Maybe a bit more detail? How important is portability/battery life? Approximate budget?

From what it sounds like, something like the Lenovo IdeaPad G-series would be plenty for her usage. Although Lenovo's website doesn't sell them for all that great prices, they can occasionally be found for far less than the MSRP.

Alternatively, you could get her an older Thinkpad (a T400/T500 or R400 would work very well without breaking the bank). The plus side of the latter option is that you can share accessories such as the power adapter or maybe even the battery, depending on the machine.

 

Hi,
Screensize is a major determining factor here.

11.6 "
The x120e will be released in the next couple of months, hopefully, it is a very interesting model because it will have a new chip from AMD, it goes by the following names Zacate, Fusion, E-350. It will compete against intel's Atom chip, common found on cheep netbooks, but it's suppoed to offer much better performance.
Lenovo ThinkPad X120e snatches up AMD's Zacate, aims to right all of the X100e's wrongs -- Engadget


For 12" I like the x-series is great, x201. Battery life around 7hours with the 8cell battery. The Ideapad U260, also has a 12" screen but its battery only lasts around 3hours.
Lenovo IdeaPad U260 review -- Engadget






For 14" to 15" the T-series, T410, T510, offers great durability. The T-series has a lot of loyal fans especially those that travel for business. But the screen quality on the 14" is not great. The screens are dimmer than say Apple's MacBookPro, and they don't offer as good viewing angles. They aren't glossy either, like some HP consumer models, which is a big plus in certain office lighting environments.

The T410s is a slimmer version of the T410. Two things to know of this model are that it has a smaller batter, 4cell I think, and a 1.8" harddrive, instead of a 2.5" harddrive found in the other Tseries and Xseries. This gives you less choice in buying an SSD or replacement harddrive in the future.



There are new X and T series coming out in the near future with intel's new SandyBridge processors, x220, T420, and T520. These new processors are exciting to a lot of people because they offer much better 3D graphics performance without having to have a dedicated graphics card in the laptop. But if your wife isn't playing games on her computer she will do just fine without these new intel chips, and you can probably get one of the current X or T series on sale. I've seen the x201 on sale for around $750, and the Tseries for around $850.

Coupons
Google around for Lenovo coupon codes. Lenovo also has a depot website for US customers. If you're in canada visaperks.ca has Lenovo discounts, just pick Lenovo on the merchant menu on the left, it should show you some coupon codes when you enter the Lenovo site. Redflagdeals.com also has Lenovo Canada coupons.

SSD
If you can save money on the laptop you might have enough for an SSD in your budget. It is best not to buy one from Lenovo, newegg.com is a good site. Once you put your SSD you'll have to install windows on in. There are different ways to do this but the best way is to do a clean install using a windows7 disk. You can transfer the windows7 install files off the disk onto a usb key too. I've read posts by people saying they were able to install an SSD, install windows7, and call microsoft to activate it using the serial number on the bottom on their computer. I've never done this myself, so do some research and make sure you can in fact do this.
Clean Install Windows 7 with Upgrade Media
Installing Windows 7 using usb thumb drive - AVIRAJ AJGEKAR'S BLOG... - Site Home - TechNet Blogs

 

Thanks, Gmoney. Midnight, I'll look into those old T400s. Mine's working well and my wife has no special requirement regarding weight or battery life. Thanks again!