Thinkpad 13 2nd gen | Thinkpad e470 - for college

Hello, soon I will be starting my 1st degree in CS and so I will be doing alot of coding, and was wondering if you guys could advice me to choose between the 2 machines I mentioned above.
I know that thinkpads are great laptops with good quality build and nice battery life, so that's why I chose this series.
money wise, I should not exceed for 800$ so they are both in my budget, wanted to know if anyone has any experience or can shed my some light about this topic.

 

Have you checked Lenovo's Outlet? You may be able to find a T460 or T470 for that money (refurb/open box). Models from the Outlet are mostly like new and come with full warranty.

 

Here is a refurb T460 - much better than anything you can find new.
http://www3.lenovo.com/us/en/outletus/thinkpad-t-series/T460/p/20FMX03900

 

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenov...5-GeForce-940MX-Notebook-Review.189999.0.html
Has 4 more gb of ram, 256 gb ssd and a much stronger gpu

 

The T460 has a MUCH larger battery (6-cell 76Wh vs 3-cell 45Wh on the E470) and thus gets near double the battery life. It's also more durable and comes with NBD warranty vs the Carry-in basic warranty attached to the Edge series models. The RAM is very easy to upgrade to 8GB or more on every business class laptop. As for the SSD - that's a legit point but it's down to whether you need the space or are willing to use cloud-based storage.

The 940MX is practically useless, though, as for your needs it will almost never be used.

 

I'd be more inclined toward the 13 as it's significantly lighter and you can get the backlit keyboard, which is not an option on the E470. Whatever you get, I'd try for the FHD LCD on either as they're IPS screens, which offer much improved PQ. That'll be important for someone staring at it for hours.

 

Go X or T series if possible. Better built, more durable. Real ThinkPads. Why buy flimsier for college? Buy reliable.

 

If I were getting a new thinkpad. I'd go with brand-new E-Series again. I have several used T-Series. Especially T430, I've had 2 duds so far. Not much I can do since it was bought used and it's the MB that was defective/dying on me.

Brand new one will have warranty, used one won't Also, my E530, my first thinkpad survived my 4 year University program. It was slowly getting over-taken by T410 in my 3rd year when I wanted a platform to test Linux.

 

The warranty on the used T460 is better than the one available for the new Edge model >.>

 

That is an excellent point, but looking at the storage size and RAM. I think there should be a budget for RAM upgrade and SSD upgrade(or addition) since nowdays 120gb ssd and 4gb ram is nothing

 

Those upgrades can easily be performed for about 80$ (if you don't mind buying a used SSD and DDR4). And you still get a better device overall.

 

Good points. I would probably go for refurb T460 + upgrade.

Personally I am sticking with T430 now, because they are at ~$300Cdn now, with many available spare parts on e-bay, and in my box of parts.

 

My sister is still using a T410 and I use a T420 at work. Quite durable little buggers.

 

T420 used to be my standard model. They are very durable little buggers, Intel HD 3000 pushed me away eventually because it's not CAD friendly. I gave my 3 T420's to my parents and a friend in need, and I bought the used, 5+yrs old, still going stable.

I've so far had 4 T430's 2 died, 1 is on its way to me, 1 is stable. I think there was a design/manufacturing hiccup 420->430. The keyboard is okay, but worse than T420, Motherboard seems much less reliable. It's still my standard model because it has the same capability as T430 with upgraded parts.

If I can hook up 3rd gen core with dedicated graphics on t420, I'd stay by that. My incoming T430 and stable T430 are supposed to switch parts when it arrives, but both were bought on decent deal with nice parts.

 

my T410s and T410 both croaked when I fell off my bicycle, on separate occasions.

 

That's probably bad luck more than anything else. A T430 motherboard swap is a fairly simple task.