Would you consider buying a Thinkpad if you had a Macbook Pro ?

Hello,

I've been using a Mac for 7 years and I've now decided to switch back to Windows 7.

I've been looking for a new laptop for 1 month and a half and I still can't decide which one to get. It's like every laptop I've considered buying has a defect. I'm kinda fussy. What I want is a perfect laptop but it looks like it doesn't exist.

I've read 50+ reviews, 200+ threads, watched lots of videos but I still can't decide.

Actually, I've got a MBP unibody 15" with a resolution of 1680*1050, so 130 PPI.

For my new laptop, I don't want a screen with a resolution lower than 1600*900 (since all screens are now 16/9). Screen size can varies from 14" to 15".

I've considered lots of computers (T420, T520, Dell e5420, e5520, e6520, e6420, Toshiba Rxxx, upcoming Sony Vaio S 15") but I still can't decide which one to get.

At first, I was interested in the T520, but with a resolution of 1600*900, I get 117 PPI. I don't really want something bigger than what I have on my MBP. And, after reading the NoteBookCheck review ( http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Lenovo-Thinkpad-T520-Notebook.51596.0.html), it seems that the brightness distribution is terrible (from 160 to 230cd/m2).
I've then considered the T520 with a FHD display, but it seems like it uses the same panel as the W520, which means it's a wide gamut panel. Since I'm not a photographer, it means I'm gonna get a oversaturated display with really bad colors.

Lately I've really considered the T420, which seems like a perfect notebook, except that it has a terrible screen (the 1600*900 one). Is it really that bad, if you stand in front of the computer ?

What I'm gonna do on that laptop is : internet (chrome, RSS, ...), office work (outlook, word, excel), programming (visual studio & java programming), software like MATLAB...
This is gonna be a laptop to work with but also my personal laptop. So it means I'm gonna deal with pictures, music (it doesn't matter if the headphones output is bad, I can still use an external soundcard). Nevertheless I'm not gonna watch movies on that computer, I've got an IPS external monitor for that.

I really need your advice, cause I have no idea what to buy anymore.

I just wish I could see the laptops in a store, but there are not any in my country.

NB: I had already opened a thread in the buying forum.

Thank you

 

I've had a couple of Macs in the past, and got the machine in my sig a few months ago. But truthfully, if I was to do it over again today, I'd probably get the T420. The screen may not be great (I haven't seen a T420 in person, but have seen a T410 which was tolerable... not sure if it's the same), but as you said, you're able to dock to a better monitor at will anyway.

 

Is Lenovo your only choice? The Samsung Series 9 is a slick looking laptop.

I own two ThinkPads a T60 and recently purchased a T410 on Ebay. They are well built, love them both.

 

Regarding the T520 with the FHD display, yes, it's a high-gamut display so colors may be different from what you're used to, but with some calibration settings, you should get some nice results. That panel is probably the nicest panel you'll be able to get on a Thinkpad, short of the IPS displays available on the X220 and X220 Tablet.

 

Thank you for your answers.

Rodster, no Lenovo is not my only choice, I'm just trying to buy the "best" laptop for me.

The Samsung Series 9 might be a good laptop, but I need to wait for the reviews anyway.

Design (I mean look) doesn't really matter to me as long as the case is totally matte and doesn't keep fingerprints.

MidnightSun, FHD on the T520 would be indeed perfect for me (141 PPI) and you can put so much information on the screen (even if I wish it was 1920*1200 instead). I will do more research on the wide gamut display but from what I've read it's not that easy to get decent colors without using software which can use color profiles.

 

If you can get a hold of a color calibrator like a spyder or something then you can get great colors out of the FHD screen. Perhaps not true-to-life, but like midnightsun said, probably the best image you'll get out of a current lenovo.

And yes, I would by the ThinkPad to beat the MBP with till it looked like a tattered hyundai in a hail storm /troll

I kid. I would seriously consider the T520 over the 420 if the size increase isn't an issue to you and you want a high ppi screen.

 

I like the analogy.

in a heartbeat. I had exclusively Macs for many years ( 20+) and now I will look at a thinkpad or a good business class unit WELL before a MBP for various reasons including durability and reliability. plus some features Apple seems to figure Video/photo editors dont need.

 

Mac OS good. Mac hardware not great.
Thinkpad OS ok not great. Thinkpad hardware goood.

 

Just out of curiousity... why waste money on another laptop? MBP 15 is pretty good and it can do all the things you just mentioned.

I mean if I'd be buying a new one yeah I'd go for Thinkpad. But if I already had MBP 15 and it worked fine, I'd stick with it.

 

Well, cause having a MBP just to run Windows doesn't really make sense to me. And I'd rather get rid of it now cause I can still sell it for a good price.

 

Spoiler

But seriously, the sheer resolution of the FHD may be useful for the work that requires more pixels, although the WSXGA+ has a vertical resolution of 1050 vs FHD's 1080, so there's not much of a difference there.

MATLAB may go easier on a ThinkPad due to the relative lack of thermal throttling and better multithreaded performance on Windows.

If your MATLAB stuff can get GPU (CUDA) acceleration, then consider one of the workstation graphics cards in the W520 (the discrete T520 is marginally cheaper when otherwise similarly configured).

The gamut issue should not be too bad; I applied the ICC off of NotebookCheck and Firefox and Splash Pro (media player) both seem to show colors fine AFAICT.

Personally, I never liked OS X the same way I don't like most modern FPS games that offer a visually free-roam environment but limit you to a linear path anyway (short of noclipping, but that breaks things).

 

About the wide-gamut, I meant, those screens are not really for people who don't work with pictures ( Tips For Profiling Wide-Gamut Monitors | dpBestflow ).

When I said I'm gonna deal with some pictures, I mean as an amateur. It's not my job.

I don't need CUDA.

 

Is your Mac the matte screen 1680x1050 version? You are going to be hard pressed to find a screen like that.

 

Yes this is the HR AG screen

 

HR AG = 1680x1050 matte screen.

Like I said, you are going to be hard pressed to find a screen that is going to suit you. That is my preferred screen size and resolution.

I use the ThinkPad W520 FHD screen at 125% which is extremely nice. Dell Precision and HP EliteBook both offer killer screens but you are going to pay for the privilege.

You can order the T520 with the FHD screen if you don't want/need some of the options on the W520. Moving from the Mac to the chassis on the W520/T520 is going to be odd to you. The added thickness is going to put you off some.

However, what is the heat like these days on the bottom of a MacBook Pro? Are they still pretty warm? The W520 cools very nicely. I haven't tested the T520 but I assume it does as well or better.

The ThinkPad keyboards are still tops in the market though you'll notice backlighting is missing. If that is a feature you use a lot on your Mac, then you'll have to get used to the ThinkLight instead. Works pretty well in low light conditions.

 

Do you have decent colors on your 1080p screen ? I mean in software which don't use color profiles (so not Photoshop, XnView, Firefox, ...) ?

I don't mind having a "bigger" computer. I hadn't bough a mac for that.

And yes, the MBP (2010 version) is really warm, I can't keep it on my lap when the computer is working hard.

 

If I had the money to, I'd order a ThinkPad on the MBP, then throw the MBP off the top of a tower somewhere. In all seriousness, though, I don't see the point to getting a new machine if your current one can satisfy all your needs (unless it is more than 3 years old).

 

The defaults are fine but the screen looks much better properly calibrated. It's certainly a high quality screen. It's rare to see anyone complain about the FHD screen.

The complaints are usually centered on the resolution and the size of the fonts. Bumping the DPI to 125% is a good workaround on Windows 7. I bump to 150% with the big external LCD I have.

 

Actually I don't see the point of replacing a laptop unless the software won't properly run or a RAM upgrade doesn't speed things up. I have a T60 I bought in 2007 and it runs Windows 7 just fine. Now it's a different story if one is a developer but it seems the average user will make any excuse to buy a new machine.

 

I don't really see the point of keeping a Macbook since I'm not gonna use Mac OSX anymore. And I'd rather get rid of it now than in 3 years when I won't be able to sell it anymore.

You don't have any oversaturated colors ? (for examples your icons on the desktop).

 

I would never switch to a thinkpad as the quality of Lenovos QC is really bad these days, if you read other threads you see there is a lot of complaints about overheating, sudden shutdowns and other different odd behaviours.

I had several Thinkpads in the past and will not buy another one again, i was loyal during the IBM days when they actually tested each machine for 24hrs before going out.

Lenovo charge almost as much as IBM wanted but the only common thing is the looks, some people still beleive it's the old Thinkpad quality but Lenovo is ruin the brand as fast as they can is my opinion.

At least look at HPs Elitebook W models or P, they are the best that windows market can offer today or i would look at the Sony Vao Z13 series.

 

That's a copy and paste for every mfg these days. I own 2 ThinkPads T60 (Lenovo built) and recently a T410 and the build quality is awesome, no issues with either. My T60 is over 4 years old and zero problems.

 

How can you say it's awesome when it isn't? what kind of standards do you have?

My friend have the same T410 in the office and he says it's pure garbage, lousy screen, mouse buttons are flimsy, the whole assembly feels cheaply built, not to mention he already changed planar board due to overheating problems.

 

Never would I have a Mac. Never.

Renee

 

Film it in high def.

Bad machines do occasionally roll off the assembly line regardless of brand. Deal with it [via warranty].

 

Nah, I'd film it in UHD.

 

How can you say it's not when it is? See how subjective opinions are? My ThinkPads work with no issues. If you have problems with a particular device it's ironic how the whole company sucks. Buy someone else's machine and all of a sudden they can do no wrong.

You can find your very same comments in every mfgs forums. Enjoy your HP

edit: I forgot to mention a friend of mine bought a T400 a couple of years ago. He's in the Air Condition business and uses the machine between 8-10 hours a day and loves it.

 

What?! I just find the fallacy in your logic to be too glaring to pass up. It's one laptop. It's HIS laptop. How do you know what his laptop is like?! It just doesn't make sense... we don't stand for conjecture and hearsay in other matters... why would you depend on that for electronics purchases...

 

Oh dear. And which would be the last IBM notebook that you thought was of suitable quality?

 

I don't. I use a LCD panel calibrator on my monitors and notebooks.

I've had both Macs and ThinkPads. I actually like both but they are different. They didn't have the 1680x1050 matte panel when I bought my last MBP.

Just wanted to make sure you were thinking about some of the differences.

Welcome to the ThinkPad club.

 

FALLACIES. FALLACIES EVERYWHERE.

A sample size of one doesn't make a very good argument.

 

I agree. It's been a few years since I had my Mac, but I liked it. It was something different, which has value. Had the X220 not been available, this would probably be being typed on a MacBook Air, which I also really like. Macs are more expensive, but they have a certain style to them and they do use above average. If you value those, then they're a good choice. If not, get something else. Go with what works for you. One doesn't have to be bad for the other to be good.

 

Yes the difference is that Lenovo doesn't care about their customers, there are several threads about this in the other forum.

Ever since Lenovo bought the Thinkpad brand the quality has gone downhill, their support about different issues are non-existant.

I don't own a Mac but one in my family does and the support you get is very good, Apple takes care of the problem directly and offer you exchange if the customer isn't satsified, would Lenovo do that? nah they would just try to hide and keep silent til the problem goes away and then release a new hopefully better model.

What i am saying that there are alot of fanboys with Lenovo, i don't know what you like but if you beleive it's the same Thinkpad as before you are way out.

I was trustworthy to the Thinkpad brand but not anymore after how they treat different problems and their QC at factory is way below standard these days.

I don't want to go on with all critisism about current Thinkpads from Lenovo, that list would be too long.

 

The Thinkpad quality under Lenovo does vary a bit model to model. I think Thinkpad quality at the current price point is more than adequate, sure there are issues, but so did IBM Thinkpads in the later years.

To say that Lenovo doesn't care about customers is a blanketed statement, since there are many instances where customers are quickly taken care off when they appealed for help on the Lenovo forum. So you could say that the quality of customer service is not consistent geographically, but to say that Lenovo don't care doesn't seem to be fair or absolutely accurate.

How many Mac products have you got? If you used enough Apple products then you would know that Apple's customer service is also not consistent either when it comes to machines with faulty designs.

But if you got an axe to grind with Lenovo in general then that is a different story. Also, don't exchange personal experiences with anecdotes from others when it comes to product quality and customer service support, because perspectives and standards are different.

 

I would say my X220i is as good as any ThinkPad I've used. Quality sort of yin and yangs over time. IBM made its share of clunkers too. I would argue Lenovo is giving you a machine that if it's not as good, it's close, but at half the cost. That's fairly impressive.

 

And for your one anecdote about the Thinkpad I'll tell you mine about my Sony. It is the largest hunk of crap every made and the worst experience I've ever had in a mobile computer in 15 years of using them. The Vaio, which is only 4 years old, has literally fallen apart, screws falling out of the bottom, wireless switch broken so the wireless shuts itself off, wobbly hinge, can't buy a replacement battery from Sony and when they were available Sony wanted $300, memory bus clocked lower than the chipset defaults because there was likely some crappy main board design, discoloration inside the LCD panel and the list goes on. This device was never mobile, never left the house and was used at home as the main computer. You couldn't pay me to ever use a Sony again.

 

IBM went downhill with Thinkpad only the last year or so when they already decided to ditch the brand to some cheap manufacturer called Lenovo.

Lenovo bought a brand that stood for quality and durability, they have deliberately for each year tried to make the top models cheaper by cutting manufacturing costs which now shows in real life performance and stability of their products, look at the W520 poll thread.

It will not be very long before the brand Lenovo paid so much for is dust and not worth more than Packard Bell or any other budget brand.

Only the Z-series are worth considering as all lower series models are not built to standards, yes they fall apart, the hinges cracks etc etc....

 

Go on to any manufacturers' forum and you can find a multitude of threads complaining about customer service and build quality.. and to use apple as a standard of customer care is just.. not right. Because they have their fair share of QC and other issues as well.

Lenovo acquired IBM PC in 2005 so... yeah. It's been 6 years and more than a few generations of ThinkPads under the Lenovo name.

 

Why don't you install bootcamp to run Windows in your Mac machine? I think Mac is better looking and the hardware should be more than enough to handle Windows apps. If you however insist on buying new laptop and assuming cash is no problem, here is my choice if I were you:

1. The new Vaio Z:
Will cost you over $2K, you will get all the performance and the style!

2. Lenovo T420S:
Not stylish, but it has the business looking laptop

3. No Dell please - the current business line laptop (Latitude) are ugly, better buy Lenovo.

 

@Likvid, i am not sure where you are pulling these information from. But when you say that IBM thinkpad only went downhill in the last year before deciding to sell it Lenovo, etc, seems that you haven't researched your information that much.

1. Lenovo is a brand company they don't manufacture laptops per se, most of the laptop companies contract out their manufacturing to ODM and Contract Manufacturer, they don't really do it in house.

2. When you say went downhill in last year or so, can you give specifics? I mean the T30 and T41, T42 all had problems and the T30 were produced in the late 2002 and early 2003.

Price can be reduced through several means.... you could reduce cost by increasing volume and use more common parts, reduce number of individual parts used, etc. FYI the T60 was probably one of the best Thinkpad in terms of robustness, feature, design and price, while they were produced under Lenovo's corporate name.

IBM failed at the Thinkpad business in the later years due to the fact that IBM competes better at high margin and high tech industries, not in commodity market where there is little tech differentiation. IBM spurn off plenty of smaller businesses (hdd, printer, keyboard, LCD, etc) as the PC market matured and they no longer involved intense innovation.

 

Again, perhaps you'd care to share what you think the last "good" ThinkPad was?

 

You do not know the brand very well. People are demanding less expensive notebooks. Price points are dropping like rocks. For every post like this, bemoaning the drop in quality, there's at least 10 looking for the best deals. This is true not only at Lenovo, but other manufacturers as well. While in my opinion Lenovo certainly cares about quality, this is the reality they have to deal with. As I said my X220i is as good as any ThinkPad I've used. Time will tell if it holds up, but it's looking good so far. The fact I paid half what I paid what I would have for an ultraportable five years ago is pretty impressive to me.

 

It seems you are talking about yourself as you really don't know much about Lenovos organisation or financials, Lenovo declares themself as a manufacturer if you care to look closer even if some 3rd party is doing some assembly it's still Lenovos responsbility that the whole assembly line and design lives up to what you call Lenovos excellent quality which is far from true.

Lenovo does all R&D on all their Thinkpad models and in the end have the full responsibility that the finished product delivers.

Of course they don't make the CPU, GPU etc....do you beleive BMW produce the tyres? BMW are still a manufacturer.

I've had IBM Thinkpads since 1993 in my work and got to use every new top model of the T-series and 500-series and some more during most up to early 00's except one few incident that i had to use a R50 model in 2001 i beleive for one company i worked for.

You have too look prior to 00's to see the best of crop, even latest T4x series are much better in quality and overall reliability than current Lenovos that suffer from different failures even if mine had the common GPU failure...

Lenovo is failing slowly and they don't know it, Thinkpads were good once, not anymore, reason is that they don't got control of the assembly line like before and they rely on old pattern design.

IBM left because there was no money in it for them anymore, they were smart, same thing with HP getting out.

Same thing with Pioneer that made worlds best plasmas, there was no market anymore because people don't want to pay premium for good quality these days.

Lenovos only chance of surviving is to sell half baked products that either fail or pass, customer takes the hit as always.

I know the brand and probably had Thinkpads longer than you can imagine, however you already answered the question but you don't get the point anyway.....

You are stating that Lenovo is a budget brand yourself which is what they are in my opinion, still in the rest of the world outside USA they charge premium money for a product that does not live up to the famous Thinkpad brand that it used to be.

The 600x of course, it was built like a tank, never failed.

 

So, you said that the quality is not to be expected anymore. But what brand would you recommend then ?

 

So what does Lenovo manufacture anyway? AFAIK, it's almost entirely handled by Wistron.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this was during Lenovo's takeover.

So a multinational corporation doesn't know something about themselves that you, as an individual outsider, do? SOUNDS LEGIT.

Also, I thought you implied the old pattern design was better?

So the customer wants half-baked products?

This is more of an economics issue. Same reason some cars manufactured in Canada are more expensive in Canada itself than elsewhere.

I'm pretty sure if you went with the relatively massive form factor of the 600X again, you'd have a better tank, but less of a modern laptop.

 

No i imply that the old design can't handle the thermal requirements required by modern CPU and GPUs these days.

No the customer wants a good product but many customers are many times too stupid to not know better.

And again, Lenovos aren't cheap to buy that is what i am saying.

 

Industrial Laptops like Toughbooks then HP, Dell or Lenovo BUSINESS class units. forget the brand and go with specific lines. my Elitebook is far better built than 95% of the garbage on the market, yet HP makes some awfully pathetic consumer models.

most consumers are idiots who want CHEAP and PRETTY. then they get mad when it does not last as long as they would like.

 

To be honest i don't know, my closest match was W-series from HP, HP ditching the market is maybe not such a good idea to buy a HP and also i have no personal experience with HPs Elitebook range so i can't say.

Apple i don't like because of their culture and policy and they seem to have overheating problems if you run too heavy tasks and they can't handle any rough handling.

Maybe Panasonics Toughbook? i don't know really as you can see....

 

Well it seems strange when Lenovo calls themself as a manufacturer in all their press releases? maybe you should ask Lenovo, or your own definition of a manufacturer is wrong...


Lenovo Becomes First PC Manufacturer to Announce.....

Example
Lenovo Becomes First PC Manufacturer to Announce Client Virtualization Platform

 

Back on topic to answer the OP's question, yes i'd buy a ThinkPad if I owned a MBP.