I am using the same device and it's also a clear recommendation from my side. Another plus to add is the support: When I called the support because I had these vertical stripes showing up in the panel from time to time, they sent a replacement mainboard and a technician who replaced it at my place in about an hour. I was 0 days without the device which is quite valuable if you are using it professionally, I'd say... This sort of support does of course not only apply to this exact model but I think it is constrained to the T and X series.
Did a lot of research on my last purchase and it came down to a Thinkpad T480s or Thinkpad Carbon X1 and I ended up going with the Carbon because it's so much lighter and thinner while still having an i7, 16 GB of RAM and SSD.
And I bought it from Costco which was a great price and doubled the factory warranty for free, gives free tech support for a year and a ridiculous 90 day return policy.
And the battery lasts 10+ hours which is amazing.
Re:Ask HN: Best Laptop for Developer?
by ConceitedCode on Friday October 11, 2019 @02:14PM
(#21226938)
I came down to the same choice, but went with the t480s for the extra RAM and the ethernet port (only used twice, but been a life safer each time).
Both are great options.
Re:Ask HN: Best Laptop for Developer?
by sam_lowry_ on Friday October 11, 2019 @02:42PM
(#21227155)
Come on, the Ethernet port is a joke, I have to ask people with long nails or use a knife to get the RJ-45 cable out.
Has anybody tried the amd version, the t485? I was considering buying one of the two.
Re:Ask HN: Best Laptop for Developer?
by sam_lowry_ on Friday October 11, 2019 @02:44PM
(#21227172)
T495 is on par with t490 and ~250€ cheaper
1920 x 1080 resolution is very hard to justify at that price point.
I disagree. I have had a T480 for some time, the 1440p one. I regret getting th is screen and wish I had gone for the 1080p. While I hear HiDPI may work OK for displays that are scaled up in integer ratios, I basically expect that fractional scaling is never really going to work that well unless all the software you use written in the latest frameworks. (Based on experiences with Arch, Debian 10, Fedora 31 beta)
I was pretty happy using an HP x360 UHD display on Fedora. It also drove two 4K external displays.
What makes the different is wayland. Fractural scaling is working fine. However, we also were using Airtame for over-the-air desktop mirroring, which supports x.org only. Thus, I needed to switch sometimes, which caused „WTF is not working again?!? Oh forgot to switch x.org session back to wayland.“.
No seriously, if you need HiDPI and could omit proprietary nvidia drivers, give wayland a serious try.
It has great port selection:
- 2 usb-c ports (1 thunderbolt)
- 2 usb-b
- 1 hdmi port
- 1 ethernet port
- 1 sd card reader
Overall I'd say it's a very good well rounded laptop that I don't have any major complaints about.