I've been buying higher-end Dells for a while. If you get something based on an Intel chipset, Linux support is generally quite solid, even if it isn't explicitly claimed. Based on my experience with my last three laptops and what I hear from everyone else, I often think there's really two Dells, the "cheap at all costs" consumer end and the business/"prosumer" end that makes, if not gear that gets as much love as old-school IBM, perfectly serviceable stuff. I'm typing this on an at-least-three-year-old Studio 17, and it barely even shows wear. Battery's croaking, of course, but that's hardly Dell's fault (and it's not like it instantly died or anything). Also the fact you can get full service manuals is really nice... even if you're comfortable with hardware, trying to blunder your way through dissassembling a modern laptop if you need to, say, clean out the fan, is no fun.
Swap in an SSD and max out the RAM and they're awesome linux workhorses.
Any tips on how you've gone about finding said corporate liquidators?
When you install Windows drivers, Thinkpads say something about Lenovo Japan, while others (like Ideapads) say Lenovo Shenzhen. HP Elitebooks are well made while consumer HPs are really poorly designed/constructed.
The downside is they're rather expensive. But I'd rather pay for something that works than for something that does not.
Lenovo even had a blogpost where they claimed "most users adapt" in a short amount of time. Not that there was any benefit, just that they needed to modernize the design and it wasn't that harmful. Idiots.
The X201t is like the pinnacle of their design. 16:10 screen (important if you use Windows, especially inside a RDP app - 1366x786 just doesn't have enough vertical pixels).
The X201 also had a FULL keyboard. They used every cm of the laptop to fit all the keys in. The newer X series 12", they remove keys, and added blank space around the keyboard. Here they are trynna cram stuff in, and they literally throw away 2-3 keys worth of space.
Lenovo is just beyond incompetent in designing things at this point. I don't know about the sales side, but since everyone else in this space is just as bad, it probably doesn't harm them. But if Dell ever wakes up and says "oh, hey, maybe we should make real laptops", they'd steal away ThinkPad's marketshare pretty quickly.
Oh and just to insult us on top of all these bad changes, they ship utterly crap panels with some of the laptops. I bought a T440p last year, and I absolutely hate it. It has a viewing angle of 0 - there's no point at which you can view it and get anything remotely decent.
1: I've tried MacBooks... the ergonomics are terrible, as is the heat. Beautiful displays though.
Very sad, given that IBM ThinkPad and later Lenovo ThinkPad up to T420/X220 where very good robust devices and had a great build quality including a good keyboard and screen. I would pay premium price for a T420 series notebook with a brand new Intel i7 chipset that support 16+ GB RAM (or the T60p series style with a 4:3 display).
Luckily replacement screen parts are quite affordable these days. And before anyone complains, I do use all this memory, currently dom0 has 4GB free.
And it's not even crammed in, the X201 keyboard is identical in size and layout to the T400 keyboard.
Every recent laptop I've tried with a clicky trackpad has been absolute crap. The texture will be too rough or too sticky, the click won't work half the time, the right-click is hopeless, some try to do clever things with multi-finger gestures which usually triggers the mfg-provided crapware launcher, and they're too small.
Apple got the clickpad pretty much perfect, except for when they get dirty or bent. Nothing else that I've used comes within a mile. Trackpads on laptops were not amazing, but usually workable before everyone went clickpad-crazy. Now, it seems like you have to hunt to find something with buttons so you can actually use it. I can't imagine that any of these are getting good feedback, yet it's been a trend for a few years now. PC mfgs make me sad.
I personally also prefer a traditional ThinkPad keyboard, trackpad and trackpoint (up to T420/X220 series).
I won't buy any notebook with these slim keys, that might look stylish and fashionable. I need a business notebook for work and IBM ThinkPad and early Lenovo ThinkPad were robust and very good at that.
The first manufacturer that learns from their recent mistakes, be it Lenovo/HP/Dell/etc, will be the winner.
But if it takes too long, maybe someone should start a kickstarter campaign and produce truly business notebooks without any compromises with a 1500-2500$ price tag. A traditional keyboard, trackpad, trackpoint, robust plastic frame, maybe even a 4:3 IPS screen (1600x1200 or higher).
As a general rule, physical buttons and total lack of multi-touch support seem to go hand-in-hand with good ol' quality... but even that is not a foolproof rule.
That being said, I will change it for a W541/T541 ultranav touchpad asap. But not sure if I will keep it. Getting used to the pinch-to-zoom.
Edit: as you can see with Macbooks, clickpads are not the problem. Drivers are the problem. With the right drivers [0], the T440s clickpad is very precise, clicking doesn't move the cursor, and scrolling is pixel-perfect.
[0] Try Fedora 22
Made working on it a bit surreal recently though until I figured out that he'd stuck the mouse in his pocket and was walking by in the hallway.
They removed the physical buttons older thinkpads had [1].
2015 Thinkpads (2015) for X (including x1 carbon), T and W have corrected numerous issues the last generation(s) had, including:
- Bringing back physical keys and the old-style trackpad!
- The "adaptive" function keys on the X1 carbon
- The merged insert key on X series
Lenovo took a bad bet, but give them credit, they fixed 2015 thinkpads.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb7p3VkQCOo - Side-by-side comparison.
It seems all hope is lost with Lenovo ThinkPad. They simply don't understand what a keyboard layout means nor why it's important to group keys and create keys with different sizes. Also the slim keys are bad in many ways. The omission of the F-keys, the omission of the audio&mic-keys. ThinkPad was easy to open using just 2 screws. Replacing parts was easy. Forget that with their new consumer style T430+ series.
I personally give Lenovo one more chance for a "T460" in 2016, but I doubt it will resurface the T420 series style. I would support a kickstarter campaign that sole goal should be creating a premium business notebook "IBM ThinkPad style".
FYI, it's called a Trackpoint.
Wipe the default OS. Install your own. Problem solved.
I don't buy laptops for the software (I can deal with that), but for the hardware. Anyway most OEM installs are filled with crapware, it's faster to just wipe everything in the first place.
- re-installing Windows would void all warranties
- re-installing Windows would result in a non-working laptop because Lenovo drivers are not available anywhere
- I should under no circumstances re-install Windows because it would "break everything, because it's not Microsoft Windows on these laptops, it's Lenovo Windows".
So I guess the moral of this story is, if you have to call Lenovo and Mark answers the phone, hang up immediately and try again.
Also, Microsoft has a tool to download Windows 8 ISOs - no need to bother with the OEM.
Dell actually has a line of laptops that ship with Linux [1]. You don't get a choice of distro (they ship with the latest Ubuntu LTS), but the fact that it ships with Linux out of the box means that the hardware has all been pre-verified for Linux compatibility, and installing a new distro should be a matter putting in the install media and grabbing a cup of coffee.
Lenovo's batteries really suck. They lose life a lot quicker than Apple's batteries and are very expensive to replace, especially since the primary and optibay batteries tend to die around the same time. At least they're user replaceable.
I'm a fan of Dell's laptops lately. Many newer Dell laptops have good Linux support. Oddly, I think Dell Alienware laptops are great as portable workstation laptops because they're powerful and can stay cool, but YMMV.