4 ms·

> Let's say we're talking about ThinkPad T.. Which model? > T440p, T450, T450s, T540p, or T550? T450s. When looking for a competitor to Apple, go for the T-s

by sampo 11y ago

> Let's say we're talking about ThinkPad T.. Which model? > T440p, T450, T450s, T540p, or T550? T450s. When looking for a competitor to Apple, go for the T-series, but also take a look at the X-series. T5XX has 15" screen and numpad in the keyboard, so unless you like numpad, forget those. 440 is the older series, before it there was 430 series, and presently 450 is the current line. "p" stands for "performance", basically it's a laptop with an NVIDIA GeForce graphics card, if you are heavily into gaming or video production. It makes the laptop thicker, heavier and consume more power. Usually you forget the "p" option. Also Apple makes do with just the integrated Intel graphics, so we don't need NDIVIA either. "s" is maybe for "slim". T4XXs is the flagship, and the plain T4XX is an economy version. The T4XXs is, in my opinion, the best competitor for Apple laptops.

Twirrim 11y ago
> When looking for a competitor to Apple, go for the T-series, but also take a look at the X-series. Sure. Joe Average has no clue about that though. Most of the main vendors suffer from the same proliferation of models. Look at Dell: Latitude - For Business Vostro - for Small Business (WTF? Why is this a different model from Latitude?) Inspiron - For Home and Home Office (Seriously? Why isn't this satisfied by either of the other two models?) Precision Workstations - For professional creators (that seems like a reasonable distinction, but then looking at the specs it's not really, it's just a slightly higher spec than other models) XPS - For the Ultimate experience (Okay.. but what about Precision Workstation then? Why on earth does something called the Ultimate have worse spec than some of the other not-ultimate models?)
- oblio 11y ago
  Plus their sites are abysmal. It's like they were built with technology from the 90's and nobody told them about UX.
  - andor 11y ago
    It's like they were built with technology from the 90's HTTP, HTML and Javascript?
reubenmorais 11y ago
> Also Apple makes do with just the integrated Intel graphics, so we don't need NDIVIA either. No they don't… the 15" MBP has a dedicated GPU, and a good one at that.
- pjmlp 11y ago
  And costs 1000€ more than the Thinkpad W, a graphics workstation laptop.
- exadeci 11y ago
  A good one ? Nope, not for the price. http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-R9-M370X.142763.0.html http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-R9-M370X.142763.0.ht... The AMD Radeon R9 M370X is a mid-range graphics card for laptops that was announced mid 2015. Mac are awesome for work (mine at least) but useless for anything that requires a good gpu
Theodores 11y ago
Compared to the Yoga 2 (or is it 3?) non-pro (proper HD rather than faux retina or faux HD), the 'proper' Thinkpad is a generation of CPU behind with half the RAM and double the price. The backlit 'chicklet' keyboard on the Yoga Whatever(tm) is also subjectively better than the barrage of nipples and buttons that come with those 'legendary' Thinkpad keyboards. The screen is of a magnitude more vibrant and you can run two disks - mSATA SSD + normal SATA SSD/spinny-disk. Plus touch is just a feature, not something that is a special requirement. The hinge seems better engineered too, even if it never gets used in 360 tablet mode. There is proof of pudding in that my colleagues with 14" Thinkpads have those stands and external monitors, with external keyboards and mice, rarely with the machines being 'un-docked' or taken home. Meanwhile, my off-brand Yoga Whatever(tm) gets carried around as intended, used on trains and used at home. Sure some of the shiny has worn off the fibreglass in the palm-rest area but I actually do not care, I don't like the feel of Apple-style aluminium, plastic is more me when it comes to what I want to rest my palms on. The build quality is absolutely fine on Yoga Whatever(tm), same power connector as Thinkpad with same USB3 connector. I downgraded from Windows Whatever to Ubuntu and admittedly the wifi does need 'make install' every time the kernel changes, but it runs a full set of dev tools fine (my colleagues desk-bound machines run 'Outlook', a web browser and nothing else, maybe 'Excel'). I prefer a standard linux distro as the Apple dev environments don't have the repository 'apt-get install' thing done very well. Horses for courses but there are surprises in the consumer range that are better for getting work done and a worthy contender for Apple competitor. Actually I would be annoyed if company policy forced me to have either a proper Thinkpad or a proper Apple computer, the Yoga Whatever(tm) with 14" deep-colour proper-HD screen hits the sweet spot for me.

by sampo 11y ago

Twirrim 11y ago

> When looking for a competitor to Apple, go for the T-series, but also take a look at the X-series. Sure. Joe Average has no clue about that though. Most of the main vendors suffer from the same proliferation of models. Look at Dell: Latitude - For Business Vostro - for Small Business (WTF? Why is this a different model from Latitude?) Inspiron - For Home and Home Office (Seriously? Why isn't this satisfied by either of the other two models?) Precision Workstations - For professional creators (that seems like a reasonable distinction, but then looking at the specs it's not really, it's just a slightly higher spec than other models) XPS - For the Ultimate experience (Okay.. but what about Precision Workstation then? Why on earth does something called the Ultimate have worse spec than some of the other not-ultimate models?)

oblio 11y ago
Plus their sites are abysmal. It's like they were built with technology from the 90's and nobody told them about UX.
- andor 11y ago
  It's like they were built with technology from the 90's HTTP, HTML and Javascript?

reubenmorais 11y ago

> Also Apple makes do with just the integrated Intel graphics, so we don't need NDIVIA either. No they don't… the 15" MBP has a dedicated GPU, and a good one at that.

pjmlp 11y ago
And costs 1000€ more than the Thinkpad W, a graphics workstation laptop.
exadeci 11y ago
A good one ? Nope, not for the price. http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-R9-M370X.142763.0.html http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-R9-M370X.142763.0.ht... The AMD Radeon R9 M370X is a mid-range graphics card for laptops that was announced mid 2015. Mac are awesome for work (mine at least) but useless for anything that requires a good gpu

Theodores 11y ago

Compared to the Yoga 2 (or is it 3?) non-pro (proper HD rather than faux retina or faux HD), the 'proper' Thinkpad is a generation of CPU behind with half the RAM and double the price. The backlit 'chicklet' keyboard on the Yoga Whatever(tm) is also subjectively better than the barrage of nipples and buttons that come with those 'legendary' Thinkpad keyboards. The screen is of a magnitude more vibrant and you can run two disks - mSATA SSD + normal SATA SSD/spinny-disk. Plus touch is just a feature, not something that is a special requirement. The hinge seems better engineered too, even if it never gets used in 360 tablet mode. There is proof of pudding in that my colleagues with 14" Thinkpads have those stands and external monitors, with external keyboards and mice, rarely with the machines being 'un-docked' or taken home. Meanwhile, my off-brand Yoga Whatever(tm) gets carried around as intended, used on trains and used at home. Sure some of the shiny has worn off the fibreglass in the palm-rest area but I actually do not care, I don't like the feel of Apple-style aluminium, plastic is more me when it comes to what I want to rest my palms on. The build quality is absolutely fine on Yoga Whatever(tm), same power connector as Thinkpad with same USB3 connector. I downgraded from Windows Whatever to Ubuntu and admittedly the wifi does need 'make install' every time the kernel changes, but it runs a full set of dev tools fine (my colleagues desk-bound machines run 'Outlook', a web browser and nothing else, maybe 'Excel'). I prefer a standard linux distro as the Apple dev environments don't have the repository 'apt-get install' thing done very well. Horses for courses but there are surprises in the consumer range that are better for getting work done and a worthy contender for Apple competitor. Actually I would be annoyed if company policy forced me to have either a proper Thinkpad or a proper Apple computer, the Yoga Whatever(tm) with 14" deep-colour proper-HD screen hits the sweet spot for me.