What laptop do you have?

[Srbel]

I wouldn't touch Lenovo. I know it has very bad thermal design. Same heatsink for CPU and GPU, but it only has contact with CPU. You have to place a copper plate between the GPU and heatsink to fix it.

[MrSlack]

I wouldn't touch Lenovo. I know it has very bad thermal design. Same heatsink for CPU and GPU, but it only has contact with CPU. You have to place a copper plate between the GPU and heatsink to fix it.

We've got a huge mix of Lenovo X201, X220, X230, T420, T440, X1 units (about 300) and zero problems in this department. ALL have integrated graphics and/or that thermal arrangement. The only problem we do get is blown up USB ports and user errors (mainly coffee incursion and losing them).

[pickle9000]

I have one silver one and two black ones. One of the black ones has yellow tape on it so I can tell it from the other black one.

Does that help?

[Kostas]

Back in June I got a Lenovo G710 as a 17,3'' desktop replacement. Obviously not lightweight, but light enough for me. The 1600x900 resolution is rather odd, but looks fine. Having the i5 4210M means it's not very low power - efficient, but performance is very nice. It can be upgraded with an i7 if needed be. Came with 6GB of ram, 1TB hdd, dvd-r and a 820M gpu. I replaced the optical drive with a 250GB 850 evo ssd and it made an already good system awesome. I've upgraded to Windows 10, but I've reserved some space for a Linux installation, although I've been too lazy lately to do it.

[wraper]

For cheap ones, avoid mid to high end GPUs, they are prone to fail if the thermal solution is not good enough. GTX910M, 920M are fine, 940M is kinda, any higher end models are not good.
Also, get at least an SSD, even a crappy one. Many computers fail on HDD.

Cannot agree. There are expensive laptops with a shitty cooling (like apple) and cheap ones with good cooling. Mine 750 EUR acer with GTX 850M (summer 2014, good IPS LCD, actually this model started from about EUR 450, with even hotter GPU from previous gen and shitty display) does not overheat at all, and it's quiet. And this is because there are 2 fans and 2 heatsinks regardless of it being very thin

[encryptededdy]

All I know is, most of today's laptops fail really quickly (in like couple of years). Mostly due to cracked solder balls on GPU.

No longer a problem afaik, the bad solder was due to bad lead-free solder used for attaching the BGA when they first switched to lead free solder. This is why many say you can fix laptops from that generation by sticking the motherboard in the oven. I believe nvidia was sued over this; but don't think this is a issue anymore.

All expensive ones. Latitude or Studio can not compete XPS, AW or Precision, which is obvious.
For the same reason, for Lenovo, Think X/W/T and Yoga/Think Yoga are always better than Think E or ideaPad.

Studio is XPS: "XPS Studio", but I don't think they use that brand anymore.

Latitude is their business line, XPS is high end Consumer, no idea what AW is (did you mean ATG?), Precision is workstation. Lower end consumer line is Inspiron.

Perhaps you mean Inspiron cannot compete with XPS, Latitude or Precision?

Yoga is IdeaPad; "Ideapad Yoga". Also the ThinkPad Yoga 14 is pretty bad, probably ThinkPad E tier (I mean, they sell them in Best Buy). The Yoga 12 is much better, as it's technically under the X series I think.

I would imagine the new X1 Yoga is better.

[Richard Crowley]

My main personal system is a Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13 with an i7 processor.  It was a reward from my employer for our department completing the process development at the maximum goal targets.

My employer-provided work system is a Lenovo ThinkPad UltraBook with an i5.  They had several systems to choose from, and I chose this one because it is compact and light-weight. They like for us to carry our work systems with us so we can securely VPN into the office. I have four 1920 monitors (plus the built-in screen) in my cubicle and a regular keyboard & mouse.

I had a Surface 3 Pro (mainly for the Killer App "StaffPad") but I dropped it on a corner and it not only broke the glass screen, but also crunched the rather lightweight aluminum case.  The thing is so remarkably integrated and glued together, I despair that it is not repairable.   

[jwm_]

I believe in the RAIL system, namely redundant array of inexpensive laptops. My actual main real computer is in a vault in new Orleans maintained by rackspace. I use laptops as ssh and x windows clients on laptops to talk to it but the laptops themselves don't have much on em. I can be up and running on a nrw one without loskng my place in as lomg as it takes to boot ubuntu from my usb key. I also have a desktop at home I use (via the same RAIL laptops) for some stuff, video processing, huge drives, that would be expensive for rackspace to host.

[Armxnian]

http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/x-series/x1-yoga/

wtf? OLED display coming soon? 2560x1440p + touch screen?
vPro cpu. It's also thin and has a pcie ssd. This thing looks amazing.

[encryptededdy]

http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/x-series/x1-yoga/

wtf? OLED display coming soon? 2560x1440p + touch screen?
vPro cpu. It's also thin and has a pcie ssd. This thing looks amazing.

Yeah, the OLED screen should be really, really nice.

Another nice thing is the stylus runs off a supercap and charges in 15 seconds (inside the laptop) for a few hours of use.

[MrSlack]

OLED screens have a limited lifespan so I wouldn't bother. Typically the different colour LEDs have different lifespans as well with green leds lasting much longer than blue so your display will slowly drift to an overall green tinge over time.

YMMV but that is ~2-6 years of lifespan for the display depending on how much of the time it is on. Mine does about 14 hours a day so that's just over 4 years if it was an OLED. This laptop is 6 years old now so you can imagine the problems.

[Gyro]

IBM T42 with SXGA+ 1400x1050 screen. 12 years on and still going strong... 

[encryptededdy]

OLED screens have a limited lifespan so I wouldn't bother. Typically the different colour LEDs have different lifespans as well with green leds lasting much longer than blue so your display will slowly drift to an overall green tinge over time.

YMMV but that is ~2-6 years of lifespan for the display depending on how much of the time it is on. Mine does about 14 hours a day so that's just over 4 years if it was an OLED. This laptop is 6 years old now so you can imagine the problems.

That's certainly true, however I think this is alleviated somewhat since this is a Samsung AMOLED screen and, for their larger panels, they use a "S-Stripe" subpixel layout.



The blue subpixels are larger to somewhat make up for their reduced lifespan.

Unfortunately lifespan and burn-in certainly are still problems with OLED, however after owning a modern OLED Phone and seeing LG's OLED TVs in person, I can't get over how crappy blacks appear on any LCD screen... they all look like a horrible grey when put up against any OLED panel.

The other nice thing is that most OLED screens dim without PWM down to a point, and then after that use very high frequency PWM, whereas most laptop screens I've encountered so far use fairly low frequency PWM, which certainly annoys some people I know (personally I'm not sensitive to the PWM backlight, but I know many who are).

Finally most OLED screens I've encountered go much dimmer than LCDs, which is nice when working at night.

[Mechatrommer]

[img]
The blue subpixels are larger to somewhat make up for their reduced lifespan.

from the picture you posted, if you are talking about larger area, i cant agree. but if you are talking about larger longest dimension then its ok... for computer monitor, to compensate for reduced color lifespan, buy monitor calibrator. but for tv, if you are not happy anymore, buy another one. but its ok with me, what is not ok is if i have to buy another one, knowing the other components like mobo, gpu etc where the cost is mostly at are still working fine. and esp when you have an option to buy and customize separately.

btw, if this OLED is the newer generation like my Samsung LED monitor here, then i'm not so happy, i prefer the older LCD technology and to stretch far back, i remember i still prefer CRT monitor better. the newer LED monitor has a strange color shift from yellow to blue if you move viewing angle from top to bottom which is not present in LCD. and to strecth far back, LCD has a strange contrast or brightness shift compared to CRT. CRT is the most perfect color viewing monitor from any angles, except large and heavy.. AFAIK... i trust to myself that if the present market still produce 23-30" computer CRT monitor, i'll sure buy it and will provide space for that perfect color monitor...

[rickselectricalprojects]

Both my home and school laptops are made by HP. They both have decent performance but the build quality isn't the best.

[diyaudio]

MSI GT70, Gaming Laptop.. (played games 4 years ago ) 

Needs a battery though and the dam thing weighs a ton... 38 Kg, its powerful enough though. battery life 3-hrs.

[tszaboo]

http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/x-series/x1-yoga/

wtf? OLED display coming soon? 2560x1440p + touch screen?
vPro cpu. It's also thin and has a pcie ssd. This thing looks amazing.

And awful keyboard, no keyboard back lighting or thinklight, no rollcage, bad trackpoint, no dock connector, no dedicated buttons for volume, switch for wifi.
That is the issue with new thinkpads. They are: Woo shiny!

[MrSlack]

ThinkLight is awesome.

That and the yellow USB port is a charge port even when the unit is turned off.

[TinkerFan]

I've got a HP EliteBook, 2540p, which I'd say is really good, although useless for gaming (some intel on-chip graphics). It has an i7 quad core in it with 4GB RAM standart, but I upgraded to 8. It is quite small, but thick and relatively heavy.
CAD and that sort of stuff works great, but the laptop has a very small HDD (170GB), which really sucks....

[kaz911]

What brand of laptop offers the best quality nowadays? DELL?

On the interweb, every site says different.

All I know is, most of today's laptops fail really quickly (in like couple of years). Mostly due to cracked solder balls on GPU.

Apple Macbook Pro - or Lenovo ThinkPad has the best build quality. My MBP is a Late 2013 and it is good - better than my previous MBP 17" in board quality and have not had any issues with it. My ThinkPads are solid- the one I use currently is the W540 - and apart from Lenovo's experimental crappy trackpad "buttons" - it is a workhorse once you remove bloat ware.  The W550 went back to normal Trackpad but sacrificed on performance - so won't upgrade to that.

But I do miss my 17" ThinkPad and 17" MBP - no longer made

But ThinkPad quality is slowly declining compared to the olden golden days. But still better IMHO than Dell/Alienware, HP and others. But with Lenovo you get real service manuals - something you do not get with most other notebooks. And parts are still "relatively" cheap. So anything from changing display panel to putting in a UK/US/DK keyboard - where many others it is impossible to change anything.

And I do love my little red thingy (known by many naughty names) in the middle of the keyboard. I would not consider any notebook (apart from MBP) without it.

[kleblanc]

I prefer the Dell and Lenovo business laptops. They are generally designed for end user upgrades without having to take everything apart like my Lenovo Yoga 3. I am at an impasse between the Flex 3 and Dell E7240. The Yoga has a QHD that has scaling issues with Windows and the Dell is a 720 screen. Looking to get rid of both and find a 13"ish laptop with 1080 anti glare IPS.

My go to machine for field service is a Surface 3. Not the greatest or fastest. Better than a cellphone and charges off of micro usb, my spare battery is an Anker portable that I also use on my phone. With the type cover and a "rugged" case it's about the size of a 3 subject notebook plus the Bluetooth travel mouse. The pen is great for notes and marking up drawings, other than that I rarely use the touchscreen. 

Not an EE, just a calibration/field service technician.

Desktop is just an consumer HP i5 with a 1TB SSD.

[encryptededdy]

btw, if this OLED is the newer generation like my Samsung LED monitor here, then i'm not so happy, i prefer the older LCD technology and to stretch far back, i remember i still prefer CRT monitor better. the newer LED monitor has a strange color shift from yellow to blue if you move viewing angle from top to bottom which is not present in LCD. and to strecth far back, LCD has a strange contrast or brightness shift compared to CRT. CRT is the most perfect color viewing monitor from any angles, except large and heavy.. AFAIK... i trust to myself that if the present market still produce 23-30" computer CRT monitor, i'll sure buy it and will provide space for that perfect color monitor...

OLED should produce near-perfect viewing angles.

As for the contrast/brightness shift on your monitor, it's likely that your monitor is just using a cheaper TN panel. Have you tried a higher end LCD monitor with a IPS / PLS / AHVA panel? They're not that expensive if you know what to look for, and they will give you very good viewing angles.

http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/x-series/x1-yoga/

wtf? OLED display coming soon? 2560x1440p + touch screen?
vPro cpu. It's also thin and has a pcie ssd. This thing looks amazing.

And awful keyboard, no keyboard back lighting or thinklight, no rollcage, bad trackpoint, no dock connector, no dedicated buttons for volume, switch for wifi.
That is the issue with new thinkpads. They are: Woo shiny!

It has a keyboard backlight and a dock connector (on the side, "OneLink+")

I haven't used the X1 Yoga keyboard personally but imho the new Thinkpad keyboard is better than the old (Sandy Bridge and earlier) ones except for Layout.

What brand of laptop offers the best quality nowadays? DELL?

On the interweb, every site says different.

All I know is, most of today's laptops fail really quickly (in like couple of years). Mostly due to cracked solder balls on GPU.

Apple Macbook Pro - or Lenovo ThinkPad has the best build quality. My MBP is a Late 2013 and it is good - better than my previous MBP 17" in board quality and have not had any issues with it. My ThinkPads are solid- the one I use currently is the W540 - and apart from Lenovo's experimental crappy trackpad "buttons" - it is a workhorse once you remove bloat ware.  The W550 went back to normal Trackpad but sacrificed on performance - so won't upgrade to that.

But I do miss my 17" ThinkPad and 17" MBP - no longer made

But ThinkPad quality is slowly declining compared to the olden golden days. But still better IMHO than Dell/Alienware, HP and others. But with Lenovo you get real service manuals - something you do not get with most other notebooks. And parts are still "relatively" cheap. So anything from changing display panel to putting in a UK/US/DK keyboard - where many others it is impossible to change anything.

And I do love my little red thingy (known by many naughty names) in the middle of the keyboard. I would not consider any notebook (apart from MBP) without it.

There is no W550, only a W550s. The new high power 15" mobile workstation is the P50. There's also a 17" Workstation ThinkPad now, the P70.

Both have proper TrackPoint and trackpad dedicated buttons back. Also Intel's new Skylake mobile Xeon E3s (so ECC RAM in a laptop that's not a huge Sager, finally).

Also take a look at the Dell Precision 7510 and 7710 for mobile workstations.

[reagle]

All my machines are used Thinkpads. They are  very reasonable on fleebay once a few years old and parts are aplenty.
Main laptop is an oldish Thinkpad X200 (circa 2010), while an even crustier Thinkpad X31 (2004) runs things like serial terminal etc.
These things just keep on going And if not- easy to fix. I may look for an X230 one of these days. These are all slim/light/single drive machines
If you need a more powerfull thing- T420+ or W5xx series are a good choice.

P.S I do use a desktop for coding/boards design and some gaming.

[Lomax]

It's Thinkpads all the way down for me; 770Z, 600E, 600X, X32, T42p, T43p, X60, X200t, X200s... Next in line will be an X201s, then maybe the X220 - beyond which despair and misery looms.

• Best keyboards ever.
• Trackpoint.
• Thinklight.
• Matte screens.

• .
• Supremely serviceable.
• Great docking stations.
• Being in the same club as NASA,
  and other serious types.
• Not being in the same club as clueless hipsters.
• Starless and business black.

[MrSlack]

I'm making my X201 last forever or retiring. That's the only path to non misery.