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ThinkPad T series and E series are very good - first hand experience...
"If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization." ― Gerald Weinberg
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Thanks!
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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I appear to be in a small minority here, but I've had good experience with the HP laptops. Over the last 15 years I have bought 6 laptops for various family members. 5 are still working away to this day. (The oldest was junked because its screen broke in a fall)
They are not bleeding-edge technology, but they work for us.
As for Lenovo, we have had two of them. I don't like the amount of spyware and bloatware that they come with. They also make it difficult to remove - after installing a clean system, using their "driver installation" app will also reinstallmuch of the spyware.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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I have had similar experience. Have an HP touch screen 17" laptop (2 years old) and HP desktop (3 years old). Both solid and not overloaded with bloatware. I use them everyday. My Lenova was retired because I could not upgrade OS and hard drive was weak. I do have a beef with HP is printer systems. But that's another story.
"A little time, a little trouble, your better day"
Badfinger
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I bought one 2 weeks ago. A yoga, since that had what I wanted, namely a fast ssd, metal case, backlit keyboard and a decent cpu. Couldn't give a crap about the 10-point touchscreen, 180deg hinge to make it a tablet or the inbuilt hd camera.
14" 2880x1800 oled, 16g ram, 1tb nvme ssd. i7-1260. Dolby atmos sound, backlit keyboard.
It's a sexy machine, with spectacular build quality, though wasn't what I'd call cheap.
Everything about it is amazing..
Except 2 things.
0) Windows 11's Bluetooth support sucks big hairy donkey whatsits. All of the bluetooth audio devices I own produce glitchy sound. Both synch issues when watching youtube or locally-stored videos with VLC, sometimes combined with lower pitch. Someone online has pointed out that a 1k test signal was played back at 44100/48000 of what it should be (with a pair of Huwawei laptops)
MS bt drivers for it only allow 48000hz BT sound output. I've been back and forth with them for a week and appear to have an admission that their third-party supplier (Microsoft) has let down the team. Think I'll return it and keep working on the old Win 7 laptop I have.
1) The warranty scheme is messed-up. They offer a 12 month warranty, to which they add an extra month. Why the extra month, you ask? Because the warranty period starts when they sell it to the retailer, rather than when the retailer sells it to you. They've even got a button in their support website marked "Problems with my warranty" or similar. I got mine with under 10months left, according to their Vantage app. They fixed that after a single email.
Everything else about it though is like my L badged 'toyota'. (Bloody Awesome) Sucks bugger-all juice while going hard, a tank of energy lasts ages. I've been getting about 10 hours per charge from the 71Wh battery, the inbuilt sound is spectacular and it's an absolute joy to use.
The sound issue though is not what I'd expect from something with Dolby written on it, which cost over $2.6k. 
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I bought its "little bro" Ideapad Flex 5 a few months ago for about A$1.4k. [i7, 16GB / 512GB] Ran Win11 long enough to make it let go of the SSD (kill "fast start") then repartitioned it and loaded Ubuntu. Very happy with it. Much lighter than my other lappies, battery runs pretty much all day, so I don't need to lug the charger around a lot of the time. Feels solid, looks to be well engineered articulated hinges, magnetic closure is nice. About the only beef I have with it is that, like so many others around that size, the cursor up/down keys are half height. Keyboard backlight is a nice extra for late night use. Not a fan of touchpads, so I got a logitech pebble too.
Software rusts. Simon Stephenson, ca 1994. So does this signature. me, 2012
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Thanks for suggesting linux.  I tried to run a live distro to ensure (read, prove) the bt hardware was all okay and it was windoze at fault. You can imagine my enthusiasm at being greeted with a bitlocker key-entry screen before I could continue in win11.  That increases the number of times I've found a MS account useful to 1.
The only thing holding me back was the reported reduction in battery life, which, I'm led to understand can be fixed with an upgrade to the newest kernel.
Perhaps I'll get adventurous over the weekend and try setting up dual-boot.
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Well you've got a good long weekend to do it! 
Ubuntu 22.04LTS, kernel 5.19. Light usage (editing, email, a few browser tabs, WiFi and BT on) it runs 8 hours but not 12. (I had a week in Mudgee recently working 12 hour shifts and there were no spare power points at my desk.)
Haven't experienced any BT issues. I use a BT mouse with it, and move files to and from other devices.
Software rusts. Simon Stephenson, ca 1994. So does this signature. me, 2012
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Let's just hope the weekend stays good! 
Thanks again.
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I'm holding out for a 12 point touch screen. 
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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My Lenovo ThinkPad eraser head pointer goes into a drift sometimes that is hard to stop. It acts like I'm still pushing on it when I'm not. Very annoying. I have not found any device properties that I can adjust.
If I have a lot of work to do I connect an external mouse to avoid the problem.
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It sounds like yours is physically worn out.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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I just got a Samsung Book3 pro 360. I maxed it out on memory and have a TB SSD. I love that sucker. I got the bigger one with the larger keyboard and screen.
I don't think it will take a physical beating. It is soo light. But, it has taken every programming number crunching things I have thrown at it for a month or more.
Lenovo, i think they are better than they were last year.
Dell I agree throughly middle of the road nothing special. and I think they are going down hill because of no competition.
To err is human to really elephant it up you need a computer
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I use a Lenovo Legion (gaming) for development already for two years, it is fast, thin bevel, matte screen (not the glossy you have with touchscreens), enough USB ports, and it has a built-in network connector which you won't find much in recent laptops.
It is missing display port only HDMI, but mine is already 2 years old.
So far no issues.
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Thanks. After the comments here I've found myself enamored with the ASUS ProArt Studiobook 16 OLED (H7600, 12th Gen Intel)
It's got an RTX 3080 TI which is acceptable for the games I play, even at 4k. I have a 4080 at home anyway.
The thing that gets me about it, besides the generous performance specs, and nice video (for a laptop, anyway) is the OLED screen. OMG, I love OLED. It's only 60Hz but I barely care. I usually just turn VSync off anyway on my games. (judge me!)
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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Hey,
I have two thinkpads from Lenovo, T510 and W530. Been using T510 from 2014 till now, actually I was having some kernel level issues in Ubuntu on T510, probably it will be fixed, but I just love it, build quality is like tank. I have dropped it sometimes, even the lcd is blacked out from one side but it is still working as good as it was on day one. I have played Assassins creed 3(whole game) with the 'little eraserhead pointer' and many other games, did my machine learning project using opencv and tensorflow on it. The machine was running for weeks training the model at temps above 85C, and I bought second hand, well I can go on for hours, plus W530 is also like a tank, been mining on it, played games on it. All in all, lenovo thinkpads are still a good choice to go.
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I have a Lenovo P51 and I'd say it's insanely good. This particular one is also insanely over-specced (for 4 years ago) and thus insanely expensive: it has the fastest mobile Xeon available at the time, 32GB memory, a 1TB SSD, 15" 4k screen and NVidia Quadro graphics, which are good enough for me to run three external monitors as well as the laptop's screen.
The two things I really like about it are the famously-excellent keyboard and the fact that it can cool that Xeon enough for it to run flat out, all the time. Most laptops with high-end CPUs can only keep them cool for short bursts then have to throttle down, but this is a tank. It's heavy but that's OK as I rarely need to move it.
Regards
Nelviticus
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I'm on my fourth Thinkpad laptop in under 2 years. 
The first one broke down after I installed all software I needed. (2 days wasted) 
The second one lost the ability to connect to any network. 
The third one had a rebooting issue. (rebooted when I didn't want it to reboot) 
My fourth one is working for now. (I've only had for 4 months) 
General speaking:
. It is a bit slow
. Ridicules few ports. (1 HDMI, 2 USB ports - none of the USB-3)
. Very small screen
My boss supplies this stuff. I would never buy one myself, I would go for ASUS.
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My 8 yo Lenovo Yoga 15 is still perking along. It's obviously not as fast as a newer unit, but it handles VS 2022 just fine, and does everything I need without any problems.
I purchased Lenovo T series for both my sons when they entered college -- these laptops are now 7 and 10 yo, respectively, and both still work fine. Longevity is not a problem IME.
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My previous employer apparently got a bad batch of Lenovo Thinkpads. I say that because one of the techs told me that I wasn’t the only one who had problems. During the near year I was working for them I went through three or four of them. The first one was starting to go bad. It would just lock up. I think it was hard drive related. The others just died and I think those were somehow power supply related. The last one died just as I was about to go into a Teams meeting. I work remote and since the company is in New Hampshire and I’m in Florida I would end up having a couple of days of down time while I waited for the replacement. I was laid off from that job at end of October last year so I’m currently on a contract and the client sent me a Lenovo Thinkpad to work on which I received in late November and, knock wood, it hasn’t given me any problems.
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You can type on a laptop?  My fingers just get all tangled up. I need my keyboard and regular mouse (I much prefer the trackball mouse, but my thumb disagrees) to get anything done.
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Your question intrigued me, so I went looking at my 10-12 laptops acquired over the years.
I guess I am a boring, Honda/Toyota kind of guy. I have always valued reliability, and not much else.
I have HP, and Dell. I only use a wireless keyboard and mouse combo, as I hate trying to type on a laptop keyboard. They are too flat for me.  I already struggle with my typing skills.
Finally, take a look at Acer. don't know if they have the pazazz you are looking for but have loved their desktops for 30 years or so.
ed
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I have a Lenovo Thinkpad Ultrabook that's about 2 years old -- great keyboard with pointing nub, great display, no problems at all. It was worth the extra bucks.
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I'm with you on the eraser nib. I cannot work without it. Although some Dell and Toshiba computers also have them, the do not work as well. The IBM laptops WERE tops in quality. Lenovo design and build are not quite as good, but stick with the Thinkpad models and they are plenty good enough. I get lots of use out of my Thinkpads. I'm still using two 2013 vintage i7-based W520 laptops that have 32Gb RAM and just keep running. These were the last Thinkpad to have real keyboards. I also have two recent P-series laptops that seem to be their current line of workstation replacement laptops. My 2nd choice would be Dell high end models. I have to use one for one of my clients. Solid build quality, durable, and an eraser nib that is usable but not a pleasure to use.
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After my first, and definitely last, experience with Lenovo I will NEVER give them my money again. For starters, I experienced frequent BSOD events for some weeks. No one at Lenovo was ANY help - and that's a theme that is consistent. Eventually that issue just magically cleared up.
I read online that folks had been having an issue with connecting anything to the thunderbolt and dock ports simultaneously. (See ports 2 and 3 in the link provided).
https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpadt/t490/22tp2tt4900?orgRef=https%253A%252F%252Fwww.bing.com%252F&cid=us:sem|se|msn|brand_commercial_think_t+series|lenovo+t490|lenovo%20thinkpad%20T490|e|402399263|1271036205890394|kwd-79440208754324:loc-190|text|brand&msclkid=9b305a7c9564133e2cd63e5d331f574c
I CALLED Lenovo and asked about this before I purchased their Cat 5 adapter and explained that about 70% of copmplaints I found online were about this issue. He gave me smarta$$ answer about percentages and assured me there'd be no issue.
I purchased the adapter and - SURPRISE! - the internet was right. You CANNOT use both ports at once, the plastic base of their proprietary dock adapter is too wide for that. Tried calling them back and spent HOURS on the phone being routed in circles. Eventually I gave up.
So now that the BSOD issues have stabilized the machine works pretty well, but after the stupidity evidenced in such poor engineering, and the insufferable attitude I got after waiting hours to speak to a "human," they can pound salt.
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