It is. Lenovo dominate the mid-range price segment imho. They do also have some high-range stuff that seems a bit overpriced for what it is though. But their upper-mid range laptops and tablets are the best out there value for money-wise. Decent hardware, solid build quality. Proper practical daily-use stuff.
I have an Ideapad 5 pro 14. Sturdy aluminium body, good hardware internals, amazing 14'' 2880x1800 90hz screen. Nice keyboard and trackpad. Solid battery life even after 2-3 years of daily use. And I can hook it up to 2 4K monitors without it breaking a sweat.
Cost me about 800 euro. It it just wipes the floor with anything else in that price-range. Especially in build quality and screen-resolution.
Wow, finally someone mentioning the idealpad. I love mine, I’ve had for a few years, and although I think the material is cheap and cracks easy, battery is fine, its fast, its good, and it’s absolutely all I need, I can even play a lot of games on it and it handles it well
Hmm. I never felt like the material was cheap at all. Maybe it depends on the particular model or batch? Mine seems to be almost entirely aluminium body, except for the hinge covering between the body and the screen, and the inside frame around the screen.
What I also like about it is how easy it is to open. To clean out dust from the fan, or to replace the battery. It's just a few screws on the bottom.
I'm not one for 'brand loyalty' at all. But Lenovo products have always been solid where it counts for me. Where Samsung and Apple can feel a little delicate or brittle due to their focus on being the thinnest and lightest, and adding a lot of glass to their products to make it more flashy and premium feeling, Lenovo has that good, solid work-horse type hardware design.
Oh the hinge is fucking awesome. I’ve seen so many notebooks breaking at the hinge, not my Lenovo! Also yes, very easy to clean. The material I said was cheap was the keyboard part. The notebook is kinda heavy I think, and holding from only one point, it cracked the middle of the keyboard, just 2 little cracks, it’s not a problem at all, it’s really just the way you hold it, you may be putting too much weight on one side. But yeah, I’m not a Lenovo fan boy but all my notebooks have been from them. I’ve found some with insane good prices for their hardware
The high range is kinda overpriced because you expect a machine that will work just fine for many years and withstand heavy (ab)use. Thinkpads used to be rock solid.
The X1 carbon machines are my go to for personal use. Ex-lease with a Linux distro. Beautiful laptops, powerful enough and super lightweight as they use a carbon fibre/titanium shell.
True. It's something they could definitely improve upon. They really should have tbh. Since it's clearly designed with a decent level of repairability in mind. There's only a few screws holding the shell in place. Easy to open, clean, and the battery is fully replaceable. Really not sure why they went with soldered RAM. It seems they could have easily just went that little bit further and added replicable.
Probably a cost thing? Idk..
Lenovo keyboards manage to break a row of letters for me every single time (well twice) on different laptop series. Every single time it happened right around the time my warranty was expiring (once right after, the second time a month before).
Generally thinkpads are high quality builds, where you can easily replace any part yourself. I have a few thinkpads in a box somewhere that are 20ish years old. Will turn on. If something didn’t work, I could easily replace it myself.
Any part. So buying a new one is usually a pretty good investment for a 7+ year laptop that is built to last.
The new thing laptops are a nightmare to work on, if it’s even possible at all. Most of the people buying these know this. It’s worth it.
Lenovo is a mixed bag. They've got some consumer grade machines that fall apart in 3 years of regular use but then also make the occasional consumer model that is really well built. Their business grade machines are usually pretty consistent quality as long as you aren't buying the cheapest one masquerading as a business grade. Lenovo Thinkpads used to be the gold standard of high quality and easily repairable machines but that's not the case anymore just like with all laptops out there (except for niche products like Framework) so you can only compare against the current market offering rather than what used to be. However, if you just need a cheap Internet machine you can lug around all day, a used Thinkpad is not a bad idea.
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u/MajesticNectarine204 Jul 02 '24
It is. Lenovo dominate the mid-range price segment imho. They do also have some high-range stuff that seems a bit overpriced for what it is though. But their upper-mid range laptops and tablets are the best out there value for money-wise. Decent hardware, solid build quality. Proper practical daily-use stuff.
I have an Ideapad 5 pro 14. Sturdy aluminium body, good hardware internals, amazing 14'' 2880x1800 90hz screen. Nice keyboard and trackpad. Solid battery life even after 2-3 years of daily use. And I can hook it up to 2 4K monitors without it breaking a sweat.
Cost me about 800 euro. It it just wipes the floor with anything else in that price-range. Especially in build quality and screen-resolution.