Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E430 627156U 14' LED Notebook - Intel - Core Review

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The 13.3" screen laptop weighing less than 5 lbs. are the ideal dimensions for a business laptop. A few years ago, there were a number of business and consumer laptops with these dimensions selling for $500-700. However, with Apple's success with the MacBook Pros, other PC manufacturers started copying Apple with higher priced ultrabooks. Now, it is practically impossible to find a 13.3" notebook that costs less than $1,000. This leaves the folks pinching pennies with the less than ideal 14" notebooks.

I have owned this laptop for a few days and I have listed some of my observations. I will update this review if I find any glaring deficiencies.

With stock parts, the machine scored 2,200 on the PC Mark 7 and a 5.0 on the Windows Experience Index (WEI). The graphics performance on Windows Aero was the lagging metric on WEI at 5.0.

Pros:

1. Intel i5-3210M Processor – It might be the slowest i5 processor in the market right now but it's still good. It should run most office applications with aplomb.

2. Size and weight – The size and weight of this laptop is just right (almost). It has a 14" screen that has a maximum screen resolution of 1366x768 (720p). It weighs 4.7 lbs so you can carry it or lug it along your bag without too much effort.

3. Expandability – It has a PCI Express Mini Card free. This gives the users the option of adding an mSATA drive to improve the laptop's performance. After adding a Plextor 64GB mSATA SSD, the scores jumped to 3,700 on the PC Mark 7. The main WEI score stayed the same at 5.0 but the Hard Disk score was significantly improved at 7.8 from 5.9. Users can also expand the memory to 16GB (according to the Lenovo software) and the hard disk. For some reason, Lenovo only offers the 1TB drives at 5,400 rpm. I believe it was a technical decision to keep the laptop cool.

4. Price – It may be last year's model, but the performance and value are really at a sweet spot. You will be hard pressed to find another laptop with the same price/performance at less than $600.

5. Good documentation – Lenovo provides a Hardware Maintenance guide to help users upgrade their laptop. It is a pretty comprehensive guide that even shows users how to replace the LCD and motherboard.

Cons:

1. Ctrl and Fn keys are switched – This is not a big deal though since you can switch the keys in the BIOS.

2. Some LED indicators are missing – For some reason the hardware engineers at Lenovo decided to ditch some of the indicator lights. There are no indicator lights for Caps Lock, wifi and the Hard Disk. In fact, the only lights that you will see are the small red lights indicating power on and a small green light on the right side indicating battery charging.

3. Relatively low memory and Hard Disk space This is also not a big deal because of the low price and good documentation. Instead of configuring the laptop on the Lenovo website, you can just buy a prepackaged one and upgrade it at a lower cost. Upgrading this laptop on your own should take a few hours at most.

4. No Windows 7 media – Users need to make a copy of the Windows 7 recovery disks on DVD or a thumb drive. In addition, there's a lot of documentation on the web showing how to write your own Windows 7 copy on DVD or USB. Lenovo provides recovery disks for Windows 8.

I upgraded the memory to 8GB with Kingston HyperX sticks and the Hard Disk to 1 TB with a Toshiba hard disk. The final benchmarks with all the modifications are 4,300+ on PC Mark 7 and 6.5 on the Windows Experience Index. The 30% increase in Windows Aero performance indicates that the stock 4GB in memory may be too low and was affecting graphics performance. Overall, I find this laptop to be a solid value buy. It is a 4-star laptop at stock but a potential 5-star machine with the right upgrades.

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I have used Lenovo Think Pads for years. They are built very solid, and this one is not an exception from that standpoint. I like the cursor control peg, a primary reason I bought this Lenovo. Also, it has a lot of other features that wanted, eg HDMI. The only thing that is disappointing is that the display is not as crisp as the past Lenovo's I have had. It's like the contrast needs to be adjusted, If you plan to use that display a lot, I personally would take a pass on this laptop.

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Some of the highlights, even other features are also best a that price:

high performance, fast and easy to manage, with lots of additional apps

lightweigt, good outfit, resistant

would buy it again, with closed eyes

Honest reviews on Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E430 627156U 14' LED Notebook - Intel - Core

it is not as perfect as I thought before.

some noisy!!

be sure to pay attention to the place of "Ctrl", "Fn" and "PrtSc" buttons. its not as usual.

also, you need to press "Fn" button to activate F1 to F12 buttons!!! that's awful!!

look at the youtube links about this product.

but overall, its price is low and it is not a heavy laptop.

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I bought this computer open-box special from Best Buy and it is amazing! I love it, quiet mouse-button, ten-key on the right side, fast, and very user friendly. I strongly recommend this laptop!!

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Cheap Toshiba Satellite 15.6" Laptop - 3rd Gen Intel® Core i5-3230

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List Price: $799.00
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Replaced my old Toshiba with this one and was not disappointed. Fairly good speakers for a small laptop. Lighted keyboard is a plus. No issues playing high quality HD video without lag. Shop around, BB smokes this price.

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Shopped around a lot before buying this laptop. Other laptops may have more features/performance but I felt the $$$ went up faster than the features. Very happy with this purchase, definitely got my moneys worth.

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the computer is fast and efficient, plus the backlit keyboard is wonderful.. i will recommend this for anyone. :) windows 8 takes a bit getting used to and i hate that there is no start button but the computer workd fine :)

Honest reviews on Toshiba Satellite 15.6" Laptop - 3rd Gen Intel® Core i5-3230

over all. performance and quality. hope to get as many years service from this one as the old one did.

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Defanatly a very good laptop for the money. I'd recommend you shop around. I picked this up at a local retailer for 629. I don't think you can do high end gaming on this computer though. I have yet to see this computer slow down. I love how you get 4 usb 3.0 ports. the speakers sound awesome and the mic is good as well. I really don't think you will find a computer with this much performance for the money. Plus the expandability to 16 gb ram is awesome. I picked up the coolermaster x2 notebook cooler for this thing and it works perfectly to keep it cool. The battery life is not the best. I'd say 3 hours or so. I do wished it had bluetooth but it's not a deal breaker for me. The keyboard is not all that bad. The best keyboard I ever used on a laptop was on a macbook pro but this keyboard is not bad.

Best Lenovo ThinkPad T400 7417 Deals

Customer Ratings:

If you're like me and can't live without the ThinkLight or pointer mouse then the new T line is for you. With the new 25w mobile cpu (P8400 in my case) it runs cool enough to not need an additional platform cooler while on your lap (it doesn't blow hot air either). From the first reports they must have repositioned the Thinklight because my doesn't blind me (it's inside the bezel more now I think). You might want to download the additional Keyboard Customizer program from Lenovo to disable the forward and back web keys that are next to the Up arrow. I kept pressing them by mistake and causing all kinds of problems.

Pros: Thinklight. pointer mouse (hate those aweful touchpads! disabled mine). thin and light. Great battery life even with just 6 cell. Single latch switch. Cool running cpu. Bought through Ebay (ellan_mouse) for only $750 after 10% ebay discount with no tax or shipping charges (now that's a deal!). Keyboard feels the same (not flexy like other reports). XP Pro still available.

Cons: Screen off to the right, widescreen (I like tall more than wide), lcd screen not the brightest and bad off angle viewing (might be good for security and keeping peepers away though). Had to install program to disable keyboard buttons (forward/back web page buttons). Speakers sound tiny. I don't know if it's my Airlink 150N router but I'm only getting 72Mb top speed from its 5100N wireless. Not as easy to add memory as older units (must remove keyboard bezel now).

Seems like a lot of Cons but at this price I am not complaining. I have a huge home system so my T400 is just a stripped down unit with XP Pro (not whista), only 1 gb of memory (everything running uses less than 700 Mb), intel video, dvd only reader (I use flash drives and only burn dvds on my home unit). Didn't make sense to pay another $300 for options (video, burner) that my home unit can do better and faster. I still use the T400 way more at home for doing most things. I just got the T400 so I don't know if it will last as long as my old T22 has (still running when I sold it) but I hope so! It may not be the prettiest unit but it's light, fast, cheap and practical for the discriminating user.

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If you want a performance laptop with durability and reliability, look no more. ThinkPads have been the top of the line laptops for IBM and now Lenovo. I bought this for half the price of what a MacBook Pro costs and performed some easy installation upgrades such as Solid State drive and 8GB of Ram. With a Macbook you have to do a bit more work just to perform these tedious upgrades (Apple doesn't like it when you open up their products).

This Laptop is lightning fast, the keyboard is a joy to type on, speakers are great, webcam view is clear and the very cool thing about this laptop is the Ultra bay hot swap. If you don't use the CD/DVD recordable drive as much, you can easily eject it by pressing the Ultra bay eject tab and insert an additional battery or an extra hard drive for backups. This feature is very very cool and you can't do that on a MacBook Pro!

Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit runs flawlessly (thanks to Microsoft)and by far is the best Windows version Microsoft has ever built. The BitLocker encryption is a plus which allows you to encrypt USB, SD cards, folders, files or the hard drive itself for extra protection. But if you want security, this laptop has another cool feature..it has an accurate fingerprint reader that allows you to associate any finger with your password(s). In other words, no more typing passwords to log into Windows. When you boot up your laptop, it prompts you to swipe your finger and presto! Without the finger swipe, no thief or intruder can wipe or access or remove your hard drive without that finger print. You can't do that on a Macbook Pro!!

Finally, I love the so called rollcage technology (durable frame inside)that guards it from those accidental drops. It also has a cool drain technology for those accidental spills...you can't do that on Macbook Pro!

So do yourself a favor, if want want more bang for your buck with all these extra goodies and performance, get a ThinkPad! I also highly recommend uninstalling any Lenovo software you may not want to use just to free up some space. I only use Lenovo update software, Fingerprint and Power Manager. Those are all you need!

$1600 for top of the line ThinkPad with goodies vs. $2200 for a Macbook Pro (without SSD or 8GB Ram)....the choice is obvious!

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The battery life is long 6.5 hour with surprising low heat. I can use it for hours without any burning feeling. The weight is just tolerable with big enough screen. It is the best laptop that i have ever used.

Honest reviews on Lenovo ThinkPad T400 7417

I ordered this ThinkPad T400 on Friday night and I received the laptop at 2:00pm on the next following Tuesday. What could I ask for more with the $220.18 high-end laptop, with no tax, free and fast shipping, and especially it runs so much quieter and so much more reliable than my over-$1800-customized-order HP Pavilion dv9700t CTO (it has been crashed like crazy because of the conflict motherboard and Nvidia Geforce GPU, HP has dropped the ball !) ?!

-The laptop came with clean installation and a copy of authentic Windows-OS Disc as refurbished condition from Tampa-Laptop.

-This was my first time to buy a refurbished laptop and so far the money was well spent! It just reminded me that the experience of buying a high-end or top-of-line-used cars, that is, you would get enjoying the "high-end/ high quality" for a small fraction of the original price.

-The courtesy service from the Tampa-Laptop computer was the reason that I wrote this positive comment.

Well, all I could say it: "keep up the good customer oriented service, Tampa-Laptop !"

Thanks

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I purchased my computer new back in the summer of 2008. This has been one of the best computers I have owned. I usually replace my computers every three years however this one works so great I see no reason to make the change. This computer gets heavy use and works like new. Its on in my household between 2-4 hours a day without a single issue. This is my 4th Lenovo, replacing my older T61, and I was thinking about a T410 and see no need. Nothing special (besides tablets) has been developed to justify a new purchase. I would highly recommend the Lenovo T400.

HP Pavilion dv5-2070us 14.5-Inch Laptop Reviews

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I own a powerful gaming desktop PC, and my previous laptop was just a mid-okay 2GB ram/AMD 2.0GHz with less that 250MB of graphic memory on it. So I only used it for school work and that was pretty much it. Now with this HP pavilion dv5, I find myself completely ignoring my gaming desktop. Because this laptop can play most of the PC games that I play (Just finished playing call of duty 4 Modern warfare). It has 500GB space on it and comes with a HMDI port, so that means I connect it to my sumsung HD 1080p screen and everything looks pandora. Also has a very good webcam with a lot of options. It is simple light weight machine with a slick design. It comes with the super quick HP start up, so no need to start up win 7 all the time, especially if you just wanna go online.

Cons: The mouse pad is annoying, just grrrrrrrrrrruugghh!

The inbuilt speakers are so poor. But works great (dolby advance audio) if you connect them to good PC speakers.

I like it ...

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Pros: Everything it's supposed to be, Light, Slick, Nice Design, Good Webcam.

Cons: Touchpad is different than what i'm used to but that's just personal preference.

All in All this laptop is good.

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Superfast delivery........ i am very impressed. i got it delivered within 2 working days.

Thanks Amazon.

Reviews of Dell Inspiron i15R-2646MRB 15.6-Inch Laptop (Mars Black)

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I bought this during the Black Friday week sales so I got a really good price reduction on the machine. Even at it's current higher price it's still a pretty good deal. It features a core i5 processor, 6GB of RAM and a 640GB internal drive. I haven't had any problem running software/games including Civ 5 which runs quickly and smoothly. The wireless and Bluetooth operate well, though the machine seems reluctant to automatically reconnect to a network once it has entered sleep mode.

The laptop is sturdy and the screen is bright. The keyboard takes a little getting used to as the keys are a bit off-center and some keys that you will use a lot are half-sized (cursor keys, delete, etc.). That takes a little getting used to. The fan is quiet and keeps the laptop cool. It runs noticeably cooler than my previous Dell laptops and much cooler than the HP laptop we have.

It comes with 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium and I haven't had any issues with older programs not running. Adding printers is noticeably faster and easier than it was with Vista. Office 10 trial is installed and you can run "starter" for free if you don't want to buy it. That's a nice feature if all you are going to do is basic word processing/worksheets.

The negatives for this model are fairly minor. The number and placement of ports is unusual. There are only four USB ports and two are on the back and the other two near the back, one on each side. I'd rather see over/under dual ports on the side. The other problem is the power cord falls out a lot. As in all the time. Even minor shifts in your sitting position can jar it loose.

Overall it's a very nice machine.

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I got this for $785. It appears the price has gone up. It is a good computer, quite fast. I am hoping that it lasts as long as my previous Dell.

I have a few minor quibbles...none of which particularly bother me, but I can see other people not being satisfied as a result of them.

It is not as sturdy as I would like.

There is a lot of "bloatware" installed on the machine that really needs to be taken care of to achieve optimal results.

The faux metal surface where you put your hands to use the keyboard will get scratched by your watch. So if that bothers you, don't get this computer.

The battery life is not amazing. I am getting about 1.5 hours off battery.

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The real product name of this laptop, as shown in BIOS and in Windows System Information, is Dell N5010. For its price, this is a good laptop, but it can also piss you off if you are peculiar about things:

1. For a 15.6" screen, the resolution is low: 1366x768. Business laptops have standard 1400x900 for 14" screens. I've had one for years and that resolution was great for the screen size. The screen is glossy and will reflect light. Outdoors, it's almost impossible to see anything, unless you hunch over the screen to shade it. POOR vertical viewing angles. 20 degree off the perpendicular direction to the screen, colors begin to shift visibly: whiteout if you look at the screen from above, darkened if you look from a bit below.

2. The keyboard can be really annoying:

silly reassignment of Fn keys to perform laptop-specific functions (volume up/down, Wi-Fi on/off etc.) instead of doing those by pressing Fn+F#. Configurable from the BIOS though.

besides that, the F# keys are labeled a faint blue on black, and are barely visible in a well-lit room. The reflection of the screen on the glossy laptop finish near the hinge doesn't help. The visible labeling is for the laptop function keys (Wi-fi on/off, brightness up/down etc.). This shows how the laptop is aimed at those who don't know what F5 does.

odd placement of the PrintScreen key between Insert and Delete

narrow trackpad buttons, often annoying to hit with the thumb

the arrow keys are too thin, half the height of normal keys

after having used laptops without a numeric keypad for the past few years, the keypad is not only useless; it gets in the way. where I expect Backspace to be, there's now Keypad Minus.

there is no Break key (useful for Win+Break to get the Windows System properties, or Ctrl+Break in command line applications)

there is no context menu key (equivalent to right click on the focused control)

3. My unit had a problem with the fan, while other owners reported theirs worked fine. Maybe Dell has a quality control problem here. For no reason at all, my laptop's fan would ramp up and whir every 2-3 minutes for about 20 seconds, even if there is no spike in CPU load. This became really annoying in a quiet environment, such as a classroom or library. I had updated to the latest BIOS (A12), and the problem was still there. One possible way to "fix" this is to always have the CPU running one core at full speed, e.g. by running some CPU-intensive application like Folding@Home. This will keep the fan at a constant (albeit loud) speed.

So make sure these things don't bother you, or you'll hate the laptop. Try to get a feel for the keyboard and trackpad at a local store (Staples, Office Max, Office Depot, Fry's etc.)

Honest reviews on Dell Inspiron i15R-2646MRB 15.6-Inch Laptop (Mars Black)

overall this is a good value laptop esp considering 6 GB RAM/500 GB HDD. screen resolution is great; however battery life is only 2 hours even with dimming the screen. my other dell laptop with a 9 cell battery (albeit 14 inch screen) lasts 4 hours.

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I got this laptop to use while traveling and it does what I wanted it to do. Add to that, the graphics and you have a great deal here. I'm not a big PC gamer, but I decided to try a couple games and see how they would work on the laptop. All the games I've installed so far, have worked perfectly. I've got a couple other Dell laptops I use for everyday things and home entertainment, both cost more than this laptop. The 2 older Dell's I have have the 17" monitors and continue to work great, but it is nice to have the slightly smaller Dell to take on trips with me. I don't use it battery powered too often, but it does have a fairly short battery life. If battery life is your biggest concern, don't bother with a laptop, pick up a netbook. I'm pleasantly surprised at the quality of this laptop, especially for the price paid to get it.

Reviews of Dell Inspiron 14R i14RMT-7475sLV 14-Inch Touchscreen Laptop (Moon

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List Price: $749.99
Sale Price: $599.99
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I like its design, i.e. touch screen, Windows 8, screen size, and above all, the price is right. Only glitch is the screen glare or resolution.

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The computer is nice, fast, light, ok. But the windows 8 is confused, i m still trying to learn it!

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I have had this computer for almost two months and it is working very well, the only think is that sometimes it takes to stopped, but I think so that is for the W8, maybe because I have a virtual account and not a PC account. I recommend this PC for people who need it to study or just review o create documents. I don't really recommend the PC for people who wants install heavy games programs.

In general the PC work very well and it faster, I love the touch screen, that make use it very easy.