Thinking of my next love

Its been three years since I bought my last machine, a Samsung Netbook.

As I am more of an enthusiast when it comes to computing, my atom machine is finding it hard to keep up with my demands.

I am planning to buy a ThinkPad, next month. It is not the full fledged T series, but the budget conscious L440.

Many people have asked me, why I cannot settle for a Dell or HP.

Following are a number of points I would like to highlight.

Why ThinkPad?

The build quality is second to none:

Yes, ToughBooks are tougher, but they are not exactly portable, right?

The quality of L440 cannot be compared to the T Series ThinkPads, but they are still solidly built.

Really long battery life:

The 9-cell battery is enough to give you 10+ hours of power, moreover, the idle power usage of a mere 4 Watts means it can operate as a pretty good server machine without burning your pocket down.

Absolutely no overheating issues:

My friends have quite powerful machines from other vendors, which overheat

when stressed. It is pretty hard to find a non overheating laptop these days.

A big plus point for people who like to run multiple Virtual Machines on their system, while doing some work on MATLAB.

Military Spec Testing:

I told you, a ThinkPad is tough. But the Mil-Spec testing serves as an icing on the cake. It can be abused with a fair amount of dust, shock and water and it will still keep on working.

The HardDrive Protection System:

This is for people who have younger siblings, with a knack for dropping things. An accelerometer embedded into the device shutdowns your hard drive when it detects a drop. Perfect, if you have invaluable data in the drive.

Intel Pro WLAN:

The competition may have Atheros or Broadcom powered devices, but believe me people, nothing matches the equipment from Intel.

The Intel WLAN on my brother’s ThinkPad is far more superior than the one I have on my laptop.

But that is not why it deserves a mention in this article, it is because the adapter is “ac” compatible, ie. the next standard for Wireless Networking. WLAN ac supports 300mbps data transfer and better performance on places with lot of WiFi devices. Very important point for me, considering the fact that I will be keeping the laptop for 5+ years.

The Keyboard:

Have you ever wondered why you can’t get the feedback and comfort of a desktop keyboard on a Laptop? If you think it is because such key travel is not possible on a notebook, wait till you use the keyboard on a ThinkPad.

It is the best keyboard to ever land on a notebook, period.

The TrackPoint:

The TrackPoint is one of the features that make a ThinkPad complete. Trackpoint is a far better method to control the pointer on the screen as compared with touch pad. Once you get the hang of a TrackPoint, then it is very hard to go back to a touch pad.

Express Card:

This is where things get really interesting. There are a ton of add on cards, that can be inserted into the Express Card slot, be it Sound, Graphics, Firewire or HDD. In a way, the ThinkPad encourages you to use it more like a Desktop. There are other laptops having the Express Card slot, but they are not existent at the moment in this price range.

Goodies:

7200 RPM HDD => Desktop like performance.

Second HDD can be inserted into the UltraBay slot.

Alloy hinges are durable and allow the screen to be reclined at 180 degree.

Easy to repair and upgrade.

Future proof: Mini DisplayPort, WLAN ac, ExpressCard, UltraBay.

Reflection free screen.

Best customer service.

The feeling of owning a ThinkPad.