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by organsnyder 2798 days ago
For me, the "vanilla" T-series is the best compromise for weight, build quality, and repairability. My personal laptop is a T480, and it's an excellent machine. Very portable, screamingly fast, very good screen (I have the high-res IPS variant).

If you want a bit more premium feel and lighter weight, the Txxxs (e.g. T480s) is a bit thinner than the regular T-series, and feels a bit sturdier (so I've heard, anyways; my T480 is no slouch here, either). It also has less user-replaceable parts, and is more expensive for the same specs. The X-series also fits here.

If you're going more for a luggable desktop replacement rather than small size, the P-series is what you want. I have a P51 for work, and it's an insane machine: 64 GB RAM, Quadro graphics, touchscreen, Xeon processor... It also barely fits in my laptop bag and comes with a massive 170-watt power brick. But since I work from home and drive into the office once a month or so, it's a great machine that gives desktop-level performance (including very good cooling) while still being at least somewhat portable.

If you want the Macbook Pro experience of premium feel, thinness, less ability to be repaired, and higher cost, go for an X1 Carbon. I'd still prefer the X1 Carbon over a Macbook Pro, but I'd prefer a T- or P-series over either of them.

There are some home/SMB-targetted models, such as the E-series; avoid those unless you absolutely can't afford something better. All of the ones mentioned above were designed for customers that maintain fleets of machines, which has benefits even for non-enterprise users.

The current models are very good, and are a big upgrade from the previous generation. Of course, there is always something nicer coming, if you want to wait.

3 comments

I'm looking for a portable workstation, so I guess that would be the P-series for me. They're a bit heavier than my current Macbook, though; my 2011 17" MBP weights about 3 kg, while the 17" P71 and P72 start at 3.4 kg.

People already complain my laptop is too heavy. Maybe I should start looking at smaller screen sizes after all.

The new x1 extreme / p1 is notably missing.
Good point. I don't have enough experience with them to speak knowledgeably. They're basically slimmed versions of the P5x series, right?
What OS do you run on it? I have a (personal) T460, but I'm looking to get a new work laptop, and I'm considering trying to swing a T480. I've had great results running Ubuntu 18.04 on my T460, but last I looked, the T480 was having some compatibility issues.