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I'm right there with you... My Thinkpad fleet is all older models, T42, T60, T61p, X200 and just yesterday, I added a T420. The quality difference between even between my X200 and the T420 is substantial, the T420 has thinner plastics, the keyboard isn't as nice (a little too bouncy), and the screen is less than impressive. It's the last of the T-series with the good UltraNav keyboard, so if you're okay with a last-gen laptop, check it out. If you need dedicated graphics, go look at the T420s. What is impressive about my T420 was price (ebay: $200 for one in B+/A- condition with a core-i5, SSD and the 1600x900 screen), and that it'll take 16GB (~$130) of RAM. My X200 wasn't cutting it as a mobile workstation for Inventor and doing EDA, and I don't have money for anything more expensive, so it'll suffice for the next year or so. I had the opportunity to use the new X1 Carbon a couple of weeks ago... The keyboard is a step down and the lack of physical trackpoint buttons is TERRIBLE. I wish Lenovo would grow some goddamn balls and stop attempting to copy Apple. Their UltraNav design paradigm was perfectly valid in the market, but they've decided they need to go play me-too even for their core user base. Sadly, as much as I wish I could switch to a Dell for their screens, their keyboards are so fantastically bad that it's never even occurred to me to look. And the same goes for Macbooks, the trackpad and keyboard just don't work for me. I'm half tempted to pick up an old one and see if I can graft an UltraNav keyboard onto it... |