New to me 'puter.

[simple_gifts]

Decided to pick up a used LT computer to see what the SSD mania is about.

Went over to www.arrowdirect.com and they had a 30% off i5 sale last weekend, so I scoped out a Grade A, i5 3320M Lenovo T430 with 8Gb ram and 240Gb Intel SSD; price was a few buck < $400 shipping included.

Seems the installed battery won't charge since it is not the correct type for the computer (as indicated on bootup); I will probably be taking that up with them.

Boots in about 10 seconds, includes Windoze Home Premium.

Machine came very smartly packaged with a minimum of extra packing materials; Machine is 'close to new looking'

Liking it so far, the Lenovo (which i would never buy new) looks nicer than my Dell LT I use for work.

We will see how this holds up.

Obviously just wanted to share....
-T

 

[EdwardC]

My work laptop is a T430 and it's been a great machine. I have the 9cell battery and if I keep the brightness down with light use, I can get 10+ hours out of it.

I put a Samsung SSD into it and it boots the Windows 7 pretty quickly. Very solid machine, I plan to get many years out of it.

 

[GenesisGuy70]

I have a MacBook Air with SSD. Best laptop I've ever owned and I've had about 6.

That new MacBook is catching my eye but I'd actually lose an inch of screen and 3 hours of battery life, so I can't really justify it.

 

[Leo99]

I build my own desktops. My current build is pretty old in computer years. Probably 5 or 6 years old. It ran fine but last year I upgraded the boot drive to a 256GB Samsung SSD. Wow. It blew away my expectations. SSD rock.

 

[EdwardC]

Originally Posted By: Throt
I have a MacBook Air with SSD. Best laptop I've ever owned and I've had about 6.

That new MacBook is catching my eye but I'd actually lose an inch of screen and 3 hours of battery life, so I can't really justify it.


My home laptop is a late '08 macbook pro and it's still going strong. The battery is mostly dead, but luckily it's one of the last models to have a modular battery.

With the release of the new Macbook, I'm actually looking to get one of the current Macbook Pros before they remove all the ports on them...

 

[DBMaster]

I did the same thing with my last build after about a year - changed to SSD. Boot time is so fast I stopped leaving it powered on after ten years of doing that with the previous build. I back up regularly so I don't lose much sleep over a crash. Also, I haven't run an anti virus program in years. I stopped using one on the old system because it slowed the thing down too much. I never installed one on the new machine in 2013. Perhaps I like living on the edge. 8-D

 

[rjundi]

t series are extremely well built machines and last. Excellent used choice as majority of windows PC's are plain junk.

My kids use my 7 year old t500 that was used 5 days/week and never shutdown over 5 years of my work. It has SSD (64GB) and 8 gb of ram of runs circles around modern machines with non SSD.

 

[Donald]

Please spell thing out so others can easily search.

 

[BearZDefect]

simple_gifts, how do you find the touch pad on the T430, and is the cooling fan on yours loud? Those were two complaints I had from using a new T430 back in 2012 when they were the new generation: The touch pad was abrasive, and the cooling fan was loud. The 1600x900 (upgraded) LCD was poor too, but that is typical TN and nothing much to complain about.

 

[Rand]

wow crazy prices

LENOVO THINKPAD T430 2.6GHZ CORE I5 240 GB SSDGB 4096MB

Color: Black
Operating System: Windows 7 Home
Display Size: 14
Webcam: Included
AC Adapter: Included
Condition Type: A Grade w/ OS

330$

The only thing they dont list is display resolution
and iirc there are 2 options

the 1600x900 is decent, the other one not so much.

 

[JustinH]

I picked up a basic dell inspiron laptop for $190 the other day. Comes with windows 8.

Works fine for web surfing.

Your price on that Lenovo is decent as well.

The only thing I have seen with the SSD drives is sometimes they require a firmware update.

Intel and Samsung are the more reliable brands, it is the weird brands that have trouble.

At these prices, people shouldn't put anything into a computer, just replace it every few years.

 

[GenesisGuy70]

Originally Posted By: EdwardC
Originally Posted By: Throt
I have a MacBook Air with SSD. Best laptop I've ever owned and I've had about 6.

That new MacBook is catching my eye but I'd actually lose an inch of screen and 3 hours of battery life, so I can't really justify it.


My home laptop is a late '08 macbook pro and it's still going strong. The battery is mostly dead, but luckily it's one of the last models to have a modular battery.

With the release of the new Macbook, I'm actually looking to get one of the current Macbook Pros before they remove all the ports on them...


I think I'm going to wait on the next macbook air. it should really be incredible. If they keep the same form factor and size but utilize their new "layered" battery the possibility of battery life is incredible. Combine that with a more efficient screen, memory and processor and it should jump at least 3-4 hours.

 

[simple_gifts]

Originally Posted By: BearZDefect
simple_gifts, how do you find the touch pad on the T430, and is the cooling fan on yours loud? Those were two complaints I had from using a new T430 back in 2012 when they were the new generation: The touch pad was abrasive, and the cooling fan was loud. The 1600x900 (upgraded) LCD was poor too, but that is typical TN and nothing much to complain about.


I don't use the touchpad on any machine; I find them annoying. The 1600 x 900 display doesn't look bad to me; the fan is loud when it spins up, but not intolerable.

Quote:

wow crazy prices


Crazy good or crazy bad? IDK; I wanted a business class machine without a lot of carpware and an SSD; 8Gb RAM.

 

[Rand]

crazy good.

the 1600x900 is the better screen the other option was worse

I had a t400, I upgraded to a t520 for the FHD screen
Probably has a couple more years left in it for me at least.
then craigslist it for 300$ ish

 

[simple_gifts]

Just a heads up, there are some Dell M class i7 laptops for sale with 24Gb RAM for $370 at the site I posted in the OP. They are B-grade.

 

[jeffreydbrown]

I just "upgraded" from an old, anemic Gateway netbook to a T410 w/ Nvidia graphics adapter ~ $220 on Ebay with XP installed. First order of business was installing Debian GNU/Linux.

I haven't made the switch to SSD, because I need reliability more than speed. Spinning rust is the devil I know.

 

[Subdued]

Originally Posted By: jeffreydbrown

I haven't made the switch to SSD, because I need reliability more than speed. Spinning rust is the devil I know.

Does not make sense

 

[simple_gifts]

A while back there was a big thread regarding suitability of SSDs in an enterprise environment for 'all types' of storage. I indicated most high end users aren't betting the farm on them, opting for rotating media and using SSD where speed, not retention is important. (transactions logs, intent logs)

Dell appears to warranty high end SSD up to 5 years, where rotating media is 7 years. Commodity SSDs only to 3 years, not 5. So they have made their decision on the appropriateness of the media for long term retention.