Lenovo Thinkpads. Are They Different From Regular Laptops?
by admin on Monday, August 30th, 2010 | 2 Comments
I just bought a Lenovo Thinkpad Edge 14, and it is marketed as a business laptop. I bought it for college and plan to use it as a normal laptop. Is there any reason that Lenovo and the Thinkpad line are geared as business laptops, or are they the same as mainstream laptops?
Build quality and support.
If you pick up any good business laptop (Lenovo Thinkpads, Dell Latitude, etc.) you’ll notice it’s built very solidly. Most use magnesium alloy and other tough materials (carbon fiber, ABS plastics) to ensure excellent durability. Most also come with hard drive protection to prevent any sort of data loss. Any good business laptop should be able to take 3 foot falls and survive, though don’t try.
Most are geared towards business user. Generally they’re not as pretty as consumer laptops and have more of a "professional" look. You won’t find any glitzy, uber-shiny plasticy stuff. Most are black or gray and unobtrusive and boxy. They also generally have matte screens as glossy screens don’t work well in office environments. They also have beefed up security, sometimes offering fingerprint readers and other features.
Also, most don’t include junk software or trialware.
Support is also generally better. Angering your corporate customers that place massive 1000+ PC orders is never a good idea, so support and warranty service is usually very good.
Small business laptops, like your Thinkpad Edge are in between. They’re usually prettier and offer more consumer end features, though retain some of the toughness and security features.
Here’s a really good post about business laptops:
http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1035948723&postcount=6
Some of the software is slightly different. other than that there are no differences.