HP Computers & Setup Drama

This can't be true. All major ThinkPad engineers are within Lenovo. They even moved their headquarters to Raleigh, NC (home of ThinkPad group)
As a general rule: build your own stuff and/or buy it from a small/boutique manufacturer.

 

I acquired an IBM laptop 2 years ago and was very impressed with it's construction and attention to detail. Several months ago I looked at the Lenovo laptops. They are very different machines. They look similar, but the Lenovo is made of a much cheaper plastic that is light and hollow feeling. The IBM is much more sturdy and feels solid and even a bit heavy. Same with the keyboard.

I don't know if the screen, drives, etc. have similarly been replaced with cheaper quality parts, but the outside certainly was. No question about it. Nothing against Lenovo, but that is what I saw.

For the highest quality general business laptops now, my guess is Toshiba.

 

don't forget about ASUS[also big vendor in mobo,s]they have the knowledge how to build these machines,only A components around there famous motherboards,also look and feels like a Porche,prices on the same level as the other players.

 

Well the question is not what is the best business laptop. I can answer that question very fast (for my purpose at least): Dell. Using XPS Laptop i can confirm that this is the *best* Laptop besides my MacBook Pro. As i said unfortunately both are 17". Too big for traveling and daily walking around.

And Tablet PC's is completely a different matter from a "normal" laptop. You have there so many things to take care of in addition to normal laptops that it is really a difference from a normal laptop. For instance the pen comfort is very important for a tablet pc and if you have to press like crazy on the screen to activate some button then thats not really a option (at least for me) or if the keyboard is messy for a 12 inch in case you have to write longer text. And there i have clearly to say that the HP 12" TPC has FOR SURE (!) the best keyboard you can get. This keyboard is at least twice as good as the lenovo keyboard.
As i mentioned thats all personal preference. You actually have to try the look and feel for yourself. But my requirements go somehow over "good/average" home user ratings. I don't mind that the HP isn't the fastest 12 inch laptop on the market. I don't need that because for powerful things i just use the MacBook Pro. There's no TPC from mac available so no other options than to go with a native windows machine.

For business where u have to go often into meetings/presentations/conferences i can really highly recommend the tablet pc's. It's not only "cool looking", its very very useful when you have to show things to people and maybe to explain something. You just fold it as tablet put it straight on the table and just arrange the screen orientation via wireless pen button etc. no need to flip and turn that thing around. And you always see what you are explaining / pointing to even if the guy you try to show something sits directly opposite from you. Thats for example with a normal laptop not possible since you always see the back of the laptop and no screen if you turn it to him to show something.

Paper Wasting for Notes Good Bye. My desk was usually filled with hell a lot of paper where i wrote down disassembly parts, offsets, byte sequences etc. If you just simply copy and paste something from the clipboard to notepad you don't remember it so easily. (Since you dont spend attention what you copy because it's stored anyway) But if you write something down by hand you have to keep it somehow in your mind and you will remember that much more easier because you wrote it by hand! One reason why i always prefered to write on paper instant of silly notepad copies. Now thats easy. You just press a button on that pen and the handwriting notebook comes up. you can handwrite there and that looks really really good. Next thing is you can easily draw a flow chart or a diagram from scratch just in MS Paint with that pen to show and explain someone how something works. Really useful.

Reading internet forums / checking emails in the bed: Nothing has been so comfortable as this tablet pc. Fold it, arrange it to portrait and just use on the right side the scroll up / scroll down wheel and press it to select / go back. You can't even handle that so fast and precise with a normal mouse, let alone trackpad.

Batterytime/Weight is ridiculous good. I have the "big" extra battery which you can put under the laptop in case you need it. I tested it yesterday gives nearly the same weight with that battery as my wifes 14 inch acer. You have 14 hours nonstop working time then even with wifi and BT enabled and heavy usage of downloading / disk access (except external DVD's i didnt try that yet)

 

For me and most people i guess its an alien thingy,but i will look into that as you explain it has many advantages over traditional laptops.By the way which one is a fair deal ?

 

Well it really depends on your needs. I do like the tc4400 model. Mainly because of that wonderful keyboard.

 

Remember that the "real" manufacturers of notebooks (CM, ODM) are very few
I'm a big fan of ultraportables (<3 pounds, 12'' display, ULV processors)

 

True enough. And Lenovo brand laptops may be very fine indeed. But my experience is that the standards have changed since the IBM days.

 

Which, if true, it's a real disappointment

 

Disappointing, yes.

 

From a optical point of view i liked the Lenovo much more than the HP. It looked much more "up to the trend" then the business "plump" HP. Another thing what was a very interesting point for me is that the lenovo has a 1400 pix resolution on a 12 inch. I know that may be too high for some other people, but for me that would be really useful (when you have to deal with disassembling and debugging) But trying for several days getting a replacement for that crappy laptop and then getting told the earliest possible date would be in 3 or 4 weeks that blows the crap away. That's simply not acceptable. And just believe me, i called in whole europe (Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Austria etc) there was NO WAY IN HELL to replace that laptop even within 2 weeks !!!! A brand new laptop not even 24 hours old and you dont get *ANY* replacement for 3/4 weeks. NOT EVEN A DAMN TEMP. LAPTOP that you can work during this time. Now that SERIOUSLY SUCKS especially because that was a business deal with those guys and not a "walk in the shop and just grab one box" deal. *THIS* would have NEVER EVER HAPPENED WITH A IBM MACHINE. They *DID* care about their customers. And there you got within 3 working days (usually even within 24h !) a replacement machine.

 

If I had the money, I'd buy this masterpiece

 

Out of question, since it's not a tablet pc.

 

Yes, Tablet PCs are a godsend for your needs in mobile computing