I’ve used IBM/Lenovo desktops and laptops at home and at work for more than 20 years. I wouldn’t hesitate to buy a Lenovo again, even when some of my work colleagues have banned their acquisition and use.
Another very happy HP Elitebook owner. They are nothing like their cheap consumer ones. My Elitebook has an aluminum case, a very rugged hinge system and all sorts of exceptional features that make servicing easy. These are meant to be bought in quantity by companies and they have to be easy to work on. For instance, the whole bottom slides off for access to the major parts. Once the bottom cover is off, the DVD drive can come out with a single, captive screw.
The #1 thing that kills laptops other than case and screen damage is dust being sucked in via the fan and forming a mat between the fan and the cooling system. With a cheap consumer laptop, getting to the fan is a HUGE pain, and will generally require complete disassembly. With my Elitebook, the fan is right there as soon as the bottom cover is slid off.
Can you elaborate? Is there some benefit, aside from having a key pad, that I’m not seeing.
It seems like it would be incredibly awkward having to type off center from your gaze. Right now I have the edges of my desktop keyboard lined up with the edges of my monitor so that my hands are off to the left side and it just feels wrong.
If the laptop is large enough to have a full number pad, that usually means the screen is big enough that you won’t notice being slightly off center.
The screen is going to be bigger than the one on my desktop, which is a bit over 16" wide? I doubt it. And when I line up my keyboard, which is about the same width, it doesn’t feel slightly off center to me. Most of the right hand keys are on the left side of the screen. “L” is pretty much dead center of the screen.
I’m not sure it’s something I could get used to and was just throwing it out there as something to consider.
When I use my right hand on the off-centre pad, the centre of gravity is pretty much the centre of the laptop. When I use my left hand, the left hand rests on the left corner. It just seems like something that might be ergonomic for right-handers; I don’t actually know.
Just an update: I wound up with a Fujitsu AH564, which is awesome because it’s red. It also has a touchscreen, which I was meh about but after a couple of days, I’m a total convert. Also, the touchpad is left of centre and I now see what Crawlspace et al. were talking about. I’ll get used to it.
I really appreciate all the help & advice in this thread. I did a lot of research on Lenovo and the only thing that turned me away was that they seemed to have more lemons than the other brands, and make it more of a pain to deal with them.
I have an ASUS eee netbook, which works well for what I use it for (travel). I had a Lenovo laptop, but got tired of the small screen, so bought an HP Envy dv7 (core i5) with a 17" screen. I see there is some hate here for HP, but I like this one so far, and it was under $1,000. It has what the OP is looking for (including four USB ports), plus a DVD drive. The only drawback to it is the polished screen which makes outdoor use in bright light a problem. I agree about Dell, after being forced to use them in several office environments. I don’t know if Compaq even makes computers any more, but I’d avoid those too.