This looks interesting in terms of specs.
Meet the Lenovo ThinkBook 13x Gen 4 (13â³ Intel) business laptop, with Intel Core Ultra processing, Intel Evo benefits, AI experience optimization, and more.
www.lenovo.com
Do ThinkBooks have a good reputation?
Only spec I don't like is that the screen is touch & glossy. Lenovo rep said they expect to get a matte one later.
ThinkBooks are lower-grade business class systems. Actually, it'd be more accurate to say that they straddle the line between consumer and business grade. With very few exceptions (select Asus ROG laptops, some Dell XPS laptops, Microsoft Surface machines, and anything you'd build yourself), I'd wholesale avoid consumer grade PCs.
I'm not the biggest fan of Lenovo for laptops as they often make very odd design choices (such as having one RAM module soldered and the other one expandable via a SO-DIMM slot; thereby forcing you to forego dual-channel RAM should you want to upgrade past the base capacity). The build quality isn't great, nor is the ability to quickly/easily expand RAM and storage.
HP EliteBooks are better, though it's expected that you'll either manually maintain your driver updates or use a really annoying consumer-level "Maintain your PC" app of theirs; not much in-between flexibility there. Though, the hardware quality is definitely at Apple's level.
Personally, I'm a fan of Dell laptops. Latitude 5000 series gives you pretty good utility, while the 7000 series gives you solid portability.
Actually, the ThinkPad is the business laptop. ThinkBook is a consumer grade line. Way different in the support and service.
It's somewhere in-between a ThinkPad and an IdeaPad; but I agree that in terms of build quality and support, it's much closer to the latter than the former and should probably be avoided for quality concerns.
^ Wow the ASUS zenbook is inexpensive!
Do you have any thoughts on the LG gram?
BTW, Just Josh on YouTube rated the the spectre his best laptop for 2024 so far. I think he had some concerns with the zenbook mainly with price, but given the drop I think the main issue gets addressed.
The Gram and the Spectre are both consumer grade PCs. The Spectre, if I'm not mistaken is a gaming PC. So, you might have a little better luck on build quality, but worse luck on support and pre-loaded software and drivers management. The Gram might have decent build quality, but you'll still likely suffer in the other aforementioned areas.
I don't think that is a good deal at all. HP is notorious for low quality computers and the Thinkbook mentioned at the start of the thread has better components at the same price point.
First off, HP has several different lines with their own reputations. Saying categorically that they're infamous for low quality computers is (a) wrong and (b) vague.
Consumer grade HPs are low quality, especially at the low end. This is true of all PC brands. However, HP ProBooks give the MacBook Air a run for their money, design-wise and the HP EliteBook ups the ante all the more. The ZBook provides performance relative to the range of power and performance that exists on any given generation of PCs that the Intel 16-inch MacBook Pro never had even on its best day with its highest-end configuration.
Furthermore, they sell one of the best Chromebooks on the market.
They're not my favorite PC brand by a long shot, but they're not universally low quality.