Here's my new beast - E540

[Dawnbreaker]

Hello dear ThinkPadders!
I've been looking for a replacement of my old and beloved (and upgraded frequently) T61 for about a year. I was considering the T400, which was a no-go for me at the end - still an old platform and no significant performance boost over t61.
Unfortunately the new T-series are way too expensive for my budged, so I stopped at the budged-oriented Edge series. And here it is, my new E540.

(I apologize for the decent-quality photos, but Lumia 520 doesn't take good pictures on a dark, rainy day)

1. The laptop arrived in the usual Lenovo box, including warranty and instruction manuals. I bought it from the Lenovo Bulgaria exclusive store.



So far so good - clean design and no big annoyng logos

2. And finally - past meets present


3. Successfully installed Windows 7


My first impressions:
I won't talk much about the platform, because there's a huge difference between the old Santa Rosa platform on my T61 and Haswell.

Unfortunately the palmrest attracts fingerprints, unlike the T61. And it seems like the T61's palmrest has better plastic quality.
The touchpad is completely different and I'm gonna need some some time to get used to it. Same goes for the keyboard.

[Temetka]

That's a nice looking machine and will run circles around the T61.

May it serve you well.

[acz]

Hello Dawnbreaker.

My wife is thinking to replace her T41p with a brand new E540 (I posted the details in another post).
Some people on this site thought that the E540 was NOT a good machine.
The Lenovo rep explained that in her opinion, it is best to stay avoid the "Lenovo" line and stay with the "Thinkpad" line.
Then, within Thinkpad...
T series was the best-built (passes 6 military tests)
L series is next (passes 3 military tests)
and E series is next

What is your satisfaction level with your machine now that you have had it a few months?
Thank you.

[hwattys]

I have always personally used the T series line since those have been around and have a T430s myself. Had to buy a new laptop for an employee who is not quite so fussy or discerning about computer matters so I got her an i3 E440. It was the first E series I had seen. Upgraded it to 8 gigs RAM and an SSD. My impression is that it seems to be the offspring of a union between a true "Thinkpad" and a "Lenovo" but retains just enough "Thinkpad" DNA to carry the name. I will also say the fingerprint reader conked out after 3 weeks of use and believe it or not, Lenovo shipped me just the part for self-help repair. All working great now and my employee is very happy with it. For the price I think it was a good deal.

[acz]

Hello hwattys,

Thanks for your comment.
I went back to the drawing board yesterday, and was able to configure an L540 with very similar specs to the E540 that I mentioned for almost the same cost. So, that is what should arrive in a week or two. I decided that build quality should count a bit more heavily.
On the off chance that my wife does not like the L540, then she can have something else and I'll probably use it.
I am guessing that she will like it fine, however.

I believe that I first used a Thinkpad 700 or 700c back in the early 90s, and have had a Thinkpad ever since, except for once in the late 1990s we got a Micron Transport XKE, which was very solid and ran well for years, with Win 95 and 96MB of RAM - or something like that. Its probably in some closet around here, and I bet it would boot up.

My T61 still works just fine, so I would feel silly getting a new machine for myself just because its "old."

A

[Dawnbreaker]

Well, it's my main machine since I got it (sold the old T61) and everything works out of the box. Added SSD in the main bay, replaced the optical drive and installed second hdd there (via generic ultrabay, bought on ebay), and the machine flies. You can see the whole configuration in my signature btw.
It's the best choice for budged-oriented ThinkPad and far better than Lenovo's "B" or "G" series. I haven't had the money (I'm still a student) for a *real* ThinkPad (T or at least L), so Edge was the best choice for me.

Bottom line - I'm satisfied.