Early HP EliteBooks & DreamColor

[sysiphus]

I have a middle-aged EliteBook, albeit one that did not offer an IPS display option (sadly), and can support the other general claims about the high-end HPs: the keyboards, for what they are, are quite decent. The layout is far better than Lenovo's 6-row at least, though in all ways they fall short of the classic 7-row ThinkPad. The pointing sticks are usable, but strikingly worse than those in ThinkPads--my understanding is that the IBM patents behind the original TrackPoint design include some unique pointer acceleration considerations that facilitate this difference.

As for the higher-end displays, my major regret so far as purchasing decisions was passing on a factory refurbished/fully warrantied Dell Precision M6500--this was their last 16:10 aspect ratio 17" model, which was available with a WUXGA RGB-backlit IPS display. While reportedly still a step below a DreamColor, for the price it was a killer deal when Dell was clearing inventory. Coupled with a 32GB ram ceiling and a first-gen quad i7, it would still be respectable today except for power consumption*.

*To that end it is striking how well a higher-end Sandy Bridge (2nd gen. i-series) still holds up against current mobile processors, insofar as performance is concerned. Speaking as someone who has needed moderate processing power on a regular basis for finite element analysis and the like, there is some satisfaction in knowing that a SB i7-QM still puts up a good fight against all but the current high-end i7s. Not bad for 2011 tech. But I digress...