Thinkpads Forum

Since the price seems to hover around $500 considering getting the basic AMD configuration.

Anyone have experience for general surfing with rare photoshop use?

thanks,

gychang

I had an Edge 15 briefly. It had the Intel Core i3 CPU. It a very nicely designed machine and it was plenty fast.

You might want to consider checking out the Lenovo outlet --> http://outlet.lenovo.com/laptops/thinkp ... rder=price

They have Edge 13, 14 & 15's with the Intel CPU in the $500 to $575 range right now. That CPU will get the job done (and resale will be higher).

(Sorry I can not comment on the AMD CPU.)

Generally with AMDs they run hotter and get less battery life than Intel based machines. If you don't need much battery life or plan to use you notebook on your lap, perhaps those aren't deal breakers. Plus Intel generally offer better performance, though for most things either will probably do. If you're looking for a machine around $500, I'd suggest hitting the outlet too, but perhaps the R series, like the R400 and R500, would be worth consideration as well. I think either of those would offer better quality, performance and battery life. It's not uncommon to see them for $500 or less, but the R series has been discontinued and their numbers are dwindling.

I have the mid-2010 release Edge 14" with AMD Turion II P520 (dual Core). Its significantly faster than my T-60 or my 2006 Dell XPS gaming
desktop. It has HDMI and its a nice system. It runs pretty cool and I have it running all day. I use it to stream HD movies to an HD LCD TV.
Does a great job of it.

Whether or not a laptop runs hot depends a lot on the Laptop maker. Lenovo, I find, maintains the IBM intelligent design culture. Unlike some
other quality consumer (and business) laptop makers. I had an expensive Dell ultra-portable laptop -the D420-for a few months. I got it & the
accesories like-new off- lease for only $220 shipped. Many buyers dislike not having an internal CD\DVD drive. I wanted a light, real laptop, not
a wannabe netbook.

The D420 ran hot and it had a low power Intel processor. So god processors can run hot too. The D420 weighed under 3 pounds and I always use
a laptop cooling pad. I traded it for a 15" T-60 to a student who thought he wanted a netbook, until I told him about the D420. The reason
the Dell runs hot is not the processor or the small size of the laptop. It's hot due to poor case design, only one heat vent, one little cooling fan.
The Edge is well designed to dissipate heat and it runs cool.

You also do not want to make the mistake of paying attention to just two specs. Computers are systems, train like serial systems comparable
to a Special Forces unit. The unit is only as good as its weakest team member. Pres Clinton could not comprehend this and insisted on saving
money by assigning regualr army medics to Special Forces Teams, a move that significantly weakened them. There is a sound reson why each
team member has four training schools, beginning with Special Forces school. The same is true of any computer system. I fixed a single core
15" Acer for a woman last month. Sure, it's a cheaply made laptop. I figure two years is average life expectancy but the speed
was impressive. Only 1.6 GHz AMD but the other specs were good enough that it is a great Internet surf machine, good for playing movies
video clips, music. With the low price, I can see why many consumers like to buy these Acers. It ran a little warm but not hot. The large sized
case helps keep heat down. I would expect a 15" AMD Edge to run cooler than my 14".

One further thing that leads to a hot laptop is owner neglect. Over time dust gets into and collects inside. Even the classic T60 is a dust
collector after about two years. Dust collects in and on cooling fans and in heat vents. It's a good idea once a year to go inside
and clean the vents and the fan and Make Sure the inexpensive fan hasn't died. They do die. More than a few high quality laptops
have been destroyed by a dead $2 cooling fan. If its on the processor, it not only stops cooling the processor, it adds to heat build up.
While you're in their you should change something most people do not know exists, the small backup battery.

--Bruised

Since the question was specifically about AMD equipped Thinkpad Edge, I'll tell my experiences as I have one.

My Thinkpad is Edge 15", type 0302. It's AMD P340 / 2.2Ghz Dual Core, ATI Radeon 4250 graphics (with HDMI), 500Gb, all the bells and whistles one would expect (well, no fingerprint reader or keyboard light). It came with 2Gb RAM that I expanded into 4Gb, since it uses shared memory for graphics and 2Gb is barely adequate for Win7. It has non-glossy screen, hard to find nowadays on consumer grade laptop. Non-glossy is only proper solution for graphical work. This Edge replaced my old Thinkpad t42, it had USB-problems and finally refused to boot because of CPU/mainboard problems. Peacekeepers life is hard even for Thinkpads

There were quite a few reasons I wanted AMD CPU:
- I think AMD makes better CPUs and I don't want to buy Intel because of their questionable business practices
- When you buy AMD CPU, you get real GPU, integrated Intel graphics are terrible, especially for CAD- and gaming use. Having Intel graphics for other than spreadsheet and word processing is like getting punished
- AMD chipset is better than Intel IMO

I use my computer mainly for CAD drawing (MicroStation 8XM) and occasionally for gaming and of course, normal office applications and surfing. So far I have found AMD CPU+ATI GPU to be very powerful combination. I did have some suspicions about shared memory, but they have proven be unwarranted. Shared memory works much better on AMD hardware than on Intel hardware. Non-glossy display is excellent, especially as Edge 15" is middle priced consumer laptop.

Battery (stock one, not extended capacity) seems to last long enough and I mainly use it plugged into outlet. I also like that fact it has 1Gb Ethernet controller, while many other manufacturers have only 100Mb. I copied some movies from my PowerMac G5 to Thinkpad over 1Gb network, it reached over 50 MB/s speed and was continuously over 45MB/s, so harddisk is also fast and it's not even 7200rpm model. WLAN has very good range and speed (using with Cisco 1242G accesspoint).

I had to use Acer laptop little while as interim solution after my Thinkpad t42 broke down, Edge is about same price and has (roughly) same features as Acer, but Edge has much better quality. It has much more rigid body, display and hinges. Keyboard is much better. ThinkVantage management software is excellent.

I'm very satisfied with Thinkpad Edge 15" and it's AMD CPU+GPU I see no reason to buy Intel equipped, stock configuration is more expensive and Intel graphics is slow and underpowered. Only thing to complain is 2Gb memory, but it's easy and cheap to expand. I'm considering getting the 3G card (it's about 100$ in eBay), but WWAN works over Bluetooth connection with my Motorola ES400 3G phone very well.

I have three desktops and they're all AMD. I've been building desktops since the mid 90s and I've never built an Intel box. I just think for desktops AMD offers much better value. Laptops are a different story. Intel is the way to go. Either is fine performance wise and I don't really need anything better than Intel GPUs, but until AMD solves the heat and battery life issues that have seemed to plague their laptop CPUs, they'll never be a serious competitor to Intel. Price will remain their biggest asset. It's interesting, I've got a couple Linux media servers with 45w AMD dual core CPUs. They're great and the CPUs never go above the mid 30°s, but for some reason AMD can't seem to translate this in the laptop arena.