Replacement ideas for T450s?

[mschaffer]

Does anyone have any thoughts about what would be a good replacement for a T450s? I am looking for a laptop with a similar display at least 1920x1080, has at least 20GB of ram, is reasonably thin, does NOT have a touchscreen, and, if possible, has something similar to the TouchPoint (but has NO TouchPad or the TouchPad can be disabled without disabling the TouchPoint).

What about the Dell and HP models with their TouchPoint equivalents?

Any thoughts?

[85101]

I don't know of any thin laptops with 20GB of RAM...are you sure that's not a mistake?

[Ibthink]

Dell has the Latitude E7450, and HP the Elitebook 840. If you wait a little longer (speaking: Until early 2016) new Skylake models will be launched by all three manufacturers.

Why would you want to replace the T450s?

[mschaffer]

I don't know of any thin laptops with 20GB of RAM...are you sure that's not a mistake?

My current T450s has 20GB of ram. I guess that I didn't really define "thin". I mean something about the thickness of the T450s---not something like an Alienware laptop.

[mschaffer]

Dell has the Latitude E7450, and HP the Elitebook 840. If you wait a little longer (speaking: Until early 2016) new Skylake models will be launched by all three manufacturers.

Why would you want to replace the T450s?

Thanks for the suggestions.
As far as replacing the T450s, it's because the Trackpoint is horrible! When they updated the Synaptics driver it was an improvement, but it is still horrible. I have all sorts of problems with scrolling (incredibly laggy at best, jumpy and completely stuck or unusable at worst) and it drops objects randomly when dragging and dropping. When compared to my wife's X230 or my older X220, the Trackpoint is really horrible. But at least the T450s has physical buttons for the Trackpoint. The T440 didn't even have that!
Also, the T450s keyboard is inferior to the one on my old X220. The keyboard should also be slightly larger, but way too much room is used by the Touchpad (which I turn off because I never use it).
Then there's the other very annoying "features". No HDD light. No dedicated volume up/down keys. A delete key that is 1.2 parsec away from the home row.
Recently, I have been having problems with the Trackpoint when waking from hibernation.
I thought that the problem may be with the hardware. It has been sent back to Lenovo and they say it's fine.
In short, I am really displeased with the T450s and, in general, the direction that Lenovo is taking the Thinkpad line.

[Puppy]

I understand your frustration. Wait for the Retro project otherwise there isn't much options these days. Most of laptops are crap, especially the keyboard layout/feel. I was actually hoping for a Toshiba one but since I tried the keyboard in local store I found it absolutely horrible. The key travel is almost zero, keyboard feel is like on and old mobile phone.

After-hibernation-restore issues are typically caused by buggy drivers, not the hardware component itself. Do you also notice the CPU whine issue https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-T ... -p/2070850 ?

[Ibthink]

I do think your machine might be defective after all. Maybe the keyboard cable is the source of the problems here, I would check that.

I have the W550s with the same TrackPoint hardware, and I don´t experience any of the problems you have described - so it can´t be a software problem either.

[mschaffer]

I understand your frustration. Wait for the Retro project otherwise there isn't much options these days. Most of laptops are crap, especially the keyboard layout/feel. I was actually hoping for a Toshiba one but since I tried the keyboard in local store I found it absolutely horrible. The key travel is almost zero, keyboard feel is like on and old mobile phone.

After-hibernation-restore issues are typically caused by buggy drivers, not the hardware component itself. Do you also notice the CPU whine issue https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-T ... -p/2070850 ?

I would not be at all surprised that the problem is due to crappy drivers. As it is, the current drivers are a vast improvement---with far to go.

Thankfully, I have not experienced anything like CPU whine. However, every once in a while, when the laptop is going into or resuming from sleep or hibernation there is something like that, but I assumed it was related to the video. (Complete supposition on my part, though.)

Also, I have tried some of the new Toshiba laptop keyboards. I don't know how they would expect people to actually type on them! They are almost as bad as some of the iPad keyboard covers.

I hope the Retro project actually bears some fruit. (I participated in every survey.) In the meantime, I am really displeased with Lenovo.

[mschaffer]

I do think your machine might be defective after all. Maybe the keyboard cable is the source of the problems here, I would check that.

I have the W550s with the same TrackPoint hardware, and I don´t experience any of the problems you have described - so it can´t be a software problem either.

I have checked the cable several times.
I do think some of the problems with the TrackPoint are software related. The TrackPoint is much better behaved when I put LinuxMint (briefly) on the laptop just to see if there was a difference---and there was. Unfortunately, I am completely tied to Windows due to the software I need to earn a living.

[mschaffer]

I have the W550s with the same TrackPoint hardware, and I don´t experience any of the problems you have described - so it can´t be a software problem either.

I just installed the Synaptics driver for the X250 (ver 18.1.27.30, same hardware---latest version for the T450s is ver. 18.1.27.20). This has made a tremendous improvement in the Touchpoint fucntionality. Scrolling is tremendously improved (but still inferior to the X230 and X220) and I have not yet had the resume from hibernation problems.

By the way, what version of the Synaptics driver do you have installed and what OS and version are you running? I have Win 8.1 installed.

[ZaZ]

I've not used the T450s, but based on past experience, the Dell stick is inferior to the ThinkPad, so if you're looking for an improvement, I'm not sure the Dell is the answer.

[mschaffer]

I've not used the T450s, but based on past experience, the Dell stick is inferior to the ThinkPad, so if you're looking for an improvement, I'm not sure the Dell is the answer.

Yes it is inferior to the older Touchpoints, but it works. However, I believe that some (if not all) of the Dell's will not allow you to disable the touchpad and leave the "stick" enabled. Although I do know some people that tape a thin sheet of cardstock over the touchpad to accomplish this instead.

[ellipse]

I've not used the T450s, but based on past experience, the Dell stick is inferior to the ThinkPad, so if you're looking for an improvement, I'm not sure the Dell is the answer.

Yes it is inferior to the older Touchpoints, but it works. However, I believe that some (if not all) of the Dell's will not allow you to disable the touchpad and leave the "stick" enabled. Although I do know some people that tape a thin sheet of cardstock over the touchpad to accomplish this instead.

We use Dell E7440s at work, very nice machines, as pleasant and convenient as my own T450s, a bit thinner perhaps. The pointing stick works well, even though I prefer the Thinkpad's; the Dell keyboard is pleasant, in its own way.

With a small Dell tray utility we can choose whether we want the pointing stick AND/OR the touchpad AND/OR their respective buttons to be active or inactive. I always disable the touchpad and its buttons – however, the touchpad has a bad habit of reactivating under circumstances I have not been able to precisely determine (perhaps hitting the touchpad too many times by mistake). And that IS a major annoyance! A bit like the wandering cursor in Thinkpads.