Thinkpads Forum

Hi everybody,

I need advice for my next machine.
I am really used to the T series. I have now a t400 but I need more power.
I am looking for a model for which the memory is upgradable to 16GB, with ssd storage.

Can you please give me your views on what model I should get ?
I am going for the 'second hand' market, in France, around 500 euros (some T440p or T450 are at this price).

Thanks

T420
Classic keyboard and design, 16GB max ram, sata III, more than fast enough cpu for modern applications.

The T520 will accept 16 GB of RAM. I just installed 16 GB last night in my T520.

Thanks @brchan what do you mean by 'classic keyboard' ?

Thanks @MikalE, but I forgot to mention that I am looking for 14'' max.

Classic keyboard is non chiclet and keeps the standard key layout nearly exactly the same as your T400. The new style keyboards came with T430 and newer laptops.

I was actually looking for a newer model you know, something a more recent than T420.
I don't care about the keyboard, because most of the time I'll use it with my external keyboard.

Then I'd recommend the T430 or T450. The 440 has something weird with how they did the mouse buttons. Google som pictures of the T440 and you'll see what I mean.

We could provide better recommendations if you tell us what you plan on doing with the machine.

If you want to save some money, the L450 might be worth a look. It offers a 1080 IPS screen and I believe can do 16GB too.

Temetka wrote:We could provide better recommendations if you tell us what you plan on doing with the machine.

I am looking for a powerful machinne because I going to install Ubuntu and virtualize Windows for work reasons.
I need to use Dragon Naturally Speaking in the VM.
I do sciences computations too.

LouisJ,
Just my two cents. You probably want a i7 SandyBridge or newer. Because these systems throttle for power saving features I don't see the need for the newest thinkpad i7 processors. I would say T420/T520/W520 with 16GB of ram. A nice 240/256GB SSD drive and Nvidia graphics.

My desktop PC is an Ivy Bridge i5 3570k @ 4.5ghz. 16GB of 1866mhz ram and a GTX 970. It's my video gaming rig. The ivy bridge is the T430/T430s generation of Intel processors.

The newer i5/i7 processors benefit more from power saving features and a 10-15% boost in performance over previous generations. The greatest benefit is in the integrated graphics each generation with significant performance increases in performance far greater than 10-15% on the CPU side of things.

My personal opinion, for serious computing power you need a desktop. For mobile power you simply need a number crunching i5/i7 processor.

Does it have to be exactly 16gb? Can it be 20gb instead? I'm getting a T450s (to replace my T440p) and it is upgradable to 20GB (4GB fixed on the MB plus a 16GB DIMM). I'm going to have 12GB to begin with as that's more than plenty for now, but if in the future I feel like upgrading, it's nice to know that I can go to 20GB.