Is it worth it to buy Thinkpads? R500 dead after 2,5 yrs

[PRAGUEGUY]

Hi, I just posted my problem with an R500 that is simply gone for no real reason...
Not in warranty, had it for 2.5 years.
I am looking for a cheap replacement....subject to the shop being able to repair it...
I bought this laptop as I trusted the Thinkpads..Now I dont know what to buy next.
I am writing this on my Lenovo Ideapad S12...cheap machine, but super price to quality ratio...
I looked at the present Lenovos, Well, this forum does even list the Edge under real Thinkpads..
There is an alphabet soup of models, like X, Y, Z ecetera, I gather those are varieties on my present netbook? like a netbook increased by a factor of 1.4 in size?
But the T series pieces now cost like the R used to cost when I bought mine.
There are some dirt cheap Edge pieces, edge 16 inch or so, Edge 520 without operating system..but if it is not a real Thinkpad, why bother?
and why bother with thinkpad in the first place, if it does not fulfill the reliability promise?
I looked at two cheap other contenders,
like this one,
http://www.mironet.cz/fujitsu-lifebook- ... +dp161047/, costs about 800 USD.
Then, there seems to be a million of HP Probooks out there...
..so, I am really just thinking aloud, a), does it make sense to go for thinkpads, and if so,
is it true that the T series is the only "real"thinkpad now? I browsed through other threads here..it seems that the
R series either does not have a successor, or it is kind of diluted between the aphabet soup series, larger Ideapads, and the L series?
- basically, unlike before, there is no other 15 inch model than the T or the Edge..so, really, do advise me, which should I go for?
I am a translator..I use normal word processing, but some of the CAT(computer aided translation tools) can be more performance demanding than ordinary Office Suite work, they use translation memories, so I would not like to be on the performance level of an Atom processor..
I liked the sturdyness of the R500 before it went, the sound quality was ok to watch films, two first person shooter games worked OK on it.
Convenience of keyboard, overall reliability are my criteria...However, shouldnt I just buy a c.r.a.*p notebook and buy an extended warranty for it? I supposedly had reliability and what did I get...
another point - I read a review of the above Fujitsu, and it said that the bottleneck of the fujitsu is the slow HDD, which allows it to be so cheap.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Fuj ... 738.0.html
Now I had a good Intel SSD disk in the Lenovo, I hope it is still OK...
so, in theory it would make economic sense to buy a machine like that, and sell its HDD on ebay? an put the SSD in?
I mean, a machine that is cheaper than others precisely because a bad HDD... so I can make use of my SSD and save a bit.
thanks

[PRAGUEGUY]

[ssd_thinkpad]

What's wrong with your R500? In this forum you find very experienced guys that maybe can help you!

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