I daily a T480 with Debian for work, and I'd recommend it highly. Great performance, battery, build quality, look & feel, etc. We have some 7480s deployed and while they've been solid as well, I much prefer the thinkpad. T series will have better performance and battery than X series, also, so I'd take the T480 over the X1C.
how is the build quality of the t480? I had a t580 for work, and that one crashed when you picked it up at thr wrong corner. and after a month over the warranty, it completely died
I can't speak for all of them, but we've had a couple hundred deployed over the last several years with very few issues. Mine's been solid as a rock.
The usb-c docks, however, are a nightmare, though I gather that's fairly universal.
Why do you need to use the usb-c docks?
Just part of our standard office package, everyone gets a laptop, dock, and external monitors for their workspace.
I've ordered this ThinkPad T480 with:
When it arrives, before paying, what would you recommend to check within 10 minutes of receiving it?
Personally I'd do the following:
nvme smart-log /dev/nvme0 and check the "percentage_used" value: if it's near 100% it might die and need replacement soonstress -c 7 to load up 7 of the 8 available cpu threads, make sure the fan spins up good and strong, and watch /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp to make sure the cpu temperature stays under ~90-95 degreesOn my own time later, I'd run memtest86+ overnight from bootable usb to check the memory, then install tlp and run tlp recalibrate with the laptop on the charger to recalibrate the batteries
Edit: enjoy the new laptop! I hope it works great for you
Awesome and impressive advice, thanks a lot!
I've actually managed to find a used Carbon X1 Gen 6 (i5-8250U, 16GB, 512) for 310usd so I reordered that instead. I assume the course of action won't really change in this case.
And I'm not too familiar with some of that stuff, do you mind if I ask you the following:
Where can I see if Bios is locked?
Best way to boot into a Linux environment with a USB? Where can I get a Linux distribution that would work seamlessly from a thumb drive?
Is there a testing app for the microphone (it's important for me) and the ports?
And what's the fastest way to see the battery health?
How to install 'stress'? And how can I watch "/sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp"?
Sorry, all of the linux stuff is just specific to my own preferences/environment - if you're more familiar with windows it would be best to just use that for testing. Presumably it will come with windows installed?
If so, put some programs on a normal usb storage device and then install/run them from there.
As for the rest:
When you first turn the laptop on, at the red Lenovo splash screen, press Enter repeatedly to get into the boot menu. Once there, it'll give you a list of options with associated keys to access them - go to "BIOS Setup - F10" (or something similar, not sure of the specifics on the X1C 6th gen). If it prompts you for a password to enter that, it's locked.
To test all the ports, plug your usb stick with the apps on it into each of the usb ports and make sure it shows up in explorer; try the same with an sd card if you have one; plug in to a wired ethernet connection and make sure you have internet access through it (disable wifi at the same time to make sure); plug headphones into the jack and make sure they work; plug into an hdmi display if you have one.
To check battery health, run Command Prompt with administrator privileges, then run powercfg /batteryreport to generate a battery health report
Good luck!
Appreciate the detailed response, Lemmy is truly an amazing place to be a part of, thanks to precious people such as yourself 😄
Damn, you hiring?
Carbon is great but you pay a premium for the form factor.
480 is the choice for practical purposes, if budget is a factor.
I've ordered this ThinkPad T480 with:
When it arrives, before paying, what would you recommend to check within 10 minutes of receiving it?
Screen for dead pixels, make sure ram and disk sizes are as advertised - and CPU. That’s all
Thanks.
I now realize you are trying to buy a laptop on a budget. I’d definitely go for the X1 gen 7 or 8, 16gb of ram minimum. The 1080p screen will give you better battery life but the 4k screen has Dolby vision and will make watching movies a better experience.
Why would that be better than T480?
The Carbox X1 Gen7 is probably a decent choice, but it will depend on the specs - get at least an i5, and max out the RAM to 16GB - you can't add it later, so make sure to buy one with the 16GB.
I have an x1 Gen7 and it's great. EXCEPT for the battery life which is fucking awful. Maybe 4 hours if you're lucky. It was originally advertised as having 18 hours.
If you go with the T480 (not sure about the S model) you can run dual batteries and it's runds FOREVER
What's truly so much better about it compared to T480? Or 7480
Dells IME just suck. YMMV. Compared to the T480 it's more portable and lighter.
What are the apps that you will be using? I’m really excited by these new Qualcomm laptops coming out. LTT is doing an experiment and having 3 of its employees switch full time to see if they are viable. If you can wait another week I’d see what their conclusions are.
I'm not in the West and buying on a budget so my options are very limited
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