I need a portable laptop to:
- have a lot of online quality video calls
- type a lot during each meeting
- have a ton of browser tabs open
- have a few CPU-demanding apps running at the same time
I will use this laptop as my main PC.
I’m also considering:
- T480s
- Carbon X1 Gen 7-8
- Dell 7490
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:
- Intel Core i7-8650U processor
- 16GB DDR4 RAM
- 512GB storage
- 14" FHD IPS display
- Integrated Intel UHD Graphics 620
When it arrives, before paying, what would you recommend to check within 10 minutes of receiving it?
Personally I’d do the following:
- boot into the bios config menu to make sure it’s unlocked (if it’s locked and they don’t have the password that’d be a dealbreaker for me)
- boot into a live linux environment from usb and test both batteries, keyboard, trackpoint/trackpad, speakers, microphone, wifi, and all external ports (T480 has 2 usb-c, 2 usb-a, ethernet, hdmi, headset, and sd - make sure batteries charge well from both usb-c ports)
- to check the storage health, install nvme-cli if not installed, run
nvme smart-log /dev/nvme0
and check the “percentage_used” value: if it’s near 100% it might die and need replacement soon - to check that the vents, airflow, and cooling hardware are in good shape, install stress if not installed, run
stress -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 degrees
On 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 batteriesEdit: enjoy the new laptop! I hope it works great for you