(glam shot)

I picked up a used T450s after months of research and posting a few noobish threads in here, and people were near-universally very patient and helpful, which (this being Reddit and all) I wasn't expecting. So thank you all! I definitely would not have had the confidence to buy a used laptop had I not been given some really solid advice and reassurance here. I thought I'd give my impressions of my first week with the machine, at great length & detail, for anyone who is interested in the nitty-gritty. Really, I have written way too much. I am just so stoked.

tl;dr

Switched from Macbook Pro to a T450s after having not used non-Apple computers since my early teens (aside from the occasional school/work machine). I am really happy with it. Well-built machine, nice screen, beautiful keyboard, runs flawlessly... highly recommended overall!

Background

I was using a 2012 non-retina Macbook Pro as my only computer -- the first computer I'd bought for myself instead of inheriting castaways from my family. Got it after landing my first non-minimum-wage job. Quad core i7-3615QM (which remains competitive tbh), GeForce GT 650M graphics (still decent), and I bumped up the RAM to 8g. Last year I started doing heavier Illustrator/Photoshop work and decided I was tired of colour-wheeling in my documents and waiting minutes at a time for larger files to save and export, so I began my quest for a new machine.

I decided against Mac. For many years they've been shifting their focus from solid (if overpriced), well-built machines for creative professionals, to ostentatious fashion objects for rich people. I knew the day was coming when they would lose me, and when I saw the next gen of MBPs -- across-the-board price increases, all components glued in, gimmicky touch bar -- I took my cue.

Originally I was eyeing workstations (W series, P series, other brands) but there was nothing that would significantly increase my firepower until I got deep into $2000 territory, so I decided to get a desktop as my serious rendering workhorse and a lightweight laptop for web dev and demoing to clients, and the two combined would still save me hundreds compared to a mobile workstation. (If you're curious, the desktop I got was an open-box Thinkcentre M73 SFF with an i7-4770 for $450 Canadian!)

The Lappy

T450s, i7-5600U, 256g SSD, 8g RAM, IPS FHD display. In excellent shape (a few battle scars, nothing really noticeable unless you look for them), very clean, and 1.5 years warranty left. I got it for $850 Canadian. I know that's not a serious score like a lot of you manage to get, but keep in mind (a) the Canadian dollar and (b) the fact that stuff is just generally more expensive up here!

I know that T430 or T420 would be powerful enough for my use, but I really needed a good screen for demoing to clients. I mean, I'm fine with a weak screen since I'm pretty much just using a text editor all day, and I've got an external display for any visual work... but if I'm showing designs to a client, it's gotta impress. The T450s is one of the few Thinkpad screens (ever) that is FHD and IPS and has wide sRGB coverage (I've seen reports from 86 to 101%).

The Good

Lord have mercy, you guys were not exaggerating about Thinkpad keyboards. My entire day is spent typing and I never had a problem with my MBP keyboard... until now. After like 15 minutes sending a few emails on my new Thinkpad I went back to my MBP and it felt like mush beneath my fingers, like each keystroke was a personal insult. I don't quite know how to describe how the Thinkpad keys seem lighter to press, yet at the same time more solid and snappy...? Overall it's very comfortable and natural, and this alone would have made the switch worth it.

Oh ya I know a lot of you miss the 7-row keyboard but I am totally fine with the combined function/hardware keys.

The touchpad is very nice, though not quite at the Mac level of smoothness and natural feeling. On eOS it's usable, if a bit jittery and inaccurate; in Win10 the Lenovo setup utility is detailed enough that you can tweak it to your liking. I'm new to trackpoint but getting more comfortable with it; the ability to infinite-scroll with one hand is very convenient. The physical mouse buttons are nice; I already miss them when I have to go back to the MBP.

I won the screen lottery -- the FHD IPS display is fantastic, no backlight bleed at all. The colour coverage and reproduction is excellent, maybe lacking a bit of the "pop" of my MBP but I'm absolutely willing to make that trade for a matte screen. Contrast is pretty good; blacks are not deep-space deep but the softer black is closer to printed black anyway, so that's alright for my line of work. It is not as bright as I'd like (I work next to an enormous wall of windows) but it's perfectly comfortable.

The build quality is really good. Coming from a 4yo MBP I initially thought the TP felt a little cheap and plasticky, but I realized that I had just developed a bias of assuming that heavier objects are higher quality than lighter ones. The base is solid with no flex under reasonable pressure, which is impressive given its lightness. The screen has enough flex to be a little disappointing; I can see that the top of the screen has a tiny bit of buckle in it, I'm assuming because the previous owner opened the screen from the middle over and over (my MBP had something similar tbh). Also, at the base, when the lid is closed, the screen can flex quite a bit between the hinges, because in the closed position this edge of the screen isn't flush with the base. I don't think this is a big deal, but it does make me a little nervous when I have lappy in my backpack with a bunch of things pressing against it.

Response from u/ibmthink:

This is actually by design, it is meant to protect the screen from pressure. The design is inspired by an arch bridge, the slight "buckle" is helping to divert the pressure away from the screen. It also creates some more room between the screen and the keyboard.

The performance is amazing! Keep in mind, all of my drives were hard disks until now, so a lot of what I'm experiencing is just finally having a SSD... In any case it is very snappy on both Win10 and eOS; applications load up pretty much instantly, and boot time is around 5 seconds. I had found another model from a refurb dealer that had the i5-5300U, which I know would be perfectly adequate for my needs, but I won't complain that I ended up with the i7! I haven't tried running dual VMs yet, which is the hard edge of my use case, but it's doing great with web apps, productivity, web dev stuff, and some graphic design. I haven't seen it go above 25% CPU load; I'm averaging about 8%.

The Bad

The lack of HDMI is unfortunate, but the inclusion of VGA is a nice gesture to people stuck with legacy hardware at their workplaces. I suppose miniDP-to-HDMI dongles are common enough.

The audio jack is pretty bad, worse than my phone. The actual quality of the audio is not so bad even before any DSP -- maybe a bit on the sharp/brittle side -- but the baseline hiss/static is easily the worst of any headphone jack on any hardware I've ever used.

Built-in speakers are weak and muddled, unsurprising since they are placed on the bottom of the case. If you are, say, eating literally anything while streaming some TV show, the speakers will not be able to elevate the dialogue above the chewing sounds inside your head. Yes, that weak.

Battery life is poor. This may be that the previous owner abused it, I dunno. If I'm extremely conservative with the wifi and brightness I can squeeze 4-5 hours out of it, but with ordinary use I'm getting about 2-3 hours. [/u/CampAsAChamp reports that this model should be getting more battery, so it looks like my battery woes are not a fault of the T450s] I'm considering getting the expanded battery (I don't mind the added bulk), or getting a second small battery (the T450s has the dual battery system so you can hot-swap), but that shit is expensive.

The setup is already pretty good for my needs so I doubt I'll be opening up the case any time soon, but I understand that this model is not as maintenance-friendly as the classic TPs -- there are these plastic clips that you have to disengage one-by-one and they're super easy to break, or something? Also, it's too bad that the first ram slot is soldered but I guess you have to make sacrifices for portability. While I might need more than 8g some day, I doubt I'll ever need more than 12g. (I've heard some reports that it supports 20g).

[Edit] One thing I forgot to mention was the build of the display. The screen itself sits under a plastic sheet border which is just glued on top. I understand that this makes it easier to take apart for replacement, but it is the single piece of the machine that seems really cheap and tacky. There are little bits of dust and crud that get into the space between the border and the screen, and because the border is adhesive at the bottom it's nearly impossible to clean them out! This is maybe the only thing I truly miss from the MBP, which has its display and bezels all under a flush pane of glass. But naturally I don't miss the glossiness... and of course, if I ever need to repair this screen, I'll be glad that it's so modular.

Overall

I am really happy with this laptop. The keyboard and the performance has definitely leveled up my productivity (or, at least, my mood while working), it's light enough that I can forget that I'm carrying it, and I feel like it's built solidly enough that it will last me even longer than my MBP. So, thank you to this sub for giving me the confidence to buy a laptop on Kijiji, and feel free to AMA if you are interested in this model.