Made the switch back… no longer a Mac guy, now a Lenovo guy

Back in late 2007 I went way outside my comfort zone and bought an Apple MacBook Pro. I loved that machine… fantastic form factor, great screen, fast… you name it… it was a great laptop. I did have some issues with it unfortunately, like this nasty issue where the keyboard & trackpad would die, but thanks to some great support (and three tries), they replaced it with a brand new machine.

However recently I’ve been hitting my head against two hard barriers that I just couldn’t get over. Both involve the fact I do a lot of virtualization work being a SharePoint junkie. When working from home, that’s not a big deal as I use my big virtualization rig. But when on the road, which I’ve done quite a bit, I’ve run into challenges. I wanted 8GB of RAM… seems excessive I know, but it isn’t. I have been doing a lot with HyperV and I need to be able to run a VM with 4GB (no, anything less wouldn't work for this project). Even though I was setup with triple boot, i couldn't have a VM with 4GB dedicated to it. The other problem was with external disks; I’m sick of having to run a VM off an external USB/FireWire disk. It isn’t the speed problem (so spare me the eSATA comments), its the challenge of having this disk always around. You can’t do decent work on a plane or in an airport on a VM with an additional disk and many presentation podiums are short on space. Those are the big things… there were little things that got under my skin, but they weren’t deciding factors.

So over the last few months I’ve been eyeing a few machines. The new MacBook Pros are nice & can support 8GB, but their video drivers are still such crap that you absolutely must run MacOS natively rather than Vista/Windows 2008. I’m not a MacOS guy… I liked my MBP purely for the hardware.

After much research & recommendations I settled on the Lenovo ThinkPad w500. Bit the bullet too in order to make this a blazing machine:

Core 2 Duo 2.8Ghz (T9600)
8GB RAM (aftermarket via Crucial)
128GB SSD (these disks ROCK… blazing fast and silent!)
Modular UltraBay so I can have a DVD drive OR SATA drive (hot swappable baby!)
ATI Mobility FireGL V5700 w/ 512MB

This thing is BLAZING fast (Vista index of 5.3… everything is 5.9 except the gaming graphics at 5.3). Right now I’ve got 3 OS’ installed: Vista x64 (my primary OS), Windows Server 2008 x64 (primarily for HyperV) and Windows 7 (for play). The first two are on my SSD, the other is installed on the 2nd modular SATA disk. All my VMs are on the modular SATA disk (7200RPM 320GB). This setup is perfect… last night I tried running just off the big 9 cell battery with no wireless, in the Balanced power mode with the 2nd modular drive in… I got nearly 4hrs of charge!

There will be things I miss with my MBP. A beautiful LCD screen (although I like the Lenovo’s 1920x1200 res vs. my MBP’s 1440x900), backlit keyboard & huge trackpad.

As far as form factor, the w500 is nearly the same size as the MBP (yes, it really is). Weight-wise it’s a bit heavier, but I’m also running with the bigger 9 cell battery. Got a few issues though… after the rebuild, I can’t get the fingerprint sensor working in Vista. :( Also can’t get the integrated camera working… not show stoppers and I might just wait until the RC for Win7 comes out to try them.

So there you have it… no longer a MBP guy… I’m now a Lenovo guy! Maybe Joe will lay off now… :)

Technorati Tags: lenovo,macbook pro

posted on Monday, April 20, 2009 7:24 AM

Feedback

# re: Made the switch back… no longer a Mac guy, now a Lenovo guy 4/20/2009 8:19 AM Bjørn Furuknap

Welcome back, AC; we've missed you.

The battery will quickly deteriorate, though, so don't expect 4 hours for too long. Anything above 2 hours after 3 months is good.

.b

# re: Made the switch back… no longer a Mac guy, now a Lenovo guy 4/20/2009 8:20 AM Michael Gannotti

Yeah virtual machines and the requirements around running multiserver VMs really needs beefy boxes. I know a number of folks at corp who have already started getting Lenovo Quad core laptops w/8gb memory.

# re: Made the switch back… no longer a Mac guy, now a Lenovo guy 4/20/2009 8:40 AM David Petersen

3 OS's? Do you have it set up as a triple boot? Are each of the OS's on separate partitions?

# re: Made the switch back… no longer a Mac guy, now a Lenovo guy 4/20/2009 8:45 AM AC [MVP MOSS}

David-
Yup... 3 partitions (actually 4). Two on the internal SSD (Vista x64 @ 105Gb & Win2k8 x64 @ ~18GB) and two on the 320GB SATA drive in the modular bay when not using the DVD (Win7 @ 50GB & data @ 250GB for VMs and backups). When I boot, I get the Vista bootloader screen that gives me 8s to pick which OS I want to boot into.

# re: Made the switch back… no longer a Mac guy, now a Lenovo guy 4/20/2009 9:28 AM Peruri

I knew you would have to make that switch! :) with the kind of high performance you would need.

# re: Made the switch back… no longer a Mac guy, now a Lenovo guy 4/20/2009 9:33 AM bazztrap

I bet it is cheaper too....

# re: Made the switch back… no longer a Mac guy, now a Lenovo guy 4/20/2009 9:39 AM AC [MVP MOSS}

It's about the same price as the MBP.

# re: Made the switch back… no longer a Mac guy, now a Lenovo guy 4/20/2009 11:22 AM E. Shupps

Ah, AC, we will miss you. Just to make you a wee bit jealous, I'm now sporting 8GB RAM and a 256GB SSD in my MBP. Talk about fast! We'll check those form factors at TechEd...

# re: Made the switch back… no longer a Mac guy, now a Lenovo guy 4/20/2009 11:36 AM Carsten Keutmann

Welcome in the W500 club. I got mine about 4 month ago :)
I love that it comes with DDR3 ram.

# re: Made the switch back… no longer a Mac guy, now a Lenovo guy 4/20/2009 11:46 AM bazztrap

I would be interested in a follow up post or an update on this after like a month of using. I am myself looking for a portable development box...

# re: Made the switch back… no longer a Mac guy, now a Lenovo guy 4/20/2009 12:56 PM Sherman

Hey AC, why'd you go with the W500 instead of the T500?

# re: Made the switch back… no longer a Mac guy, now a Lenovo guy 4/20/2009 3:34 PM anotarian

We have 64-bit laptops for the same reason (need 8 GB of RAM for virtualization). However, we have many, many problems with 64-bit drivers and general vendor support. Also a lot of Vista issues. I hear Apple now allows 8 GB of RAM but only in the largest MacBook Pro. I have far more Macs than PCs and find that I am much more productive with Windows VMs since the host-OS is pretty much worry free.

# re: Made the switch back… no longer a Mac guy, now a Lenovo guy 4/20/2009 3:56 PM AC [MVP MOSS}

Sherman-
Primarily based on peer recommendation.

# re: Made the switch back… no longer a Mac guy, now a Lenovo guy 4/20/2009 4:30 PM Ali

Awesome! Glad you didn't go for Dell as the MCM candidates were seducing you!

lol

# re: Made the switch back… no longer a Mac guy, now a Lenovo guy 4/22/2009 2:42 PM Jake

AC, I have the T500 through my company w/ 4GB Ram, and basically the same Hard drive setup. I been using Vista x64 and twice in the last month the computer has BSOD with some odd error saying some driver failed.
The help desk said they couldn't do anything but reimage the computer and recommended I go back to 32bit XP. I have done that while kicking and screaming but I can't continue to lose productivity. Thank God for Source Control and TFS!

Good luck to you!

# re: Made the switch back… no longer a Mac guy, now a Lenovo guy 4/23/2009 2:18 AM Jeremy Thake

Yeah I'm thinking the same thing here...my 4Gb RAM, Core 2 Duo just isn't cutting it. I have an 2nd SATA internal drive in my Fujitsu T5010, but just seems sluggish! Especially after doing some Visual Studio WPF development locally on my host which absolutely flies along! :-(

# re: Made the switch back… no longer a Mac guy, now a Lenovo guy 4/23/2009 3:37 AM patrick

the problem with lenovo nowadays is their battery. my t60's battery died after 20 months and i got to get a new one. not the mentioned it is also a 9-cells.

heard from colleague there is a tool from lenovo to help you drain your battery before charging it to keep the life span longer.

# re: Made the switch back… no longer a Mac guy, now a Lenovo guy 4/23/2009 10:26 AM Becky Bertram

I'm jealous; just purchased a laptop in the last year right before the 8GB laptops were coming on the scene. Drat! Maybe I'll catch up to you in a few years. :) At any rate, I had a Lenovo whn I was at Microsoft and they're not bad machines; like you said, the monitor was nice and the drive was quiet.

# re: Made the switch back… no longer a Mac guy, now a Lenovo guy 4/29/2009 4:08 PM Oliver

How do you live with the stupid location of the ctrl/fn keys? I had a Lenovo, but ended up taking a sledge hammer to it after a couple of weeks. There's a limit to the number of times you can hit fn+c fn+v...

# re: Made the switch back… no longer a Mac guy, now a Lenovo guy 7/20/2009 9:30 AM Michael Mukalian

Hey AC, any particular reason you went w/a Lenovo as opposed to a Dell or others? I'm looking to jump to a beefier machine much like you did but I've always been a Dell guy. Anything ya can give in terms of information would be great...thanks! - M

# re: Made the switch back… no longer a Mac guy, now a Lenovo guy 7/20/2009 9:41 AM AC [MVP MOSS]

Michael-
After looking at a few other Dell's I spec'd out from friends who had similr ones (Latitude E series & Precisions), I was very unimpressed with the build quality. You'll see these same comments on the user reviews on the Dell site. The keyboards & casings were just cheap.

Lenovo on the other hand is much more solid... I'm very happy with my Lenovo... VERY VERY happy.

# re: Made the switch back… no longer a Mac guy, now a Lenovo guy 9/17/2009 8:44 AM Sam

AC,

Thanks for sharing. I got my company to upgrade me from the standard T500 w/ only 2 GB to something closer to yours. Couldn't convince them on the SSD and the 8 GB (got 6, though).

I'm looking forward to SharePoint Connections and the SharePint.

# re: Made the switch back… no longer a Mac guy, now a Lenovo guy 10/13/2009 8:48 PM Oyunlar

You'll see these same comments on the user reviews on the Dell site. The keyboards & casings were just cheap.

Post Feedback

Title:
Name:
Email:	(email will not be displayed)
Url:
Comments:
Please add 2 and 8 and type the answer here: Remember Me?

All Comments Are Filtered & Moderated
Unfortunately comment spammers are just too effecient and are constantly dirtying up blogs with irrelevant and unwanted comments trying to improve their standing on search engines. All comments on this blog are moderated. I do not censor comments, but I don't approve comments with vulger language or those soliciting products. Most of the time comments are approved within a few hours of being submitted with the only exception when I'm traveling.

Why are you asking for my email address?
The only reason I'm asking for your email address, which isn't required to submit a comment, is to provide a gravatar if you've created an account for yourself and associated your email address with a small image. If you have a gravatar created for the email address you submit, it will appear next to your comment. Otherwise nothing will appear.

What is a gravatar?
A gravatar is a "globally recognized avatar." You can get more information about gravatars, as well as create your own for free, at www.gravatar.com. You can also view my gravatar here.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License