Lenovo ThinkPad SALE: X230 from $594.30, X230 Tablet from $804.30, T430 from $614.30

30% OFF for ThinkPad Back-to-School Ultra-portable Sale!

EXPIRED!

But new SALE via. Barnes&Noble Entre with LOWER price on: ThinkPad X1 Carbon Fiber!!

See here: NEW DEAL ON THINKPAD

Very nice price

$650 for a nicely equipped T530 is a good deal, I think. Have you guys seen lower prices than this from Lenovo(black friday or whatever?) or is this about as good as it gets?

They're clearing out inventory for the new ulev chips from intel. I have a x220. Love it. It's so portable and the wifi is extremely good. If you travel a lot then good reception on the wifi is a must. Wifi signal reception on this laptop is the best I've ever seen.

Edit: these are ivy bridge machines. If you do get one, get the one with IPS display. You won't regret it.

Just when I thought about waiting for a Surface Pro the X230 drops to my price range. Thanks OP, good deal.

Under no circumstances should you get the Intel a/b/g/n wireless (base) card. It's terrible and drops connections like crazy.

You should at least get the 6205 ($20) or best yet, forego the webcam (who uses them anyway??) and get the 3x3 antenna with the best wireless card available, the 6300. It's well worth the $40 upgrade cost. And don't forget the IPS upgrade ("Premium").

coolbreeze said:   Under no circumstances should you get the Intel a/b/g/n wireless (base) card. It's terrible and drops connections like crazy.

You should at least get the 6205 ($20) or best yet, forego the webcam (who uses them anyway??) and get the 3x3 antenna with the best wireless card available, the 6300. It's well worth the $40 upgrade cost. And don't forget the IPS upgrade ("Premium").

Ugh I ordered with the intel base 2x2 on the t430.

these are great prices, I have the X220 and got on a sale last year, prices won't go much lower. Read the keyboard is very different but still a great system (x230)

coolbreeze said:   mungbai said:   coolbreeze said:   Under no circumstances should you get the Intel a/b/g/n wireless (base) card. It's terrible and drops connections like crazy.

You should at least get the 6205 ($20) or best yet, forego the webcam (who uses them anyway??) and get the 3x3 antenna with the best wireless card available, the 6300. It's well worth the $40 upgrade cost. And don't forget the IPS upgrade ("Premium").

Ugh I ordered with the intel base 2x2 on the t430.
Yeah, there's a reason it's free. It will work, just not well.

Of all the upgrades, the wireless card is the most important since the computer is connected via wifi all the time.

I wouldn't stress about it. It will work fine, but could work better with a high end Intel card (6205 or 6300) and the 3x3 antenna will provide better reception and up to 450mbps transfer (MIMO). Chalk it up as a lesson learned with Lenovos.

Cancelled it. Life is too short to worry about connections going out. Thanks for the warning.

dark530 said:   Thanks for the advise, coolbreeze. I'm thinking the 6205 is the way I'll go, don't need the faster speeds and I'm not seeing a lot of people saying they get better reception from the 6300.

My plan is to grab ram and a SSD elsewhere and copy the drive data over. Would be a shame to get a new system with out the speed increase of a SSD and the prices they want for that and the ram are insane. Would recomend others do the same...

Grab an ultrabay hd case from eBay for $10 and throw the included hard drive in that. I'd set up the ssd from the restore media, though, I've heard cloning the drive can lead to some problems.

mentalboy76 said:   getting the delivery date to be atleast 4 weeks now.
Only on the 430s. The others are showing 8/2.

Does anyone know if the touch pads on the 430(s) support gestures or multi-touch? I can't seem to find anything on the website or manuals.

superflysocal said:   what is the resolution of the x230 screen?
Well that information is easily found through a 2 second google search, but since I'm nice

1366x768

It's pretty low by today's standards. Oh well. Be sure to get the IPS (premium HD) screen. Otherwise, the terrible resolution and poor viewing angles will make you sorry you didn't. IPS won't help the low resolution, but it will at least look better color accuracy wise.

cr3s said:   I use the webcam all the time to chat w/ my girl while I'm traveling. I also chat w/ clients on Skype using the webcam. It's very, very handy. Don't skimp out on the webcam.
Yeah, they do have their uses. I carry a light one in my bag in case I ever need it. It's a lot easier to connect a USB camera than a better wireless card and an extra antenna.

Don't skimp on a wireless card that you will use 24x7. Especially if you aren't sitting beside your home router (i.e. hotels, starbucks, etc). It makes a real difference in the 8 or so Lenov0s I've owned (still own 3).

tpacmg said:   Does anyone know if the touch pads on the 430(s) support gestures or multi-touch? I can't seem to find anything on the website or manuals.

yes. it is a basic funtion now

For those planning on using an after market SSD - remember that the form factor for this is 7mm thick and not the standard 9.5mm size. I was going to use a SanDisk SSD and did not realize the smaller thickness until I pulled the existing hard drive from my x220.

By the way, the IPS screen is very nice and well worth the extra fifty bucks I payed for it.

do we get any FW CashBack on this?

Naive question: are the extended warrenty services worthwhile?

PennyDreadful said:   Naive question: are the extended warrenty services worthwhile?
For $55-$65 (30-yr) most certainly.

mungbai said:   Is this a good deal:

$929.55

Intel Core i5-3320M Processor (3M Cache, up to 3.30 GHz)

Display type 14.0" HD+ (1600 x 900) LED Backlit AntiGlare Display, Mobile Broadband Ready

System graphics NVIDIA NVS 5400M Graphics with Optimus Technology, 1GB DDR3 Memory

Total memory 4 GB PC3-12800 DDR3 (1 DIMM)

Keyboard Keyboard Backlit - US English

Camera No Camera, with Microphone

Hard drive 320GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm

Ultrabay DVD Recordable

System expansion slots Express Card Slot & 4-in-1 Card Reader

Battery 6 Cell Li-Ion TWL 70+

Integrated WiFi wireless LAN adapters Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 AGN

Integrated mobile broadband Mobile Broadband upgradable

3 year depot warranty

I got a same except mine has no bluetooth but has camera, the price is around $750 + $50 warranty + $57 tax

Any idea when to expect a sale like this to come around again? My T61 just died and I need a good deal on a new ThinkPad and I'm considering the X series.