24
votes
Favorite Laptop?
What kind of laptop does everyone here have? If you had to replace it today, what would you replace it with?
What kind of laptop does everyone here have? If you had to replace it today, what would you replace it with?
T440S here. I'll buy Thinkpads forever. They're everything I want in a laptop - quality hardware, well built, decent screens, and you can take them apart easily and swap stuff out as needed. Except you don't need to often because they're built like tanks. And the keyboards. Oh my.
I've got a T440S as well. Running Linux Mint on it and it's a dream. My only complaints are the touchpad and screen quality. Touchpad took some time to get used to, and the screen is fine until I compare it to my Asus Zenbook Pro...no comparison.
I bought an extended battery and it last for like 12-15, no joke.
The screen on those was a bit of a lottery, unfortunately. The earlier models have a gorgeous AUO panel but later they ran out and used a considerably shittier LG screen. Luckily I have the AUO one.
I totally agree the touchpad could be better though. I think they ditched this design in later devices.
Well, that's the second time a username on tildes has made me do a double take. Sorry for the unconstructive comment - but I admire your work and am glad to see you here.
I have an x220! Definitely a good recommendation, and probably one of the most affordable ones. I'll always rec one whenever someone is looking for a new laptop.
One of the main reasons I purchased one was the price and definitely the durability, I'm quite clumsy. It's been through a lot but is still kicking. My battery pack allows for about 6 hours of use with Ubuntu (If I installed Windows optimized would probably be 3-5).
Wow! That's fucking great battery life! My current computer gets only 1-2 hours of battery on Ubuntu! It was also like 200-300, but much newer.
I was using one of these with Mint Linux installed on it for a while and thought that it was great. Super lightweight and responsive compared to other technically more powerful laptops I've used recently. Unfortunately something in it died so its out of commission until I figure out what it was.
I've got an X60T so yeah :D Core Duo's really underpowered for modern use, I'll need a new laptop for university. But it's so comfortable and enjoyable to use though, I'll definitely keep it around even with a new laptop. It's amazing that it's actually more compact (although heavier) then even most modern 12 inch laptops, especially ironic since everyone's been trying to make them thinner and more portable.
Exactly why I run with an old HP Elitebook 8530w. Solid, serviceable and just as fast as anything else after extra RAM and an SSD. I can even use Maya and Unity on it quite nicely, since it has a separate Nvidia GPU. Aluminium case, solid as igneous rock. $200 second hand on eBay. :)
Twenty-thirteen or so remains the sweet spot for Moore's law, in the opinion of my wallet.
I hear there's an FOSS version. Anyone try it yet?
FOSS version of the laptop itself? You mean an X220 with a FOSS BIOS? @sircmpwn mentions that it has "Coreboot support" in their post, so presumably they're using coreboot themselves.
I seem to be the only Mac person here :) I have a 2013 Macbook Pro 13" and it's been rock solid, never had to take it in even once. It's my main computer, so I wish I had bought the next storage level up, but Apple gouges you on that, and pretty much anything else. Say whatever else you want about Apple, but their displays are top notch.
<rant>I'm a huge fan of iOS and macOS, but the latest round of MBPs has me worried. If I had to buy a new laptop now I don't know that I would get one of the latest MBPs.
- They made the batteries smaller, which is supposed to be offset by more power efficient chips, but the chips are only more power efficient at idle. If you're doing anything serious you're going to see worse battery life.
- The trackpads were industry leading, but they decided to make them even bigger. Now they're so big that they flex when you press on them, even though there's no physical click mechanism.
- They took away the light-up Apple logo on the back, which was a pretty iconic Apple detail.
- If you want a physical Esc key you can only get a 13" laptop with two ports, one of which will be used when charging.
- The keyboard is objectively worse to use than the previous keyboard.
- The keyboards seem to fail at an alarming rate.
</rant>I use the 2017 MacBook Pro and I love it. The battery life is super good and I can use a power bank thanks to usb c
The trackpad is great. The keyboard is also very nice except for the people with failing keyboards of course
I don’t mind the missing light and I use caps lock for escape
I'm a Linux guy, but really like Apple hardware. I have a 12" MacBook at work and use the 15" and 17" Macbook Pros once in a while.
Just bought our graphics guys the new iMac Pros. I laughed at them because they were all jazzed about the space gray color, but damn if they don't look nice.
I use caps lock for control already!
Is there a way to use the tilde button? My 60% keyboard has that. I need a function key for tilde then
I use an app called Karabiner to remap keys on macOS. On Linux it would be something like xbindkeys.
woah I had no idea you could do this.
Same. I just wish there was a fix to make the keyboards more reliable or that Apple would start a quality program giving free repairs for them. My 1 year to buy AppleCare is almost up, and I’m thinking I’m gonna do it just so that I don’t end up with a $700 repair down the road.
I just bought it because I am worried, too
I'm with you! I absolutely love my 2012/2013 MBP. It has served me very well and is always my goto for travel, couch browsing, linuxing, or building iOS apps.
I recently needed to upgrade to something a bit newer and went with a Surface Book 2. While the trackpad doesn't compare to the MBP, it's a nice replacement/upgrade otherwise.
I've thought about other laptops, but the huge variety of really good software written for macOS is what keeps me on the platform. It's also really nice to have the same apps on my iPhone, my iPad, and my laptop.
At home, I am on a mid-2011 MBP, and at work I use a 2017 MBP/retina.
Both are reasonably solid, and I prefer these for the UX and Darwin/linux underpinnings. I am a Unix/linux person from the wayback days. I can comfortably drive a windows pc, but would prefer not.
Voted up this thread just to provide support to the Mac minority in here.
Was about to buy a new 2017 MacBook, but I hate, hated the keyboard. Maybe next year they'll fix it. I'm considering buying an XPS 13 and hackintoshing it.
Here is a very interesting video on apple engineering quality from a guy who repairs them for a living.
All of the problems you point out are why I’m sticking to my old MacBook. I have a 2012 15” MacBook Pro, which I believe is the last 15” MacBook made with a battery that isn’t super glued in and with user replaceable RAM. It is running well (though its USB ports are worn) and I intend to use it until it is totally dead.
While I agree with the concerns regarding the keyboard, I would say that the bigger trackpad is actually awesome. You've got a larger space to work on, which I've found to be best when working at a weird angle or something.
Miss that light-up Apple tho.
I have a mid 2013 Macbook Air 11" that has been great, but is starting to slow down a bit. I'd love to upgrade to a 2015/2016 MBP but can't justify the expense right now.
2013 MacBook Pro here as well. Never had any problems and only one complaint with the storage being very small which is typical of apple. If I HAD to replace it I would get the same computer with expanded storage
I'm pretty well ingrained into the Dell XPS/Precision line nowadays, absolutely great linux support.
I got an XPS 13 after my main laptop died suddenly. It's an absolutely beautiful laptop with the best keyboard I've ever used. I'm looking forward to loading Linux (probably ElementaryOS) and seeing how long I can get the already 10hr battery to last under active use.
fedora with cinnamon has been a delight
My only complaints with the XPS13 are:
keyboard sometimes is too aggressive with the anti-double-tap and when i type meme it shows up as mee (this is probably configurable but I'm lazy)
the palm rejection annoys me (but this is also probably configurable)
sometimes the wifi is screwy
great linux laptop otherwise. also, hi Enso! I saw you got dogpiled by Ethan Klein the other day and thought it was neat someone I recognized was internet famous for a sec.
Wait what is this about me getting dogpiled by Ethan Klein? Are you talking h3h3? I may not be who you think I am unless I missed something.
I'm looking at getting an XPS 15 as my next long term daily driver, think it's worth getting this year's model?
I don't remember their product cycle, if we're close to refresh I'd suggest waiting it out. Otherwise, go for it, you can find some good deals if you wait for holidays.
The new one just came out in May
They're good machines, I've got the 5510 and the 9360 and don't feel the need to update any time soon.
I don't do any gaming on it and wouldn't recommend it as I use the desktop for that, but I have a Surface Pro and love it as a little Netflix machine on the nightstand. I got it while I was in the Navy to fit in the small racks and its is a handy little thing.
I also have an SP that I use basically as e-paper to take notes during class. Example of my notes. Totally changed the way I do university, I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to take notes, but also have enough power be able to run programming/statistical/MatLab software.
Beautiful handwriting!
I just moved away from a Surface Pro as i needed to type more, and the keyboard is awful. Still use it aroudn the house though. It was a decent machine.
My laptop is a Dell Inspiron 1520. The system hardware is 10 years old now, but with an SSD and Linux it's ultra responsive and great for the light work I ask of it.
I also have a ~10 year old Inspiron. I forget what model, but I think it may be slightly newer than yours. I also run Linux on it, and it's great for the little work I do on it! The only issue I've had was having to replace the battery a few times. The 3rd party ones never seem to work as well, but they aren't too expensive so it's fine. I never thought about buying an SSD to just throw in there though, so I might actually do that now. They are definitely cheaper than what they once were.
It's totally worth it. SSD is life changing when coming from an old harddrive. Really brought the laptop from just bearable to use, to actually impressively fast.
I've also upgraded the CPU and RAM as well. The RAM was like $10 or some, I think. Going from 4GB to 8GB would cost around $100, which is about the cost of a newer laptop that has that much RAM on eBay, so I probably won't do that. CPU was about ~$40 and was a minor annoyance to install (the whole laptop had to come apart, including removing the screen.) So far the upgrades have left me with a high respect for this older hardware. In the right setting, it's still quite good.
I love the Dell XPS series. It's close to Macbook-like quality, but without Macbook prices. I was actually a die-hard Macbook fan until their most recent model where they completely ruined the keyboard. The Dell XPS has been an excellent replacement with a much better keyboard.
It's also Linux-friendly if that's your thing.
I only have laptops from work these days but I've been enjoying the stability of the Lenovo T460 (now T470) line. Ugly and bulky, but it's like the Toyota Corolla of laptops. Easy to fix and maintain, rugged, will survive most you throw at it (or throw it at). Pretty expandable too, without much fuss or effort. Good battery life. Also very, very good for Linux distros.
RIght now, I've got a MacBook Pro 15" from work. My first Mac ever and I'm really enjoying it! I finally get what the whole thing is about, it really is functional in its form. I never realized how useful these touchpad gestures were for navigating around a PC without a mouse. It's also got me a lot further to learning how to code than any machine before, and I really think a large part of that is how I can just swipe between screens. Silly nothing thing, I know, but it works.
That said, I wouldn't pay the price they ask for it. As much as I like this machine, I still don't think it's priced well (especially in CAD). And the fucking dongles, jeez. Took me less than a week to be in dongle city.
I've been strongly considering an A485 when it comes out in July. It's basically a T480 with Ryzen. It's a little lighter then the T470 but not by that much, how portable is the 14" form factor?
I think they're easily portable. They're not exactly the lightest machines around but they're a far cry from the big clunker T440's from a few years ago.
I've got a thinkpad T430. Considering getting a T400/T60/X60 so that I can install Libreboot. If I can get a T60 with the high-res screen option (1600x1200) I'd be very happy.
I also recently got an IBM 755CE as a gift from my uncle retiring from IT. It's a lot of fun to play around with.
Fellow T430 owner here! I gave it a 9-cell battery and put my old laptop's HDD in the ultrabay (instead of the DVD burner), it's a proper tank now. Libreboot sounds like a fun project, but I'm not about to buy another laptop just for that.
I definitely need to get the 9 cell battery. The old 6 cell in mine is starting to show its age. I could try to replace the cells myself. That'd be another fun project.
Original Surface Book.
Thought I was getting the best laptop, you know integrated software and hardware and everything, but the software still strongly disappoints.
I have an Acer Aspire 5 in the 15.6" model (A515-51-88NY). They create them in plenty of processor, RAM, GPU, and screen combinations, so I find it a good laptop to recommend in many price points. I got mine for school, so I opted for the i7-8550U model with the 1080p screen and 12GB of RAM. My school has free Drive space for students so I got the 256GB SSD instead of a traditional hard drive.
Acer has typically been the computer brand I've told people to stay away from, however, this computer impressed me when I saw the display model. It seems as if Acer has improved its build quality, and I have no concerns with the laptop being broken under everyday use or transport. I really like the backlit keyboard; many business-grade computers don't come with it, but this model came with a white LED backlight which is truly helpful when I work on my schoolwork at night. The computer is a little short on features, with no fingerprint or biometric peripherals on it, a low quality webcam, and regular stereo speakers. All of that is fine with me, as I don't use those features often, but I see why it can be a dealbreaker for some.
As with most OEM laptops, it comes with bloatware out of the box. Acer seems to have toned it down on exactly what they include, but a completely new Windows install is always recommended on a new laptop to remove these programs.
Overall, this computer is pretty fantastic, but definitely not for someone who wants to game due to the integrated graphics. My friend also purchased the same laptop but with the i5 configuration, and he agrees that it is probably one of the best Acer laptops in recent history. If, for some reason, I needed to replace it, I'd probably get the exact same one due to the low price and amazing speed in my everyday tasks.
I actually did replace it today. My old laptop was a Lenovo IdeaPad Y510P, and I'm now using a ThinkPad T440s. I'm running Funtoo on it as my GNU+Linux distribution of choice.
I've always been a fan of the Razer laptops. I own the original Blade which was great for its time since back then all the gaming laptops used to be huge and bulky. I'm pretty sure the newer laptops they design are just as good and if I ever need a smaller laptop I'll probably go for the Razer Stealth.
Speaking of smaller laptops one of the best purchases I've ever made was probably the MacBook Air (2011). It's still serving me to this day and the only complaint I have is probably that it's nigh on impossible to get Linux running on it.
I watched a video about the latest Blade, and I have to say I'm interested. I probably won't be in the market for another few years, but I think their updated design language is really good looking.
I have the Razer Blade Stealth and I love it. I've had both a Macbook and a Thinkpad X220 before it and the quality is about the same as both of those, which is to say excellent!
ive been thinkpad based for the last decade or so.
currently W530/32GBram/3 256SSDs driving 3 monitors, even at 4 years old, its a beast.
I recently got lucky and upgraded my 2012 MacBook Pro to a 2015 MacBook Pro with the 15-inch screen. Absolutely loving it, the i7 and SSD make for a formidable portable programming machine.
Has anyone used the x1 carbon with Linux? Im in the market for a higher end Linux laptop right now.
I have used a 1st gen x1 carbon with Ubuntu + i3wm for the last 3 years as my daily driver. Got it used off ebay for about $400, in the i7, 8gb, 240gb ssd configuration. Pretty much everything but the fingerprint reader just works immediately after install.
It's been 2 years since I upgraded to 16.04, so I'm a bit fuzzy on the details, but I think I had to do some touchpad, sleep / resume, and font tweaking, but that's about it.
My only complaint was the internal battery. Granted I bought a 1st gen unit used, but the battery was basically shot after 1.5 years of my usage, and I bought a replacement for $60. That 2nd battery is now done as well, and aftermarket supply of replacement batteries are slim. Unless you're really taken by the form factor, I'd probably suggest going with a comparable x- or t- series thinkpad if for no other reason than the wide availability of user-replaceable external batteries.
I actually just switched to a cringe Acer Chromebook 14" (Edgar). I thought for sure I'd be ditching it within a month, but with Android app support, I can use Termux to get a linux terminal, along with Python and my favorite linux terminal apps. Also supports mounting SFTP shares natively in the file manager, so the SSD limitation hasn't been a huge issue. Battery life on the Chromebook has been sooo nice. But enough about that, I'm rambling now and that's not what you asked!
Anyway, in closing, the X1 is a great machine. If I did it again I'd probably get a 12-14" x- or t- series machine.
Thank you for the info, I'll consider it when I get the cash together
Can't speak to it running Linux but, hardware-wise, it's excellent. Just remember you can't upgrade it so you should make sure you get the spec you want out the gate.
I've always been a fan of HP Elitebooks. Up until the last couple generations they've had toolless disassembly. There's a latch on the bottom of the laptop, a panel slides off, and you can upgrade the ram, hdd, wifi, etc, everything is right there. The build quality on them is great. All metal construction, really rugged, really solid hinges, spill resist keyboards, you can drop them from waist height without worrying about breaking them, and for modern ones anyway, they're pretty sexy looking. Not much thicker than a macbook.
Right now I'm rocking a HP Zbook Studio G3. Has the same dimensions as a MBP 15, so it's pretty slim and light, yet it packs an i7 6820HQ, 32gb DDR4 (can be expanded to 64gb), 1.5tb of NVMe SSD storage, Nvidia Quadro M1000M w/4GB, all the bells and whistles. And unlike a macbook, it has 3x usb3, HDMI, headphone/mic, ethernet, sd reader, as well as 2x Thunderbolt3 ports. Fantastic warranty. 3 years worldwide on-site support, typically next-day service, otherwise if you're in the middle of nowhere they ship it overnight and the whole process takes 3 days. Accidental damage coverage, no questions asked.
Got it open-box on ebay with 32 months remaining on the 36mo warranty for $1000. Normally a $4000 laptop, but you find a lot of engineering firms buy these things for one project then sell them for pennies on the dollar.
Cons:
Latest generations of Elitebook/Zbook have dropped the toolless design. You now need a torx screwdriver. Everything is still removable and replaceable, nothing soldered in place, though in some markets (the US I think), the wifi slot has a whitelist.
Poor linux support imho. They claim to be Ubuntu/RHEL certified, yet they don't provide support or customized images or anything. A lot of stuff didn't work out of the box on debian. I've got it all working now on the latest kernel, but it was a hassle.
Shitty webcam. Not much to be said here, it's grainy and 720p. It's a little thing, and I don't really use the webcam, but there's still no excuse for this.
Alps touchpad has awful windows drivers. Linux is pretty good. I still miss my Elitebook's physical buttons though. Not a fan of clickpads.
My laptop (Thinkpad P50) is also Ubuntu certified, I could have gotten it with Ubuntu 14.04, though I didn't know I was going to be a linux person at the time. That said, I am pretty sure for some of the "certification" the standard is whether it can boot into the operating system out of the box. To me, that's a pretty low standard, and hopefully we'll see things like that improve in the future.
That's what I have! A 10yr-old HP Elitebook 8530w. I bought second-hand on eBay for $200. :)
Built like an industrial-strength rock, has a great screen (as in no glare, easy on the eyes) and has a separate GPU for games (within reason). After throwing in an SSD and 8GB RAM, it's fast enough for anything I throw at it, which is usually Visual Studio, Photoshop, Maya and Unity. I even played Skyrim on it. Also very easy to service - de-dusting the fan is literally 2 screws and 10 minutes.
Some old laptops are still brilliant. I hate wasting money on "new" when re-purposing old stuff is, for all intents and purposes, exactly the same and very cheap.
ed: If I were to replace it, I don't know... so many "usability" things about this one is perfect, down to the recessed trackpad. I can't stand a lot of the "fads" around in laptop design now, like:
So i'd have to be very choosey about a new one.. but probably a second-hand business/corporate level Lenovo or HP, as they're designed to be practical, serviceable and last a long time.
My main complaint with the Elitebook (at least mine) is that it overheats like a mofo. Sounds like a jet taking off when booting or doing anything that engages the CPU
I have an HP Pavilion I got from Walmart a couple years back. It's the one without a touchscreen and it's been my prized possession.
I have an Asus X501A which i bought used when my previous laptop died and i needed a quick replacement.
Looking to upgrade to either an 2015 Macbook Pro or the XPS 13/15. Haven't decided yet.
It will primarily be used for web development, so i'm leaning towards a Mac so i can fit the stereotype better. Partially joking. Never owned a Mac, Windows 10 has started to really piss me off, and i'm not sure if i can be bothered to set up Debian or Kubuntu or whatever.
Any advice for my debate between the two?
OS X infuriates me, though that may just be because it's almost (but not quite) entirely unlike the Linux system I use from day to day. It's pretty easy to install a Linux distro nowadays, so I recommend giving Linux a go if you think you might want to go that route.
One thing I don't see many people mention about OS X/macOS is the mouse acceleration. I personally can't stand it – it feels like you're either moving the cursor through thick mud or it's flying off into the distance. There's a great article here about the topic (unfortunately some of the images are broken, but the important ones are mostly still there), which links to a Microsoft article about the same thing (that's an archive.org link, the original is long gone). As far as I can tell, there's no way to fix the OS X behaviour without buying a special piece of software, which rubs me the wrong way.
I've got an Acer aspire 5755-9401. It is showing its age, with 2nd gen i7-2670Q and HD3000. Still plenty good for most stuff, but Android Studio is a behemoth to handle.
Maybe I can replace it before next year, possibly with something lighter and that lasts longer than 20 minutes.
The 12.9" iPad pro I use at work. We have a full suite of 12", 13" 15" and 17" Macs, but the iPad is my favorite.
I own a Dell 13 7000, which replaced a Sony Z from 2010. Almost got an XPS 13 based on the reviews, but once I tested them out I couldn't find ~$400 worth of difference between them. I've had the Dell 6 months now. It's currently running ArchLabs and has been flawless.
I am currently rocking a Thinkpad P50, which I run with dual booted Win 10 and Ubuntu, soon to switch to Mint. I added a 2 TB hard drive, so it's able to store my entire steam library with well over a TB to spare. That said, the thing is heavy, and if I want to put in a full day of work on it, I need the power brick too. In total that's like 7 lbs of computer. Hopefully when I am next in the market to upgrade I won't be a nomadic student and I will be in a position to upgrade to something lighter along with a desktop.
Asus ROG 750. Never buying a gaming laptop again what was I thinking
I was looking to get something new-to-me and had been looking at the XPS13 but ended up with a good deal on a Microsoft Surface Book. It does not have the performance base, but I was not looking to game on it anyways. The screen / keyboard / design of it are amazing. I may eventually move to an XPS13 in a few years but this laptop is great and may have me hooked on Microsoft laptops for now.
I like my gaming pc and all but for light applications and web applications I way prefer macs
I remember about 10 years ago (maybe even more) I saw an article from a "warranty shop" (a place that repaired laptops that were sent broken under warranty. Said article showed HP laptops to be the worst ones. This was a long time ago, I wonder if any of those type of studies have been published recently.
I haven't had a laptop in a few years, so a few days ago I bought an Acer Aspire 1. Crappy little Celeron processor, 4gb of ram, but 14in 1080p screen, thin and light. It's passively cooled, sonno noise. It can't do much more than YouTube, Netflix, programming, office tasks like that. It can really only handle one thing at a time, but it does it fairly well. Really it's 'good enough', and has honestly replaced my desktop for 80% of my home computing.
Got it for $170. A new, full laptop with perfect Linux support for that price. It's so good I bought a second one to leave connected to my TV as a media center.
I have a couple laptops for work. If you want something light, I really like the build quality and thin screen bezel on the Dell InfinityEdge XPS 15 series.
If your looking for a gaming laptop I'm a huge fan of my Asus laptop: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=1TS-001A-004H0&ignorebbr=1&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC-_-pla-_-Gaming+Laptops-_-1TS-001A-004H0&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIx_iBg-ay2wIVhP5kCh0e_wBYEAQYBCABEgJh7vD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
It has a 1070 built in which lets me use it as a portable DeepLearning workstation, and is surprisingly light for what it packs inside. Note a lot of reviewers report thermal issues, but mine runs 24/7 training and hasn't had any problems.
I have the base level MacBook Pro 2012, and I bought it in 2016. This is because it is cheap but most importantly it is the last MacBook model that can be opened up without specialised tools. I've upgraded my ram and swapped out the hard drive for an SSD and my Mac is now as good as any recent Mac, at a much lower cost.
I use an MSI Ghost series at work and I LOVE IT. I got a recommendation to use this laptop review site which does a great job of breaking down the differences and prices across the board
I have a Lenovo Thinkpad Yoga 14" - best buy version (20FY-0002US if anybody cares).
Here's why it's amazing: Pressure Sensitive Wacom Screen + pen that docks in the laptop with a super capacitor so it charges in 5 minutes.
Also it has a dedicated graphics card.
I do a lot of 3d modelling. The pressure sensitive screen + mudbox is a dream. My friend has a $2000 wacom computer, and this has the same capabilities at 1/3rd the price ($800). It's also great as a day to day computer.
It can run 3dsmax and mudbox very well. One Note, which I never had a use for before this laptop, has suddenly become my favorite program! The pen makes so much difference. Any laptop without a pen just feels incomplete now. I like to store my DnD character sheets in One Note and be able to write and draw on it and next to it.
At first I bought this laptop because I didn't want to spend $2k on a Surface Pro 4, and thought "I'll just settle" but turns out I wasn't settling at all. It's a fantastic laptop.
The only downside is that it's hard to figure out which models have the Wacom Screen. Lenovo doesn't advertise this for some reason. I have no clue why. And the newer X-1 Carbons they've released don't have dedicated graphics so it's not going to run 3dsmax and mudbox as well. A lot of models have Wacom screens but don't come with pens either! I have no idea what lenovo is thinking.