ThinkPad Edge E430 (3254AH2) Notebook Intel Core i5 3210M(2.50GHz) 14" 6GB Memory 750GB HDD 5400rpm DVD±R/RW Intel HD Graphics 4000

Pros: Excellent keyboard, very good battery life (5+ hours with the screen dimmed to an acceptable level), good sound and a fast machine for the price. It's fairly light for a laptop with an optical drive, but bulkier than a true ultrabook. It's well built for the price point, though, and also Linux compatible, which to me means a potentially longer life for the machine.

Cons: The unconventional switch of the function and control keys on the bottom left of the keyboard are very hard to get used to. The look of the machine also leaves something to be desired, and the black shell shows every single smudge.

Other Thoughts: It took a lot of work to find a laptop that was light enough to truly be carried around, was fairly fast, had an optical drive and was still a good value. I'm very satisfied with the machine.

Pros: Nice laptop. I specifically wanted W7Pro... not ready for the Metro interface. It runs well and is far speedier than the older Lenovo u450p (SU7300-based) laptop I was using. Excellent battery life.

Cons: None really. A bit much pre-installed trial-ware for my taste...

Other Thoughts: I put an ADATA XPG SX300 256GB mSATA SSD in it and reinstalled Windows. Makes an incredible difference in performance. Using the 5400RPM drive as mass storage.

Pros: I bought this laptop on newegg blackfriday pre-sale. This is a really very big deal. The screen is awesome, much better than my previous Asus U47A, also better than my Thinkpad R61i which bough six years ago. I'm a little sensitive to screen and poor screen will drive me crazy. Trust me, the screen will out your expectation.
Also, it's silent and you can barely hear any sound even at late night.

The sound is Ok and above average.

Cons: No hdd status light, no wifi status light. Maybe need a little get used to.

Other Thoughts: Newegg din't mention the laptop has brushed aluminum on panel A and panel C, which feels very cool.

Pros: Good build, nice finish. Pretty fast once it boots up.

Cons: Pressing F1 to F12 function keys requires 2 key combination (must press Fn Key at bottom left and F# key in top row). Legends for F# keys in top row are in tiny red letters. Very slow startup. Useless Lenovo Apps.

Pros: none

Cons: worst purchase of my life.
The laptop delivered at 6 pm and the first RAM blackout occured at 8 pm.
the "s" key did not work from the beginning.
not only i will not buy from lenovo again, i will return this package and close my newegg account too.
I am as frustrated as hell.

Other Thoughts: the mouse on it is annoying, and also the keyboard is very tough.

Pros: Good price
Large hard drive

Cons: Lenovo's quality control has gone downhill. This is the second Lenovo laptop we've had serious problems with. This one lasted 4 days, just long enough to load Office 2000, Webroot Security and some files. Then, the laptop wouldn't start up. Tech support was puzzled and asked for the laptop to be sent back! Our assessment is that there's something wrong with the motherboard but who knows. In our case, 2 out of the 3 Lenovo laptops we purchased have been defective are defective and the one we had ordered directly from Lenovo was delayed because of issues with the processor. Where does Lenovo get their parts for their laptops???Disappointing....

Other Thoughts: I would give it a zero star if that was available. It's unacceptable for a computer to fail after 4 days!!!

Pros: Cheap for good configuration

Cons: Hard disc failed within a month, keeps hanging.
Battery stops charging after 80%, but this is random
Cheap quality
Returning laptop

Pros: Build quality is exceptional, especially considering I bought it on sale. Keyboard feels good, but it's a little cramped for my taste (bought it for my girlfriend, who has smaller hands, so this might be a non-issue). Everything seems to work OK under Ubuntu 12.10 (writing this from the live environment) - wireless comes up right out of the box, with no additional drivers needed; as do touchpad, nubbin, and webcam.

Girlfriend claims battery life is awesome, have not tested myself.

Cons: Touchpad design is a bit wonky. The pad itself works fine, but it runs all the way to the leading edge of the laptop, so if you're used to using that area as a thumb rest while mousing, you will find yourself shouting the worst obscenities known to man until you get used to it.

Also, the FN key is in the lower left corner of the keyboard, exactly where the CTRL key normally is. This will also need to be gotten used to if you use a lot of CTRL+KEY combos.

Also also, for the price I'd like to see a quicker hard disk. 5.4k just doesn't cut it these days.

Also the third, there is bloatware. Not just quiet, sit in the background and take up space bloatware, but annoying, daemon-running free-trial pop-up bloatware.

Other Thoughts: This should be a pretty good little machine once we get used to the touchpad and keyboard layout. Linux support is good, but I haven't tested the card reader or fingerprint scanner under Ubuntu yet.

Pros: Lighter and thinner than I expected, screen looks much better than many of the other non-HD screens I have seen in stores, it is very clear. Computer is relatively snappy, would have been nice to see a little bit faster HDD but for the price I paid I am happy. One small thing Lenovo did that I really appreciate is on the power adapter the power doesnt stick directly out, it is bent at an angle which I believe will help in keeping the small wires on the inside from shredding and rendering the power cord unusable. The keyboard is another thing that I really like about this setup, it is quiet and is comfortable to use, im sure those who have used many laptops or keyboards in their day know what I mean.

Cons: Touch pad is somewhat picky, I am still trying to figure out how to get it to work correctly and properly calibrate it. I was unable to get it to connect to the wireless at work, hopefully updating it will cause it to work properly. One other minor annoyance that will take getting used to is the placement of the Fn key on the bottom left hand side of the keyboard, it is where the control key was on my old laptop and many other laptops I have used, will take some getting used to knowing that I have to move over one key.

Other Thoughts: Overall I am very pleased with the purchase, especially for the price. This is a relatively high powered laptop with Win 7 and for the $550 that I got it for, I dont think I could have found a better deal.

Pros: It is a fast, relatively light, laptop that is more than enough machine for most people. mSata availability is awesome, has everything I need from a computer and a whole bunch I don't but still enjoy. 14" screen means that it is still mobile (honestly, I am not sure why 15.4" is so d*mn popular). Linux friendly.

Cons: It is not built quite like the "real" thinkpads. Still super durable though. Also, to save costs, Lenovo made the optical drive fixed rather than an Ultra Bay. So no second battery option is available. You can get HDD/SSD caddies to put in its place though (like other brands with fixed optical drives).

It should be noted as well that mobile HM77 motherboards come with two SATA III ports and four SATA II ports. Because the optical drive in most thinkpads is an ultrabay, the second sata III port goes to there. So if you get a mSATA SSD, know that it will be SATA II only. Though this is still pretty amazingly fast.

Other Thoughts: If you know the history of ThinkPad's and their reputation for quality, you may be questioning this low priced machine amongst a line of giants. Don't worry, it is still of excellent quality. It is still built to last, and has solid metal blocks for hinges, so no floppy screen like some other brands.

The mSATA slot (if not using for wwan) is simply amazing. Do yourself a favor, and buy your own. I put a 120GB Mushkin in mine, and it is unbelievable. Also, if you want a SSD to last, the worst thing you could do to it is make it a HDD cache. Instead, invest the couple hours of work to either clone your existng install to it, or simply reinstall onto the msata and use it as a boot drive.

I have never been a fan of the idea of a 15.4" screen and mobility. I think those two things don't match. So in my mind a 14" screen still provides easy of transport, while being large enough to get real work done. My only complaint about the screen is that it is 16:9 rather than the more usable 16:10. This is inherent of the direction of the industry itself though, and not really the fault of Lenovo.

A couple things to note:

If you are a Linux user, make sure you are not getting the ThinkPad b/g/n card, as it is a realtek and is pretty terrible. Get the Intel card instead, as it works out of the box.

Also, for everyone, you should be aware that there are two batteries available for this machine. Make sure you are getting the larger one, as it is only $10 more.

One more thing: I know it indicates the RAM limit is 8GB, but this is not actually the case. The motherboard, processor, bus, etc can all handle 16GB, and this machine works a-ok with that amount. I believe that in other countries, Lenovo actually lists the mas RAM as 16GB. Why the difference? I don't know.

Oh, one more thing! If you are a WWAN user, you should know that the WWAN slot and the mSATA slot are one and the same. You cannot have both. These machines have a controller that determines if the slot is being used as pci-e or sata, and switches accordingly. So all you have to do is slap something in there.

The mSATA slot is also a SATA II port (as mentioned above). There are two SATA III ports on mobile HM77 mobos, one is assigned to the HDD slot and the other goes to the optical bay. This is likely because the optical bay is typically an ultrabay, and therefore typically the place users have traditionally put a secondary storage drive. I looked into whether or not this could be changed, and found that the connectors are actually soldered to the mobo itself, and are not attached via intermediary cables. So switching would not be easy.

If you are so inclined, the optical bay can be replaced with 3rd party caddies that will hold a HDD/SSD, which will run at full SATA III. The idea of a SATA III optical drive is just silly, as there is no possible way for it to go that fast. You actually cannot physically spin a disc fast enough.

At the current $550, thi