Laptop suggestion
 

HP EliteBook 8460p
Dell Latitude E6430
Lenovo T420

Anyone have any good/bad experiences with them?
Dont need a high end gaming laptop.. just something to do some work, surf web and occasional LOL/HoTS type game

Looking at some refurb ones for around $350ish.. all 3 are similar spec:
i7
8GB
500gb/128ssd
14"

I use Dell Latitude E6410 with i5 M520, put an SSD drive in it, 8GB RAM and it flies. Don't game but for everything else it's real good. Only bad thing about Dell is its video card which is generic and dedicated 512MB, can go up to shared 4GB. I think you're on the right track, get a used business line notebook, excellent great value.

Friend of mine, really into computers stick by Lenovo T410/T420 series. I've seen it, another solid, great value used notebook.

My lenovo turned into my htpc runs like a champ

you have the T420?

+1 for lenovo t series build quality. just throw in a ssd and it will run like new

Correction, better than new!

See if you can get an E6430U. Ultrabook variant which is nicer.

I think ive decided on Lenovo T430
Comes with the newer i5 and usb 3.0... Opinions?

Lenovo ThinkPad T430 14" Laptop - Black (Intel Core i5 3320M/320GB HDD/4GB RAM/MAR Win 7 Pro)-Eng-Ref : Refurbished Laptops - Best Buy Canada

looks good. screen is still the 1600*900 but still good. put in a 256gb ssd for about 100 bucks and it will be go as new

Good choice, there are some on CL ranging from $240-320, if you can find a reliable one on CL with HD (1600x900), change the SSD, you'll get in under the Best Buy one. Although the one on BB is a pretty decent price for a refurb with 90 days warranty. Bit of peace of mind.

http://vancouver.craigslist.ca/searc...asc&srchType=T

I would much rather trust BB then people on CL... TBH
firstly because I dnt know how to check so see if the internals are still good or not...

Thanks everyone for the input..

Just picked up a Lenovo T450 for $300... pretty much brand new.. no wearing on the keys or palm area and no scratches.. im happy
I have all the apps to check what I could.. from SSD, screen, speakers and wifi...

Only issue I noticed was the Fan... when I searched around online.. others seem to have this issue and said that it would go away after a week or 2 of using...

Wow, you did real good $300 for T450 ... almost 'too good to be true'. What happened? Thought you didn't trust CL.

What exactly about the fan, too noisy, too hot? I find that laptops with SSD usually run hotter if that is what you mean.

Power-hungry SSDs: Hotter than disks | ZDNet

its the fan for the cpu i think...

yea at first I was hesitant.. but saw an awesome deal.. I did take all precaution... got all the apps to check internals... I was happy with the results...

Sorry for late reply, yes it is the t420 with i5
You got a smoking deal, the CPU fan is an easy replacement if you need to go that route:
fan replacement instructions

Is the T450 the same as t420 because thats the instruction for it t420

Just found the instructions for the t450.
https://support.lenovo.com/ca/en/documents/pd100678

I have a question about M.2 ssd and this laptop. I read around and some people say it works as a boot drive and some say it doesnt.
The M.2 slot on the this laptop has 1 notch and Ive seen some M.2 ssd drive have 1 and 2 notch cutout.. Are both these type compatible or only the ones with the 1 notch cutout?

http://img.ncix.com/images/118218_l.jpg http://img.ncix.com/images/110825_l.jpg

nope.

the one notch one is pcie ssd (more expensive but faster). it will work on computers that have a m2 slots that are designed to be able to use the 2 notch one and 1 notch one.

the 2 notch ssd is what you will see in normal computers. if you put this ssd into a slot designed for the one notch ssd it will not work. usually high end boards will have the pcie m2 slot only.

the manual with tell you which drive will work in the slot.

Is the fan noisy? Older laptops generally benefit greatly from a repaste.

Got a X220 but for the sole reason I take a lot of notes in class. I'm not so much for gaming on a laptop so not sure about that.

Yes, this is correct.

2 notch M.2 uses 2x PCI Express lanes, while the 1 notch uses 4x PCI Express lanes. More lanes = more speed/bandwidth.

FYI, I know you're talking about M.2, but when I tried to setup my mSATA as a boot drive, I had a heck of a hard time setting it correctly to boot. Many headaches later, I managed to do it. I had to turn on RAID SATA in the BIOS... :rukidding:

Found out I need the M.2 2242 version.. which isnt very common... stupid Lenovo... lol