What would you recommend: T480; Carbon X1 Gen 6; Or Dell 7480? (lemm.ee)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I need a portable laptop to:

have a lot of online quality video calls
type a lot during each meeting
have a ton of browser tabs open
have a few CPU-demanding apps running at the same time

I will use this laptop as my main PC.

I'm also considering:

T480s
Carbon X1 Gen 7-8
Dell 7490

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[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Personally I'd do the following:

boot into the bios config menu to make sure it's unlocked (if it's locked and they don't have the password that'd be a dealbreaker for me)
boot into a live linux environment from usb and test both batteries, keyboard, trackpoint/trackpad, speakers, microphone, wifi, and all external ports (T480 has 2 usb-c, 2 usb-a, ethernet, hdmi, headset, and sd - make sure batteries charge well from both usb-c ports)
to check the storage health, install nvme-cli if not installed, run nvme smart-log /dev/nvme0 and check the "percentage_used" value: if it's near 100% it might die and need replacement soon
to check that the vents, airflow, and cooling hardware are in good shape, install stress if not installed, run stress -c 7 to load up 7 of the 8 available cpu threads, make sure the fan spins up good and strong, and watch /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp to make sure the cpu temperature stays under ~90-95 degrees

On my own time later, I'd run memtest86+ overnight from bootable usb to check the memory, then install tlp and run tlp recalibrate with the laptop on the charger to recalibrate the batteries

Edit: enjoy the new laptop! I hope it works great for you

this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2024

22 points (95.8% liked)

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