Currently considering buying a laptop before 30th June.
I am looking for a 2in1 laptop and would like reviews / recommendations between Dell and Lenovo.
Dell vs Lenovo
Hoosein 786 on 02/06/2024 - 11:06
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Ideally 13 or 14 inch with 1TB SSD
Google is your friend.
Okay, not really, but you get the idea.
I would consider a Dell for a cheapo desktop for relatives. I would not spend any of my own money on their laptops.
I went through Dell tech support for a warrantied laptop a couple months back. It was a total (profanity) joke- I spent around an hour pissing about on an online chat with an overseas call centre being asked the same idiotic questions over and over again, being passed through three different levels of 'supervisors'.
It culminated in being asked to download a Dell Assisted Reality app on my phone to 'help' me disassemble the chassis to reseat components. All for a laptop that was covered under a corporate onsite next day warranty. It was pretty clear the whole way through that the issue was almost certainly going to require a part replacement.
Naturally, by this stage I told them to get stuffed and to send out a field tech. The field tech was great, and admitted that they all hated the overseas call centre- their requests for owners to open up their machines cause more problems for the field techs, both with busted hardware and really angry customers. Field tech had the problem fixed in 15 minutes, and it was the mobo replacement that was expected within me spending 5 minutes looking at the machine the first time around.
I've used Lenovo warranty several times, both for personal and for corporate reasons. Haven't needed them for ~4 years now, but each time they have been utterly fantastic. The repair tech has called me up on the phone prior the fix, explained the problem. Spoken like real human beings instead of robots reading off scripts. Or their CS reps have been happy to give me copies of restore CDs for EoL laptops being repurposed into charity organisations. This has always been for Thinkpads though, which are an upper end sub-brand of Lenovo, not sure what the are like with their other lines of laptop.
Can't do actual model recommendations though- I don't do 2-in-1 machines as touchscreens are shiny and more fragile. Note that the downside of Thinkpads is that they compromise on screen brighness- most other things about them are pretty good. For 'better' screens you'll have to look at other Lenovo models which tend to compromise on build quality (i.e. 'normal' industry laptop quality).
Ive had a lot of problems with dell 'support' too
Yeah, wasn't just me either. I had a chat to the guys at my company who are responsible for desktop/laptop support and they hate dealing with Dell. The online chat song and dance routine with a bunch of clueless script muppets seems par for the course.
both are good tbh
go for DELL XPS line up, (or Lenovo Yoga Lineups)Lenovo is slightly better if you want more of 2 in 1 experience (IMO), otherwise Dell better for easier repairability and upgradability.
I usually buy business laptops (so either Lenovo ThinkPads or Dell Latitudes) and you'll find ThinkPad 2-in-1 a lot cheaper than equivalent Dell Latitude 2-in-1. Both my kids are on ThinkPad L-series Yoga laptops. One of them have been using L390 Yoga for almost 4.5 years. Asked her recently whether she needs an upgrade but she insisted that it works fine for her studies.
You can get cheaper Dell 2-in-1 from their Inspiron series. However not too confident about Inspiron's quality.
How has the battery life been for your Lenovos? My kids' school had them for the students and they found battery life wasn't that good, but maybe the laptops weren't treated well.
Which Lenovo is your kids' school using?
Not sure about my kid's 4.5yo L390 Yoga — she brings that to uni every day which I assume it's fine, but there are also places that you can charge on campus between lectures.
As of my 5yo ThinkPad X1 Extreme that's my main computer — currently it can hold 57.5Wh out of original 80.4Wh, so 71% after 5 years. Not too bad I guess.
I'm not sure; this was a few years ago and the school then changed to Acer after those.
Your experience sounds good though, thanks!
I have a Dell now, laptop failed after a year. I went on holidays, left it at a friend's house and they may have dropped it because since I returned it had problems.
Called Dell support, quick answer, no long queue on the phone. They do ask you to try a couples of things, they couldn't fix it on the phone so sent it to their repair centre. Laptop returned like new, very happy with the service.
I have the extended warranty from Good Guys; however, their call centre didn't sound very good, they said they may charged me for the repairs so preferred to send it to Dell, came back cast and free.
I bought my significant other a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon G6 high end lightweight business laptop with a 3 year warranty. It was just before Covid lockdowns so I bought what I could get locally and it was the previous version to latest, but still brand new.
Lenovo ships devices with the warranty date set to the manufacturing date and then they are supposed to reset the warranty to the purchase date when you register the device. Their system registered the device to me but refused to fix the warranty date. When contacted by me and by the local vendor on several occasions, they refused to update it. Much time wasted.
So when I bought it, the battery had an expired warranty and the laptop warranty was about 1 year or so. Of course the Lenovo patch software rubs your face in it by showing you in a large font that your warranty has expired every time you run it, reminding you of the whole irritating story.
And of course the laptop had an intermittent problem that got worse and worse (much time wasted again), and we ended up replacing it with a Dell Vostro* laptop about a year before the warranty should have expired. So the Lenovo was pretty much a waste of money and I will never buy a Lenovo computer again.
I have had mostly Dell laptops and desktops with next day support that has been easy and prompt when I have needed it. However I don't have any recent experience as it has been years since I needed to call upon the warranty.
Oh and the Dell update software does not rub your face in it when the warranty expires. It's there but not obtrusive.
- Vostro is Dell's middle range for business, not the premium Latitude, but it has been really good and good value and I'd buy a Vostro again.
I'm never buying a Dell again after they throttled the CPU on my Inspiron after 5 years.
The touch pad started to get less accurate after about 4 years and I can no longer drag the cursor with it, only clicks.
The keyboard is starting to go as well. Quite a few of the keys need to be pressed multiple times to register.
My belief, but not firm understanding, is that Dell's business laptops have OEM battery stock for longer and are cheaper to buy,
but I can't fully back this up. I had to spend quite a lot on an X1 Carbon replacement battery via Lenovo's official Australian reseller
Budget?
Use case?
Screen size?
More info OP…