Lenovo ThinkPad SL500 2746 Notebook

I had owned an IBM Thinkpad about 7 years ago, and it was a solid machine. Six months ago, I needed a new laptop for home use. I have had such great luck with Dell computers, and that's what I wanted to get, but Dell was charging $130 to "downgrade" to Windows XP, so I bought the Lenovo SL500, with XP included, instead.

The first thing that I noticed is that the computer was wrapped in bubble wrap and shipped in a UPS box similar to a USPS Priority Mail type box. That it! No styrofoam or anything!

When I got it home, I discovered a bad pixel on the display. I immediately packed it back up for return, but when I got on the website, I discovered that you have to have a certain number of pixels bad on a display before they will take it back -there is some acceptable standard of bad pixels that we should all expect to be OK.

Next, the unit comes with wireless and a Realtek network adapter. It took me the better part of two days to figure out how to get the network adapter to appear on the hardware list so that I could select and enable it. This required support outside of Lenovo's useless customer service.

I finally got the thing up and running, and have not been terribly unhappy -until about three weeks ago, when the machine suddenly stopped loading web pages in their entirety, regardless of whether I'm going through the network card or I'm using the wireless adapter. The unit does a successful DNS lookup finds the page, begins loading... and thbpbpb... bupkiss. (Guys, you know what that's like...)

After checking to make sure the issue was not on my cable modem, router or other network components, I downloaded all the diagnostics from the Lenovo site and ran them. They tell me that everything is fine! I've reloaded the ROM BIOS. I've unloaded and reloaded the software firewall and anti-virus scanner. Still bupkiss.

Now I am digging up an old pile of junk Gateway from the basement to use just for web browsing. The Lenovo just won't do it -and there's nothing else wrong with it! It finds my e-mail server just fine.

Do yourself a favor -STAY AWAY from Lenovo products! It wasn't worth the lousy $130 I saved.

I ordered this laptop for my son so he could take on the road with him for his work or when on vacation. I had it sent to my house so I could load some software I had ordered. I also ordered some other things to go with the laptop like a carrying case. I played with the laptop for a few days until everything arrived and I thought it was an excellent purchase. It appeared to very sturdy good for taking it on the road. It was pre-loaded with Windows XP Professional but has Vista Home Premium backup licensed for the PC. It had an option to upgrade to Windows 7 if you prefer that.

I have sent everything to my son in the meantime and he has used for a couple of weeks. He is using it wirelessly in his home but has not taken it on the road at this time. Everything seems to be working smoothly. He also has a wireless HP printer that he has been using with the laptop with great results.

I would recommend this computer to anyone who needs a solid computer to take on the road.

Buy Lenovo ThinkPad SL500 2746 Notebook Now

I used an IBM Thinkpad T60 in the past, thin, light and reliable, therefore, when I needed a personal laptop, I choosed Lenovo, thinking it'd at least be as good, since the SL500 had way better specs.

No, NO, NO! It turned out to be a complete turkey, (and I don't mean the country), it is SLOW, even though I upgraded it to 4 gig RAM, it takes forever to OPEN ANY APPLICATIONS, takes close to minutes to Hibernate, shut down or switch on. In the first year, I sent it back 2 times, 1st for modem disconnection. When you 1st on the PC, the wifi works, After a certain length of time, it's line's dropped. And no amount of manual scanning works, it has to be restarted, and wifi is picked up again...... for a certain amount of time again, before "disconnection". So, I brought it back to service center, during warranty period, guess what, they said they know, very common problem. So they changed the modem card.

Next problem arise shortly after 1st service, within warranty period, when the PC is on and you have to carry it somewhere, some tilting is involved, out came some sound like breaking of glass, or dropping of a bunch of keys, I KID YOU NOT. SO I brought again, to Lenovo service center, GUESS WHAT??? APPARENTLY, IT IS ALSO A VERY COMMON PROBLEM. "It's the Fan", they said.

They fixed it, changed the fan..... Soon, it ran out of warranty period, and GUESS WHAT? The LCD went blank. Since it's no longer works and past warranty period, I just park it aside somewhere, as I had another work Laptop to use. Eventually, I brought it back to Lenovo (after I tested it by plugging it with VGA cable to my flatscreen TV, I knew the LCD blew), I brought it back to Lenovo to explore possibilities to change the LCD, GUESS WHAT?.... They were honest this time, told me to forget it, it'd cost too much, in the region of getting a new one. Recommended that I try some IT repair center in town. I did and the fixed it for Ringgit Malaysia RM400, instead of the estimated RM1,600 by Lenovo.

However, I suspect that while this SL500 is not the most brilliant of Lenovo's but problem's compounded by Vista Business Pro. I'm considerinbg if changing Vista to Windows 7 helps. But the modem disconnection problem is back, and I'm considering also to change an OEM wifi modem, chucking the 320 Gig HDD and changing it to 500 gig. I feel very cheated by Lenovo, but this comes with some Intel Duo Core T8400, boasting 2.4 Ghz speed, so it's a kinda wasteful if left lying around doing nothing. I welcome any feedback on what I should do with the unit, it's solid and heavy, probably hardy, but not suitable as a mobile unit.

Read Best Reviews of Lenovo ThinkPad SL500 2746 Notebook Here

Bought this laptop about 3 years now. Worked very well after I upgraded it to 4G RAM. (1G is not quite enough for Vista....proved) It is much quieter than the Dell I used before. The power cord is vulnerable just like the old IBM models. So be careful when you plug the cord in, never bend or twist it. I am cautious enough because I had the same problem with an old IBM X series years ago(that baby lasted over 7 years, hope this one could do it too). In a word, this is a good laptop so far as expected. The only thing is that it is not as light as the X series. But for $500 this is awesome value.

Want Lenovo ThinkPad SL500 2746 Notebook Discount?

Stay away from this piece of JUNK!!!! This machine has been nothing but problems from the day I got it out of the box. I have had 5 ONSITE VISITS and it's still not right!!! Connection problems ON THE FIRST DAY...unexplainable error messages. Can't even load standard software applications without all sorts of compatibility issues!!! I'm going to wear their onsite support out because they're going to KEEP coming out until I've gotten ten times the cost of this piece of junk in service calls alone. And I'm going to SLAM Lenovo on every forum I discover on the internet.

Too bad you can't rate this garbage with negative stars.