Best Brand of Laptop for MBA

Question: we all know steve jobs went a little overboard on the design, but would it kill lenovo to pay a little attention to design?? their computers are just... so ugly.

Lenovo actually touts their aesthetics as a positive. Some rather enjoy the sleek, utilitarian looks of the Lenovo Thinkpad Series. I am indifferent towards it.

I actually like the way the lenovo looks...

Just to give anyone the heads up that is interested in a Lenovo, www.corporateperks.com is running one of the best Lenovo deals I've ever seen. It's like 20-30% off most laptops and accessories (even the newest docking stations, monitors, bags, etc..). I just picked up an x230, 128 SSD, I5 2.6 Ivy Bridge, 4GM RAM, Full Docking Station, 3 year on-site warranty, Webcam, fingerprint reader, backlit keyboard, 36 month version of Norton Internet Security 2012, 6 cell battery, IPS screen, full docking station (was $219, with deal was $149!), and many little accessories for $1,300. Saved almost $500 with the discount, and this was on top of the already "discounted" (The're ALWAYS running "discounts") price. Deal runs through June 12. Wasn't planning on buying my computer for another month or so, but this deal was way too good to pass up.

Note: Requires that you create an account... once you do, click on the lenovo deal under electronics (its the #1 used deal on the whole site right now) and click "Shop Now". It will redirect you to the Lenovo website except everything will be like 25% off. It's incredible.

Also, I have no affiliation with corporate perks and neither does GMAT Club. Just trying to hook up my fellow Clubbers

this is a great post thanks

Moving this to the "B-School Life" section.

For reference, here are some similar discussions:
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After finishing my first year at HBS, my recommendation for a laptop would probably be a 13" Macbook Air although at this point it probably makes sense to get the new slimmed down Macbook Pro which looks pretty sweet. I had a 13" Macbook Pro this past year and it felt way too heavy to be lugging around campus. (Edited to note: looks like the new slim Macbook Pro is only in the 15" model. Get the new Air than.)

As far as Excel modeling goes, I ran Parallels with Windows 7 and the latest Microsoft Office. At home I had a larger monitor that I docked my laptop to and a wireless Microsoft compatible keyboard so that I could do all the Excel shortcuts that I was used to. I have yet to use my DVD drive on my Macbook Pro although I do have an external drive as well which are crazy cheap these days.

Oh, and I was a diehard PC user but the prices are getting close that it didn't seem to be an unreasonable aesthetic premium. OS X is pretty slick and the touchpad is a joy to use. I also have the latest Office for Mac and while I do use the Excel when I'm too lazy to boot up Parallels, it's still a far cry from the Windows version for doing any heavy lifting. I know plenty of bankers and PE guys who are using Macs here at school but in the office they obviously would still be using their company issued Vaios or Thinkpads. Interesting to note that our Training the Street instructor did his Excel training from a Mac running Parallels as well. That seemed a bit strange.

All,
Is this an option - forgo the laptop completely. Instead buy any tablet and use Google documents for all your office needs.
I dont know how well Google's spreadsheet compares to Excel.

Is this option viable ? It will be more convenient to carry a tablet than a laptop, and other than finance heavy courses, it appears that Excel is not critical.

Another question - do business schools allow students to record lectures ? Audio ? Video ?

Personally, I wouldn't do it. Google Docs are okay for standard stuff, but if you need to get format or formula heavy, you're going to be out of luck. Also, I would much rather be overprepared than underprepared. A nice, fast laptop will definitely be able to handle whatever is thrown at me, but a tablet probably won't be able to.

I'm not sure if anybody's looked at this, but you should. If you are thinking about buying a Lenovo, jump on this deal. I just bought one (I was going to get an X230t anyway) and it saved me $475.

Pretty awesome right? Never seen anything quite like it... Even corporate perks.com mentions it's only for older models, but then once you're on the website it's like for everything! I feel like it's their employee pricing

I'm pretty happy about it. I was in the same situation as you. I was going to get the X230t before school started anyway, but I was putting it off until a little closer to my July 30 start date, hoping that Lenovo would put it on sale. Then this deal pops-up, and I had to buy my laptop now. It is a pretty incredible deal. I was fully expecting to pay $1500+ pretax for my laptop, and I ended up paying $1225 pretax. It's nice that it's not just on pre-packaged computers either. I specced mine out so that it's just how I want it and still got a 28% discount. That's better than my company's employee pricing (on HPs). We only end up with 15%-20% off. Thanks for the heads up on this one. You saved me $475.

Today most schools give wireless net on their campus, and provide the service to their students. therefore it's vital for you to shop for a laptop with wireless net access. A laptop with wireless net access will connect with the school's wireless net association anywhere among the campus, regardless if you is outside or in one in all the school's facilities. If your college don't have wireless net, it possibly can soon, therefore it's still vital to shop for a laptop with wireless net access.

This is terrible. Corporateperks.com requires a 5-digit pincode/ zipcode during sign-up. So, I can't access the deals from India. Does anybody know any workaround?

Decided to purchase the Lenovo Thinkpad Edge S430 when it becomes available this month.

does anyone know if any of these small laptops/ultrabooks are capable of hooking up to a 30" external monitor and run at full res? i've been using 30s for the past few years and really like the screen space. ideally i'd like a small laptop to bring to class and such and be able to hook up to my monitor for projects at home etc. i guess i could always sell my 30s and get 24s but it'd be nice if this works somehow.

Thanks for your reply, gavinj1984. I do see your point about being overprepared.

But seriously, what does an MBA course throw at you, other than Excel formulas, that cannot be done on any tablet in the market. For a finance class, one can use any laptop, even an older one. But for every other course, all you need is a word processor, presentation software, email and of course, a browser.

I wouldn't buy a new laptop unless it is absolutely needed.
I think compared to a tablet, a laptop is much clumsier to handle in a class. With a tablet, you could even record the lecture ! Do they allow that ?