Ideapad durability?

Having owned quite a few Thinkpads over the years, I find myself in need of an inexpensive notebook to throw Linux on and use as a knockaround machine.

Knowing how bulletproof my Thinkpads have been, I am wondering if you folks could weigh in on the comparative durability of Ideapads? Are they built as solidly?

 

If you're in the US, check the outlet for ThinkPads for less.

If you don't need the latest processor and technologies, an older ThinkPad (e.g. T61, T500, T510) that is sold from off-lease or surplus stock at various online venues can be quite good for Linux.

You can see I bypass answering the "Ideapad durability" question.

 

Thanks. I kind of expected a similar answer. My only issue w/ off lease would be the used battery. Surplus stock might not be bad though!

 

Some off-lease ThinkPads can be quite new, with only a few cycles on the battery. (Those office workers don't "work" their ThinkPads the way you and I do. )

 

The Ideapads and Thinkpads are different designs (Thinkpads are designed by IBM).

I have an Ideapad Y570, and it seems like it's built pretty solid. I've only had it since November though (and had to get the motherboard replaced once already). I don't know whether it will outlast my T61 (which is bulletproof, indeed), but it at least doesn't feel cheaply built. It's a very nice, hefty, laptop to hold.

I wouldn't buy one of these to run Linux or play around with. The hardware seems to be very picky, and a lot of people have reported problems with driver conflicts especially with the graphics cards. Some people have practically bricked their Ideapads, but it could be that they really didn't know what they were doing when they reinstalled Windows or installed Linux or something. Personally, I'm not comfortable tweaking this laptop. I do a massive series of redundant backups just to update the NVIDIA drivers, because I've seen posts about how everything blows up after they move to 295.x etc.

 

I have a thinkpad SL410, and an ideapad Z575. While I'm impressed with AMD Llano, I think the build quality of the ideapad is less than stellar.
Plus, when I opened up the machine to remove/disconnect a few things, I was surprised at how many components are taped, not screwed in, to the chassis.
The screen seesaws back and forth with just a little bump to the desk, the keyboard flexes quite a bit, and the palmrest flexes.
To be honest, if I had to do it again, I would never have bought the ideapad, coming from my experience with two thinkpads.

 

You'd be surprised at how much tape there is in most notebooks. Thinkpads certainly have some holding wires, etc in place, and my ultraportable Averatec (rebadged MSI) had a bunch of tape holding thin layers of foil and other material down.

Can't speak to the IdeaPad Z-series, but the G-series and Y-series are at least on par with other equivalents from HP, Dell, etc. The G-series' durability didn't seem too shabby, to be honest.

 

I removed the microphones, cameras, and disconnected the speakers on both of my notebooks. In the SL410, the camera/microphone component was screwed into the back of the screen. In the Z575, they were both held on by just a piece of tape. I was quite surprised by that.
I kind of wish I would have listened to lead_org about consumer models, but for $450 at the time directly through Lenovo, I thought it was a good deal. I can tell you that the G, Y, V, Z series share the same keyboard, and the G series chassis looks very similiar to the Z, so if they are on par with HP and Dell, well, to me that's disappointing. Or maybe I've just been spoiled by thinkpads?