I bought a new comptuer, the ThinkPad W540. Performance wise, it is basically equivalent to a modern basic computer, except that the quality of the computer is leagues above what is available today, its servicability is good, and it’s cheap.

About the quality, it is a very sturdy and bulky computer. The chassis is made of thick plastic that does feels strong to the touch and makes a good palmrest material. The keyboard is also very good, despite it not being the older 7-row keyboard, with the button presses feeling responsive. The one thing that people hate about the xx40 series are the trackpads, but in my experience they are not as bad as they are made out to be. This is probably because for my use cases, I do not really use the trackpad (programming) or just use a mouse (gaming). Regardless, the trackpad quality is not as bad as it is made out to be. Overall, the feel and build quality of the computer is so much better than the laptops of current day, which are built on flimsy materials and planned obsolescence.

My W540 was $75, but with shipping it was $90, which is an alright deal since it came with a charger and a working battery, and 24 GB RAM. From my personal usage, the computer was well worth $90 dollars and functions perfectly in all of my daily activites. With programming, it does not really require high end hardware anyway, and with gaming, the majority of games I play are easy to run anyway, so they work well. Older Source engine games, like Garry’s Mod work perfectly fine under a bit lower resolutin, and newer / harder to run Source engine games like CS:GO require a lot lower resolution (800x600) to run smoothly. This I think is more due to the only real issue with the computer, and that is the screen. It is alright for general usage, but for gaming (this could just be my screen), the refresh rate seems to not actually be 60 Hz, because despite the a games running on consistent 60+ FPS on the aformentioned resolutions, specifically CS:GO, there are still performance dips that cause very brief stuttering. It is vety quick, nowhere near long enough to disrupt gaming, but it is still annoying and can get in the way of competitive games like CS:GO. Lowering the resolution in CS:GO to 640x480 fixes the issue, as the FPS is consistently 75+. This could also possibly be due to bad FPS counters, rather than the screen itself, but I am not sure,