Business notebooks are always a popular category, as they’re the notebooks South Africans are most likely to have some sort of exposure to. This year’s win was hard-fought, and even though our winner wasn’t technically manufactured in 2016, it’s a testament to its overall quality and appeal that it beat out others that were.
WINNER
Lenovo ThinkPad X240
Price: R16 999
[su_box title=”Specifications” box_color=”#f37021″]
- Intel Core i7-4600U Processor @ 2.10 GHz
- 4GB DDR3 Memory
- 500GB / 7200rpm Hard Drive
- Intel HD Graphics D4400
- 5-inch Anti-Glare Screen @ 1080p
- Intel 7260 AC 2 x 2 WiFi
- Bluetooth 4.0, USB (3G upgradable)
- 6-Cell battery
- 4-in-1 reader
- Windows 8 Pro 64-bit
[/su_box]
When it comes to shopping for a business laptop that delivers on performance without breaking the bank, it’s not a bad idea to look back to a hardware generation or two ago for value.
That’s clearly what the majority of our voters did when it came to choosing their favourite business notebook from our GOTY line-up, voting in Lenovo’s venerable ThinkPad X240 as their overall favourite of 2016 by a slim margin. It beat out Dell’s rock-solid Inspiron 15-5559 and HP’s excellent EliteBook 745, a really impressive feat considering the X240 is older than those two by quite a margin (2 years).
The state of our economy and an emphasis on shrinking IT budgets could be responsible, but there’s also a lot to like here that isn’t simply the X240’s good price. Lenovo’s excellent laptop keyboard, for instance, AC-class WiFi, a built-in fingerprint reader and the fact that it’s genuinely thin and light without feeling cheap all count considerably in the X240’s favour.
[su_box title=”Votes” box_color=”#f37021″]
Percentage of votes: 30.9%
Runners-up: Dell Inspiron 15-5559 (28.6%), HP EliteBook 745 G2 (27.1%) [/su_box]
Journalist’s choice
I don’t quite agree with the readers, but I suppose there’s no denying the appeal of an affordable yet competent work laptop. For me, Dell’s Inspiron 15-5559 was a more compelling offer than the X240: while it was a bit fatter and heavier and slightly more expensive at R17 899, I’d have chosen it as my GOTY for its newer hardware (Intel 6th-gen) and sleek looks.
