OMG Thinkpad W530

Cadding TinyArm like a boss

I got a new toy! A Lenovo Thinkpad W530! 8GB RAM, NVidea K2000m dedicated graphics, an Intel core i7 vPro, yeah. Lenovo was having a massive Cyber Monday sale and I managed to pick this up for like 1500$ LESS than what it would have cost normally.

I like Lenovo products because of a few key features that make it stand out: 

First is the Trackpoint/Trackstick/Nub/Nipple/Clit mouse, the red thing in the middle. I grew up on it, and I cannot live without it. I pretty much never use the touchpad, except for multitouch scrolling and zooming Mac OS style. Dell and HP business laptops have Trackpoints too, but the hardware/software is not tuned the same, it feels cheap. 

Second is the construction and hardware. Lenovo screen hinges are consistently the strongest I've seen on any laptop, period. The matte black finish is sexy-yet-mature looking, and leaves plenty of room for nerdy stickers. I already have a OneTesla sticker on the back of mine. Here's my outbound laptop, the T410, which has built up quite a collection of stickers through these years:

A Lenovo product is always built like a tank, so if I do drop it I don't feel quite as bad. The hard drive and its control hardware have a built-in accelerometer that automatically pauses whatever operation it was doing if it detects movement that could damage it. One of the primary causes of hard drive failure is moving the laptop around, especially rotating it, while the disk is moving, and this mitigates much of that. 

It runs the Crysis demo on Very High graphics settings! (at about 15 FPS, barely playable) I can play it comfortably on High graphics, which still looks really nice. 

But gaming is not why I chose this laptop. 

MelonChopper: Before...

MelonChopper: AFTER

Better and faster CAD is why I got this laptop! JUST LOOK AT THAT DETAIL! Before, I couldn't even run RealView graphics in Solidworks, and decently large assemblies were slow to move around, but NOW...

Now everything just looks phenomenal. AND it's fast as hell. The above image is realtime, NOT a render. 

"What's for dinner, Mom? OH SHIT IS THAT MY GOKART!?"

With edges turned on (the default), it kinda looks cartoony and Cel-shaded. 

Rendering with PhotoView360 doesn't take forever anymore, though things tend to come out looking less realistic than in regular assemblies with RealView turned on. 

What do you think?

And now, time for a shameless Before and After show!

Cruscooter: Before

Cruscooter: AFTER!

It looks a little better in this lighting. 

Woah... reflections

Moar Glam shots. 

Even Moar Glam Shots. 

Now for some small reason, a PhotoView360 rendering with caustics turned down produced this ugly thing. Apparently caustics are directly proportional to "realism". 

Here's something I worked on at my job this summer, a gearbox for a scooter. It was pretty much impossible to view on my old laptop, with the chain all modeled and such. Here, no problem. The main aluminum covering is made transparent so you can see the chains and sprockets inside...

*Nerdgasm* 

Here it is with the main cover hidden. LOOK AT THAT SHADING. THAT DETAIL. *SQUEEE*

Lord Of The Rings: Before

Lord of the Rings: AFTER. 

OMG <3