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Purely from a manufacturer perspective, I would go Lenovo. Ive had more problems with Dell hardware than with Lenovo hardware.
In terms of what can run, both are capable. I'd lean towards more ram in general, and the 4 laptops I have are lenovo workhorses, the newest of which is ~5yrs old, the oldest ~10yrs old, all happily chugging along just fine.
So I'd vote Lenovo.
Ive had more problems with Dell hardware than with Lenovo hardware.
i was going to say the same thing -- my years in IT have made me aware that dell is only good if you buy the most premium ($$$) of support tiers from its eco system.
yup
The Lenovo, only because the price is similar to Dell's with more RAM.
If you don't like fascists go for Lenovo since the CEO of Dell has put money into Omarchy that is made by a fascist.
They are both old, used options. No company will see a cent from this.
T490. i personally had issues with dell laptops a few times. (hinge problem, coating on palmrest/trackpad peeling) also, i don't like dell laptops' keyboard layout but this is just personal preference.
and 8gb more ram for $60 seems decent in todays prices. (afaik it's soldered so not even upgradable?)
I personally would get Lenovo, but both should be just fine. Just drop the multiboot and you're good to go ;)
The 5000 series from Dell is worse than the T series thinkpads. I'd say the 7000 series would be comparable.
I had a 7280 (IIRC) which was great for years, I really like the mobile Dell keyboards. I wouldn't touch a 5410 though, rather a 7410.
So out of these two, the Thinkpad seems like the better deal.
lenovo. replaced my old dell precision laptop with a T480 and I'm loving it.
dell pros:
dell cons:
For your situation 16G may be adequate. But 24 is better.
Lenovo
I was messing with some 5410s at work recently. Seemed decently built, but the trackpoints are pretty bad
Everyone is saying lenovo, and while I don't disagree, I really wish my T480 had a nicer bottom clamshell. If you want to swap a drive or ram you have to take the whole bottom off. Cue tiny plastic clips breaking.
I've seen decent laptops with the cutouts and a single screw on the bottom for swapping ssds and ram. Those are awesome. Lenovo should do that.
I say this because I like to distro hop on my laptop. I wish I could keep a drive with a linux OS that I like and have setup, but then swap out blank drives for distro hopping, play around, and go back if I want. But the bottom prevents me from doing it easily.
Older ThinkPads have that, my T440p has three drives, one easily swappable where the DVD was and one NVMe in the WWAN slot (actually the fastest), great for hopping. For the T480 you can do the WWAN NVMe trick, or use an external TB3 drive (enclosure maybe), which is fast enough to play around.