I am thinking of buying this laptop (Specs would be i7-2640m, 6gb ram, 500gb 5400rpm hard drive, AMD Mobility Radeon HD 6630, I would be buying it in Aus) and wanted a few opinions on it.

Particularly, if there are any owners here/people who have used it:

How is the build quality?
How is the Performance?
How is the battery life?

Thanks!

Welcome to the forum!

Good value for the money, performance is great, battery life is on par with similarly spec'd ThinkPads and other brands.

While the build quality seems fine, the materials used do not seem to be the same quality as the higher end ThinkPads. The plastic seems less durable and more "plasticy". The silver trim seems like it will scratch easily. And, higher end features, like a swappable optical drive are absent. Of course, the Edge machines are about 1/2 the price of the higher end machines, when similarly equipped. A recent plus is the addition of the rubberized finish to the top cover and other areas, it's quite nice.

Bottom line, I have had several and I have not been disappointed. Be sure to read reviews for specific Edge lines before purchasing. Our family uses an Edge 15 with an AMD cpu for our media/music machine and it's been just perfect. My travel machine is an Edge E120 and I just passed on an X220 "upgrade" option, the E120 is that good.

just got mine last week and love it! definitely recommend it! build quality seems okay, not as rugged as some of the previous T-series that i've used. Perforamce is great! recommend bumping up to 8gb ram tho

Great to hear. How is the LCD quality (not the resolution, I'm fully aware that HD is low resolution)? The LCDs on the first few E420s machines that I had were really average (a.k.a. poor viewing angles and colors, but quite bright).

I just ordered an E420 and I'm hoping the LCD will be a little better. Hopefully, Lenovo sources these panels from various suppliers giving people a chance at a decent LCD!

My brother just got an E420 last week and I spent probably 7 hours using it this past Saturday. I'd say the LCD is fine, I didn't notice anything that was washed out or otherwise defective about it. I'd not be happy with that resolution myself, but he didn't mind. Overall, a very solid machine for a comparable price to a much lower quality run of the mill box from Best Buy, etc.

the LCD is nothing to write home about. For the price, it's what i expected. you could say the LCD is probably the least desireable feature of this laptop.

My E420 from the Lenovo Outlet just arrived tonight. The LCD is definitely average, but better than the other three that I saw on E420s machines. It's at least usable. It's also incredibly bright. All other aspects are really pretty nice, including the overall design and weight, rubberized cover finish, webcam, fast Intel CPU and 750GB drive. 750GB. I suppose I can replace my old Dell home server with this machine.

The Edge E420 is a good value, especially during a Lenovo Outlet sale (which is just about every other week!)