Lenovo Essential B50-80 or Lenovo Thinkpad E550?

[snowathlete]

Was about to buy a Lenovo ThinkPad E550 i3, but then saw the Lenovo Essential B50-80 for around the same price but with an i5 processor, double the RAM, an additional USB3 port, dedicated graphics (though looks like no better than the ingegrated intel one on the other machine). Bigger, though slower, HDD.

I can't decide. Anyone got a view on either of these?

1. What is your budget?
£400

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
15,6

3. What screen resolution do you want?
1080P / FullHD

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
Desktop replacement. Portable just handy.

5. How much battery life do you need?
Not that important but nice to have

6. Do you want to play games with your laptop?
No

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)
writing (so keyboard important), streaming videos, website maintanence, running multiple tabs and apps

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
225GB

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
http://shop.lenovo.com/gb/en/laptops/thinkpad/edge-series/e550/
http://www.ebuyer.com/700307-lenovo-essential-b50-80-laptop-80ew00heuk

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
3-4 years +

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
DVD or BluRay

12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons.
Lenovo. Keyboard. Good all rounder.

13. What country do you live in?
UK

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
Purpose: carrying, outside, programming, surfing, other day to day use.
Writing important

 

[viveknayyar007]

Hello snowathlete

I would suggest you to check the prices at a few more stores. The Lenovo Essential B50-80 model is for 399.99 which is almost equal to the i5 variant of ThinkPad E550. However the price of the i5 variant of ThinkPad E550 on this site from where you are planning to buy the laptop is 499.99.

If I was you, I would have checked the prices with a few other online stores and even at the retail shops in the local market, and after comparing the quality of the two, I would have chosen Lenovo Essential B50-80.

Cheers!!

 

[snowathlete]

Thanks for your suggestion, helpful to hear another person's thought on it. I did look around quite a bit, and these were the two that looked the best options. I did try a local shop the other day but they didn't have the ThinkPad to see in the flesh. At the time I didn't look specifically for the B50-80 so not if they had that one or not. May have another look tomorrow.

But I did look today for online reviews of these two and both seem pretty good, but the B50-80 seems to have some complaints about some parts being flimsy, in particular, certaian points on the keyboard, which for me would be a major problem. So I am leaning toward the ThinkPad. Although I can only afford an i3 on the ThinkPad the processor appears not to be much lower in performance compared to the i5. http://processors.specout.com/compare/1824-1829/Intel-i5-5200U-vs-Intel-i3-5005U

I figure RAM is cheap too, so can easily upgrade that if I need to. But would sure help if I could see the B50-80 in the flesh and see if it was good enough. Seems a great spec for the price.