Which Thinkpad to look for? T vs W

[gjt86]

I am considering pulling the trigger on a thinkpad, but have never owned one before. Currently, I am looking for something no more than 500 to get the job done (considering the laptop I currently use weighs 7 lbs and has 2gb of ram on a dual core).
My question is though, for photoshop, web development and vmware - which series would be the best bang for buck here?
I've looked over the w520, t410/420 and t520 series, but am starting to get lost. Is a newer i5 better than an older i7 (2720)? Any advice what to do or look for here?
If needed, I can post a few of the ones Ive been looking at if that is of any additional help.

 

[JQB45]

I'm also a Visual Studio C# ASP.NET Web Developer.

 

[gjt86]

I've searched pretty hard to find a 2gb quadro for the same price. I really would like to go for it and upgrade the ram, but it doesn't seem possible. How much performance is the 4gb model over the one I linked in terms of my most noted needs? I'm honestly thinking of pulling the trigger on the 16gb model.

 

[gjt86]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-ThinkPad-W520-i7-2-7Ghz-4Gb-250Gb-2GB-Nvidia-15-6-1920x1080-4284-A95b-/111626037709?hash=item19fd6e29cd

+

$85 approx for 16gb of ram isn't too bad in comparison - pretty menial.

 

[JQB45]

Here I am contradicting myself but its worth noting the laptop you found with 16GB of RAM has a quad core cpu versus the one I found which is only a dual core. I think you are right to go ahead and get the 16GB model you found.

 

[gjt86]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-ThinkPad-W520-i7-2-7Ghz-4Gb-250Gb-2GB-Nvidia-15-6-1920x1080-4284-A95b-/111626037709?hash=item19fd6e29cd

Is dual core?

 

[JQB45]

Yes.

 

[gjt86]

Probably going to go for that w520, but ran into http://www.ebay.com/itm/321776764509?_trksid=p2055359.m2763.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

Seems to lose the durability supposedly, but I do gain a better gpu? It is a bit outside budget, but if everything is significantly better, I'd be willing to consider it (with ram upgrade as well most likely).

 

[JQB45]

The U processor designates a highly energy efficient processor. The trade off is they are not very powerful.

 

[gjt86]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-ThinkPad-X230-Laptop-Core-i7-2-90GHz-8GB-240GB-SSD-Windows-7-64bit-Webcam-/261977452556?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3cff12b00c

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-Thinkpad-T520-Laptop-Core-i7-2-70GHZ-8GB-500GB-Windows-7-Pro-webcam-DVDRW-/391186796134?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item5b148cce66

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Grade-B-Lenovo-Thinkpad-T520-Quad-Core-i7-2-2GHz-8GB-500GB-nVidia-15-6-Win-7-/141673011890?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item20fc5e9ab2

Not too into the T series for lack of dedicated gpu, but seem like decent deals if upgrading RAM.

 

[gjt86]

Sorry, http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-IdeaPad-Y400-14-Intel-i7-upto-3-40GHz-NVidia-GeForce-8GB-1TB-DVDRW-Win8-/201394394506?hash=item2ee40a958a

was supposed to be included in the link. I feel like I'm getting a bit redundant now, but given I have almost 0 experience with laptops, I want to to make sure before I pull the trigger. Second opinions are great - thanks btw

 

[gjt86]

A bit out of scope, but how does the w520 fare against an early/late 2011 MBP running bootcamp? Never owned a mac in a long ass time, but I've heard good things about their hardware?

 

[JQB45]

Those all have low resolution displays. They are not 1080p.

 

[gjt86]

Gotcha, good to know.

 

[JQB45]

I have no experience with Mac. So no idea.

 

[gjt86]

Ah, was just curious, although the lack of durability and DIY upgrading is not something I am very interested in.

 

[gjt86]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-MacBook-Pro-A1286-15-4-MC721LL-A-February-2011-2GHz-Core-i7-8GB-/121713200992?hash=item1c56ac0f60

Was one of the ones I was looking at specifically - but just for OSX is kinda meh.

 

[JQB45]

I say stick with Lenovo.

 

[velo3100]

I would say that the asus that you linked is a good laptop for the things you have stated and should last you a very long time.

 

[gjt86]

Apparently the ThinkPad w520 that I've been shooting for is not 1920 x 1080 - is it really worth the extra money to get a 1080p screen? Most of the w520s I look at, with 1080, seem to be a bit higher in the cost department - and lacking RAM (leaving me to spend more to upgrade it).

Also, I'm really digging owning a thinkpad, but I keep seeing some ASUS models that seem to compare well with a w520? Thoughts?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ASUS-N56VJ-DH71-i7-3630QM-8GB-RAM-1TB-HDD-NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-635M-15-6-Windows8-/131538250435?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1ea04a6ac3

 

[JQB45]

Unless you plan to use a 1080p external monitor when you're not travelling with the laptop then I highly recommend 1080p as the extra horizontal pixels really do make a difference in usability.

As for the linked ASUS that is a better processor as its a generation newer. The consumer based nVidia graphics card is an improvement for games but in reality is still a very low end graphics card and probably would not be suitable for gaming on anything other then low settings.

Lenovo laptops are known for their quality especially the T and W series laptops. With that said though my sister owns an ASUS laptop which I brought for her 2 years ago and I must say the quality of the unit surpassed my expectations. The quality of the workmanship of the laptop exceeds that of my 4 year old toshiba laptop by far.

 

[gjt86]

Unless you plan to use a 1080p external monitor when you're not travelling with the laptop then I highly recommend 1080p as the extra horizontal pixels really do make a difference in usability.

As for the linked ASUS that is a better processor as its a generation newer. The consumer based nVidia graphics card is an improvement for games but in reality is still a very low end graphics card and probably would not be suitable for gaming on anything other then low settings.

Lenovo laptops are known for their quality especially the T and W series laptops. With that said though my sister owns an ASUS laptop which I brought for her 2 years ago and I must say the quality of the unit surpassed my expectations. The quality of the workmanship of the laptop exceeds that of my 4 year old toshiba laptop by far.

Gaming is a plus, but not a necessity over multitasking and vm or cs6 usage. Which would you go for?

 

[JQB45]

The fastest processor you can find for doing things with cs6 so that would make the 2.4 GHz Intel Core i7-3630QM your best find so far. Depending on what client operating system(s) you use in your VM's you may want more RAM.

 

[gjt86]

Vms mostly Linux or another windows

 

[gjt86]

http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=131538250435&alt=web

http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=131562414516&alt=web

 

[JQB45]

The lenovo's resolution is to low 1366 x 768 would have been nice 13 years ago. You want 1920 x 1080 or better now days.