Can someone explain to me the price differences and processing differences? Business Laptops

[MusicDragon]

Alright, so I've been just browsing the internet for some laptops for blogging/coding websites/browsing the internet/word processing.... Work related things and possibly blogging and the like. Maybe watching some shows on netflix in bed. (I don't care about the quality of sound or the screen that much).

I saw some business laptops for 1,300$
Namely:

Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon
&
Dell Latitude 14 7000 Series, E7450

And I was like "Oh, these look good!"
Then I went to the nearby Office Depot (store) and saw some laptops there that SEEMED decent for 300-600$... BUT WHY ARE THE PRICES SO DIFFERENT?

Here's one that was 569$
Dell - Inspiron 15.6" Touch-Screen Laptop - Intel Core i5 - 6GB Memory - 1TB Hard Drive - Silver
Link

And here's one that was 469$
Link

Can someone PLEASE explain to me what the difference is? and why they're priced so differently?

I made the mistake of buying a Lenovo Thinkpad X120E a lonnnng time ago... The Windows 7 itself takes up what seems to be almost all of the 2gb of ram that it came with... So, I can barely even use the internet. It's so slow (the computer, not the internet) that I'm tempted to throw it against a wall. (It takes literally a MINUTE to start up Chrome... Another minute to even type in the url.)

I don't want to run into that sort of issue ever again.... So, I want to figure out what I'm getting myself into.

 

[hang-the-9]

Build quality, speed and features. X1 is a high end small laptop.

The X120E you got before is a low end cheap system with a slow CPU and low max RAM capability. It should not be very slow though for basic tasks, you may just need to reset it to factory defaults after backing up your files.

For non-gaming basic use, any system in the $400 - 500 range will be fine. Under 400 you will be getting into lower end CPUs and screens.

Have you ever looked at cars? You can get a perfectly nice comfy reliable car for about 20,000 or can get a fancy one for 40-50,000 and even more, same thing with computers. If you want to play games on a system or want a fancy light weight carbon and aluminum case or gold lid, you will pay more for a computer than one that is just good enough to look at web pages and play movies on.

 

[velo3100]

The dell has a better cpu and gpu but has a lower end screen than the hp.

 

[jaguarskx]

The 14" ThinkPad X1 Carbon is expensive because it is a very light weight laptop with a Core i5-5200u which is a "mainstream CPU". I assume the 15.6" Dell has the same CPU since Office Max did not even bother mention exactly which 5th generation Core i5 CPU it has.

It cost a lot of money to engineer and design light weight laptops. The ThinkPad X1 is less than 3lbs, you do not see many 14" capable of making such a claim. The "Carbon" means the laptop's case is made from carbon fiber which allows it to be light and durable. Carbon fiber is not exactly cheap either. On top of that the ThinkPad is a business laptop and they are generally more expensive than consumer level laptops because of better customer / tech support should you require it. Additionally, businesses do not tolerate bloatware to be installed on laptops. One reason why consumer laptops are cheaper is because software companies pay laptop brand names to install their software (bloatware) into the PC. The X1 also has battery life that is longer than most other laptops.

17" laptops tends to cost a little less than 15.6" laptops because the parts they use do not have to be as small (less engineering involved). The HP is cheaper primarily because it has a Core i3 CPU rather than a Core i5 CPU. That means it has a less powerful CPU.

The Thinkpad X120E was a low end portable laptop. It used the AMD E-series CPU which were considered to be weak even when they were new. The ThinkPad X1 Carbon is not saddled with such a low end CPU, as stated the X1 comes with a mainstream Core i5200u CPU.