Hwlp me decide on new laptop

[kuldeep1]

I am engineering grad student, looking to buy laptop.
I am considering 2 following options right now.
1) Lenovo y470p ideapad (i7 2670 quadcore) known for amazing performance
2) Thinkpad t420 (i5 2430) , known for good performance and great durability

I am open to consider similar brands
1. What is your budget?
800-900$
2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
14
3. What screen resolution do you want?
1600 by 900
4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
portable
5. How much battery life do you need?
minimum 3 hrs
6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)?
No
7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)
I run heavy engineering apps like Matlab.
8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
anything above 200 Gb is fine
9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
Nothing specific
10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
Minimum 3 years
11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
DVD ROM/Writer
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.
Prefer to buy - lenovo , Dell
13. What country do you live in?
US
14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
The application which I run every day is Matlab. Some of my codes take 7-8 hrs on my present dual core processor. I wish to bring that time down as much as possible. I do watch lot of HD videos too. So in these 2 aspects, I wish to know how much of performance difference I can find between i7 quadcore and a i5 dual core.
Is it worth putting money on ideapad with i7 quadcore instead on the thinkpad with i5 which is far more durable?

Thanks

 

[fb39ca4]

Go with the i7, be careful with the laptop, and you'll be fine.

 

[WR2]

y470p has 1600x900 LCD? I thought it was just 1366x768.
I know the T420 has the higher resolution screen. And it's matte/anti-glare which is always a good choice for the big lecture halls, the student union and the library.

What dual core CPU are you running now?

 

[WR2]

What are the chances you can get a small form factor desktop PC into the mix?
Use that for your heavy engineering power runs and use your current laptop to transport the results and for the general purpose needs in class.

 

[kuldeep1]

y470p has 1600x900 LCD? I thought it was just 1366x768.
I know the T420 has the higher resolution screen. And it's matte/anti-glare which is always a good choice for the big lecture halls, the student union and the library.

What dual core CPU are you running now?

Sorry, y470 has only just 1366 by 768..

1.73 GHz Intel Pentium Dual Core Processor T2370 with 1-MB L2 Cache, -- my present dual core..

 

[kuldeep1]

What are the chances you can get a small form factor desktop PC into the mix?
Use that for your heavy engineering power runs and use your current laptop to transport the results and for the general purpose needs in class.

My present one is totally gone with all kinds of problems. So I have to buy a new laptop anyway. So desktop PC out of question.

 

[WR2]

Ok, just wanted you to make sure you weren't overlooking other options.
Are you willing to consider a 15" chassis? We can find some decent Core i7 laptops in close to your price range with 1920x1080 resolution.

 

[brian1bialey]

If you dont mind your battery life and dont mind a 15 inch vs 14 inch then maybe something like this
http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230077
i5-2430m
nvidia gt 540m
1920x1080
6gb of ram
600gb hardrive
You could also game on this but this seems like a good deal to me.
I looked for a 14 inch laptop with an i7 but there starting at a grand on newegg but here it is:
http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152275
honestly if you got a 15 inch laptop you would save alot of money and also not be as much bigger as you think.
For a 1

 

[kuldeep1]

Ok, just wanted you to make sure you weren't overlooking other options.
Are you willing to consider a 15" chassis? We can find some decent Core i7 laptops in close to your price range with 1920x1080 resolution.

Yes, I wouldn't mind 15'' chassis. Can u suggest any i7 quadcore laptops ?

 

[brian1bialey]

I found some 15" laptops with i7 quad cores with 1920x1080 for the resolution. Heres some links:

http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834127453
Price:$888.99
Intel Core i7-2630QM 2.00GHz

Screen
16.4"

Memory Size
4GB DDR3

Hard Disk
500GB

Optical Drive
DVD±R/RW

Graphics Card
NVIDIA GeForce GT 520M

Video Memory
512MB
The extra $90 you pay for the other laptop which i recommend gives you 2gb more of ram also gives you a gpu which could be used for gaming if you ever wanted to. One thing that you may not like about the other laptop is the 16.4 laptop which will cut into you battery life and also msi all in all is a better brand IMO.

http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152258

Intel Core i7-2630QM 2.0GHz

Screen
15.6"

Memory Size
8GB DDR3

Hard Disk
640GB

Optical Drive
DVD Super Multi

Graphics Card
NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M

Video Memory
1GB GDDR3 VRAM