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.

 

[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.

 

[gjt86]

http/pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=261981367610&alt=web

 

[JQB45]

Thats a nice laptop at an even better price.

 

[gjt86]

How much performance do I lose without the ded gpu? Noticeable?

 

[JQB45]

Yes it certainly would be almost useless for gaming.

 

[gjt86]

Price seems unbeatable so far. What about outside of gaming?

 

[gjt86]

http/www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-ThinkPad-W520-15-6-500-GB-Intel-Core-i7-2-3-GHz-8-GB-/181816208767?ssPageName=ADME%3AL%3ACOSI%3AUS%3A1123&nma=true&si=%252FTIxX4oAUAa8lj%252FjRMyDCNzMJrU%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

Found for 450 - good deal?

 

[JQB45]

Outside of gaming that processor is decent. Here is the passmark benchmark score:
https/www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-2760QM+%40+2.40GHz&id=884

It as fast as the 95W desktop processor the i5-2500k while using just 45W TDP.

 

[gjt86]

Looks like this is a 2820QM - how much better/lesser is this in accordance with the 2760? Should I keep moving to find a 2760?

 

[gjt86]

Between that one and this? http/www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-Z510-Gaming-Laptop-Quad-Core-i7-4700MQ-8GB-1TB-DVDRW-Win8-HP-962-/281754504207?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4199e08c0f

 

[gjt86]

http/www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-IdeaPad-Y580-i7-2-30GHz-500GB-8GB-Nvidia-Graphics-card-onboard-/271940040917?hash=item3f50e3b8d5