NVidia 3100m (T410) vs 425M (Dell XPS)

First, thank you all in advance, this forum has been incredibly useful.

I'm trying to decide between two laptops (the Thinkpad T410 and the Dell XPS 14) with almost identical configurations. The two significant differences are the processor (620m vs 740qm) and the video card (Nvidia 3100m 512mb vs Nvidia GT 425M w 2GB). As far as processors go, I'm fine with either.

I was originally leaning towards the Thinkpad but I'm curious if the video card in the Dell (the GT 425M) is worth getting the Dell instead.

The laptop will mostly be used for work (Excel, R, Matlab, etc), some photo-editing, movie-watching and very little to no gaming.

Thank you all for your help!

 

If you're not gaming there's no need for the 425m. The 425m is about twice as fast/powerful as the 3100m.

I personally think the Thinkpad looks WAAAAY better than the XPS 14.

 

Work?

ThinkPAD.

Just no comparison.

 

Psh all ThinkPads look alike, the XPS 14 is alot better looking and I hate Lenovo/IBM

 

At least the ThinkPad isn't 2.1" thick. If I was getting one of the 2 it would be the XPS 14, as I game.

 

XPS 14 wasn't mean for thin-ness which is why I bought my Latitude 13

 

For your purposes, the Dell will only use up more battery with its quad core processor and higher-powered (albeit Optimus-switchable) graphics. The Thinkpad is a far better choice - it can get up to around 10 hours on the 9-cell battery, not to mention its superior ergonomics, professional look, and better durability.

 

Thanks all. That definitely makes the decision easier for me.

The Thinkpad also has automatic switching (apparently new on the T410) and I am planning on getting the 9-cell battery, which will be nice from a battery-life perspective.

One more question - is there a significant difference between the WXGA display and the WXGA+ display? I've heard that the WXGA has a blue tint to it, is that true?

 

I think they both have auto switching graphics.

 

I don't think so. i7 for laptop do not have integrated graphics, that is why Dell forces you to buy the 2 GB card if you upgrade processor from i5 to i7 so you won't get Optimus with i7

 

For the photo-editing, the Dell might actually be a little better, due to the quad-core, but unless you're planning on doing some heavy editing, probably not enough to matter. Same with Excel (mostly because although Excel could take advantage of the extra cores, it's rare that an Excel program would need that much power), and I think I heard that Matlab couldn't take advantage of multiple cores.

 

With the Thinkpad, I'm getting Optimus with the i7, at least according to the build specs:

Processor Intel Core i7-620M Processor (2.66GHz, 4MB L3, 1066MHz FSB)
System graphics NVIDIA NVS 3100m Optimus Graphics 512MB DDR3 with AMT

 

Ah I'm sorry, I meant the quad core i7's. That i7-620M is a dual core.

 

I'm not sure if one of those screens is of better quality than the other (check the owner's threads in our Lenovo forum for that); otherwise, the difference is the resolution. WXGA is only 1280x800 and quite low; WXGA+ is 1440x900 and much better for productivity, especially Excel. For example, you will be able to see noticeably more rows/columns since there are more pixels to display them.

Also as noted the i7-620M is dual-core, it's the same thing as an i5 processor except slightly higher-clocked. If an i5 is available just go with that, you'll save money and won't notice the minuscule performance difference.

FYI -- Dell's competitor to the T410 is the Latitude E6410 -- give that a look as well, it is an excellent notebook.

 

Well the i7-620M has 1 MB more cache but that isn't going to make a HUGE difference. And Charles is correct, XPS model is high end consumer, Lenovo make business oriented notebooks so I would look at Latitude or Vostro models.