Seeking user feedback on T440 and T540 line of laptops

Hi,

I wish to buy a T540* laptop and I am looking for feedback with respect to the components to help me (i) freeze my configuration and (ii) be aware of the drawbacks of the new design elements in the T*40 series. I have been reading quite a bit of T440 & T540 posts in this forum but since I had some specific questions and wished to gather feedback to these questions in one place, I began a new post.

I will be working mostly on Ubuntu and I will be using this laptop mostly for general web browsing, programming, editing, power point and some matlab simulations that would not be very computational intensive. On rare occassions, I may run a matlab code that takes 4 to 5 hours for completion.

1. What is your experience with the trackpad. I loved the buttons on the older trackpad and the precise navigation the trackpad itself enabled. But now it seems the new design is not as good. Firstly, there are several complaints of the click being too noisy. Secondly, having never used a trackpad without discrete buttons, I would like to know if in general the newer design is more usable? Is there a general shift in the laptop industry towards this trackpad design? Please write down your experiences and opinions since this is an important element of usability.

2. With regard to the display, I am unable to decide between the 15.6 FHD display and the 15.6 IPS 3K display. I do not know much of this terminology, so please correct me if I am wrong. It seems that the 3K display is comparable to the Apple retina display which has got rave reviews and I am excited about this. But on the other hand, I dislike very small fonts. Since most of my work will involve texts, this is an important concern. Would bumping down the resolution defeating the purpose of buying a 3K IPS display. What is the work around?

3. I am also caught with regard to the processor. I love the Thinkpad's durability and I wish to use this system as long as possible. (I also love using a thinkpad). In this regard, I am wondering if my config has to be able to run all the software say 4 to 5 years down the line, it should not bee too out of date in terms of config. In this regard, I wish to go for a up-to-date specs in terms of processor. Among the following choices (with the associated prices)

Intel Core i5-4200M Processor (3MB Cache, up to 3.10GHz)[add $50.00]
Intel Core i5-4300M Processor (3MB Cache, up to 3.30GHz)[add $105.00]
Intel Core i5-4330M Processor (3MB Cache, up to 3.50GHz)[add $155.00]
Intel Core i7-4700MQ Processor (6MB Cache, up to 3.40GHz)[add $205.00]
Intel Core i7-4600M Processor (4MB Cache, up to 3.60GHz)[add $295.00]
Intel Core i7-4800MQ Processor (6MB Cache, up to 3.70GHz)[add $345.00]
Intel Core i7-4900MQ Processor (8MB Cache, up to 3.80GHz)

my uneducated guess is leading me to believe the i7-4700QM is the sweet spot - it has more cache, cores etc.. However, as most of you would know, the 4700QM consumes more power and is slightly older. The real question is - would I be running 4 cores most times while only two cores are really computing something for me. In general with more components running, the longevity is definitely shorter and why run them if they are not needed. Or would my choice be justified three years from now when all software would demand more computational resources. I would request your educated opinion in this matter.

4. Can I go for a 500GB Sata HDD as my primary and only drive and in due course, replace this with a SSD? At that point can I use this 500GB SATA drive as a secondary drive that is plugged into the device (not an external one). I dont know where would this go and stuff like that, so I reply upon your answeers whether this is possible. One option is replace the DVD drive with this 500GB SATA drive. would this be feasible?
Your answers are greatly appreciated. I would like to thank you for your time and for sharing your knowledge and experience.

Just to help you with your answers, I am little flexible with my budget but do not wish to pay for something I would not be using most of the time. My usage can be safely categorized as daily browsing, editing, word processing, programming.

Thanks,
Regards,
Arun