T430 and T430u

Hello,
Recently I am planning to get a new Lenovo notebook and here are the new specs that i had obtained from the shops:-

Model T430u: 33512AA

ThinkPad T430u / / 14W HD, Anti-Glare，Black (No WWAN) / Intel® Core™ Processor i7-3517U / 8 GB (1600) 4+4 / 1TB SATA HDD (5400rpm) / No Optical Drive / nVIDIA GeForce GT 620M 1GB / 24 GB Micro Solid State Drive / Intel® Centrino® Wireless-N 2230 (2x2 BGN & BT4) / BT 4.0 / 720p HD Camera / Fingerprint Reader / / 3 cell Li-polymer Battery 47 Whr / No Extended Life Battery / Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 / EE 3.0

Model T430: 2349AP6
ThinkPad T430 / / 14.0" HD+ AG, WWAN Capable / Intel® Core™ i7-3520M Processor (4M Cache, 2.90 GHz) / 4 GB (1600) x 1 / 500GB SATA HDD (7200rpm) / Multi-Burner (12.7mm) / NVIDIA Optimus Graphics (NVS 5400M, 2GB) / 32 GB Micro Solid State Drive / Intel® Centrino Advanced-N 6205 (2x2 AGN) / BT 4.0 / 720p HD Camera / Fingerprint Reader / Xpress Slot, 4 in 1 Reader, Smart Card Reader / 6 Cell Li-ion Battery / No Extended Life Battery / Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 / EE 3.0/


Questions:-

1. I am planning to use this notebook for some office related works as well as to play some games such as those Diablo 3, Starcraft etc..
In general, which model spec would be better?

2. How does the "Micro Solid State Drive" works in both of these notebook? For additional disc space or mainly for graphic performance?

Hope to seek some of your expert thought and advice on this matter.

Thank you all in advance.

 

if you are going to play those games, then non of these laptop would be good enough.

X1 Carbon doesn't have a mSATA slot, i think the T430u has a mSATA slot.

 

Dear Lead,
Thanks for that feedback. Any idea what the "Micro Solid State Drive" does in this expect? Since both model has this feature.

 

The mSATA SSD storage device is about the size of a large postage stamp. The T430 has a WWAN PCIe card slot that can be used for a cell phone card or the mSATA SSD drive. That slot is SATA II compared to SATA III support in the Ultrabay or Primary bay of the T430. mSATA storage device capacities are now up to 256GB.

See Newegg.com - Crucial M4 CT256M4SSD3 mSATA 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) for example. That drive is out of stock because it was on sale for $170 last week.

 

I would say both systems should play those two games without any issues, the CPU selection is way higher than you actual need though, a i5-3320M would be more than enough for office work and gaming. Note the T430u uses ultra low voltage versions of the CPU so performance wise it'll be less powerful. Save the money and get more RAM and a good SSD which is far more important.