Thoughts on the W520 from a Macbook Pro switcher

Hi all,

I'm a long-time macbook pro user (2003 - 2011) who, after mulling over the decision for several months, recently made the switch to a Thinkpad. This forum has been a tremendous resource and has had a great deal of influence on my decision; I just wanted to share some observations which may be helpful to anyone considering a switch from Mac to PC/Thinkpad as well. As a caveat, these observations are going to be qualitative in nature and focused on user experience rather than benchmarks. Also, I will be ignoring the differences between Win7 and OSX (i've been using both via bootcamp for a while now).

To provide a little context, I work in finance so excel is my bread and butter, but I'm also a rehabilitated game addict that occasionally wants to be able to relive moments of gaming glory without stuttering frame rates...

=Display=
Hardest thing about switching away from a Mac is dealing with all the crap displays that manufacturers pack into their PC laptops. BestBuy is full of rows and rows of dimly lit contenders from HPs (excluding dream color), ASUS, Samsung, Sony etc. - they just make the Apple lineup look even better. A good display makes a huge difference to the user experience, period. I went with the FHD display for my W520 - happy to say it stacks up well vs. latest macbook pro offerings. Very comparable in terms of brightness (i'd say very slight advantage to mac) and contrast (slight advantage to FHD). Color is accurate and balanced. Mac still has better viewing angles (both horizontal and vertical), but FHD is quite good nonetheless, so no complaints here. No issues with 'griddiness' either. Believe most mac switchers will be satisfied with FHD.

=Keyboard=
Macbook pros have always had great keyboards - both traditional implementation (2008 and before) as well as chiclet (2009 hence). However, in choosing to exclude dedicated page up / page down / home / end keys, Apple has really hurt themselves in terms of business user productivity. In my opinion, even ignoring this issue, W520 has Apple beat. Eveness of tactile response, build quality, and noise levels on the W520 are all excellent and very satisfying. Not having a backlight may be a downer for some though.

=Trackpad/point=
Apple is way ahead in terms of natural feeling trackpad gestures. Out of the box (I have yet to really delve/tweak), the W520 doesn't have three finger browser back/forward and two finger scroll is some combination of choppy and erratic. Someone correct me if I'm wrong here. Magnify / shrink seems to work alright. Nontheless, the W520 trackpad is a quality device which does the basic things right - it is sensitive and precise; just that anyone who has gotten used to using an apple trackpad will probably be a little disappointed. I'm still making up my mind about trackpoint (I'm aware tons of people love it but thus far I find it a little less precise; still getting to know it).

=Speakers=
Macbook pro is a clear winner - much more fullsome sound reproduction here. W520 isn't terrible, but loses out on bass. Not a big deal in any case; hardly anyone buys a laptop expecting it to replace quality speakers / headphones.

=Other=
In terms of size and form, the W520 is a much bigger machine than a macbook pro - significantly thicker and heavier. Never mind the gigantic power brick. I also think the 9 cell battery protusion is a little conspicuous (but far preferred to Apple's integrated battery which cannot easily be replaced)... that said, she is a thing a beauty. Build quality is robust and mature (so glad there aren't shiny plastics involved).

Completely unscientific observation here, just what I've noticed: in terms of network connectivity, compared with my 08' and '10 macbook pros, the W520's 6205 2X2 wifi card hooks onto my router signal noticeably more quickly and is less prone to disruption (I live in a very dense urban area full of interfering wifi signals).

One other thing, the W520 runs much cooler than the flesh searing Macbook pro.

Hope this is helpful for some of you. Peace.

For reference, my system is:

4270CT CONFIGURED SYSTEM
Serial Number: XXXXXXX

0A68541 SBB ICI7-2720QM
45M3090 VBB GENUWIN7PROFES.64
0A68625 SBB GW7P64 E
0A68535 SBB 15.6FHD (1900 X 1080) LED
0A68894 SBB NVQ2000M GR
45M4572 VBB 4GBPC3-10600DDR3 1333SODMM (+4GB Gskill)
45M4839 SBB KEYBOARDUS ENGLISH
0A68526 VBB FINGERPRINT READER
0A68558 SBB 720P HD CAM INT MICR
0A69620 SBB I RAID-NOT EN
0A68553 SBB 500GB HDD7200RPM
0A68547 SBB DVD RC8XMXDLLRULTEHATA
0A68529 VBB ECS+4IN1CR
45M4816 SBB 9CELLLI-ION BATTERY
0A68904 SBB CPNAMLC+ 170W AC AD
0A68261 SBB BLUETOOTH 3.0
0A68255 SBB IC ADVN 6205 2X2AGN
44C7950 SBB INT WRLSSWDAREANTWRK UPGR
0A68564 SBB LANG PCK US E
0A68537 SBB FINGRPRNT READER
41C9169 2YR Depot

 

I thought your information was spot on with one exception. The difference in weight isn't that great. The MacBook Pro actually feels heavier to me but it's because the weight is concentrated in a thinner package with sharper edges.

The 170W brick is a bummer. Often cited. Never adored.

 

That 170W brick may be big, but it will also charge the battery a lot faster than the tiny ones Apple includes.

I bet if you needed something smaller, you could get away with charging the W520 with a 95 or 135W unit if charging speed weren't a priority. But I could be wrong there!

Now you need to try an X220

 

You might want to include that the Macbooks don't have a integrated X-Rite color calibrator (for better color reproduction over many uses).

 

There's no backlight keyboard, but doesn't W520 have a ThinkLight? I found it equally functional. Just less sleek I guess.

 

Thanks for sharing.

As for the WiFi reconnecting faster, that is because with Thinkpads, when you sleep/hibernate (not positive about hibernate) the computer, the WiFi stays on, doesn't turn off. With a Mac it does turn off during sleep. So it has to spend time to power on, and reconnecting to the AP all over again. It's really irritating with my iMac because I sleep the computer MANY times through the day and turn it back on quick to just check email or a chess game and having to wait 10 seconds each time..

 

I'm hoping to get rid of my MBP for a W520 here soon. The trackpad is absolutely horrendous in Windows while constantly burns my thighs. No thank you. The added keys on the keyboard will be welcome as page up/down will be pretty useful to me. I'm not looking forward to the switch from 16:10 to 16:9, but the increase in pixel density from WSXGA to FHD on a 15" screen will be welcome. I'm excited for the Optimus ability in Windows as the MBP disables graphics switching in Bootcamp, which kills the battery life. I'm really happy about the fact that Intel decided to include IGPs on the quad-core chips as well.

Yeah, so those are my thoughts about this laptop pre-purchase.

 

forgot to add - my all in cost was ~$1700 for the lenovo after taxes. Over the years, I don't think I've ever paid less than $2200 for each macbook pro (total of 3, and I never really max out the config; usually the middle bucket variant + an upgrade or two). So this year, the savings will go towards a bad- SSD

 

This might be an odd request, but would it be possible to take some pictures with one laptop on top of the other? Top view, side view, front view, etc?

I'm really curious the size differences. According the specs they are basically identical in most everything except height, but it would be nice to see pictures with the 9 cell.

 

For me this is one of the top reasons to buy a ThinkPad. Having Home/End/PgUp/PgDn and Del keys in the correct (standard keyboard) layout is a big deal to me. I program for a living and Home/End/PgUp/PgDn are incredibly useful. The major problem I have with the Mac is that Home/End isn't consistent: sometimes you use Command+Left/Right to go to the beginning/end of a line (most apps), and sometimes you use Home/End (like in the terminal). In Windows Home/End is always consistent and having dedicated buttons for it is even better. Also having a real Del key is very useful.

I will say that having Command in addition to Ctrl/Alt is very useful in the terminal, since on the PC you can't really use Ctrl for things like new tab, copy, or paste since those Ctrl modifiers are already used by your terminal programs.

No, your'e right. In my opinion the default Syanptics drivers suck for two finger scrolling. The Envy Touchpad program (you can find it on this fourm if you search) is much, much better and is in my opinion even better than the Mac scrolling since you can tweak acceleration and momentum.

ThinkPad laptops have always had terrible speakers and I believe that they always will. The good news is that they are a lot louder than they used to be, so at least they're OK for watching a YouTube video or two.

The MacBook Pro puts a lot of power in a very small machine. The advantage is portability, the downside is heat/noise. The 85W power adapter for the current-generation MacBook Pro is really inadequate for heavy loads (under high load the battery can't charge, and you might see throttling), but it certainly is a lot more compact and if your workload is more sporadic it's probably fine.

My personal opinion of Mac laptops (based on my brief ownership of a MacBook Pro 13" and a MacBook Air 11") is that they prioritize size/weight and style above heat and noise. Noise and heat both bother me a lot in laptops, and while both of the Mac laptops I owned were cool & silent at idle, they became loud and hot when pushed. And since I spend a significant amount of timed on my laptop either running CPU intensive code or playing games, I'd rather have a slightly larger laptop that's cooler and quieter.

 

When I got my X200 last year, it was the first ThinkPad I had in a long time that was trackpoint only. I had always a touchpad or used a mouse with ones that didn't have one. Because of how I used my X200, a mouse wasn't really an option. It took me a good six to eight months to really get used to it. I'd probably say I now prefer it to a touchpad. I too wasn't very precise with it either in the beginning, but now I'd say I'm better with the stick than the pad. Plus scrolling on the stick is about as easy as it comes. Some people are just stick people and take to it right away, and others like you and I need to put the time in to get comfortable with it. The question then becomes do you want to put the time in? I think if you did, you'd get better at it and would like it, but it won't happen overnight.

 

agreed, have my first Thinkpad - got it a month go W520
incredible machine, but the dual finger vertical scrolling function is simply not up to scratch.

that said, a chap here chap had a fix that has taken double finger scrolling from i'd say a 60% success rate to about 90% for me.

just turn off some of the filltering options under the mouse settings,
check the link

with the fix its not as good as a mac book pro's touchpad, but better than when my W520 was out of the box, the intermediate nature of the scrolling drove me nuts, to the point of calling tech support who claim no on else has ever commented on this or had a problem?

so all W520 owners, if you can be bothered to call , or ever have to call tech support, let them know the W520 has choppy terrible track pad dual finger scrolling

also discovered there is vertical scrolling on the far right of the track pad too, just using one finger. which works fine,
its definitely something to do with the software of pad itself recognising 2 fingers....

oh

and the wobbly battery seems so unnecessary, maybe time to wedge some paper in there.

adam