Which Thinkpad would be more suitable for my needs?

Hey fellas

I was thinking of getting a thinkpad mainly because it looks like a professional laptop and also I have heard good things about its build quality.

I wanted to get a powerful laptop but also not too big. The main thing I'm concerned about is decent GPU power. I say decent because I don't think Thinkpads come with high powered GPUs.

I will be using it 80% for my work/business and 20% for entertainment. When I say entertainment I mean Playing 1080p videos and a little bit of gaming (bit older games).

I was able to customize W510 for $1,349.12CAD

• Intel Core i7-720QM Processor (2.80GHz 6MBL3 1333MHz)1
• Genuine Windows 7 Professional 3212
• 15.6" HD+ Anti-Glare display LED backlight and WWAN antenna
• nVidia GLM DG 1GB, AMT
• UltraNavFPR for Color Sensor
• 4 GB PC3-8500 DDR3 (2 DIMM)8
• 320GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm4
• DVD Recordable, Ultrabay Enhanced5
• 9cell, LI Battery TWSL60
• Integrated Bluetooth PAN 2
• Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 630010
• None65
• 1 Year Depot/Express Warranty5

Few questions:

1. How is that processor? I'm gonna have to do a bit of research on newer processors, but how does it compare to Desktop QuadCore 2.4ghz?
   
2. Also there were two options for the screen:
   
3. 15.6" HD Anti-Glare display LED backlight and WWAN antenna
4. 15.6" HD+ Anti-Glare display LED backlight and WWAN antenna [add 42.50]
   
5. What is the main difference between those two options? All I see that once is HD and the other is HD+. is there a difference between the resolutions? What are the resolutions for each option?
   
6. Also Is there anyway to get BluRay recordable drive in this laptop?
   
7. What are the specs for "nVidia GLM DG 1GB, AMT" Video card.

Thanks in advance.

 

You might wanna wait for the FHD display to be available again. It's a much better display but since it is wide gamut it has advantages and disadvantages. If you plan to just use it for gaming/browsing then ignore it ihmo. If you plan to do photo editing etc you should prob wait for it.

Here are some answers to your questions:
HD 1366x768
HD+ 1600x900
FHD 1920x1080

As for the blu ray, it's totally not worth it atm. There are some blu ray burners for laptops but they cost $400+ and are slow. Since W510 has USB 3.0 you'd be much better off buying 2 2TB externals with USB 3.0.
They can hold approximately 80 50GB Blu Ray's and they'll be almost as fast as your internal drive (transfer rate).

Also 50GB Blu Ray discs cost like $20+ each, and I doubt you'll be happy when you burn a $20 coaster lol

 

The Blu-ray combo drive part number is 42T2617 and the Blu-ray burner is 45N7463. Both are very expensive if you can find them at all.

 

for not wanting a big laptop, you picked about the biggest one they offer, haha

enjoy your new thinkpad!

 

Integrated graphics can handle 1080p videos just fine, so you do not even need a discrete GPU for that. In regards to your "older games," depending what they are, they would probably run well on the T410's weaker Quadro NVS 3100M - again, you won't need the W510's quad core and powerful (and power-hungry) GPU.

The W510's GPU is the NVIDIA Quadro FX 880M with 1GB DDR3 - you can find some benchmarks in NBR's review or by Googling.

So, I would probably recommend the Thinkpad T410 for your purposes. It's lighter, and you'll get better battery life.

 

Or, if you want screen the real-estate, you've got the same 15.6" HD, HD+, and FHD screen options in a T510. It's the same dimensions as a W510, but lighter, and using a dual-core i5/i7 instead of quad so the battery life will be longer.

 

Hey thanks for all that info. Yes 40-50% of my work involves working with Illustrator so having the FHD screen would be a plus for me.

I forgot to mention before but you pointed it out already. USB 3.0 is also one of the specs I was looking to have in my next laptop.10

so this means I can also add these in place of my dvd burner. That`s good to know.

oh ahah. I guess I`ll look for one that`s a bit small. There are some recommendation in this thread.

Well as I mentioned gaming is only 20% so if other options outweigh the gaming capability then screw gaming. Like people have mentioned better battery life and less weight.

Thanks I`ll look more into those thinkpads.

-------------------------------------------
Do all the lenovos come with USB 3.0

I will look more into thinkpads when I get home tonight.

 

No, only the W510 has USB 3.0, because Intel's chipset does not support it natively - an additional USB 3.0 controller has to be added, and only the W510 has it.

 

Yeah I was just going to mention that. I didn't realize at the time I suggested the T510 that USB 3.0 was one of the OP's requirements. Another option might be to pick up a USB 3.0 ExpressCard for a T510, but I've heard that due to the ExrpessCard interface, you don't get as much throughput that way. I think they may also stick out of the chassis, so that may also be a deal-breaker. But if you really only need USB 3.0 occasionally then it still might be worth considering.

 

Well, frankly, I question the need for USB 3.0: the main benefit will be for external hard drives, which are pretty much the only USB devices that are bottlenecked by the interface. But, many external hard drives now also offer eSATA, which allows for full-speed data transfer. Since the new T-series Thinkpads all offer eSATA, why do you need USB 3.0?

 

Could you explain eSATA a bit? Where would I buy a specific eSATA drive to take advantage of these improved speeds?

Will I be able to use a USB 3.0 Expresscard for a T410S? Where would I obtain one?

 

eSATA info from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esata#eSATA
eSATA products on newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...A=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=esata&x=0&y=0
eSATA products on amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=esata&x=0&y=0

Newegg have a ton: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...MATCH&Description=USB+3.0+expresscard&x=0&y=0
So do Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_n...ps&field-keywords=usb+3.0+expresscard&x=0&y=0

 

Links were very helpful, thanks so much. I had no idea about the expresscard USB functionality. Would having these increase my power draw/ decrease battery life?

 

keep in mind you won't be able to reach usb 3.0 speeds through expresscard, so it is rather pointless, in my opinion
just use esata if you really need an external drive with that kind of throughput

 

Yeah I would tend to agree, especially since the eSATA port is built in and requires no effort to use (other than buying a drive/enclosure that has an eSATA port, naturally). On the other hand, there may be some USB 3.0 peripherals in the future that won't have an eSATA port but could provide a speed boost using an ExpressCard USB 3.0 port rather than using the backward-compatibility to USB 2.0. Just a thought. But yeah if I were buying an external hard drive today I'd definitely insist on eSATA.

About the power question: I'm 99% sure most/all expresscard peripherals draw power through the bus, so yes they will drain your battery charge a bit quicker than if you don't have it plugged in. If you do buy one, I'd suggest you remove it when not in use and only plug it into the expresscard port when needed. I doubt it will consume a lot of power if it's just sitting idle, though. I could be wrong. And this could vary from manufacturer/model.

 

Thanks everyone. What kind of speeds COULD I expect from a USB 3.0 expresscard then? Isn't it supposed to be 10x faster than 2.0?

 

Yes, USB 3.0 is very fast. The issue is that the ExpressCard slot's interface isn't as fast as USB 3.0. I forget what the figures are but ExpressCard is definitely slower than USB 3.0. If you had built-in USB 3.0 ports, they wouldn't be hampered by the ExpressCard bus and could run faster.

That said, the thing to keep in mind is that USB 3.0's speed rating is it's max possible speed under ideal circumstances. Presumably current accessories probably can't supply data quite that fast so it's likely either a non-issue or less severe of an issue as it initially appears on paper. However, it's possible down the road there may be storage devices capable of pushing through 3.0's max throughput.

Throughput/speed ratings are always dicey and are often "theoretical" maximum speeds. For example, on paper, USB 2.0 @ a max of 480Mbps should be faster than FirewWire 400 (IEEE 1394a) @ a max of 400Mbps; however, in real-life performance, the FireWire interface moves more real data faster because it's a more efficient protocol with less overhead than USB 2.0.

 

The discovery of this expresscard functionality was really a pleasant surprise for me because I thought I'd be excluded from USB 3.0 functionality. It seems like USB is just much more ubiquitous than eSATA.

What I really meant to ask was what the relative, real, not theoretical speeds of these three would be:

1. USB 2.0
2. USB 3.0 through an Expresscard
3. eSATA

For example, the "real" write speed of a USB 3.0 is 3 times faster than USB 2.0, while the "real" write speed of an eSATA hard drive is 3.5 times as fast as 2.0...

How do USB 3.0 and eSATA compare in "real terms" (both limited by expresscard and built into the motherboard)?

Hope that clarifies my question.

Thanks.

EDIT: Some sources seem to say USB 3.0 will have a definitive advantage, and I wanted to know why you guys suggest eSATA is superior

http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-10141810-76.html

http://www.brighthub.com/computing/hardware/articles/24774.aspx

Especially with its powering function

 

I'm trying to find an internal Blu-Ray drive that can do it all, if there's even one but that would: play/write Blu-Rays & DVDs on my ThinkPad T510. I've found a couple but they don't list the T510 as a laptop that would br capable to use it. It's either R400, R500, W700, T400, T500.

I would really appreciate if someone could actually check the links out here they are:

LENOVO IBM ThinkPad T400 T500 W500 Blu-ray Disc NEW - eBay (item 170542991523 end time Oct-20-10 13:01:50 PDT)

And this one:

LENOVO IBM ThinkPad W700 R400 R500 Blu-ray Disc NEW! - eBay (item 170535428226 end time Oct-02-10 11:21:43 PDT)

Forgive me if I'm a bit annoying but I tried asking the seller but they haven't responded once. I wanted to point out on the first link (T400, T500) on the picture of the drive, the first one top left, on the bottom right corner it says Blu-Ray. On the second picture in the middle of the page, on the bottom right of the drive it says Multi DVD. Is he ripping people of or I'm wrong?

Thanks for your time.