help regarding w500

After waiting for some time unable to decide which laptop to buy (T400 vs w500) i am thinking of taking the plunge. my budget is 1200$

i configured the system as following for about 1130+59 (tax) in the cpp site:

Intel Core 2 Duo processor T9400 (2.53GHz 1066MHz 6MBL2)
Genuine Windows Vista Business
Microsoft Windows XP Professional US English RDVD
15.4" WSXGA+ TFT, w/ CCFL Backlight
ATI Mobility FireGL V5700 with 512MB VRAM
3 GB PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM 1067MHz SODIMM Memory
UltraNav (TrackPoint and TouchPad)
160 GB Hard Disk Drive, 5400rpm
DVD Recordable 8x Max Dual Layer, Ultrabay Slim (Serial ATA)
Express Card Slot & PC Card Slot
Intel WiFi Link 5100 (AGN)
Integrated Mobile Broadband upgradable
6 cell Li-Ion Battery
Country Pack North America with Line cord & 90W AC adapter


any suggestions or improvements for this?

i find a lot of conflicting opinions about how hot this machine gets. can any one tell me how hot it gets when it is under stress and when it is in normal conditions? i will be using it in 30-35 c room temperatures. will it cause any problems in long run?

how many hours battery life can i expect with the 6 cell?

is 2.6 kgs too heavy to be carrying around a lot?

any coupons that can be used on top of this?

how long will it take to ship?

Thanks a lot for the replies in advance

 

My W500 never gets hot. I can use it on my lap all day long no problem coding/surfing/watching videos.

With the 8 cell I get about 6-7 hours in linux.

It's an awesome machine

 

thanks for the quick reply.

are u using the integrated or discrete graphics for the 6-7 hours? do u find the weight a bother? does it run silent?

 

Integrated. Battery life is a little better on Vista I believe.

Weight isn't too bad but that's up to you. My previous thinkpad was a X60s and it's not as nice to carry around but I'm not that mobile. I do have a strong urge to get a x200s or x301 when they drop in price a little more though.

It's very silent.

 

how hot does it get under stress, in light gaming or running graphic intensive tasks?

How much time did it take for yours to get shipped?

Thank you very much,
Martin

 

Sorry to hijack the thread, I'm thinking of buying the W500, but I'd like to know how good the fireGL V5700 is? is it good for 3d studio 2009 and maya 2009?

 

ATI Mobility FireGL V5700 is a professional graphics card. it is based on the mobility Radeon 3650. it will work fine for your applications.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=80145

it is supposed to give performance equivalent to NVIDIA Quadro FX 770M

you can also look at some benchmarks for the equivalent desktop cards

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/FireGL-Quadro-Workstation,1995-11.html

 

Thanks a lot

 

if LED screens arrive for t500, can we expect them for w500 also?

 

Unlikely, the w500 datasheet that Lenovo released never specified an LED backlit screen.

Thats what I was holding out on, until I realized that it won't happen. So I bought the machine a month ago.

 

How does the w500 perform under stress, temperatures and battery life is helpful.

 

What are you planning on using the machine for? Have you checked out the T500?

 

Under stress, it heats up . On a serious note, it doesn't heat up that much, I can watch a 1080p movie on my lap without getting uncomfortable. I also played portal and mass effect with similar results.

Battery life is pretty good, during casual use (word processing, internet, msn and other menial tasks), I got about 6.5 hours out of the 9 cell at 90% brightness (I am pretty sure lowering my process count from 85 to 65 helped).

EDIT: the 6.5 hours was on integrated graphics

 

hey Boss- did you play Portal with stock drivers or ????

how does she do for games in general ?! fear, hl2 etc

thanx

 

I can say that FEAR works very well on the w500...

 

i plan on doing some financial analysis, graphics programming, photoshop and playing games.

the similar spec t500 is much more expensive than the w500. so i am opting for w500 as the best bet in the price vs performance ratio.

further the 5700 is 512MB GDDR3 while 3650 is just 256MB GDDR2.

am i missing something in not picking T500?

 

Jayonhavok, Do i need to change the drivers to play the games?

 

anybody with an estimate how long will it take to ship with the 6 cell?

 

@ Voostro: I played portal using stock drivers; I was able to play it on max settings and at 1920x1200. I can't say anything about HL2, but mass effect runs pretty well on mid-high settings and at 1680x1050.

@martinmach: The video card on the w500 is meant for openGL apps, more specifically, CAD related programs. That said, it is fine for games but there won't be a big difference in performance between the W500 and T500 (at least not until better drivers are released). It is definitely more than adequate for the tasks you have in mind.

 

Ok, thats what I wanted to know. I was wondering if you were going to use the graphics power of the W500 and it seems you are. So, no you aren't missing anything, I think you are doing a good thing going for the W500. Here are some suggestions/ideas for you...

1.) Have you thought about the WUXGA screen? It will give you a super amount of screen real estate but the downside is that games will play farther away from native resolution and the text and icons will be smaller on the screen(but can be corrected by DPI scaling in Vista). The W500 is unique in the fact that it is one of the few Thinkpads that you can get the WUXGA screen for. Might be the opportunity to go for one if your into high res screens. I often wonder if I should have done this with my T61p.

2.) I would get the cheapest hard you can from lenovo and upgrade yourself. you can get a much better deal and a faster harddrive too. Harddrive prices have dropped like crazy and if you shop for the right deal you can get one for a great price.

3.) You are getting Vista Business I see. have you thought about Vista Business 64? I have it and like it. If you have very old hardware or 16 bit software you need to interface with then it might not be a good idea though.

4.) I would change your Wifi card to the 5300 instead of the 5100 as I have heard that the 5300 card is a better card overall.

5.) Shipping time varies from order to order greatly. In my case I had one thinkpad in my hands in 7 days and the other in 10(even with the short supply 9 cell battery). I just ordered a mouse a few days ago from Lenovo and it has already shipped in like 2 days. Pretty impressive, since the original ship date estimate was 10/22.

 

thanks guys ! good info

ive been window shopping with $1500 in my right pocket for a month now and had a look at this w500, read alot about the quadro and fire gl cards too.....

was hoping to get some "real time/exp." from others on gaming with em'

the discount on this puppy is incredible right now with stackables and the specs you get

only thing holding me back is what i been hearing about the screen

can you say it's more than ok or livable ??

both the ccfl one and the upgrade.....

thanks much

 

Hi Martin,

No you don't. It will work fine without changing the drivers.

 

I heard the WUXGA screen on the W500 isn't very good. Problems such as dim backlight and colors seeming a little washed out. The WSXGA+ is great though and I like it. I've had mine for a month now. As for shipping, it took about 7-10 days for me to receive min as well. I haven't tested battery life myself, infact, I haven't even opened the package for the battery yet. I wonder though, how does one get 6+ hours with that 9 cell battery in linux? I thought I read that the W500s weren't very battery optimized in linux?

About the games, I've been able to play Call of Duty 4 on 1680x1050 but framerates weren't exactly the smoothest at all times, lowering it to like 1440x900 or lower became smooth.

 

All the screens seem luck of the draw and peoples expectations vary greatly. In my case I am very happy with my screen, no complaints, but I have seen horrible screens in person as well(not just pictures). It is luck of the draw but I think most people are happy with their screens. Pro photographers, well they are very picky...

 

any sugar momma's out there wanna help me get a W700 ?!

plz

 

One quick question. This might be dumb but Lenovo has been pretty explicit about which as to which screen comes with LED or CCFL(WXGA+ WSXGA+ etc). However, it seems like they do not mention how WUXGA is lit. I'm 99.99% sure that it is CCFL.

 

Thanks for the Replies and valuable suggestions

i read that WUXGA on the w500 is kind of dull and has very low brightness. i am thinking of saving up that upgrade money and buying an external display.

i am thinking of leaving the stock hard drive(upgrade it to intel ssd next year ) and getting turbo memory 2.0 to use the user pinning option, i heard it saves battery and access of applications is very fast. any idea on this?

i will get that vista 64 as you suggested. any difference over the 32 bit one?

i am assuming your shipping info is regarding w500, than it is great news.

 

it is CCFL, there is no LED screen for W500 as per the specs

 

I am not sure about the WUXGA. You would need to check the nit rating to see how bright it is. I haven't looked at the specs of the new models, but the T61p used WUXGA screens that were 175 nit. The other T61 screens were 200 and 220 nits. So from the specs the WUXGA was supposed to be a little bit dimmer, but from what people told me they said they couldn't tell the difference between it and a 200 nit screen. I have never seen a WUXGA screen on a 15" LCD in person. They are impossible to find in the flood of budget 1280x800 machines that are all over the place. Therefore I took the safer option and went for the WSXGA+ screen. I would however love to try a WUXGA screen. Just an idea for you since you are going for one of the few models that allow you to choose a WUXGA screen, which is awesome for screen real estate, you might want to take a chance.

I don't know too much about turbo memory 2.0. The 1.0 version was not worth it and I choose to not get it. In fact it caused a lot of BSODs and was more of a problem than it was worth. BTW - turbo memory only works with Vista, so if you are planning on running an instance of XP or Linux it won't be utilized.

As I mentioned above, Vista 64 is nice but can be a problem running old 16 bit programs and interfacing with old hardware that doesn't have drivers that work with a 64 bit OS. Overall though it is really nice and pretty much works with everything but the decision is yours. I choose Vista 64 since I wanted to utilize my 4GB of RAM(32 bit Vista can only access something like 3.2GB of Ram, while 64 bit can access a lot more!) and most, if not all my hardware I was going to use with the machine would be new. The place you might run into 16 bit programs are with installation wizards of older programs. I ran into a couple of these issues with 2 old games I had that had 16 bit installation wizards. I was able to get around the wizard, in this case, and the actual game ran fine. Most my games I play on it are atleast 4 years old and they work fine.
The question for you is are you going to be using old hardware or old programs frequently?

My shipping info was regarding my purchase of a T61, T61p and Lenovo bluetooth mouse(just got it yesterday- in about 3 days!!!), not the W500.

 

Thanks to all of you for your advise. you really helped me to make a good buying choice. i will be ordering it sometime tomorrow. i am thinking of getting a backpack too. do you think w500 will fit this:

http://www.amazon.com/Swiss-Gear-SA...5?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1224296026&sr=8-5