x200 vs u330

I'm trying to decide between these two laptops and am curious which one people prefer.

I can find both machines similarly spec'ed for around $1000, so it's essentially a question of which would give more bang for my buck.

I'll be using it primarily for work - MS office, adobe illustrator/photoshop, some specialty biology applications (flowjo, macvector etc) and browsing. I want a portable machine, but both of these seem quite small and light in comparison to my wife's 15.4" 6.5lb HP that I'm currently lugging around. The lighter x200 would probably be more convenient, but I think I prefer the 13.3" screen. Is the build quality and durability of the u300 comparable to the x200?

 

the u330 is not in the same league as the x200 as it is a consumer/multimedia class notebook, meaning it does not feature the rollcage, trackpoint, and spill resistant keyboard

 

The U330 has a built-in optical drive, which the x200 does not.

It also does have a support frame, albeit not as strong as a standard ThinkPad. It also has some other ThinkPad features (OneKey recovery, for example).

 

oh crap, forgot the drive. +1 for that. the x200 doesnt have a touch pad either

 

If an optical drive and screen quality are important than the x200 would probably not be your best choice. However it is light, power, has great battery life, and is a joy to type on.

 

It comes down to what you want.

If you want an optical drive, multimedia features (e.g. speakers that aren't awful), a decent 13.3" GLOSSY screen, touchpad, etc. You should choose the U330.

If you want the most power in the smallest package, great build quality, a superb keyboard, TrackPoint, business black appearence, etc. You would be better served by the x200 (it is superb except for the screen, and I don't think an optical drive is important enough for the weight penalty you would have to pay).

 

Thanks for the replies so far. I think you've summed up the comparison pretty well.

The optical drive on the u330 seems very useful, but that's probably just because I've never had a computer without one. Admittedly, I only really use it for installing new software from CDs and occasionally burning photo CDs. I agree that I'll probably prefer the weight savings of not having one. The u330's biggest draw for me is the slightly larger screen (and the fact that it's a very nice looking laptop).

Overall, I think I'm leaning towards the x200. I think I'll appreciate the portability since I bike to work every day, and I'm guessing that the thinkpad build quality and durability will ultimately give me longer life out of the x200.

So now my next question is: should I have any concerns about buying a refurbished x200 from the lenovo outlet? I found the following refurbished system which seems to have great specs for only $960:

Processor: Intel® Core™2 Duo processor P8600 (2.40GHz, 3MB L2, 1066MHz FSB)

Operating System: Genuine Windows Vista Business

Memory: 1 GB PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM 1067MHz SODIMM Memory,2 GB PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM 1067MHz SODIMM Memory

Hard Drive: 160 GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm

Wireless: ThinkPad 11b/g Wireless LAN Mini PCI Express Adapter III

Battery: ThinkPad X200 Series 6 cell Li-Ion Battery

 

I think the outlet is fine. The quality should be as good (or perhaps even better due to more thorough quality control testing) than a new system. I assume the system comes with a 1 year depot warranty. This is usually sufficient, but I think a 3 year depot is worth the upgrade price (usually about $99) if you intend to keep it for a while.

Your configuration generally looks fine. If I were building it from scratch I would probably get the Wi-Fi 5100 (supports 802.11N) and a 9 cell battery(about 50% longer life for a penalty of 1" at the back and ≈5 ounces).

You should also check the Tabook for the preconfigured "Topseller" models. You can often get these at a decent price from ProVantage or others and one of these may be better configured than a model from the outlet (it may also ship faster than one directly from Lenovo).

 

I like the x200 because it has amazing battery life and i dont need a touch pad or optical drive.

 

Thanks again. I wasn't aware of the tabook resource. I found another similarly configured model that also included the 9 cell battery and wifi 5100 for only around $40 more.

There is another x200 available that is configured with a 64g SSD instead of the 160gb HDD 7200rpm but costs $230 more. Do you think the enhanced speed and stability of the SDD justifies the cost?

 

I'd probably go for option 1 (HDD) because I crave lots of cheap space.

You actually don't gain too much durability with an SSD because ThinkPads have an Active Protection sensor that protects hard drives. This is an accelerometer built into the notebook that detects motion and dynamically parks the drive if it detects a system shock (e.g. you drop your laptop).

However, you will get a decent gain in sequential read/writes, and a tremendous gain in random reads (and possibly writes depending on the model of SSD). If these are important to you, and you can make do with the reduced storage, it may be worth the upgrade.

What I would really like to see, and would happily buy, is a good quality SSD in an ExpressCard format. This would allow for a small (≈32 GB) SSD for the operating system, and a large HDD (≈320GB) for data storage. Unfortunately, the only ExpressCard SSDs available right now are just USB attached (as opposed to 1x PCI Express) NAND flash, and very very slow (to the point of being worse than an HDD for an OS).