P151 or W150?

Figure I'll put this question out to the masses, as I haven't seen it directly asked recently.

Been lurking on these pages for a few days now, contemplating my next laptop purchase. I've got a budget of about $1k, and this computer will be used mostly for grad school with some gaming as a secondary use. Portability is somewhat of an issue, as I'm using this as my primary (only) PC for the next 3-4 years and it ends up in my bag a lot. Immediate purchase is not necessary, but my current rig is on borrowed time.

I'm debating between a P151 or a W150 from Malibal (or a Lenovo T420, but y'all don't need to comment on that unless you really want to). Between these two specs, which direction would you head? Seems like the only major difference is the chassis itself and the vid card. Any optimizations to make?

Lotus P151HM1 (P151HM1): $1049

Display: 15.6" 1920 x 1080 FHD LED Backlit Matte Display
Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-2630QM, 6MB L3 Cache, 2.0-2.9GHz
Memory: (8GB) 8192MB, PC3-10660/1333MHz DDR3 - 4 SO-DIMM
Graphics Card: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 560M 1.5GB GDDR5
Hard Drive: 500GB 7200rpm 2.5" SATA 300
Optical Drive Bay: 8X Multi DVD+/-R/RW RAM Dual-Layer Drive
Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® 7 Home Premium; 64-bit
Wireless: Internal 802.11B/G/N LAN and Bluetooth Card
Cooling: Stock OEM Thermal Compound, CPU & GPU


Lotus W150HM (W150HM): $974

Display: 15.6" 1920 x 1080 FHD LED Backlit Matte Display
Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-2630QM, 6MB L3 Cache, 2.0-2.9GHz
Memory: (8GB) 8192MB, PC3-10660/1333MHz DDR3 - 2 SO-DIMM
Graphics Card: NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 555M 2GB GDDR3
Hard Drive: 320GB 7200rpm 2.5" SATA-300
Optical Drive Bay: 8X Multi DVD+/-R/RW RAM Dual-Layer Drive
Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® 7 Home Premium; 64-bit
Wireless: Internal 802.11B/G/N LAN and Bluetooth Card
Cooling: Stock OEM Thermal Compound, CPU & GPU

Thanks!

 

They both look great, the big thing though is the 560 vs 555. The 560 is vastly superior to the 555 and will be a lot better in the long run for games as far as I understand. Considering the difference is $75, I'd say go with the P151HM1 since you get the 560M and an extra 180GB of storage space.

Wait, where does Malibal sell the W150?

 

Can you tell me a little more about what makes the 560 superior? I was kind of partial to the 555 because it was Optimus (battery savings when not gaming).

I couldn't find the W150 on their website, but I emailed and they provided a link. You can also find a link in their sigs on the nbr message boards.

 

Well, the 555 is superior for the feature of optimus. If you'd rather have longer battery life, definitely go for the 555. Or wait until next year's P150EM line of Clevo's which have optimus in higher end cards. I'm not sure the difference in battery life you'd get with a 555M vs a 560M though. Based on some benchmarks and game tests, the 560M looks to be roughly 30% better performance wise than the 555M.

 

*sigh* the "wait or buy" dilemma...any idea of what the timeline on that refresh is? Is that the March/April timeframe? (Like any of us really know?)

 

The Clevo barebones go into mass production in March. Intel is releasing the next-gen CPUs, Ivy Bridge, for mobiles in April-May. When the marriage of the two goes on sale is anyone's guess.