[ltp] Buying a New Thinkpad

[Steven J. Owens]

Hi,

On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 01:23:01AM -0300, Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> On Thu, 28 Apr 2011, Steven J. Owens wrote:
> >      My old thinkpad is a 15" t43p.  I'm leaning towards upgrading to
> > a 17", after years of screen-size-envy :-).  Any reasons to avoid the
> 
> You'll actually need a 17" to retain the vertical size you had in your
> T43/p in the first place.  AFAIK, all screens are either 16:10
> (2009-2010 models) or 16:9 (2011 models).  You'll wish you could use the
> notebook sideways like a tablet...  and probably that you could replace
> the pannel with something Dell and Apple uses.
> 
> The X220 has one model with an IPS screen, but it is has low resolution.

> >      - get the LED screen
> 
> You better check the quality of the TFT pannel and resolution.

     So, after more research...  Yeesh, lenovo's site does not make it
easy.  The tabook helps (get it from http://www.lenovo.com/psref/),
but again there's *so* much info.  The following is all based on what
lenovo's website is telling me.  It might be I could call them and get
better info or alternative options.  It seems to boil down to this:

     If I understand my options correctly, the T series still seems
the best bet for me.  The main reason to select an alternative would
be cost savings, but the price difference isn't big enough to be a
factor for my budget. 

     I want a full-time laptop to be my primary workstation, and I
want it optimized for durability first, power second, with portability
third.  Having said that, I also want a larger screen than 14".

     The only 17" screens are on the monster "portable workstation" W
series.  Besides those, the next biggest screens are the 15.6" 16x9
screens on the t520s.  These seem to be only available in 1920x1080,
not 1920x1200 for some reason.  They also seem to be only available in
LED.

     So now we've narrowed it down to the t520.  I tend to hang onto
my hardware for a long time - I bought my t43p new in 2005 and am just
now retiring it in 2011.  Based on this, it makes sense to spend a
little extra up front on buffing up the CPU and memory.  It ends up
adding up to several hundred dollars, but amortized over how long I
expect to keep and use the machine, should be worth it.

     I'm pretty vague on the strengths of the different CPUs available
for the t520. The most expensive is the "Intel Core i7-2820QM
Processor (2.30GHz, 8MB L3)", but can I assume that's the most
powerful?

-- 
Steven J. Owens
puff@darksleep.com / (412) 401-8060 cell 
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