T500 vs W500 vs Last Gen MBP

Y

yellafella321

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 23, 2003
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I've had my dell e5500 for the last two years, and well, it's been demoted to a permanent desktop. About six months ago the screen started having a dark-light gradient, and as of four months ago, the screen won't stay on for more than 2-5 minutes. I'm out and about a lot, so I would definitely like a laptop.

Because of work, I spend very little time on the computer. 5-15 hours a week, with 15 hours being VERY unusual. Although, if my laptop were portable, those numbers would increase by about 5-8 hrs a week. 20% of the time would be spent photo editing, lightroom/ps, could definitely be more depending on the season/activities, 30% of the time is spent on word/excel. 20% of the time is spent browsing. 5% of the time is spent on games, if even. The rest of the time is spent watching shows/movies while I do laundry/ironing.

Ultimately, I want something that will work each and every time I boot it up. Reliability and stability are very important for me. My roomate's lenovo was great for the first few months, but then his hard drive crashed, and even though they gave him a new one, it still takes about 2-5 minutes for excel to start up. This is why I'm considering a Mac. But, I've never had any issues with XP, and I've heard of vista working fine for a lot of other people.

Battery life is always a plus. I noticed that the t500 has switchable graphics, which could be a great asset for me, considering the variability of my use. But, the w500 has a slightly faster card, and when coming down to the crux of things, is actually very important. Other difference is that the w500 has the 1920x1200 option, but it could be too small for a screen that size...

The mac...is a mac, there isn't much to say about it. It has a nicer LED screen but a lower res.
 
The mac laptops will run Windows no problem - even the least expensive $999.00 model. Native. You can have the option of using both OS's.

Boot Camp (included with OS 10.5) will partition the drive as you desire without disturbing the original OSX installation at all. The Mac laptops run Windows essentially the same as any other laptop with the same specifications.

You'll have to buy XP or Vista for it though...
 
I never had any concern for the mac being able to run windows properly. My concerns were over the stability of vista itself, 32/64 and compatability, drivers, etc.
 
I think mainly because OSX runs only on Macs (well, ok - mostly ;) ) it is very stable with the hardware it runs on as Apple controls it - for reliability that is a good thing - and better by a small margin over Windows (XP or Vista SP1) once Windows is installed and configured for the machine.

That being said, XP SP3 and Vista 64bit SP1 are the most stable versions of Windows ever, I think. I've not had problems with any of the three - but I do pay close attention to configuration issues with Windows. It's actually a habit. With new hardware, Vista drivers are easily available for nearly everything - and most run without issue.

One more thing, you can buy a Dell (as a for instance...) with accidental damage coverage that Dell handles directly. You can't at present with Apple - a third party company sells it and you have to deal with them, not Apple. This may be of some importance to you...
 
The Lenovo screens have had a variety of complaints against their brightness and color uniformity. The MBP with the LED backlight would probably be a better choice for that alone.

That said, I'm faced with the same decision as you (notice the almost identical thread I posted? ;) ), and I'm leaning towards the W500 for ruggedness alone. And FYI, a fully configured W500 costs less than the equivalent T500. There's really no reason to go with the T500. W500 has switchable graphics too, it's just not listed for some reason.

And your roommate's laptop is not a good benchmark for performance. It's poorly configured; there should be no reason Excel would take 2-5 minutes to startup. Time to reformat.
 
I went with the Mac. Currently amazon has them for 1600, no tax, and a 150$ rebate. I wanted the LED screen, the lit keyboard, the keyboard, and wanted to try OSX.
 
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