Any similarities between the E5500 and M4400?

It's hard to tell but both laptops on the outside look the same. I'm tempted to buy a refurbed M4400 with the 15% discount.

 

M4400 has the Quadro FX 770M graphics card, E5500 has only the integrated Intel graphics. M4400 is using a more recent chipset supporting the 1066MHz FSB, and the Centrino 2 processors.

Definitely go M4400 if you can afford it, it's a lot more computer. Plus the refurbs will give you the 3 year warranty for free, you'd have to pay extra to get that with the new E5500. Then again, if all you need is the E5500, you might want to consider refurb anyway, just to save some money.

 

Shouldn't you be comparing E6500 vs. M4400?
The main difference is 256MB vs 512MB of max Video memory, as far as I know. And the color of the lid.

 

It's still Quadro FX 770M vs Quadro NVS 160M, the amount of video memory doesn't make that much of a difference so far as I know.

From http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html
#43: Quadro FX 770M: 3DMark06 score: 5297
#95: Quadro NVS 160M: 3DMark06 score: 1988
#114: GMA 4500MHD: 3DMark06 score: 1015

But yes, you can get the E6500 in red or blue instead of the default black.

 

Between E6500 and M4400 the lid design is a little bit different too. I wasn't sure if I liked the scalloped lid of the M4400.

I thought the E5500's had a different case, maybe with less metal.

When I priced M4400's in the outlet a few weeks ago I didn't find any at reasonable prices, but I did find good prices on E6500's.