Lenovo W500 versus Dell M4400, Please Help

Well I was trying to buy the M4400 a few days back and the call dropped with the rep and she never called me back. So this gave me time to take a look at the W500 again and I was pleased to find that they had the P9500 offered, so now I am having difficulty deciding which to get.

I will be using the laptop for a lot of CAD work. I do finite element analysis, CAM programming, and part design using CATIA v5r17. I also use MATLAB and Simulink. So CPU, memory, and videocard performance are quite important to me. However I also travel around a lot and I would be bringing this laptop around from the office to the machine shop several times a day, so it needs to be rugged.

What I like about the W500 is that it has the switchable graphics so that it will run cooler and save battery life when graphics power is not an issue. I also like the fact that it has the lower power consumption and higher performance DDR3 memory. Finally, I like that it can be configured with the low power P9500 processor (2.53Ghz, 1066Mhz FSB, 6MB L2, 25W).

The M4400 also has some key advantages, mainly the excellent screen (WUXGA RGB LED) and the graphics cards (Nvidia FX770) which I imagine is more powerful that the one found in the W500. The backlit keyboard also is pretty nice and everyone seems to like it.

I plan on purchasing my own memory and my own SSD drive. I also have Windows Vista Ultimate on hand so I plan on configuring with the lowest option. Here is how I would buy each and the price I would buy them for:

W500

P9500 (2.53Ghz, 1066Mhz FSB, 6MB L2, 25W)
Windows Vista Home Basic
15.4" WXSGA+ (1680x1050) CCFL
ATI Mobility FireGL V5700 512MB + Intel X4500M Hybrid
1GB DDR3-1066 (1 DIMM)
160GB 5400RPM SATA HDD
CD-RW / DVD-ROM
Integrated Bluetooth
Intel Wifi Link 5300
6 cell Lithium Ion
3 year warranty upgrade

$1284.83


M4400:

T9400 (2.53Ghz, 1066Mhz FSB, 6MB L2, 35W)
Windows Vista Business
15.4" WUXGA (1920x1200) RGB-LED Glossy
Nvidia Quadro FX 770M 512MB
1GB DDR2-800 (2 DIMM)
80GB 5400RPM SATA HDD
DVD Burner
Integrated Bluetooth
Intel Wifi Link 5300
Backlit keyboard
6 cell battery
3 year warranty

$1881


Clearly the W500 is a lot cheaper. But is the M4400 worth the extra $600?

 

After reading in this forum about all the problems people seem to have with nVidia graphics in laptops I think the Lenovo W500 with ATI graphics is a safer choice.

Örjan

 

Well, I went with the m4400 and I also was looking at the W500 and T500...IMO the m4400 was worth the extra money and it just plains whoops up on the W500...it's very nice, solid...fast...great screen...3 years onsite support...it's was worth it to me...especially the 15 inch LED screen at 1440x900 which is bright clear sharp and nice to my aging eyes Back to Sins of a Solar Empire.... (I did four hours of gaming last night and it stayed quiet and cool pretty impressive for me)

 

I ended just picking up a M4400 today on Ebay rather than a w500 mainly because of the ATI v5700. Coming from a Lenovo T60P, I loved the build, the aesthetic, battery life and weight, but I wasn't a huge fan of the FireGL v5200 primarily due to the drivers. And on top of that, all the issues Lenovo is having with putting into incorrectly hardware id GPUs which show up as HD3650s and the issues with the ISV certified drivers, and that was enough to get to give dell a chance. Had they put a nvidia card into the w500 I would have gone that route.

As long as you are sure the ATI drivers work great with the applications you are running, I would say the decision is a toss up. But for me, they gave me too many problems running Rhino3D, which is essential for what I do, which made the decision easy.

 

I have read about the driver issues with the V5700 so hopefully those are fixed or I will probably return the W500. I just ordered it, the $600 difference was just too significant. Also I think the W500 will get much better battery life because of the DDR3, hybrid graphics, and 25W processor. I guess we will find out...

 

The quality drop after the T40 Series made me switch to Dell.
The W500 is very dissapointing compared to the M4400 or the T61p. The FireGL is even slower than the T61p grafics!! (FX 570). The W500 display is very disappointing too... (I've been a Thinkpad-Fan all the time, but for now, I buy Dell's Precisions and hope Lenovo will remember what a Thinkpad should be built!!!!)
For me the switchable grafics is useless... The FX 770 can clock down and I get 4 hours with the 6cell battery... when I turn to the 9cell battery and the battery slice I will get almost 10 hours... more than enough to be "mobile"

 

:| how on earth are u getting 10 hours?

with my spec i only get max 4.5

and yea, its a pity u dint call dell again. they discount a lot if you ask nicely

 

I have an E600, T21 and a T60p. The T60p is very well build and is a Lenovo product. If the W500 lacks in build quality I will return it in a heartbeat.

 

looking at an m4400 ...

anyone know what the best system (thinkpad t 0r w series, hp, etc) to get a dell rep to pricematch?

 

The W500 from Lenovo would be the comparable laptop. I tried doing a price match with Dell and they made it as difficult as humanly possible.