Any recommendations?

What is your budget?
<$1000 or depend of the recommendations.

What country will you be buying this in?
Malaysia

What size notebook do you prefer?
Mainstream (15 - 16-inch screen)

What type of lenovo?
Basically,after browsing, I think what I need is lenovp thinkpad.
The problem there's is some recommendation for x or t series, also some say w series.

Would you consider a refurbished laptop?
No, maybe.

What are the primary tasks you need this notebook for?
Web Surfing, Office and Productivity Software, Listening to Music, Computer Programming, Movie Streaming and Viewing, Graphic Intense 3D Gaming.
-MOSRLY ON DESIGN AND LITTLE 3D GAMING LIKE SKYRIM

Sometime simple word task, but overall I use for design purpose, and some 3d gaming (like skyrim that I wanna try)

What games will you be playing?
Watch_Dogs, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Skyrim, Battlefied 4,
But overall I didn't focus on high settings.

Where will you be using this laptop?
Will be used different places and Will stay on desk

How many hours of battery life do you need?
±5+

Will you be buying online or in store?
Prefer in store

Which OS do you prefer?
Windows 8 or 8.1

List the screen resolutions that interest you:
Max Resolution (1920*1080)
1600*900-at least this
1366*768
*to sum what I need is resolution that good for design.

Do you prefer a glossy or matte screen?
Prefer Glossy.

Is the laptops design important to you?
No, absolutely no.

Approximately what date will you be buying this laptop?
Around 07/28/2014

How long do you want this laptop to last?
4 years or more

How much storage capacity do you need?
Prefer SDD, especially if laptop recommendation is lenovo.
But if not,then 1Tb+.
Are you interested in SSD for storage?
Yes

Do you want a built-in optical drive, what type?
DVD-rw

 

Natural choices for you would be either the Thinkpad T440p or Thinkpad T540p: both offer the same performance options and have FHD 1920x1080 displays (although the 14" panel will obviously be more pixel-dense). The W540 is probably overkill for your needs, and will be far over your budget.

Note that all X-, T-, and W-series Thinkpads have only matte displays (even the touch-equipped models have a matte protective layer), so glossy is not an option.

 

For $200 you could upgrade an L440 with a FHD display and 128gb NGFF SSD.

 

well, after some research, i think, i'll less likely go with thinkpad T540p, which some still can be upgradeable.
such as, can be upgrade till 16 gb - memory.
and i read from other thread, that's better configured storage with HDD 500GB, and upgrade bymyslef to SSD.
*btw, any recommendations?

question is, first, i don't really know about specs, haha.
second, is that T540p battery come with double battery ?
- like T440s (CMIIW), which is have rear and front battery, and can i upgrade it to 72whr (i read it on some review about T440s before, where it double the battery life).

third, here is come the processor choice, i based come up decision for 4700MQ (which is common), but just incase before make my final choice, can you recommend which processor should i choose? (based on price and improvement, difference price, etc).


4th Gen Intel® Core™ i3-4000M (3MB Cache, 2.40GHz)
4th Gen Intel® Core™ i5-4200M (3MB Cache, up to 3.10GHz)
4th Gen Intel® Core™ i5-4300M (3MB Cache, up to 3.30GHz)
4th Gen Intel® Core™ i5-4330M (3MB Cache, up to 3.50GHz)
4th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-4600M (4MB Cache, up to 3.60GHz)
4th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-4700MQ (6MB Cache, up to 3.40GHz)
4th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-4800MQ (6MB Cache, up to 3.70GHz)
4th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-4900MQ (8MB Cache, up to 3.80GHz)

last, i just come from toshiba laptop, which is i don't really like, and it's based on windows 7, so is that windows 8 or 8.1 better than 7?
i have tried windows 8.1 on my friend laptop, and i think it was not really any big difference. )

also is that GT730M discrete graphics work well for gaming (little gaming on skyrim or something like that) - but i'm not that heavy gamer - most game i play just to taste it. haha.

*also thank's for clearing me up from confusion chosing the laptop..

 

hmm, after i reply to @midnight sun post, i search some review about L440, and i think it's not bad. is that true that it won't get noisy or too hot on the fan?
*i read that from some review though.
and also, i see your config laptop, i assume you install another sdd as replacement of optical drive.
how much do you spend overall?

 

I don't have any problems with the fan being noisy at all. It's quieter than the ProBook 4430s that I had previously. I spent about $525 on a refurbished L440 from the Outlet, plus about $20 something for shipping. I ordered a brand new1080p display from eBay for $100 plus shipping. Jud before my ProBook went south on me, I spent $110 on a 256gb Crucial SSD from Amazon. I spent another $100 or so on a 128gb M.2 NGFF SSD by MyDigitalSSD from Amazon. The NGFF is the replacement for mSATA, and the card fits in a slot on the system board. This lets you keep the optical drive. I also spent $160 to upgrade the RAM from 4gb to 16gb. All said and done, my laptop came out to $1040 with everything.

If you don't have any sort of special requirements, you may not need/want all the upgrades I did, but that was just to give you an idea.

 

Do you upgrade ram.by yourself?
And if I am not mistaken, I read from other thread, some states on lenovo t540p, m.2 ngff ssd is basically just useless because it just used as cache. what's that mean?
Is that aplied l440p?

Basically I'm really not into/know about laptop brand etc.
What I need is just a laptop which is good for design student.
and curently I found out t540p and t440p is mostly suitable.
I am not really know about l440p. May I ask about the performance overall?

 

I did all the upgrades myself. The bottom panel is held on with four screws. Remove them, and you have access to the RAM, HDD, NGFF slots, CPU and optical drive.

Whoever told you the NGFF was just for caching was misinformed. The NGFF form factor is replacing mSATA. The slot can be used to hold a WWAN card or SSD. The L440 has two, I think (I think the WiFi card is also NGFF). The NGFF SSD I bought is 128gb. That is large enough to use as a boot drive.

 

well, what i mean is NGFF in T540p which is in hardware manual (read it on internet), the ngff used as cache, which is useless..
and how about your main drive (HDD maybe), do you just dump it? (haha)

my assumption,
first, with l440p, you make 128 gb NGFF as boot device, is that also mean os install in there? *sorry, question kinda noob.
and do you use 256GB crucial MX100 for? (if that's for storage, i think that was too waste.)

 

may i ask something for advice? and yes, i prefer t540p than l440, but there is something annoying me.
which is t540p with ngff slot, even for m.2 ngff, it was mostly useless, cause from hardware manual itself, lenovo states m.2 ngff is for cache only, and it limited to 16 gb, except Intel Pro1500 M.2 which is 120gb (not sure about the price) and 128 gb MyDigital SSD . - it just if intended to save optical drive, well it was not dual drive options though.

if i chose to dual drive options, which is mean sacrifice optical drive (not really a big problem), and let's say, i bought samsung 840 evo or maybe m500 as boot drive, and later i bought another 7k100 1 tb as storage drive, will that make it better options? (especially the price).

 

may i ask something for advice? and yes, i prefer t540p than l440, but there is something annoying me.
which is t540p with ngff slot, even for m.2 ngff, it was mostly useless, cause from hardware manual itself, lenovo states m.2 ngff is for cache only, and it limited to 16 gb, except Intel Pro1500 M.2 which is 120gb (not sure about the price). - it just if intended to save optical drive, well it was not dual drive options though.

if i chose to dual drive options, which is mean sacrifice optical drive (not really a big problem), and let's say, i bought samsung 840 evo or maybe m500 as boot drive, and later i bought another 7k100 1 tb as storage drive, will that make it better options? (especially the price).

 

Please ignore what you saw on the internet, even if it was from the Lenovo manual for a moment.

1. If Lenovo included a 16GB M.2 NGFF card, yes, it is used for caching. That does not make the card useless. It also does not make the slot useless.

2. Like almost everything in a ThinkPad, the M.2 NGFF slot is user accessible and whatever is in it can be replaced.

3. You can purchase a larger drive, like I did to use for whatever you want.

4. The term "boot drive" refers to the drive which holds the OS and essential applications.

5. For both work and my own professional development, I work with a lot of virtual machines in VMware Workstation. Using a larger SSD for data makes these VMs run faster. Also, I put a 4GB page file and my 16GB hibernate partition on the larger drive.

6. The BEST dual drive option for any new ThinkPad is to use a large M.2 NGFF SSD for the OS and either retain the original HDD for data or replace the original HDD with a larger SSD, depending on your needs.

 

thanks for correcting me out.
if i am not mistaken, 128 gb my digital ssd m.2 ngff (examples), fits in m.2 ngff slot, and retain optical drive too. also save HDD.
btw, what about 4gb page file and 16 gb hibernate partition for?
*16 gb hibernate partition get anything to do with hibernate position?

also last, if i may ask, is that your work include design and editing video or maybe rendering 3d.?
and is that anything to taking into consideration or must be note when buying memory for upgrading?
well incase upgrading memory from 4gb to 16 gb or 12 gb from store is expensive.

 

If you put an NGFF SSD into the NGFF slot, you do can keep both your HDD and your ODD.

The hibernate partition was created so that I could use Intel Rapid Start with my ThinkPad. I had also put the 4GB pagefile on the larger SSD simply because of space.

I do not work with any sort of design or multi-media. I work with a lot of virtual machines.

 

When getting consideration to l440p, unfortunate it doesn't available in malaysia. *facepalm.
I get offer y510p also from another store y5070.
Y50-70 basically is just upgrade version from y510p.
But when I notice something. I notice y510p sli gt755m is slight better than gtx860m ddr5 4g.
Anyway do you think it's better investation or should I wait for more offer?
Also, here is the comparison.

 

I personally will never purchase a non-business class laptop. I have only made two exceptions to that rule: My wife's netbook, which is a glorified web browsing device; and my father in law's 2-in-1, which he uses to watch movies and browse the web when he travels.