Found an X201 cheaper by $1800, to buy or not to buy?

Here's my issue:

I live in Brisbane, Australia, and I'm set on purchasing a Thinkpad in the X-series. At the moment I'm rather keen on the X201 yet the only store in my city that has them, is selling it for $2744 AUD, which is far too much for me to pay. But the same store is also based in Melbourne (some ~1700km south) and according to the website, they have one unit in stock of the very same X201 (ok, only difference is that it has 2GB RAM less plus it's with XP Pro, as opposed to 7, but I can upgrade that) for a price of $944, which is unbelievably cheap compared to the price in my city. On top of it all, the one in Melbourne is even cheaper than what Lenovo has on their website for the X201, which is $1899, and the one on Lenovo's website has a 250GB HDD, whilst the other has 320GB HDD.

The specifications:



My ultimate issue is this whole Sandybridge processor that is due to come out, and the new X220. I'm assuming we can expect them to be expensive, but will they really be worth it? I plan on using this notebook for +5 years, should I hold out for the Sandybridge processor? Or quickly go in for this cheap X201, which is a steal in my situation.

 

Hi Deki

Lenovo Australia is currently having a 35% off sale on their X201, on their specials page:

Lenovo - WEEKEND SALE

Discount eCoupon: 48HRSALE

 

Unless you're pushing the CPU frequently, SB will offer next to nothing performance wise. If you're inclined, there's not AFFS mod on the X220. A better screen is probably a more tangible benefit than SB. Plus the X220 is 16:9.

 

Processing power may not be of interest to most users, but a potentially much better screen (with the great availability of 16:9 screens), mPCIe SSD and much better battery life (relatively bad in current i3/5/7 chipsets, and much better in SB according to Anandtech) are things of great value to most.

 

They say there's going to be much better battery before every new release. I've yet to see it.

 

What about the Anandtech SB review? 7 hours of battery life in a 17" laptop using SB? Seems pretty damn good to me.

 

The devil's in the details.

 

Yeah, thats only one laptop and not even production model.
Tho I hope that SB picks up where Arrandale left with its rather unimpressive battery life numbers compared to Core 2 Duo.

 

go grab it mate!!!

 

I am still using my T60 which is nearly 4.5 years old. Given the progress of current processor technology i would think that 5 years of use is not too much of a stretch.

However, currently the delivery to Brisbane is on a log jam, it is going to be hard to find a reliable delivery from Melbourne to Brisbane. Maybe you would have to try a big courier service like FedEx, DHL, Toll Priority, etc.

Sandybridge update on the X220 machine is not going to produce a huge performance difference, other than the 12.5 inch, Displayport, USB 3, i am not sure there is anything really significant in terms of upgrade.

So my suggestion is to get the X201, it is a bargain (at 999 dollars) however you look at it.

 

bad battery peformance?!

i certainly didn't see it. i did a head-to-head test between my x200s SL9400(1.86GHz) and x201 (i5-540), power profile set to max battery, same screen brightness, etc and the x201 had about 45 minutes more runtime than the x200s.

i doubt that the x201 refresh will have a markedly better quality screen and comparing a 12" @1280x800 to a [x220]12.5" @1366x768, doesn't exactly paint the x201 as the lesser choice for the display.

i'm pretty much all set to buy another x201 if nice coupon deal comes along, lenovo had a sweet deal right after thanksgiving that i should have jumped on. the special they had after christmas wasn't far behind either.

 

Thanks for the reply everyone. Unfortunately it now says on their website 'No units in stock' And I just called but it was a clearance item so they can't oder another one in Oh well!

Good thing Lenovo has a 35% offer on their site, I'll have to look into that!

Btw does it matter if the display is TFT or WXGA?

 

X201 from $1424 AUD

 

^^Thanks for telling me adam7777. $1424 is still a bit out of my range for now, but I have til tomorrow to think about it.
Or I might settle for a T410. It's far cheaper actually, but then again not as portable as the X201 :/.

 

TFT is type of LCD technology. Wxga is the resolution.

 

^^Oh ok then, thanks.