Help needed to spec my T520! Screen & processor advice...

Hi all

Been doing lots and lots of research on purchasing my next laptop and this forum has been a great help for my understanding of the many different options available.

I currently have an R52 ThinkPad which has served me well for nearly 6 years now and has never had a single thing go wrong with it! It's long overdue an upgrade though and now the new Sandy Bridge ThinkPads are out it seems like the perfect time to do so.

From my research the new T520 seems to be the most suitable machine for my requirements. My laptop is on for a good 12 hours a day and is used to run both my personal and business life though I wouldn't say I'm a 'power' user. Mainly web, email, office docs and organising my media in terms of photos, music etc. A typical day will consist of having Outlook open along with windows explorer, a couple of word documents and 8-10 tabs on my browser.

I'd be looking for the new machine to last me 3-4 years at least so want to go for the best spec possible for my needs without it being overkill. With this in mind the 3 main areas that I'm stuck on and could really do with some advice/assistance with are the processor, the screen and the memory.

Processor - I'd originally spec'd it with the i7 2620M with the idea of going with more than I probably needed for now as more of a future proofing exercise. From looking around on here though it seems that many don't see any real benefit of this processor over the i5 2540M. The i7 is £120 more than the i5 here in the U.K. Is that £120 justified or ultimately just wasted money?

Screen - Here's my toughest decision. FHD or HD+. For the last 6 years I've been using my R52 which has a 15.4" screen at a resolution of 1440 x 1050 and for me this is a resolution that I'm comfortable with. My I.T friend who I always go to for advice has a W510 with the FHD screen and swears by it. Thinks I'm crazy if I go for anything less.

I went over to his last night to check it out and instantly realised that whichever screen option I go for the move from my 15.4" 4:3 screen to the new 15.6" 16:9 screen is going to be a real adjustment. I really didn't like it! The lack of vertical real estate in particular. Though I know that it's pretty much an industry standard now so nothing can be done about that.

Anyway at 100% resolution everything was just way to small for me. So he went into the 'make text and other items larger or smaller section' and set it at 125%. This did improve things along with setting the browser at 125% and having the ability to zoom in on Word docs etc. By increasing everything to 125% though am I not losing any of the advantage of having the FHD screen to begin with? He says not as the resolution is still the same even at 125%. I wish I could see the HD+ screen to compare but that's not going to be possible. The FHD screen is £144 more than the HD+ screen too so really want to get this decision right.

He also claims that as I'm looking to keep the laptop for at least 3-4 years that's another good reason to go for the FHD screen. Reckons that the people who develop software going forward will be running FHD as a bare minimum so will be developing for that resolution and if I find it too small I can always increase the scaling in Windows 7 very easily. Feels that in the future 1920 x 1080 will become the industry standard so get it now while I can.

Will be very interested to hear your thoughts on this!

Memory - I've spec'd it at 4 GB. Any advantage to going with say 8 GB instead? I'm thinking not based on my needs and usage... though may be wrong!

Thanks in advance for all help and replies! Once I've finalised my decision on the options above I can go ahead and order it up this week hopefully! As it's not a cheap outlay and is going to be my machine for the next 3-4 years minimum I just really want to get it right at outset!!

Dan

 

1. Get the lowest i5 (you can actually get away with an i3)

2. HD+ and FHD both are an good option (I would get the HD+ and move the the taskbar to the side)

3. I think 4GB is enough for your use, get 8GB if you are using virtual machine.

 

k2001's suggestions are right on the dot: lowest i5, HD+, 4GB RAM. Also, get a 6-cell battery if the notebook will sit on your desk most of the time.

For your usual applications, an HD+ 1600x900 panel is suitable. (Your friend is right: at 125%, all contents are rendered bigger, but the resolution remains the same. This means, while things appears larger, they are sharp and smooth thanks to the native density of the pixels. If you don't work with graphics and images every day, the FHD 1920x1080 upgrade is not a good investment.)

 

Two votes for the i5 over the i7 and for the HD+ screen as opposed to the FHD screen so far then.

I can understand why the i5 over the i7 if there's not much in them power wise for the money but what's the reasoning for recommending the HD+ screen over the FHD. Do you not agree with my friends assessment that the FHD is the better longer term investment looking ahead over the next 3-4 years?

Also, and this is something I'm not sure of, how would the HD+ screen differ from the FHD panel I was looking at last night? Would I perhaps be able to keep everything at 100% as opposed to 125%? Would I be able to see as much on the screen? I wonder which option most closely resembles what I've been used to using on my current R52.

Think I'll definitely save the money and go for the i5 but the screen is really confusing me... and I can't afford to get it wrong as it's something I'm looking at for hours every day!

 

Not to try and confuse you further but the FHD is not just better resolution - it is also a brighter screen with higher constrast ratios.

I just posted this link for the T520 else where on the forum which tests the HD+ screen - looks like pretty unimpressive brightness and but decent to good contrast (run through google translate if you don't read german):

Test Lenovo Thinkpad T520 Notebook - Notebookcheck.com Tests

If that's good enough for you then no need for FHD... if you are going to be spending a lot of time looking at the screen, i'd personally go for the upgrade. hope that helps.

 

I always try to answer a "request for suggestion" according to the OP's needs, not my personal preferences.

Disclosure: I use a T410 with 1440x900 panel and a T510 with 1920x1080 panel. Aside from pixel resolution, the former is good and the latter is great (good brightness, very good contrast, excellent color reproduction). I've recently received and configured a T420 HD+ 1600x900 for a new associate of my firm: the screen appears to be slightly better than the T410 screen. At the same time, the new T520/W520's we've just received for our design lab have screens that appear identical to the last-generation T510/W510's.

As I inferred that the OP will be doing mostly text-oriented applications, I did not "push" the FHD panel. Anyhow, there is no way one can fully convey one's visual experiences relative to two different panels in words and through forum posts.

Dan_J: If you asked me what I would get, I'd say I'd personally get the FHD.

 

If you want to see how text and the size of everything else will look like on HD+ panel, just go over to your friend W510 and change the resolution to 1600*900. Just remember that it will look blurry on the your friend FHD, the native HD+ should look a lot better than that.

As for software moving to take advantage of higher pixel density this might be the case in the near future; but until I see how Window 8 take advantage the higher pixel density screen, I would still recommend HD+.

 

I know it probably seems like I'm dithering on this but I really want to get the spec right as this is going to be with me for the next 3-4 years now!

Ok assume that the extra cost of the FHD screen is irrelevant. Which it pretty much is now as dropping down from the i7 to the i5 brings me nicely within budget so the extra for the FHD screen can be afforded without a problem.

So the decision isn't a financial one. It's purely about which screen is going to be best and most suitable for me over the next 3-4 years.

Are there any negatives for me in getting the FHD screen? Likewise are there any benefits for me in getting the HD+ screen over the FHD?

intergalactic - the brightness on the FHD screen yesterday was very impressive, you had to have it several notches down else it was too much to take! Next to my current R52 screen, on maximum brightness, my screen looked yellow in comparison to the crisp whiteness of the FHD.

Kaso - You mention that as I'll be using mainly text orientated applications you didn't push the FHD. Is this because it's not good for that use or that the HD+ is better in those situations? It felt strange to me having to up everything to 125% but the clarity was still there due to the resolution.

k2001 - Good call re changing my friends FHD resolution to 1600 x 900 to use as a comparison. Would that be identical in icon, font and text size to getting an HD+ screen then? If so that would be a useful exercise. I could drop everything back down from 125% to 100% and switch it to 1600 x 900 and see how it compares.

If he's right about software taking advantage of 1920 x 1080 screens going forward though then that is another point to consider especially as I expect to have the laptop until at least 2014/5. With Windows 8 coming out next year I expect most of the testing is being done on FHD screens?

Didn't expect the screen to be such a tough decision!! Thanks for all the help so far though but feel free to keep it coming!

 

Hey Kaso,

Can you do some side by shots of the T420 HD+ and the T520/W520 FHD screens? Something like this:



That is from sprtnbsblplya's review of the T420:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo-ibm/566452-quick-student-review-t420.html

Or even your own T410 vs T510. I think a shot showing a website with text and pics would give a good idea of what the difference between the panels is.
Thanks!

 

Yes, by dropping down the FHD screen to 1600*900 it would be the same as the regular HD+ screen, but please keep in mind since you since you are not running it in it's native resolution the screen will get blurry and the color will look wash out.

If your eye could adjust to using the FHD and don't mind the extra $$ , I am all for the FHD, but frankly to me the the FHD is too small for the eye at 15.6 and Window does not do a great job scaling up to 125%.

Ask your friend if there are any problem he run into scaling the OS up to 125%, personally I run into problems like some program does not scale up the text and not able to see some text on selection button when dialogue box pop up.

 

This might be relevant. According to this German review the T520's 1600x900 screen has a contrast ratio of 670:1, which is surprisingly good.

Test Lenovo Thinkpad T520 Notebook - Notebookcheck.com Tests

 

The older t510 uses this same panel. I just hate that Lenovo is putting the most crappiest screen on their 14" laptop. I was hoping to have the 14" laptop to have this kind of contrast ratio this year when they switch to the dark-side, but all we get is a pathetic 300:1 16:9 ratio screen.

 

I agree. I'd be happy if the 14 inchers actually even hit 300:1. The only reason I'm considering 15 inch laptops is because I can't find a 14 with a decent screen. I'd love to be able to compare them side by side.