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Help: Macbook Pro 13" or Lenovo Thinkpad 420?

G

gilfan

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 11, 2008
5
0
I know this a mac forum and the answers might be a little bias but for the same price would you guys get 13 inch 2.3 i5 or the thinkpad t420 2.7 i7?

Specs for the thinkpad: http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/...002DEE:&smid=158789389E999C7AFD948ECE84C546E5

Will the thinkpad be that much faster with the i7?

Thinkpads, I do believe have a good build quality so I'm not really worried about that.

I would love the hear your opinion on this topic. thanks
 
i have always loved apple products and thinkpads since when they were still ibm branded. they are great laptops but perhaps you can enlighten us on your uses and we can weigh in on what you need and want out of your machine as they are both great choices. If i were going to purchase a windows pc it'd be a thinkpad they are great.

also that thinkpad has the same processor as the 13" i7 model so just compare those two as they are both dual core sandy bridge chips. you will not notice a huge difference in average use but if you do a lot of processor intensive tasks or video encoding you will see a difference.
 
Price is also a factor. I can get either for $999. The mbp 13" i7 is 500 more. I'm really do not need such a powerful computer, it will be mostly on my lap to to surf the web. I guess noise and heat is a factor and so is battery life. I'm kinda leaning towards the thinkpad because all the specs are better including screen resolution 1400x900 but mbp design of the case is better and also I would be using mac OS but windows 7 is not that bad. :eek:
 
gilfan said:
Price is also a factor. I can get either for $999. The mbp 13" i7 is 500 more. I'm really do not need such a powerful computer, it will be mostly on my lap to to surf the web. I guess noise and heat is a factor and so is battery life. I'm kinda leaning towards the thinkpad because all the specs are better including screen resolution 1400x900 but mbp design of the case is better and also I would be using mac OS but windows 7 is not that bad. :eek:
Click to expand...

I assume you have an HE discount then? i did not mean to buy the i7 13" i simply meant there are a lot of threads of the i5 vs the i7 13" pros and the thinkpad is the same that was all.

well if all your doing is basic computing you can't go wrong with either one as they will satisfy your need and both have great battery life.

here is what i would consider and decide what is important to you.
First What OS do you want? I love OSX and i dont mind windows 7 it is a good OS. But which do you prefer? does one offer you something the other does not?

Often when people are torn between the two price is a huge factor but in this case it is not. the thinkpad does have better specs but if your a basic user you will not notice them.

the MBP will let you run both OS'es but the thinkpad can only do Win7.

Is this your first mac? or have you used them before and looking for a change?
 
If you don't want OSX I would go with the Thinkpad. The screen alone would be enough to make me lean towards the Thinkpad (I am not a fan of glossy screens). Since you are mainly going to use this for web surfing don't worry about the cpu, either the i5 or i7 will be more than enough.

If I didn't need OSX to run XCode I would still be using my T61 running Ubuntu. It's a few years old, I've used the hell out of it (I'm a software engineer) and it still runs like a champ. I love my T61 <3 (of course I love my new MBP as well).
 
Last time I ever post on this question:

If you want Windows, buy the IBM

If you want MacOS, by the MacBook Pro

It's that simple. Make all the extended arguments you want, it simply comes down to whether you need/want to run Mac OS.
 
I've been considering a Thinkpad and a MackBook Pro 13.3" for the past month.

Let me tell you, a Thinkpad isn't any different than a Dell or an HP or a Toshiba. After all, it's just a PC laptop.

Do you really have to get the i7 13.3" MBP?

Why not consider the 13.3 i5 baseline?

I decided to go with the MBP..

It's just another realm of computing, working on a MacBook Pro really makes you feel unique. (yes, tech specs can be less than the Thinkpad or other PC laptops).

But come on, you'll still look at those with a glowing apple in the back of their laptop screens if you get the Thinkpad. ;)

:D
 
Get the MBP, by the time you load the PC down with virus protection it will be slower than the MBP :D
 
Have you seen the Thinkpad's display in real life? Sometimes Thinkpads have very good specs on paper concerning their display, but sometimes the colors are very dull when you see them. It's just something I noticed with the... umm I think it was the X120?? I can't remember which exactly, but the screen wasn't impressive. Just my thoughts though.
 
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So I will go with the mbp, after reading about how the screen quality for the t420 isn't the best. For me, a clearer screen is more important than the extra processing speed.
 
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