cbass, I noticed that the link you provide for the W700 is with the quad-core processor. In the U.S., that adds $1000 to the price compared to the 2.8 GHz T9600 processor that you mentioned in your original post. So, you can save a lot by instead buying the T9600.
I've read that Lenovo is offering Thinkpads for less in the U.S. than in other countries, because they're apparently trying hard to capture more U.S. market share (I don't know why, given our current economy). I checked the German version of their site, and noticed that it lacks the government and educational section that the U.S. site has. You might call them to see if they're offering such discounts.
We're eligible for the educational discount, so that's what I used. Forums sometimes get upset about people discussing educational prices, so I'll put it this way. My purchase of the W700 with the T9600 processor, Vista Business 64, 400 nit display, 4GB DDR3 RAM, 160GB 7200 RPM hard drive, Blu-ray burner, built-in color calibrator/graphics tablet, higher-end 3700M GPU, and the warranty I described above, was about $500-600 more than the educational price I would have paid for the closest-equipped 17" MBP (BEFORE the price-drop introduced with the new Mac laptops). Of course, the 17" MBP can't be configured with that processor, DDR3 memory, that display (which is 33% brighter than the LED-backlit display on the current 17" MBP), Blu-ray burner, color calibrator, tablet, that fast of a GPU, or that warranty, So the comparison has it's limits. And I've seen Lenovo's prices vary by $500 from one day to the next. So I check them each day, and I get to keep the lowest price they offer for the same system up until 21 days after my ship date (but I have to save that lowest-price configuration in my account to get credit for it).
My laptop isn't scheduled to ship until next week, but I can answer your other questions by quoting reviews. Here's a review for a W700 with the T9600 processor:
http://hothardware.com/Articles/Lenovo-Thinkpad-W700-Mobile-Workstation/
Regarding how loud it is:
"Amazingly, while using all this power, the system is surprisingly cool and quiet during normal operation. Even during prolonged CPU and GPU load tests, we did not hear the Thinkpad W700 become any louder compared to its stock levels. While there are definitely fans running inside of the laptop, they are muted to a point where they are not noticeable"
Regarding heat, the notebookreview W700 review I mentioned earlier took temperatures:
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4638
"After heavily loading the processor for nearly an hour, I couldn't get any area of the case to register at or above 100 degrees Fahrenheit. For a big, powerful system with a pair of hard drives, those are very livable numbers to be sure."
That was for a W700 having Intel's mobile quad-core processor. But as I mentioned earlier, I instead ordered the T9600 dual-core processor, which runs significantly cooler.
Here's the report on battery life from the hothardware article, regarding the W700 with the T9600 processor:
"If you're heavily taxing the CPU, GPU, and storage systems with your screen on full brightness, you can expect to see about an hour and a half of un-plugged battery life. If you're using the system lightly, for say web browsing, writing, with the screen on a lowered brightness setting, you can expect to see about two and a half hours of battery life. If you tone everything down to its lowest levels, you might be able to eek out over three hours if you're lucky"
The W700 has what Intel calls "switchable graphics." This means is that, for longer battery life, you can operate using Intel's integrated graphics chip. For instead higher performance, you can switch to the Quadro FX GPU. You can switch on the fly, without logging out or rebooting, although you do have to exit any applications that are currently running. (It's similar to the new MBP's 7400M vs. 9600M GPU switching.) BTW, the Dell does not have the switchable graphics.
Ugly as hell though.
