Thinkpads Forum

I currently own 2x T500 systems that work well for me. I really like the 1680x1050 LCD. What would upgrading to a T510 or T520 do for me? - outside of drain my pocketbook somewhat. To get more speed, I can upgrade the T500 CPU to a X9100, T9800 or T9900 .. but they are pricey and don't get up to some of the T520 CPU speeds.

Are there any other advantages to upgrading beyond speed and change in LCD?

I think that'll depend on how much CPU performance you need. If they're just office and internet machines, then a newer machine probably won't offer much of a boost. If you do need that, then a quad core will give a significant advantage.

Thanks. I tend to do a lot of things at one time and find I like the extra speed for getting sluggish tasks done quickly. I can see where a T520 CPU would be snappier than even an X9100. I'm interested in the LCDs as well - are they an upgrade or downgrade over my 1680-1050?

There seems to be a big variance between pixels and quality. IMO, older LCD screens are not such high quality as LED backlit screens such as the HD+ options, even though the latter might have fewer pixels. Don't ask me to explain!

T500/W500 - 15.4" 16:10 LCD 13.06" wide by 8.16" high, 106.59 square inches
T510/etc. - 15.6" 16:9 LCD 13.60" wide by 7.65" high, 103.99 square inches

So, a T500 WSXGA+ 1680 X 1050 is physically taller than any newer T510/T520 panel and has 150 more lines than a HD+ or only 30 lines less than a FHD panel.

Apple still uses 15.4" WSXGA+ panels.

BobA wrote:I tend to do a lot of things at one time and find I like the extra speed for getting sluggish tasks done quickly. I can see where a T520 CPU would be snappier than even an X9100.

Snappier or responsiveness tend to more related to the memory and hard drive than the CPU. The next time things get bogged down, you might want to open the task manager and see what the CPU utilization is. If it's not that high you might benefit more from a hard drive or memory upgrade than a new machine. If it is high, then perhaps a new system may help more.

Thanks. I am running two T500 systems with 8G, 72rpm HDisk and Windows 7-64bit. They aren't bad .. just sluggish occasionally (one more than the other - probably because of the work I'm doing with it .. I have a lot of windows open). I'll look at the CPU monitor next time ..
Bob

I would check the HDD health (HD Tune Pro, Hard Disk Sentinel); for example, you could have performance penalty if your HDD has many problematic sectors and it's trying to reallocate them. Hope it's not your case.