Thinkpads Forum

I am considering the T410 because of the screen resolution. As a guy who does software development, and very picky with small screen, I'd choose T410 over X210, which I think sucks, because the lightest one T410s are so [censored] expensive to me.... so my choice, apparently, only T410 is left.

I am a sophomore in computer engineering, and I do software development on my own time. My primary purposes are using Eclipses, running a local-server (very lightweight), and I am also heavy with browser usage. I usually have 10+ tabs open.

My budget is tight. I do plan to use this laptop for a few years, unless I have affluence amount to spend again!

i3-370m vs i5-520m
The difference is probably just $100.
Sale price: $829.00*
Sale price: $949.00*

Since I want larger resolution, I will spend $40 on 14.1 WXGA+.

I am also willing to go with SSD from newegg. The hard drive is what matters I guess, when CPU is about the same.
[url="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820227394]OCZ Vertex Series OCZSSD2-1VTX60G 2.5" 60GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)[/url]
At the moment I think I could only trust this, unless you have a better recommendation, and that it is within $100 LOL.

Q1: Since I am buying SSD, and I also want WXGA+, should I really spend the extra $100 for i5-520m???
How bad is i3-370m? I heard the P8700 from X200 is way better than i3-370m....

Q2: If I replace the HDD with that SSD, and since I don't carry the battery with me, how much will T410 weight? How heavy is 5lbs, really?

Q3: Is it really bad to use the adapter all the time?

Thank you!

Personally, I'd consider getting a higher-end CPU because software compiling can take a while if you have a big project.
Also, an i5-520M and up would be very useful as it has native virtualization; useful if you use virtual machines to test your software under other operating systems.

An SSD could be a good investment, but personally, I'd rather pair up the HDD by swapping the Optical for a SATA bay. (Don't think you can RAID it though.) More space especially for VMs, which you can dump exclusively on the second drive to speed things up.

SSD are still quite expensive. Why not look into getting a "hybrid" drive... 500GB Seagate Momentus XT. A good compromise between speed, drive size and cost. Are you considering the T510 as well? I've used Eclipse and Netbeans on my T61 with WXGA+ and still find the screen real estate not as much as I'd like sometimes...

Screen size vs. portability... is always a tradeoff...

It is not bad to use the machine plugged in all the time.

The XT is not a true hybrid drive, it is more of a LARGE CACHE HDD. It also likes to spin down a lot which is a Seagate thing. (Which isn't a good thing, either.)
SSDs are your call and if I want to tell you about the cons, I will have a thousand knives stabbed into me by people who swear by their SSDs and deem HDDs as "unworthy technology that must be wiped off the face of this Earth." PM me if you want to know more about the downfalls of SSDs, I can't post this publicly without enraging people apparently. Bonus: Cheap SSDs have all sorts of bad (Ex. "Limited write endurance NAND") Oops, said too much already.
Get the i5 minimum with a WXGA+ screen.
And it is totally fine to run off AC power all the time.