Decision between 2 notebooks. Help me please!

[Robert_]

hello! this year I began to study architecture in Switzerland and I have the following problem:
I have to buy a notebook here. They have very good prices for ETH-students but I cant decide which one to buy.
there are 3 possibilities:
1. Thinkpad t43p, 1,8GHz, 1GB ram, ATI fire GL v3200 (128MB), 14" XGA (1400 * 1050)
price: only 1900$ instead of 4800$

2. Thinkpad t43p (model UC3H2SG I think??), 2,1GHz, 1GB ram, ATI fire GL v3200 (128MB), 15" UXGA
(1600 * 1200)
price: 2900$ instead of 5200$

3. this last possibility would be a mac G4 powerbook 15,2". As I prefer PC ( I never worked with mac) I expel this notebook...

I thought about to buy the larger t43p because of its UXGA, bigger screen and good resolution ( which I will need for CAAD & photoshop)
Are there any customers out there who have that notebook?
I read a few posts here in this forum where the fan and heat is described as a quite big problem. Does the larger Thinkpad have the same problems? Can you really work 5,2 hours until the battery is low??? What do you think? Please help me, Ive never had a notebook before, and so Im somehow a noob in this subject. Thank you very much.

[kyrotech]

You will want the 15" UXGA screen for CAD trust me

and the 2.1 ghz Pentium-M is a very fast cpu for your needs

[ddutta]

If budget were not a concern, choose the $2900 thingy but I would choose the cheaper one as the bang for the buck decreases with increasing price. The performance difference will be only 10-15%, 14" is lighter, SXGA+ is very good too , and .... $1000 cheaper! For that differential, you can buy 1 extra Gig, 100GB 7200rpm HDD, thinkpad protection and still have lots of cash left.

[christopher_wolf]

I would tend to agree with Kyrotech and Ddutta here; for what you wil be doing the following would be highly advantageous:

15" Screen at UXGA; Possible Downside: Extra Weight and shorter batery life due to more Power Consumption; as a side note, I llke my SXGA+ 14.1" Screen quite well actually, and it displays Protein Structure in PyMol VERY well. I myself could not justify the ~1 pound weight gain and increase in size for a 15" screen, but then again I was looking at SXGA+ for both screens.

They both have FireGLs so that should be no problem

As for the difference between 1.8GHz and 2.1 GHz; I can only say that I haven't noticed that much of a difference. For what you are doing CAD (which I have had experience with), Memory would be a BIG Factor. But since both systems have 1GB in RAM...this makes comparing them based on the Processor Speed a moot point. IMHO, anything above 1.5 GHz runs CAD and Photoshop very well. Unless you are doing some extremely serious processing, I wouldn't worry about that too much.

You can work for awhile on a 6-Cell Battery, but I would recommend getting the 9-Cell Hi Capacity Li-Ion Battery; especially if you go with the 15" Model. I haven't noticed any problems with the Fan and the Heat; they have all either behaved themselves or, more likely, they aren't "Real" issues IMHO. I can work in the Engineering Library here fine, on battery, without any noticable noise. But as far as Graphics are concerned, those are both T43p models, so they will run a tad bit hotter than a T43.

It is up to you which one you want to get; Hope that Helped

[K. Eng]

If you don't mind the extra weight, go with the model with the 15" UXGA display. Battery life will suffer, but the display is gorgeous and makes the standard display look dull.

[Robert_]

Thank you for the answers, they helped me quite a lot.
I think Ill take the 15" but Im still not 100% sure. I looked up on the ibm page and the battery life is just 0,7 h shorter for the large t43p. (14" -> 6,4h 15" -> 5,7h ) I just hope I can trust those data, thats what Im actually afraid of.. any helpers who could confirm this battery life?
thx again for the help.

[simscitizen]

6.4 hours, yeah right. Try 4 hours max after you use it for a month (this is with a 6 cell main + 4 cell ultrabay), with low brightness and normal wifi activity. If you're doing something serious it will go down more.

The T43's battery life is a joke--from most reports it seems like even though it comes with a larger battery than previous T's, it has significantly less battery life.

[dr_st]

Flexview does eat up battery. I can only get around 2 hours on my T42 (1.8GHz/9600) with max brightness and what you'd call normal WiFi activity (i.e. browsing the net). I think that on lower brightness I'd be able to get around 2.5, maybe even 3.