Business laptop Lenovo T430 or Dell Precision M4700

bigfoot2012 · 22 Mar 2013 at 12:37

my current work laptop is a dell latitude E6400. 14" , 8GB RAM. core 2 duo T9900.

It needs replacing as out of warranty and over heats a lot (throttles). Plus I need more than 8GB ram for VMWARE which is killing me at the moment.

I'm not interested in games. My primary use is running W7 64bit host OS + 1 or 2 virtual machines (2003 +2008) using VM Workstation 8. The VM's typically run Oracle and other memory intensive applications. I use my work laptop for occasional personal stuff too like video editing and converting video formats. General web browsing and office stuff.

The screen isn't so important as I typically use an external monitor most of the time when not travelling.

I have 2 choices.

Lenovo T430 14" screen with i5-3360M and 16GB RAM, screen would be 1600 x 900 and graphics would be HD4000 onboard with possibly the extra NVIDIA NVS 5400M using Optimus. This laptop is around 2.6KG in weight including the 90W brick. 9 cell battery

Dell Precision M4700 15.6" screen with i7-3740QM and 16GB RAM, screen would be 1366x768 and graphics would be AMD FirePro M4000. This laptop is around 4KG including the 170W brick. 9 cell battery.

most of the time I work from home, but occasionally travel overseas and or commute on public transport. Others have mentioned the Dell mobile workstation is a handful when travelling (shoulder workout) and power demands mean you can't power it when on an aircraft.

So - will the Lenovo be enough of an upgrade to what I have currently? additional 8GB will be a big help regardless.

2 cores and better portability Vs 4 cores and reduced portability. (I beleive VMWare Workstation doesn't use Hyperthreading?)

any suggestions / advice?

thanks

Nymins · 22 Mar 2013 at 15:19

I'd take the T430 for the small size/weight and higher res screen.

I think the weight of the Dell would get annoying after while as well. Personal preferences though.

pokerking · 22 Mar 2013 at 16:33

Why are the T430s so expensive?

Nymins · 22 Mar 2013 at 17:20

They're business laptops. Tough durability, good build quality, easily replaceable parts (drive bays etc).

Mole · 24 Mar 2013 at 12:29

I own a M4700 and really like it. I had a Precision M65 before this and liked the Dell workstation build quality.

I have to admit that it is a little heavier than I would like... it weighs a little more than the M65 which was already as heavy as I like. The M4700 with 87Whr Long Life Cycle 9-cell battery weighs 3.23Kg, the 180W charger including cord weighs 0.83Kg, total 4.06Kg.

However, I wanted the portable power. Mine has the 3740QM, 1920x1080 screen and K2000M graphics. nVidia optimus works well, so most of the time I am running off the HD4000 graphics which is good for battery life.

The slice battery weighs exactly 0.6Kg. Most of the time I take the slice battery in the bag and leave the charger at home as I can work for well over a day on the pair of batteries. The amount of CPU intensive work is limited at the moment though (I am doing Microchip PIC development). I might need the charger if I wanted to do more.

[I currently have an issue with my system and the slice battery so I wouldn't recommend the slice until I've found what the issue is - see other thread.]

As for 90W charger... the system will run off these (I have tried my M65's 90W charger). However, it is somewhat limited. The battery will not charge (well, it does at about 2.8W only!). The GPU runs as if on battery (which is OK). The main annoyance is that the CPU is limited to less than idle speed... what I mean by this is that it runs at 1.2GHz as if idle with SpeedStep, but in fact there is a clock modulation of 75% so in reality you get 900MHz of performance. Might be good enough in an emergency or in flight perhaps.

I haven't got a 130W charger available to test what that does.

However, I haven't seen more than about 82W from the mains when the battery isn't charging (admittedly when running on the Intel graphics), and this was running IntelBurnTest with full CPU speed including Turbo. You might get away with a larger charger on the flight if you limit your usage and remove the battery or run with a fully charged battery.

EDIT: I just checked - limiting CPU to 2.7GHz (i.e. no Turbo) and running IntelBurnTest along with Heaven on the K2000M (full speed) and full brightness but without any batteries charging drew 83W from the mains using the 180W charger. Not too bad! I doubt you'd ever do anything this nasty in flight.

Hope this helps,

Martin

EDIT: I forgot to add that I have the mini-card SSD and a normal SSD, not HDD, so this might affect system weight (HDD may be heavier).

Saundie · 25 Mar 2013 at 09:59

Dell offer their 14" Latitude E6430 with a Core i7-3740QM, 16GB RAM and a
1GB NVIDIA NVS 5200M. It will offer roughly the same performance as the Precision M4700 in a smaller and lighter chassis, though you lose the option of the 1920 x 1080 display - the E6430 maxes out at 1600x900. It sounds as though this won't be a problem for you, as you'll be using an external monitor for the most part. It's difficult to find specific details on the weight of each configuration, however I would expect it to be equivalent to the Lenovo T430.

Mole · 27 Mar 2013 at 01:00

In case anyone wondered, I got to try a 130W charger with my M4700 today. I was a little surprised to find that it worked the same way as the 90W charger... that is to say, not so well. The battery charge rate was limited to 2.8W and the CPU speed was limited (modulated) to 900MHz.

Shame really, as there is ample power on this size charger to at least provide full CPU speed and moderate graphics card speed, even if they had to limit the battery charge rate. Someone made a duff decision there me thinks.

Martin