CruelMelody wrote:Hey I am looking at both the Dell for 700.00 and the Thinkpad for 545.00. I know nothing about computers, but need a replacement and would like something for school, videos, browsing... just basic stuff. Is there any justification to get the Dell? Also do you think starcraft 2 would work on these? thanks!
The thinkpad would probably be fine for the things you asked, though not for starcraft 2. The dell would handle starcraft 2 well enough, though still probably not at max settings. The reasons for the dell are 1) USB 3.0 ports, which if you want your machine to last a few years would be nice to have, and the thinkpad has none, 2) Bigger, better screen. Watching videos on the thing is very nice, I do it almost every day, and 3) As mentioned above, if you did want to play games, the thinkpad can't do much since it has integrated graphics, not discrete, whereas the dell has a GeForce chip which will handle games admirably for a laptop(which is not a huge compliment but I've never had a complaint using it). It may, however, require a bit of troubleshooting, since mine shipped with strange settings which I had to alter to get it to run the game correctly, it wasn't very involved and works great now.
Reason for the Thinkpad: Much more portable. I thought I wouldn't mind a big laptop, I'm 6'3", but it does get a bit annoying when I'm carrying it daily in my bag as well as school notes and anything else that I need. That said, the dell has a battery that matches its size and even though it's a big machine and draws a lot of power to run, it still lasted over 4 hours when I first purchased it, which in 2010 was impressive. It still lasts about 3 hours, two years later, and I haven't replaced the original battery.
Does that justify the extra expense? Depends on how much you want to watch videos or if you really want to play any games. If you want games, get the dell. If you netflix all the time, probably get the dell(screen size is nice). If you're mostly interested in a productivity and web browsing machine, might as well save the money and get the thinkpad, especially if you're just going to get a new computer in 2 or 3 years anyway.