Dell M2400 versus Dell E6400 versus Lenovo T400

Its seems like 3 really good laptops. The T400 has switchable graphics, DDR3, ultrabay battery, bluetooth, and is thin while the Dell's have Quadro graphics, backlit keyboards, and display port. Their prices, as configured, is nearly identical, which makes it so much harder to decide.

What do you think?

This semester I live about 20 minutes away from school (I also work in the same area that I go to school). So I am going to be spending the majority of my day at school / work away from home. Thus this laptop will essentially be my mobile work warrior. I will be using it for CAD / CAM / Word / Excel. Workstation GPU's do not require high memory bandwidths because CAD programs do not use textures like games do. A 64bit bus is plenty for CAD. Regardless I don't need anything crazy in terms of raw performance because I have a more powerful computer at work / school / and home available to me.

Unplugged time is fairly important, as is the size and weight, and the durability of the laptop. The Thinkpad will almost certainly offer better battery life with more overall capacity (7 cell versus 6 cells in the Dell's), hybrid graphics (uses integrated graphics when unplugged), as well as the lower power DDR3 memory. However, the ATI graphics in the Thinkpad is consumer oriented so I am not sure how it will perform in CAD applications. I am also apealed by the backlit keyboard found in the Dell's. I really like the P9500 found in the E6400 and I don't know why Lenovo doesn't offer it in their laptops and why Dell doesn't offer it in the M2400.

Furthermore, I am considering buying a 30" 2560x1600 Dell LCD monitor for home. In which case I would plug the laptop into that and do most of my CAD work on my laptop (the Quadro graphics, even though less powerful than my 8800GT, will run much faster). In this case the Dell's have a huge advantage because of their Display Port interface (which is only found on the T500).

I need reviews so bad.
Edited by pauldovi - 8/17/08 at 3:59pm

The big short coming of the Dell is the switchable graphics, DDR3, and bluetooth. Bluetooh seems like it could easily be fixed, but the others I am not sure about.

Of course the problems with the T400 is the VGA only, comsumer oriented graphics, and microphone / stereo port on the front of the laptop.

I don't have a clue what that means and I was wondering myself. I mean Express Card and PC Card have nothing to do with a graphics card...

The T400 just saw a good price cut today, by almost $400. That pretty much seals the deal. Although I am tempted to wait for complete reviews of the T400 and the X301.

I am not really worried about the OS that is packaged with the laptop because my university offers Vista Ultimate for free.