Lenovo Thinkpad SL 510 or Dell Latitude E5500
Posted: Thu Feb 18, 2010 3:25 am
Looking for a quiet laptop for daily use. At the moment I use iBook G4 12" 1.25GHz with 768MB RAM but it can't cope with the load. The source of the load is mostly heavy AJAX on gmail, google docs and the likes. I'm running Debian Linux and that's what's going to run on the new box too so I would prefer more conservative video chipset.
The noise that I get at the moment is only the HDD which is very annoying because it spins up and down. I think more RAM would be a big help. CPU fan is on in Jul/Aug only.
For the new laptop I was also considering a 32/64GB SSD, I use 30GB atm and that's enough for me. I guess I would have to buy that later and sell my HDD though since I couldn't find a way to choose it as an add on, they only have these for the more expensive models and I'm shooting for under 800 euro for a HDD model. Would pay more for a SSD though.
According to these reviews the Dell would be a better choice, I don't care about DVD noise as I won't use it often:
www dot notebookcheck dot net slash Review-Dell-Latitude-E5500-Notebook.13837.0.html
www dot notebookcheck dot net slash Review-Lenovo-ThinkPad-SL510-Notebook.24037.0.html
although the fact that the noise from the Dell varies most worries me a bit. Not completely sure but I'd think more consistent noise levels across the test would be better.
Another option I was considering is Toshiba Tecra A11 but I think it might be noisier than these 2.
I can also choose between different CPUs, I'll most likely order directly since stores in Ireland either don't have much choice or sell old configurations.
Is this a good giude at the heat and thus noise I can expect:
en dot wikipedia dot org slash wiki/List_of_CPU_power_dissipation#Core_2
so I should just look for lower thermal design power? My choice of CPUs is T6570, T6670, P8700, T9600, P9700. So all of the T's are 35W and the P8700 is 25W and P9700 is 28W.
Would that mean P8700 is my best choice? Any other laptop in that range that I should consider but I missed somehow or maybe downgrade to a Celeron?
PS. I apologize for the crappy looking links, seems that I can't post links yet.
The noise that I get at the moment is only the HDD which is very annoying because it spins up and down. I think more RAM would be a big help. CPU fan is on in Jul/Aug only.
For the new laptop I was also considering a 32/64GB SSD, I use 30GB atm and that's enough for me. I guess I would have to buy that later and sell my HDD though since I couldn't find a way to choose it as an add on, they only have these for the more expensive models and I'm shooting for under 800 euro for a HDD model. Would pay more for a SSD though.
According to these reviews the Dell would be a better choice, I don't care about DVD noise as I won't use it often:
www dot notebookcheck dot net slash Review-Dell-Latitude-E5500-Notebook.13837.0.html
www dot notebookcheck dot net slash Review-Lenovo-ThinkPad-SL510-Notebook.24037.0.html
although the fact that the noise from the Dell varies most worries me a bit. Not completely sure but I'd think more consistent noise levels across the test would be better.
Another option I was considering is Toshiba Tecra A11 but I think it might be noisier than these 2.
I can also choose between different CPUs, I'll most likely order directly since stores in Ireland either don't have much choice or sell old configurations.
Is this a good giude at the heat and thus noise I can expect:
en dot wikipedia dot org slash wiki/List_of_CPU_power_dissipation#Core_2
so I should just look for lower thermal design power? My choice of CPUs is T6570, T6670, P8700, T9600, P9700. So all of the T's are 35W and the P8700 is 25W and P9700 is 28W.
Would that mean P8700 is my best choice? Any other laptop in that range that I should consider but I missed somehow or maybe downgrade to a Celeron?
PS. I apologize for the crappy looking links, seems that I can't post links yet.