I've had a T61 with XP for 5 years, zero problems. "Upgrade" to W7 or just get a newer model?

Reviving my own thread. I want to be able to post process the photos I take for my real estate photography (and other photography) which I now do exclusively on my W7 desktops. I use Photoshop CS5 and Lightroom 5.7 (and others) a lot. My T61 has never served more than, yes, email and internet searching. I've wanted to be able to use my T61 for my work while traveling (mostly in the past two years as work has increased in volume and complexity) but it just doesn't work for that.

It's a new day and now I'm zeroing in on a T530 with at least an 15-3320M cpu. I can get one used off ebay for under $500. USB 3.0 is a must as I do a ton of uploading and downloading off thumb drives of huge files.

 

I was recently in the market myself and to tell you a T420/520 is more than enough for just work plus the better keyboard. Mind you though if you were to change your mind and try to buy a T430 the hinges are not very good. Speed wise I doubt that you will be disappointed with a T530 but just don't over pay for one and raise your max bid at the last second to deal with the snipers.

At least I finally scored a T520 for a cool $139 after ship the other day on a last minute bid.

 

$139 for a T520 sounds good, lol.

Difference between *20 and *30 is quite simple;
with *30;

you lose eSata port (really, no reason for this, Lenovo!)
you lose decent keyboard (no reason for that either, Lenovo!!!)

you gain on-chipset USB 3.0 (thx to Intel, not you, Lenovo!)
you gain DP 1.2
you gain marginal performance
you gain marginally reduced power draw @ full load
fixed multi-screen Optimus in W-series (supposed to work on W520 already, Lenovo!!)

 

The HD and HD+ lcds offered on the T530 are sub par. The FHD is decent, but not great. You can get a new L450 from Lenovo.com with 1080p IPS LCD for $630, which seems worth the extra cash if you want to do Photoshop.

 

It's kinda bewildering how many models Lenovo has introduced since I got my T61 in 2008. And that's a good thing!

Regarding buying a used Lenovo: does the seller typically "wipe" the hard drive of all their programs? Do they typically do a clean OS re-install before handing it over? Is a clean re-install something you all do the first thing after you've bought a used laptop? I've got two passwords to get into my T61 (into the Bios, into the OS)--how does that happen these days, a fingerprint reader? Speaking of a fingerprint reader, how does one upload one's own fingerprint after taking possession? What happens to Lenovo programs such as "Battery Check" (probably not called that but where I can dial in when my T61 begins to charge the battery and when it stops charging while plugged in).

What do you, the buyer, check before taking possession?

Oh yeah, from my local Craigslist I'm vacillating between a T530 with 16 GB of RAM with two drives (SSD and HD) for $200 more than a W520 with the FHD monitor but 4GB RAM and 500 GB HD. Both have similar CPUs (rated around 120 on Notebook Check's mobile CPU chart). Decisions decisions...and yes, money is an object.