I bought a lenovo 2nd generation I5 laptop this week to take to the north for 5 months.
I spent a lot of time deciding on price/performance options as I wiil probably sell it in the fall. Paid $429 CAD versus $749 for I7 or $699 plus for higher spec I5.
Comparing it to my I7 desktop (Bought Oct 2010) I was pretty pleased.
Calibre loading time appears to be the same for 40 gig library. Less than 20 seconds on both.
Converting 1000 books about 10% slower on I5. ( I did not time the overall process, but looked at the job list and compared the first 10 and last 10 and converted same books on same external drive.) I was impressed that the laptop did not overheat at all during this time.
The overall time difference on 100 books was negligable (less than a minute).
My understandings are:
Processor type is more important than clock speed.
A newer I5 is comparable or better than an older I7 and far better than a non Intel mobile quad core.
A newer I7 is better than an I5 of course and fantastically better than 1st generation I5.
An SSD can make a big difference if it is 2nd/3rd generation but the price is pretty steep still for what you get. In many SSD equipped laptops it is the only storage and can get so cramped that you need an external drive, kind of defeating the difference in speed.
The processor in my new laptop is a 2410. Bottom of the line pretty well for 2nd generation I5 but I am overall pretty happy with it.
I am very comfortable with its performance with calibre and games so far. Video processing apps and photo processing with photoshop work well (can't detect a difference).
I used to keep my laptops till they were totally obsolete, now I try and sell them or give them away. Still have a couple of boat anchors hanging around
And my first ereader dammit.
Prices keep dropping but one has to make a decision. I made mine on it being more than reasonable performance wise, good chance of selling for 75% of purchase price as I don't need it when I am at home.
Helen