HP ProBook vs. Thinkpad W500

Hi all. First, thanks in advance for reading my post. My laptop just died, but thankfully graduation is coming in two weeks so I now have around $1500 to work with getting a new laptop as a present.

I intend to use it primarily for some fairly intensive gaming (Fallout 3, etc), media (music, movies), and general work stuff (web surfing, word processing, etc)

I have had an IBM for the last four years and it has served me quite well. My experience with IBM tech support was always good, and the one time I had to get it fixed it was returned promptly, no questions asked.

However there is an HP ProBook that looks quite appealing.
It costs $1865
It ships with Windows XP (important to me)
It has a 2.53 GHz Core 2 Duo Processor
It has a 512 MB ATI video card
3GB of DDR2 Ram
It has a 320 GB 5400rpm HD
It has a 17.3" widescreen 1600x900 display
And here's the kicker: a Blu-Ray drive

The Lenovo is a Thinkpad W500. It is generally quite similar in specs, and a bit cheaper, but it has a 15.4 inch screen (albiet a higher resolution one) and lacks the Blu-Ray drive

My concerns are threefold:
1. The ProBook is a new HP business model. I have heard their business machines are far superior to the consumer models. However, the ProBook is quite new, so can I trust it?

2. Speaking of trust, how is HP's customer service? I do NOT want to get the runaround or excuses if my expensive investment breaks.

3. All other things being equal, I would rather get the HP, for its increased screen size and Blu-Ray drive. Do you think it is worth it?

If you have made it this far, thanks very much for reading. I would greatly appreciate any input you have.

True, the W700 is a great computer, but I want to max out at around $1600 (the HP will drop to around there with my school's educational discount).

So I take it then that the Nvidia quadro is a better video card than the ATI. That is all well and good, and I wish I could afford the W700, but it just isn't in my price range. With a 3 year accidental damage warranty and a few more goodies it is pretty close to $2,000.

Also, you said that the video card in the Thinkpad W500 (ATI Mobility Fire GL V5700 512 MB) is far superior to the card in the ProBook (ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330 512MB). I've been out of the PC gaming world for a while, so what is the difference? They both have the same memory, so I figured they were comparable.

Thank you very much for your fast reply, and keep 'em coming!

OK, sorry if this is a stupid question, as I can definitely see a difference on this chart, but will there be a large difference in-game? Thanks.

Ok, that is certainly something to think about.

Sorry for the barrage of questions, but do you know where I might find that sort of concrete data? It's just that this will probably be my only computer for the next several years, so I want to make sure I get the right one for me.

I actually tried that already. The W500 has good reviews, but the ProBook is too new to have any reviews that can comment on reliability.

What I am most concerned about at this point is the reliability of new Thinkpads vs. New (unproven?) ProBook HP business notebooks. Moreover, I am concerned with the customer service experience given by both companies. Any good or bad experiences worth sharing?

Hits and misses seems to put it rather lightly. I have read many horror stories on http://www.resellerratings.com/store/Hewlett_Packard . There are 101 complaints against HP filed here and only 31 against Lenovo. Moreover, the Lenovo complaints seem less serious.

To be honest, I started this thread with the hope that there would be a groundswell of support for HP, so I could feel confident in my purchase (I really want that darn Blu-Ray drive).

I was just hoping that as I have heard HP's quality has markedly improved in the last few years, their customer support has as well. I might land firmly into the Lenovo camp unless the following question has an affirmative answer:

All the customer service complaints I have read are for their consumer line of products. Is the customer service process different for HP's business notebooks (even though I am an individual customer)?

Just to bring up a new option, have you heard good things about Sager?

Their laptops seem to be reasonably priced and have excellent options.

Since they are a smaller company, do they have customer support problems?

Thanks again to everyone for helping me.

Yeah I don't think Sager is for me after all, after doing a bit more research.

I was looking at the two video cards on the laptops (HP ProBook: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330, Lenovo W500: ATI Mobility Fire GL V5700). I know that the Lenovo video card is apparently superior, but someone on Notebookreview.com forums (sorry everyone, I'm just not a one forum man), told me:

"Unless you have a strong interest in the 1920x1200 display, I would suggest you consider the T500 instead. It is effectively identical to the w500 except the GPU is tuned for DirectX and gaming rather than OpenGL and CAD.

Several people have played Fallout 3 at fairly high settings on the T500. The other games you mentioned all have requirements below Fallout 3 so they shouldn't be a problem either.

Also, it's important you don't get too hung up on video memory. Generally the most important thing to look at in a GPU is the second number in the model (e.g. Radeon 3650 > 4330 because 6>3 [the same applies to NVidia as a 8800GT will generally outperform a 9600GT (8>6)]). The V5700 in the w500 is simply a 3650 with extra memory (for hi resolution CAD) and OpenGL optimized drivers."

So it would be better for gaming to have the ATI Mobility Radeon 3650 with 256MB than the ATI Mobility Fire GL V5700 with 512 MB?

Thanks again to all of you.