I found a Lenovo ThinkPad T430 laptop Core i7 3.6GHZ 1600X900 NVIDIA 500GB 8GB listed at 350$. Is it worth the extra cost for the i7 core and 1600x900 res?
Yes Yes Yes.
yes. i don't know about the i7 but 1600 x 900 will make your computing experience much nicer than 1366 x 768
i'm of the opinion that 1080p is too much for a 15 inch screen, sucks alot more resources and everything will be fucking tiny and you'll scale up anyways