I rarely found a video card determined a machine's aptitude at data analysis. The i7 did the crunching here but I fear that if one played video games they would learn that many need repair just a few years later.
The old laptop with it's integrated video is going to be much slower on the display end than today's onboard GPU solutions so that's quite a step up.
If you don't run video games then expected life span is in the 5 year area. At least you didn't write you wanted to use the battery daily.
Bob
hello
I am about to replace my loyal ~9 yo acer aspire 1520
and need help with deciding which laptop to buy:
I'm an academic with a need of good computing power (I'm going for i7) and relatively light machine with lasting batteries for moving from lab to lab (that would also require good wifi receiver). Also an optical drive is a must. I'm not a gamer but will probably watch movies and some of my data require semi-decent graphic card for analysis. I also hope that the new laptop would last similarly long to my old one.
After some prolonged snooping I found these and I'm not sure which one to pick. The cheaper the better of course but prefer to have a long lasting quality:
my favourite is Samsung 700Z5A-S06 W7HP64
but Toshiba Tecra R840-116 W7P64 is lighter though much more expensive (slightly over my budget tbh)
while Lenovo ThinkPad T420 NW4PRGE W7P64 has better batteries (or so they say) than samsung and is still affordable
I'd appreciate some help.

Chowhound
Comic Vine
GameFAQs
GameSpot
Giant Bomb
TechRepublic