The
Samsung 850PRO supports TRIM, the
Intel 730 does not.
TRIM also requires OS support (included in Win7/8). It's definitely a good feature to have but its importance is largely exaggerated.
Samsung's RAPID Magician software lets you basically allocate 1GB-4GB (or more) of physical RAM into an SSD Read and/or Write cache. Performance gains are phenomenal. Enabling the Magician Write Cache increases longevity (fewer small Writes to nvflash), but unwritten data will be lost when volatile RAM loses power - this is an insignificant risk on a laptop unless your battery can't hold charge or battery disconnection/removal interrupts a cache Write. Data can always be reinstalled or restored from backups (you do backup important data, yes?), but nvflash corruption will permanently de-rate drive capacity - Samsung's implementation prevents the latter from occurring as much as possible.
Intel includes Rapid Storage Technology, but it is far less exciting and basically can't be used to increase performance, lol.
The Transcend, Crucial, and Kingston products you linked all look good, too - popular and generally well-received in reviews. Be aware that the Read/Write speeds advertised on SandForce-based controllers are misleading, they only apply to purely uncompressed data and do not translate well into non-ideal real usage - so that Transcend product would be my last choice among those three. I would personally buy the Samsung because it uses tried-and-proven controller and nvflash technologies and offers an unbeatable warranty (which will outlive any laptop), I could have confidence in its performance and reliability for years to come. But I might buy one of the others if this week's sale price was compelling enough, Crucial and Kingston are typically decent performers with good value.
All of these SSDs approach the theoretical performance limits for SATA 6Gb/s, so I don't expect next-year's products to be a lot faster. Alternate storage form factors like M.2, PCIe SSD, and NVMe will overshadow SATA in years to come, but few of today's laptops are compatible with these interfaces.
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