What thinkpad to get next?

[reZ]

Hi everyone,

I currently own a T23, T420 and a T61p.

Im looking at getting another (maybe) ThinkPad as an all rounder and hope you can help me out with my choice!.
I'm a Uni student, I need a decent amount of power while also requiring a decent battery life. My T420 that I was using last year (i5, 8GB, SSD) handled virtual machines easily although the 1366 x 768 resolution made it almost worthless to be running them as I was finding it difficult to use, I have a replacement screen for it a 1600 x 900 which I have had issues with although i will create another thread for this sometime.

I then purchased a T61p (1920 x1200) This display and build quality is amazing compared to my T420 and its ebay replacement screen, with a dual core and 4gb ram it suffers to run them sufficiently.

What im really looking for is a good all-rounder. I Checked out some new "ThinkPads" at my local computer shop who supply some and i was quite disappointed.. Felt different to the traditional keyboards and dont even get me started with the "clickpad". I must say the display is quite nice and the apparence is reasonably appealing (Other than the reversed ThinkPad logo on the lid and the red leds..)

Just wondering what people recommended, I would love something Full-HD, a max of 14" with i5 ~4-8gb ram. Just wish i could get the best of the both worlds of my T420 and T61p!!

Just been reading about people upgrading their T61p cpu to a T9300 would this actually make a worthwhile upgrade (compared to my current T7700)

[RealBlackStuff]

Your T61 can take up to 8GB RAM, if you also use a 64-bit OS.
With Middleton's BIOS you'd also increase the T61 HD speed to SATA II and allow for Penryn CPUs.
Add a T9300 (more value for money than the T9500) and an SSD and you'd be flying!
T61 battery life is behind the nowadays laptops, but that's the only disadvantage apart from being a 15.4" widescreen.

For 14" machines you already have one of the better ones (T420) if you get your 1600x900 LCD sorted (bad Samsung?).
AFAIK the T420 with i5 and i7 CPU can take up to 16GB RAM.
Add an SSD and vrooooooooooommmm!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Cigarguy]

^^ Agree with everything RBS said.

When looking for a new machine last year I decided to go with a HP Lattitude 8470w for the build quality and screen. To my eyes it looked better than anything Lenovo had to offer at the time. Since about the T400/T500 generation to about the T430/T530 generation, no laptop manufacturer (except for a few Apple Macbooks) had screens to write home about. Thanks in large part to the nice screens on modern smartphones and tablets this is filtering....slowly...down to the laptop space.

[aldimeola81]

I've owned/repaired several ThinkPads over the years, some with FlexView screen, (t60, x60t) I think the best screen among those is the one fitted in the w510, after having calibrated with a color munky device is really gorgeous, deep black, high contrast, high resolution ( fhd not touchscreen), and high refresh rate (80hz) compared to t61p screen is a huge upgrade, bye.