Can you recommend a model?

[lemonstar]

I bought 3 Thinkpads so far.
I have a T22: Win 2000
Eldest daughter has a T23: XP
My father has another T22: Win 98SE.

My youngest daughter tripped over the power cable to the T23 and I suspect that a solder joint or some part of the power connector is broken - you only have to move the T23 slightly and the whole machine powers off immediately (little or no life left in the battery I think). Anyway I want to replace the T23 as I don't think any attempt at a repair will be worth it - I haven't got the time to spend on it and I imagine it will be quite tricky to dismantle, diagnose, repair and reassemble. My youngest daughter also needs her own laptop. Both will use their laptops for internet access over a pre-N home wireless network - mainly Google, MSN, Facebook, YouTube - neither play games - mainly they'll be running MS Office applications. As I'm buying pair of laptops I don't want to spend much more than about £225-£350 per machine and I also thought it would be sensible to get the same models so that hardware can be shared - batteries/power supply adapters, CD/DVD drives, etc. There are quite a few T60's on ebay (2G, 60G HD, T5400, 14.1" TFT Screen, 1024x768, 802.11 A, B & G, 3xUSB 2.0, CDRW/DVD, only 1 PCMCIA slot?) - okay HD is the slower one, screen resolution would be nice if it was higher, etc but something like this should be fine I think - they are selling for £270 or you can try for a lower price by bidding. http://www.sterlingxs.co.uk/scpages/ibm ... ptops.html also have a few T42's, T43's and T60's (also a few 12" screen which I'm not interested in) but not such good prices.

I don't know these models first hand (T42/43/60) but if you've used them which might you recommend? These models or perhaps some other ThinkPad model considering the price bracket and the fairly modest (I think) requirements?

cheers
Neil

[killer]

Neil,
Welcome to the forum!

Apart from suggesting you give your daughter a good thrashing for being so clumsy I shall try to offer some helpful advice:
T42 machines suffer GPU problems.
A T43 with Intel chip is a good piece of kit.
I have not used a T60 but they seem to have few problems.

Ebay is OK if you use well-established suppliers. There are a lot of people who have lost money buying from people that send them a brick. Also a lot of equipment is refurbished and comes with little or no guarantee. Please be very careful and study the feedback for the person supplying the kit.

That said, I have bought 3 machines off Ebay; my own T43, my wife's T43p, and an R50e for my mother-in-law. All work very well.

Good luck.

[mattbiernat]

T60s are very durable and have no known problems (except those with dedicated graphics tend to run a bit hot). T60 will take any abuse you throw at it, a very durable machine.

[ssd_thinkpad]

T60 are the way to go.

[lemonstar]

Thanks for the replies - it's just helpful to read opinions from people who know what these machines are like.

[gburnore]

Thanks for the replies - it's just helpful to read opinions from people who know what these machines are like.

Not sure if it's just "us" but our office had to send back a load of T60's for motherboard replacement. They'd hang for no reason. The T61's worked fine. Just the T60s had problems. Maybe it's something that was fixed on later versions, I don't know.

[mattbiernat]

Just the T60s had problems. Maybe it's something that was fixed on later versions, I don't know.

hmm that's strange... i had no problem with my T60 motherboard and i have not seen many members in here complaining about it.

[dr_st]

Indeed... And my company has had far more problems (e.g., freezes) with T61s than T60s. Go figure. I guess the issues with these models are not ubiquitous.