Thinkpads Forum

L.S,

my name is Tom and I am from the Netherlands. I am trying to make up my mind with respect to the purchase of a thinkpad. Since I do not have a clue about specifications (and hardware in general), I joined this site in the hope that you guys /girls can put me on the right track. The issues i find important are:
low noise
powerfull
15 inch minimal display, of excellent quality
optimal connectivity /wireless
DVD /CDR reading and writing capabilities of high speed
memory stick access
minimal 60 GB storage


since I am in the fortunate situation that I can spend some cash, please advise me. I have been reading a lot of postings, in the hope to come across the best set-up specs, but seemed to miss this issue. Thanks in advance, and all the best to you.

I'm not sure how "powerful" you want the machine to be but I think you will have to decide if you want something portable (T-series) or something a little heavier (R, G, or A series). If you want a machine with a desktop processor like the Pentium 4 I think you are relegated to either the R, G, or A series.

As far as power is concerned, I think the more powerful the machine is the more heat and noise it will generate.

The X, T and some of the R series all use processors (Pentium M and Celeron M I believe) that don't consume as much power, which makes them good for unplugged work.

For the 15" display you will need to choose something from the T, R, G, or A series machines. The resolution of the screen will be dependent on the screen and the graphics card I believe.

Most of the T, R, G and A series can be configured with a DVD-ROM/CD reader/writer and even with a DVD writer, I think, but these writers are nowhere as fast as the ones you will find in a desktop.

Unfortunately as "memory stick" is a proprietary media used by Sony, I don't think you will find a thinkpad with a memory stick slot. I believe most thinkpads come with either a Compact Flash or Secure Digital card. My X41 has a Secure Digital card slot but I believe some of the X3x series have a compact flash slot.

The 60B hard drive you seek should be pretty easy to come by esp. with the less portable machines such as the T, R, G and A series.

This narrows it down a bit for you but I would suggest taking a look at the tabook which can be found here. I just took a quick look and it seems that the G and A series are no longer listed. There is an addition of the Z Series though which has a widescreen configuration.

My advice may not be totally accurate as the extent of my thinkpad knowledge is not very in depth.

I hope someone can chime in to correct anything that is not true.

Well, if cost is no object for you, your demand list pretty much summed up the T42p. It has all of those features except memory stick, which none of the ThinkPad's have.

You can find ithe specs on the T42p, I would imagine, in the tabook.pdf file listed in the FAQ section of this site.

badkarma wrote: low noise
powerfull
15 inch minimal display, of excellent quality
optimal connectivity /wireless
DVD /CDR reading and writing capabilities of high speed
memory stick access
minimal 60 GB storage

As AlphaKilo said, T42p

T42p is low noise, powerful, can have a VERY excellent 15" LCD, can have 802.11a/b/g (the best there is) AND Bluetooth, can have a CD-RW/DVD combo (or, for that matter, a DVD burner), and can have up to a 120GB hard drive (or, a very fast 100GB HDD).

As for memory stick, the only company that I can think of that makes laptops with built-in memory stick slots is Sony. However, you can get a USB adaptor that will let you use a memory stick.

I saw a picture of a pcmcia adapter that will accept a memory stick.

There are PCMCIA adapters, and USB adapters. I've never used a PCMCIA adapter for memory sticks though, so no clue how well they work.

Memory Stick is proprietary, and strictly licensed (it wouldn't be cheap for IBM to license). And considering it's not very popular (very few products use it)... I'm pretty sure you won't ever see it on a Thinkpad. Memory Sticks will never become cheap enough to beat out other standards because of the licensing issue. They are nice and small!, but way to expensive, and the speed isn't to good. Not to mention they have a history of bad backwards compatibity (older readers can't read more than 128MB cards, etc. etc.).

Been using this Kingston card for sd...{Am very happy with it}
Yields 2.0 speeds...
It will take your Memory Sticks...


http://www4.shopping.com/xPF-Kingston_D ... R_PCM2_4_1

Correction; Does NOT yield 2.0 speeds!

T42p is at 400MHz FSB, right?
Why do you keep recommending a previous series, when 533MHz is out? It's like getting a PC with Pentium 3, when Pentium 4 is available!

It's precisely like the early days of the P4 - you could get a relatively efficient and cool processor in the P3, or a considerably hotter-running P4 that performs about the same.

The 400MHz FSB processor in the T42 performs as well as the 533MHz FSB chips used in T43 laptops, but needs less power, produces less heat, and uses a more efficient and cool chipset.

That's why people reccomend an older model.

Exactly.

To meet your "low noise" requirement, we have to go to a T42p, as the T43p is known for high fan noise.

Remember when the P4 came out? A 900MHz P3 could fight against a 1400MHz P4. The 900MHz P3 was MUCH cheaper, and cooler running.