Thinkpads Forum

Hi there,

I am new to IBM and have always used HP and recently bought a Dell which - excuse my bluntness - sucks!

I have a problem deicing which IBM laptop to purchase. I need it for school, and must be very portable and sturdy. Gotta have long battery life and pretty fast - I have no patience for slow machines. I basically need to word process, e-mail, check internet, Instant Messanger, Music and quite a bit of videos, must have a PCMCIA slot for Internet Connection Card, must have WiFi, and obviously a DVD drive.
I don't care about screen size and also the thing I'm not comfortable about the X series is the Track point. I have never used this and am not used to it so is it easier to use or harder?

Also, how do tablets work?

Thanks for all/any help.

If you don't know what a Tablet is and how it works - you probably don't need it.

Trackpoint is far superior to the touchpad. Some people have difficulties adjusting, but once you do, you'll never go back.

To break it down for you:

Advantages of X series over T series:

* Ultralight, ultraportable
* Firewire
* That's it

Disadvantages of X series:

* No built-in optical drive, must use Ultrabase or external
* X40/X41 use slow 1.8" 4200RPM drives (X30 and X60 series use regular 2.5" drives, available at 5400RPM or 7200RPM)
* Some X-series models use ultra-low-voltage CPUs (to save power) that don't come in very high speeds.
* Very small screen, resolution limited to 1024x768
* Keyboard a bit smaller

IMO, a 14" T-series laptop is a good balance of portability and usability.

Think about your needs--do you *really* need a tablet PC.
It's not catching on in the mainstream market...

T42 is much more versatile than T43--you can easily upgrade to any 2.5" notebook HDD, whereas T43 has major problems in this area (look up the many other forum threads on this).
ie: If you plan to tweak your computer a lot, T42 is for you.


If you *really* need a tablet form then get X40/X41, but don't expect any hardware tweaking. And your 1.8" hard drive upgrade choices are severely affected (and even more expensive).


If you want to tweak hardware on a X-series I would recommend a X32 which is slightly larger than X40/X41 (not a tablet PC).
Main advantage is you still use the standard 2.5" notebook hard drives (including those 7200 RPM ones for 2.5", which are simply not available for the 1.8" HDD's).

Have fun deciding!