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I've been trying to buy a new laptop for a few months now and it's a lot harder than i thought it would be.
I first purchased another Dell(Been using Dell for 6+ years) but wasnt satisfied. I then got an Asus V6V and wasnt satisfied so now im looking at buying a Thinkpad but its hard as hell deciding which one.
I've mainly locked it down to the three models mentioned in the subject. The last one dosnt appear in the tabook.pdf file but since its not a US version im looking to buy it might be that it hasn't been introduced in the US yet - But here's a link to the german version: http://www5.pc.ibm.com/de/products.nsf/ ... enDocument
This machine will be my ONLY machine for EVERYTHING i do.
It will mainly be used for general productivity like websurfing, email, office work, webdevelopment/porgramming and some photoshop work.
I might need to mention that i run my machine with ALOT of windows open at the same time. I can easily have 4-6 Firefox'es running - Each having somewhere between 5 and 20 sites running inside. Along that i can have dreamweaver, VS.NET 2003, Photoshop, SQL Server and some other misc stuff running.
I should mention that no matter what machine i choose it will be upgraded so that it has 1GB ram, a 7200 RPM disk and a DVD burner.
As far as i can tell all machines should be more than able to handle this kind of work right?
Then comes the difficult parts.
First - From time to time i do some gaming(actually i do that very rarely but when im gonna spend a [censored] of money i might as well get the best) - I mainly play games like Call for duty, Doom 3 and would also like to be able to play new games coming out with a decent performance(Im not looking for 300 frames a sec, but then again 10 frames a sec is not enough).
And thats the really hard part. First i looked at the T43 with the X300 chip but was told that games like Doom 3 and so on wouldnt be real playable on that machine. Then i read a review stating that the older Radeon 9600 from the T42 handled gaming quite nicely. And to make the confusion complete i then was told that for good gaming performance i should get the T42P with the FireGL T2 but then just after ordering i read another review saying that the FireGL T2 was more or less a Radeon 9600(and while money is no concern to me, i dont wanna spend 800 euro more on a P model if i get more or less the same gaming performance).
So can anybody tell me about the gaming performance in later games like Doom 3(i mention this game cause its known to be quite demanding AFAIK) - Or just provide me with some links for review that touches these areas. Or even better - from your own personal experience tell me what would be best or if there is much difference between the mentioned models?
And the last really hard part - Noise. I've heard alot about how the T43 should be much more noisier than the T42(so thats why im mainly wanting a T42). But here the confusing begins when some people also say that their T42 is noisy and then when reading the specs for the T42 and T43 on IBM's site - The specsheet actually says that the T43 should be 2db LESS noisy than the T42.
To make the confusion complete in this area also i was able to look at a T42P 2Ghz machine which had been running half a day for general office work like email etc. and although i could hear the fan when closing the door to the office and being very quiet it was mainly silent as hell(more than ENOUGH silent for me). Of course i expect it to be noisier under heavy load but thats how all machines are.
But i am very concerned about the noise because i know if it's to loud it will drive me nuts when working. My current Dell's fan is running quite loudly every 3 minutes or so and its annoying as hell.
And my last concern is that the T42P i'm able to get my hands on fast is the version with a 2.1Ghz processor compared to the 1.8 of the other two.
But i have two questions about that - Will the 2.1 Ghz be noticable faster than the 1.8 Ghz for the type of work im doing(Remember all machine will be having 1 GB of ram)? The thing that im most concerned about is heat. Will the 2.1Ghz be alot hotter than the 1.8Ghz and hence making the fan run alot more? Or isnt there much difference?
I should mention a few things which can influence the decision. First of all this machine will be used for at least the next two years and maybe more likely three years - So i want a machine which in a few years time will still be nice to work with(speedwise) and not feeling that it is slow as dogsh*t.
And second - money is of no concern to me. I dont care what the price of the final machine is as long as i get a fast low noise machine
But price is a concern in the respect that i dont want to be paying alot extra for something which either gives me almost the same performance(ie. a 5% performance increase isnt worth alot to me as it is barely noticable) or is much noisier. I dont want a superfast 2.1Ghz machine if it means it will be noisy all the time.And please dont say that i should just order something and then return it if im not satisfied. I myself own a few companies so i know how much of a pain it is when customers do that and i dont wanna do that to another company if i can avoid it by asking more questions up front. But i will return it ofcourse if im not satisfied but there is a limit to it.
I know this is a long post but i REALLY hope for your help as i've already spent a few months on this and i need a new machine ASAP.
Any help you guys can provide will be greatly apreciated and i'll do whatever i can to return the favor.
Kind regards
Michael
