BYE BYE T43P 2668-Q2U

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redskin · #1 Post by **redskin** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 5:06 am

My brother just got the the HP Compaq Mobile Workstation nw8240 with following spec 2.13 GHz, 60 GB 7200 rpm, 1 GB RAM, ATI Mobility Fire GL V5000, 15.4-inch color TFT WUXGA wide screen with Wide Viewing Angle (1920 x 1200 resolution), Multiburner (the same burner IBM uses), Intel a/b/g wireless, 8 cell battery plus 8 cell travel battery attaches on the bottom of the notebook).

I was playing with his new laptop, I immediately fell for it. I said to him "Do you want my IBM T43p 2668-Q2U, and I take your HP nw8240?". He said "you've got yourself a deal". Actually the IBM costs $700 more than the HP being faster CPU, and 100 GB 7200 rpm hard drive, fingerprint reader, etc. On the other hand HP has Firewire, and 1 extra USB port that IBM lacked of.

I have no regret at all for trading my IBM with my brother's HP. and few reasons being:

1. HP is thinner and slightly lighter than IBM 15" model, being 6 pounds with multiburner attached.

2. Graphic card is a lot faster too I've notice using Maya, and 3D Studio Max rendering the HP is a lot faster, with my 3DMark2005 score being 2500.

3. Wide screen is a plus, and 1920 x 1200 resolution is a bonus as well comparing to the 1600 x 1200 that IBM has.

4. Battery life lasts about the same for both laptop, but with the HP I can attach another 8 cell travel batttery at the bottom of the laptop and it doubles up the time and it weights only 1 pound extra. Using 2 batteries together I get a full 8 hours with light usage and 6.5 hours with heavy usage. What the laptop does it that when I use 2 batteries together, the travel battery will be used up first then the main battery will be used up last. That I found convenient because once my travel battery get used up I can just detach it from the laptop and charge it without of having to turn the computer off, and during charging the main battery will get used up.

4. Fan noise and heat is a toss up. I would give HP the edge though for fan noise and heat, being that it hums quieter than IBM, and doesn't turn on as frequent as the IBM.

Even though my IBM is more expensive than my brother's HP but I am so glad that I gave HP Wide Screen a chance because, it is in my opinion the best mobile workstation laptop on the market that I could think of as far as weight, performance, and battery life combined. Oh yeah don't forget if you love watching dvd, with wide screen and 1920 x 1200 resolution it's fantastic for that.

ddutta · #2 Post by **ddutta** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 9:48 am

I think Lenovo is losing the edge. All my laptops have been IBMs but I am beginning to waver. Its no longer the bulletproof product line with impeccable build and relaibility. My 1st thinkpad was the 600 ... it was a tank that took a lot of battering. I sold it to a friend who wanted to buy a basic laptop for his parents and it still works!!! My old X22 is also very rugged and cute and my mom chose that over a new laptop

My latest T42 is good, still better than Dells but makes noise, and the palmrest squeaks a 'tiny bit'. Also the fan became lose on a vacation (due to aircraft vibrations?) and I had to get it fixed by IBM (in 2hrs though).

Thus I can see the build quality has gone down. Maybe its close to some other business lines. However I still feel that the IBM service is top notch and that forces me to buy thinkpads but I am sure HP will be good. Everyone has realised that you need to outsource from China and the only place you make real money is services and consumables

BTW very soon barebone kits from folks like Asus will compete with Lenovo. Their Z70VA is amazing with 128MB X700 and a sharp 15.4 1680x1050

tom2517 · #3 Post by **tom2517** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 9:55 am

HP nw8240 is definitely a better performer than T43p but I still like IBM better. I think out of all workstation notebooks, the Dell nb are probably the best in terms of benchmark performance. It has top of the line nVidia GPU.

ddutta · #4 Post by **ddutta** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 10:05 am

ATI fireGLs have better color saturation. Nvidia might be the speed king but their colors (and I have a openGL Quadro card) seems a little washed out compared to ATI and Matrox.

BTW I checked the Compaq, as my T43 is still on order. The warranty is only within US/CAN ... which is a real bummer. The thinkpad has a superb worldwide warranty which is sometimes the only reason you would buy a TP.

cj3209 · #5 Post by **cj3209** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 11:35 am

As much as the specs on that superduper HP look good, I would think twice on HP's service. My experience with HP has not been very good; I will avoid HP if I can help it and usually recommend against it.

With thinkpad, their service is still one of the best and THAT is sometimes worth more than 'bleeding edge' technology.

pae77 · #6 Post by **pae77** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 1:50 pm

cj3209 wrote:As much as the specs on that superduper HP look good, I would think twice on HP's service. My experience with HP has not been very good; I will avoid HP if I can help it and usually recommend against it.

With thinkpad, their service is still one of the best and THAT is sometimes worth more than 'bleeding edge' technology.

Completely agree with the above quoted post. You don't buy a TP for the latest technology. IBM has always been slow to integrate new technology. For example, it seemingly took them forever to put something as simple as USB 2.0 on their laptops. But they are good enough for me technology wise, and the ergonomics and warranty, service, support etc. are really important to me. I hope Lenovo keeps up the high standard that has been set by IBM in the past.

Btw, my new T42p arrived yesterday. It has a manufacture date of sometime in Sept. 05. Runs very quiet so far, even after hours of being on. Was pleasantly surprised to see that it shipped with XPPsp2 already installed in the factory preload (since what was stated in the latest tabook just said XP pro with no mention of SP2, unlike some of the more recent models), and the preinstalled bios was the latest one before yesterday's new release. Was very happy to see I got the Thai keyboard (love it) and Hydis display. The Sanyo 9cell battery is a little loose but not so much that I think it will cause any problems. Very happy with the new machine so far.

hoya · #7 Post by **hoya** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 1:55 pm

I tried the nw8240 but found the display to be seriously lacking. it was very dim and suffered from the sparkle effect. The keyboard also felt lifeless, but I did like the thin form factor and FireWire port.

congrats on your new system.

nirvana0001 · #8 Post by **nirvana0001** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 2:15 pm

nw8240 is one of my consideration before I buying my new latop. But the reason I gave up nw8240 are: I don't like widescreen; IBM has better quality and customer service; thinklight (serious issue).
Three of my friends are using hp business line laptop, the mainboard all burned up from 1-2 year used, I don't if they just the unlucky three or what.

Greg Gebhardt · #9 Post by **Greg Gebhardt** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 2:46 pm

I would rethink your trade.

A friend has one of the latest and greatest HP laptops and it has been back for service 3 times and is about ready to go back again. A IBM laptop is back by STILL the best service and HP is close to the bottom if not dead on the bottom.

I played with his HP trying to figure out what was wrong and the build quality was terrible. The palm pad creeked, the display did not look near as good as mine. Also this unit has a bad habit of just shutting down without any warning, even after the 2nd mother board.

Nope, not me, give me my T43p

#10 Post by **aamsel** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 3:22 pm

What is the "sparkle effect" ???

Andrew
Austin, TX

hoya wrote:I tried the nw8240 but found the display to be seriously lacking. it was very dim and suffered from the sparkle effect. The keyboard also felt lifeless, but I did like the thin form factor and FireWire port.

congrats on your new system.

TimWang · #11 Post by **TimWang** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 4:01 pm

Why can't IBM design a flat battery that attached to the "docking port" on the bottom? I'm sure its an easy job as the electrical connections are already built into the bottom of the laptop. Plus, on most occasions, I won't mind lugging around an extra pound if that meant an extra 4+ hours of battery life.

cj3209 · #12 Post by **cj3209** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 4:10 pm

A flat battery underneath the TP would be too heavy IMHO. Our old Dell C400's used to have a humungous flat battery that would give it around 5 hours of batterylife b/c the regular attached battery was about an hour of use (nice job, DELL).

I think the Ultrabay additional battery is a good idea or, I say, use newer battery technology for smaller and lighter cells.

My two cents...

TimWang · #13 Post by **TimWang** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 4:22 pm

Well I was just saying that it would be a good idea to have a flat battery as an option. Being a university student, I am often in situtations where I don't have convenient access to a power outlet and the option of a extremely large power source seems good.

#14 Post by **GomJabbar** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 4:49 pm

A flat battery may be too heavy, but a heavy ThinkPad is better than a dead ThinkPad.

Sometimes you just need more juice

"The dilithium crystals cannae take it, captain!"

I was reading another post somewhere here today of a non-ThinkPad that had an optional flat battery that fit under the laptop. When in use, the laptop would work off of the flat battery first, then when the flat battery was dead, it would work off of the regular internal battery. Sounds like a great idea to me!

hoya · #15 Post by **hoya** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 4:53 pm

aamsel wrote:What is the "sparkle effect" ???

it's a well-documented problem in which the LCD looks 'dirty' and grainy, especially white backgrounds. HP uses a Panel Protection System which is one culprit, while Dell's 9200 employed a similar coating which caused many users to complain.

http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums ... .id=125530

I've never seen any ThinkPad which suffered from the 'sparkle effect' - only high resolution Dell's and HP's. I've also never seen a glossy display that suffered from the sparkle effect.

#16 Post by **aamsel** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 4:55 pm

Thanks,
Andrew

hoya wrote:
aamsel wrote:What is the "sparkle effect" ???
it's a well-documented problem in which the LCD looks 'dirty' and grainy, especially white backgrounds. HP uses a Panel Protection System which is one culprit, while Dell's 9200 employed a similar coating which caused many users to complain.

http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums ... .id=125530

I've never seen any ThinkPad which suffered from the 'sparkle effect' - only high resolution Dell's and HP's. I've also never seen a glossy display that suffered from the sparkle effect.

#17 Post by **K. Eng** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 4:58 pm

What model HP was it? A lot of HP's stuff is garbage, but the nc series is pretty good. I got to test out an nc6230 a few weeks ago, and it compares well against the T4x. It's not as sturdy, but there were no palmrest creaks, odd fan noises, or plastic pieces that didn't quite fit right. Overall it felt more refined than my T40, although I didn't think it was quite as sturdy.

Greg Gebhardt wrote:I would rethink your trade.

A friend has one of the latest and greatest HP laptops and it has been back for service 3 times and is about ready to go back again. A IBM laptop is back by STILL the best service and HP is close to the bottom if not dead on the bottom.

I played with his HP trying to figure out what was wrong and the build quality was terrible. The palm pad creeked, the display did not look near as good as mine. Also this unit has a bad habit of just shutting down without any warning, even after the 2nd mother board.

Nope, not me, give me my T43p

#18 Post by **aamsel** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 5:07 pm

Yes, the nc series is a continuation of the old Compaq Evo line of notebooks, prior to HP taking them over. Very nice quality, although the screen I saw in a nc6200 was very disappointingly dim and unevenly lit.

Andrew
Austin, TX

K. Eng wrote:What model HP was it? A lot of HP's stuff is garbage, but the nc series is pretty good. I got to test out an nc6230 a few weeks ago, and it compares well against the T4x. It's not as sturdy, but there were no palmrest creaks, odd fan noises, or plastic pieces that didn't quite fit right. Overall it felt more refined than my T40, although I didn't think it was quite as sturdy.

Greg Gebhardt wrote:I would rethink your trade.

A friend has one of the latest and greatest HP laptops and it has been back for service 3 times and is about ready to go back again. A IBM laptop is back by STILL the best service and HP is close to the bottom if not dead on the bottom.

I played with his HP trying to figure out what was wrong and the build quality was terrible. The palm pad creeked, the display did not look near as good as mine. Also this unit has a bad habit of just shutting down without any warning, even after the 2nd mother board.

Nope, not me, give me my T43p

tom2517 · #19 Post by **tom2517** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 8:36 pm

pae77 wrote:
cj3209 wrote:As much as the specs on that superduper HP look good, I would think twice on HP's service. My experience with HP has not been very good; I will avoid HP if I can help it and usually recommend against it.

With thinkpad, their service is still one of the best and THAT is sometimes worth more than 'bleeding edge' technology.

Completely agree with the above quoted post. You don't buy a TP for the latest technology. IBM has always been slow to integrate new technology. For example, it seemingly took them forever to put something as simple as USB 2.0 on their laptops. But they are good enough for me technology wise, and the ergonomics and warranty, service, support etc. are really important to me. I hope Lenovo keeps up the high standard that has been set by IBM in the past.

My friend who works in a very large semiconductor company in Taiwan has an interesting theory about this. During one of my conversations with him, I complained that IBM somehow always uses inferior GPU. He said, in his company, all the top executives gets IBM laptops, because it's expensive and prestigious. All the lower level people, like the engineers who actually uses notebooks, gets Dell workstations nb. Why? because top executives only needs a notebook with GPU good enough to look at things, they don't need to create them.

Of course, that was his way of looking at it. But I thought it was funny.

tom2517 · #20 Post by **tom2517** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 9:23 am

Oh yeah redskin, if you care about benchmark scores, Dell's newest XPS posed a 3Dmark05 score 6650! With nVidia 7800 GPU.

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BYE BYE T43P 2668-Q2U

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