Thinkpad T Series Quality

[CoolDragon]

How do you guys think about the mechanical quality nowdays for T series? I think it is going down, if you compare them with T23. The flaws such as the gap between the DVD and the machine, the loose battery compartment etc. should be improved.

Having seen so much praise for Thinkpad, why don't we list the things that needs to get better?

[jdhurst]

I had a T23, then a T30, now a T41. The T41 is now 15 months old, and has done very well. I like it and the quality is fine. Nothing about it is annoying, unless I were being very picky. I could make the same statements about the other two. Now that said, I liked the form factor of the T23 the best. Smaller than either the T30 or the T41 and no heavier than the T41. The T41 has a much brighter screen than the T23 and runs much cooler than the other two. It is more quiet (the fan is quiet and the 7200 rpm hard drive is quiet). So I like the T41 the best overall. ... JD Hurst

[CoolDragon]

One thing I think is not good is that the two USB ports are two close. If you need to use the two USB ports at the same time, it is mostly like that you cannot do that.

[kjarrett]

There has been a raging debate here about the quality of 14" vs. 15".

Mt 15" 2373-KXU kicks [censored] and is SOLID AS A ROCK. Absolutlely as solid if not moreso than my trusty T21.

That said, I have seen the numerous reports about problems. Seemed to me there were far fewer for 15" systems. That was one factor behind my decision to go with this machine. True, there are less 15"ers in the market, so statistically the comparison may have little merit. I could care less, I love my T42p!

-kj-

p.s. Now with 2gb of RAM! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

[IBMorBust]

Just out of curiosity, exactly when would one notice the improvement that 2GB of RAM could offer?

I'm not being sarcastic. I just don't understand.

I have 768MB now,

[Marc_G]

Hi IBMorBust-

I've got a respectable 1.5 GB, though not the 2 GB KJ has.

The benefits manifest all the time. I've got a page file, but it is essentially unused. I can go for days without the system needing to use it. So, general application and OS performance is quite nice.

I normally boot to a system that uses about 275 MB RAM. So that's my overhead, before loading any applications. 768 would let me run a reasonable complement of applications, but it's easy to load up these days.

Then again there are times when I use memory hungry applications such as VMWare or some proprietary applications for my work. In such times I might start to use the page file, but relatively little. It's nice to be able to run a virtual machine having 1 GB RAM.

For a typical user, having so much RAM isn't a necessity but it will just make using the machine better.

I'd be interested in knowing if the reduction in disk usage would be offset by the energy used by the RAM...
Marc

[jdhurst]

I have 768Mb of ram. With just XP running, I *always* have at least half of it free and my page file has never exceeded the minimum I set for it. The only way I can use all the memory is to run 3 machines simultaneously (say XP host, W2K guest and Linux guest). *That* chews up ram with abandon. It's the only reason I know to need 2Gb (although there may be other ways to use that much ram). ... JD Hurst

[IR0NMAN]

The battery looseness also bother me but I got used to it. Also, I think the matte finish get dirty really fast. As for the USB port, it kinda annoye me when I want to plug a device in the bottom port when the port above is used....

On a site note, the more ram , the better. I'm happy to have 1GB of ram when I must run Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Quark Express, Macromedia Dreamweaver, FireFox with 6-8 tabs, winamp, Microsoft Excel and BitTorrent in the background... and MSN and OutLook.... all at the same time.

[IBMorBust]

Thanks Marc, JD, Ironman - for the responses about the RAM.

I didn't mean to hijack the thread.