Must-Read for all T23 lovers (Ray?)

[RealBlackStuff]

http://www.epinions.com/content_297099628164
Recent test of the T23

Pros
Very fast, well made, outstanding ergonomics

Cons
Battery life not up to modern standards, slow USB 1.1, year 2000 graphics

The Bottom Line
The best laptop for 2002 is, within its limitations, one of the best laptops for 2007

[dorronto]

Excellent review. Andrews reviews are the "primary" reviews that actually got me started with IBM laptops.

Ron

PS. Now, should I sell this T23 I just received or not???

[jdhurst]

I maintain, having owned one, that the T23 has the best two spindle form factor that I ever used. ... JDH

[MintyMadness]

That is a fantastic review!

by spindle speed I assume you are talking about the hard drive's rotational speed?

My dad wants something "faster," and is therefor entertaining hte idea of a vaio. I told him that he will miss the T23.

In fact. I would put money on it!

-Jeremy

[ajkula66]

Everyone knows that I'm an A31p buff, but... as the most "pound per pound" ThinkPad ever, T23 wins hands down. My opinion.

- The most abuse-resistant ThinkPad I've ever used in the field, or seen used in the field. T30 would be my second choice, but the extra weight makes it less appealing.
- Excellent form factor coupled with some nice "toys" on high-end models...SXGA+, wireless...
- Amazingly fast with 1Gb RAM running W2K, fast enough for XP.
- Great keyboard (second in my book only to G4x series)

And yes, there's a T23 (very average one) in my household, being my daughter's pet, and it is on the "not-for-sale" list along with 701c and my "main" A31p.

[mattbiernat]

i don't wanna be negative but im surprised that nobody mentioned the flex on the left hand side of the keyboard and minimal flex under the power button. T60 seems to be much more solid. yet for some unknown reason i love my T23. it must be the form factor and the overall feel of it. so far its still a plain T23 but im planning to upgrade its ram to 1GB and get rid of the 4200RPM HD.

[rkawakami]

Thanks for the link RBS!. Very interesting read. I agree with most everything that was stated except maybe for the graphics. Since I'm not a gamer so I don't really care if the video system is "below par" compared to modern laptops. The most I stress my T23 is when I'm running Google Earth and I think it runs fine. I completely agree with the lack of built-in USB 2.0. The flush-mounting, but dongle using, Apricorn PCMCIA adapter that I have takes care of that need but I rarely use it. File transfers to my 2.5GB Rio MP3 players takes several minutes with 1.1, but so what, I've got time . If I need an "extra" hard drive, it goes into an Ultrabay adapter. With a full 1GB of memory and a 5400RPM hard drive, the T23 feels plenty snappy to me for what I do with them. I understand that Adobe CS2 runs kinda slow on such a system; that's what my daughter reports anyway. For graphics work I use Paint Shop Pro 7 and yeah it takes a few seconds to apply some filters to a 3MP image. But I'm not doing this as a job.

@mattbiernat: The concern about chassis flex is not negative but a very valid point. Each system has their own design idiosyncrasies. I just passed off a 2647-5SU to my nephew this morning and made it very clear that one-handed grabs by either corner were a no-no. I explained and showed him what happens to the motherboard when this is done. Before he got the system I completely stripped it down and inspected all of the weak points that I know about. His Toshiba A105 appears to have video issues much like the T4x systems in the "shuts down when I move it" thread. He told me that he did have a habit of picking up his system with one hand. The T41s that I have indeed feel more solid than the T23 but still they appear to suffer some of the same fates with board flex.

[phool@round]

You can forget about running Windows Vista with any of the eye-candy.

Ahhhh, not so fast...... I run Ultimate with Aero (reduced but max'd for the SSavage) and it looks spectacular on my T23 2647-9NU.

Excellent, well rounded and honest review. Made me grin while reading it....... Cha-Ching!!!!!!

[fefrie]

I can switch out my wireless card on my t23 with built in wireless? What difference will that make with my wireless-b network?

[rkawakami]

Getting a little OT: The factory wireless was an 802.11b card. You can remove it and install one with 802.11g but in doing so, you will lose your modem capability. Or does somebody sell a g/modem combo card? You of course would need an 802.11g access point to see any apparent speed improvement. And that speed bump might only be between your T23 and another computer on your own network. 802.11b generally tops out at 5Mbps. 802.11g somewhere around 25Mbps. So even if your (assumed) broadband connection is a 3Mbps DSL connection, your bottleneck is NOT your wireless system.

[Balls Co.]

Interesting review. I have just recently had a chance to upgrade my T23 to a T30. usually I upgrade my stuff when someone I know is lookiing for a laptop. I will sell them mine. take the money add a lil more and get a little faster, better TP. so i was going to sell the T23 and I bought a T30 from ebay. Its a nice machine, but its heavier, hotter, and noisier due to the fan. Right now my T23 is doing everything it needs and It feels snappier and faster with half the CPU power and half the RAM.
finnally there is a review that states what Ive been feeling since I started to think about doing this lil upgrade. At the moment, Im sticking with the T23 and going to buy my friend who wants the laptop one too.
awesome lil computer even if its 7 years old.

[fefrie]

I've got my t23 set up with a dead silent hard drive and use the speedstep settings so that the processor runs at slower speeds.

It runs absolutely quiet and cool which is the most important thing for me. For email and websurfing, it runs fast enough for me.

And now that I use opera and browse in full screen mode where every page is displayed in 1024*768, I don't really feel the need to go SXGA anymore.

In fact, the only problem I have is when I go to websites such as ebay where it seems that each webpage is filled with bloatware. The t23 seems to bog down there, but I think ebay runs slow on all the computers I have and not just the t23

[mattbiernat]

I've got my t23 set up with a dead silent hard drive and use the speedstep settings so that the processor runs at slower speeds.

what's a speed step?

[goofyGAguy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpeedStep

[mattbiernat]

thanks for the tip. my T23's temp does not go over 55C no more. and this means no more running fan every 20 mins.

[beeblebrox]

thanks for the tip. my T23's temp does not go over 55C no more. and this means no more running fan every 20 mins.

Have you tried Thinkpad fan control?
the T23 has more than the usual 3 noisy fan speeds fo the T40!

fan speed 1 on the T23 is dead silent and keeps the T23 cool and silent.

[mattbiernat]

Have you tried Thinkpad fan control?
the T23 has more than the usual 3 noisy fan speeds fo the T40!

fan speed 1 on the T23 is dead silent and keeps the T23 cool and silent.

i use tpfancontrol all the time. this program only lets you control the temperatures at which the fan will switch on, it does not let you lower the temperature of the CPU. and i believe T23 has only two 2 fan speeds. either way bios settings on T23 are quite good and i have no real need for tpfancontrol (on T23) except for monitoring the temperatures.

[RealBlackStuff]

You can always get CPU-Idle
http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/C ... -2030.html
(It's home-site is currently not available.)
As long as I was using Intel or AMD Athlon XP CPUs, I always had this little program installed. It lowers your CPU-temp by up to 10C.
Will not work on an AMD64 (and is not needed there either).

[mattbiernat]

ty RBS!