Thinkpads Forum

I have just purchased a t43 thinkpad from ebay, and am selling all my junktops on there. I'm wondering if I could have gotten a better more powerful machine instead. Does the t6x models have better battery life and overall more powerful hardware? or is the difference slight? thanks.

Welcome to the forum.

More powerful - yes. Better battery life - not really. All depends on the exact configuration you got, and how much you paid for it. Maybe it was a good deal and maybe it wasn't. The variance on eBay is very large.

Thanks! I was just tired of the way newer laptops are, I always return them and I'm selling a couple on ebay that i ran out of time to return. I got the t43 for 31$ with another 30$ shipping. It seemed like a better deal than 90$ on amazon from a refurbisher with bad reviews. I was also thinking about buying parts for the t61 and assemble it myself but the combined shipping costs far exceed a whole machine including shipping. Not to mention the possibility of missing screws, small parts, etc. I've looked around on the forum a little bit and saw the nvidia t61's were defective to certain dates. I might offer to trade or trade+pay for a t61 or try to resell my t43 on ebay again.

The build quality, feel, and looks of the T4x series beat the T6x series. The T6x offers significant performance and battery life improvements, though. Either way, a high spec T43 is still a fine daily driver.

I will go ahead and keep the t43 then, and see if i can't bypass the marvell sata-pata adapter and put in a cheap 64gb or more ssd in, do you know if this increases battery life vs a mechanical motorized hard disk. and also i'm curious if the batteries can be re-cell'd with modern cells to further improve battery longevity? ** i'll move on over to the t4x forum thanks for the help

brchan wrote:The build quality, feel, and looks of the T4x series beat the T6x series.

Meh, I kinda disagree. When it comes to these things, there is no such thing as "T6x" series. A T60 and a T61 are worlds apart when it comes to looks. The T60 in some ways is closer to the T4x. I prefer the feel/look of a T60 to that of a T4x in quite a few aspects.

The T61 is ugly, that much is true. However, I think its build quality is fine, minus the hinges which get very wobbly (but even that seems to be more of an aesthetic issue than an actual concern).

The T61 is ugly, that much is true.

I must confess; I actually like the look of the 4:3 T61 more than a 4:3 T60 overtime (really). The offset display and ridges at the sides of the LCD bezel gave it a unique look, similar to the T4x. Whether or not that "uniqueness" is ugly or not depends on one's taste I guess.

I definitely prefer the T4x design over the T60. I like the way the screen wraps around the palmrest when the lid is closed, I also like the grey keys on the keyboard, and the fact that T4x machines have no Lenovo logos on them nor a Lenovo branded BIOS, even if they do state on the bottom that they were manufactured for Lenovo. The T4x is also slimmer and just looks cooler.

The obvious advantage with the T60 is that it uses a Core Duo/Core 2 Duo processor and 945 Intel chipset, which both are much more capable than even a fully upgraded T43. Plus it uses the newer (and thus easier and cheaper to find) 20V chargers and UltraBay devices.

GMaguire wrote:I definitely prefer the T4x design over the T60.

Same here.

and the fact that T4x machines have no Lenovo logos on them nor a Lenovo branded BIOS, even if they do state on the bottom that they were manufactured for Lenovo.

This is somewhat of a gray area. While the BIOS clearly displays the IBM logo, I've owned several T4x systems where Lenovo logo was present on the clear plate, and the palmrest and lid had newer "ThinkPad" insignia instead of the usual IBM one.

The obvious advantage with the T60 is that it uses a Core Duo/Core 2 Duo processor and 945 Intel chipset, which both are much more capable than even a fully upgraded T43. Plus it uses the newer (and thus easier and cheaper to find) 20V chargers and UltraBay devices.

I'll admit here that I've never really warmed up to the T60 generation and can't really put my finger on the reason why. The fact that they are significantly more powerful than their T4x siblings stands nevertheless.

ajkula66 wrote:This is somewhat of a gray area. While the BIOS clearly displays the IBM logo, I've owned several T4x systems where Lenovo logo was present on the clear plate, and the palmrest and lid had newer "ThinkPad" insignia instead of the usual IBM one.

Wow. Got any photos?

ajkula66 wrote:I'll admit here that I've never really warmed up to the T60 generation and can't really put my finger on the reason why. The fact that they are significantly more powerful than their T4x siblings stands nevertheless.

I agree. The T4x series are in my opinion the almost perfect ThinkPad. If only they didn't have all of those GPU and southbridge problems.

GMaguire wrote: Wow. Got any photos?

Not of the entire system, at least nowhere that I can easily access them. I believe I still own a shoddy 15" palmrest/keyboard bezel with a ThinkPad logo and numerous clear plates - all from T43p models - with Lenovo insignia.

If one were to dig through my FS posts from 4-5-6 years ago, a couple of these machines would show up I'm certain.

OK, since I'm staying home sick I've taken the time to find the Lenovo-branded items in question and the links to the pics are here:

http://s1088.photobucket.com/user/ajkul ... sort=3&o=1

http://s1088.photobucket.com/user/ajkul ... sort=3&o=2

http://s1088.photobucket.com/user/ajkul ... sort=3&o=0

I'm currently using both T60s and T42s. I chose the T42 over the T43 due to the T43's reputation for fan noise. The T60s are much faster than the T42s overall and can be upgraded to a 64 bit processor. On the outside, the form factor is pretty similar but the T60s are different inside. I find them a bit easier to work on. No southbridge/GPU issues of the T4X series and no NVIDIA problems of the T61s and most of them are 4:3 so they are my favorite Thinkpad right now. My T60p gets a Windows rating of 4.1 and my X201 gets a 3.1 due to the T60p's better GPU. The main limitation that annoys me in the T60 is the 3gb memory cap.

I'd like to get a 4:3 T61 and maybe a 1950x1200 T61p but I've got so many computers right now, I'm in no hurry.

I have a T43 which I thought was fine for the best part. then I found a T61 with Intel graphics locally for £60 and decided to give it a try. At first I didn't like the 14" widescreen and found it a pain having to keep scrolling up and down just to read a few paragraphs on a web page but I very soon got used to it. Then I installed the Middleton BIOS, SATA2 SSD + HDD in the ultrabay, a T9300 CPU and 4gb RAM. All this stuff was souced 2nd hand on eBay and did not cost very much. The CPU is undervolted to max 1.0125 and runs real cool and quiet and I love being able to easily swap HDDs in the ultrabay which is very useful for regular disk images of the operating system. The T43 was certainly no slouch with WinXP32 and if you like the screen and it suits your needs then keep it, but in all honesty I'll be selling mine..

Nice to see everyones views

I'm waiting to get it and I'll look around for a t60 cheap as well and compare see which one is best and since i have a collection of old computers (sx-64, Tandy model 102, IBM 760ed) I'll just hold onto both