Thinkpads Forum

I have been using a 15" T60 with SXGA+ Flexview, which I bought from a forum member, for quite a while. I have been generally happy with it, even though I have been using a mechanical disk that is mostly full now (100GB 7200 RPM).

I recently bought a Samsung 850 EVO 500GB SSD to upgrade the machine, but unfortunately my ATI X1300 GPU seems to have died before I got a chance to set it up (I got some odd colours and a kind of sizzling noise, while the machine seems to turn on but nothing appears on screen).

I actually had PM'ed TuuS a while back, just before the GPU death, because I was mulling over the Frankenpad treatment, mostly because of wanting 8GB RAM and SATA2 (Middleton BIOS).

But part of me feels a bit defeated about clinging on to the machine and 4:3. I was kind of holding out for at least a 3:2 retro Thinkpad, but my hopes are mostly gone now.

I have a bad case of nerd rage over the widescreen format. I am using an old Dell E6500 as backup at the moment, and even the 16:10 15.4 inch screen seems too short, and pointlessly wide. Laptop screens just don't seem to have enough width for side by side windows, so what is the point? Palettes, toolbars? OK, I could understand that in certain applications, but for just web browsing and document editing it seems ridiculous. (Edit: with spreadsheets, it can be nice to see more columns, but I like seeing rows about as much.)

On the other hand, the industry seems incapable of offering any choice here, except with tiny screens such as on the Surface Pro. I would maybe like a _well-built_ 14" Yoga in 4:3 or 3:2 IPS, a Wacom pen, a couple of RAM slots, two spindles, a socketed CPU. This will never happen.

Anyway, my needs are just browsing, and some medium weight financial modelling (0.5 million cells, some light VBA). I would like to run a couple of VMs as well for testing different software configurations.

I am not that mobile, but I only really want one machine, and I'd like to take it to places from time to time. I find the E6500 a bit too heavy, as was the T60.

My wife has a T520 (see sig), which she is refusing to sell me, so I was thinking of picking up another one or maybe a W520 just because VMs and why not? But maybe a T601 with 8GB is enough for say running a couple of Windows instances and a financial model in each?

Anyway, I am feeling unloved by the industry, and just want a bit of tea and sympathy from those who may understand.

YGPM

You're definitely not alone in wanting to hang on to a 4:3 laptop. Besides the obvious benefit of vertical space, I was surprised at how much more compact a 4:3 laptop is. All the laptops in my sig are 14", but the T420 is too wide to fit on a university desk while having room for a notebook next to it. The T60 and T42 are much better. The T23 is best because the lack of a touchpad makes it even smaller.

Personally, I would do whatever it takes to keep using that T60. Those are some of the best ThinkPads ever built IMO and I'm afraid they'll never be that good again.

Kilkenny wrote:You're definitely not alone in wanting to hang on to a 4:3 laptop. Besides the obvious benefit of vertical space, I was surprised at how much more compact a 4:3 laptop is. All the laptops in my sig are 14", but the T420 is too wide to fit on a university desk while having room for a notebook next to it. The T60 and T42 are much better. The T23 is best because the lack of a touchpad makes it even smaller.

Personally, I would do whatever it takes to keep using that T60. Those are some of the best ThinkPads ever built IMO and I'm afraid they'll never be that good again.

Thanks! I bought my mother a 14" SXGA+ T60 a few years ago, and I do really like that form factor, more so than the 15". I see that the T23 is just a bit smaller all round (except height marginally). Although Flexview\IPS is 15" only, I could do without that really, but the Frankenpad deal is also just a 15" phenomenon, and I do feel that the 3GB limit is becoming a bit of an issue.

Over the last year I've been really enjoying a X60T SXGA+ screen (complete lid assembly) transplanted onto a X61T. Small, compact, 4 GB memory, excellent 4:3 screen, Middleton BIOS. With a 500 GB SSD, this machine still does everything I need while on the road. More powerful computing work is done on my desktops.

@ tiorapatea:

As you will most likely have noted from this (especially the T6x-) forum, we are many, many who dislike (some even detest!) the various newer widescreen laptops, and for this and other - especially the availability of the superb 4:3 FlexView/IPS LCD - strongly prefer the T61 motherboards in a 4:3 format 15" T60 chassis, In short, you are indeed among FrankenPad'er-friends here!

Because I am one of those also being very fond of the sturdy, 4:3 15" FlexView/IPS ThinkPad's, I am actually right now in the process of acquiring parts allowing me to upgrade all of the five T60 (15" SXGA+, X1300 & X1400), which I am "in charge of" for family and friends.

This post just to share a bit of information which might be of your interest: While searching for European T61-FrankenPad donors (which are not many, here in Europe), I have recently established contact to a German gentleman (who is actually from Texas, but now live in Germany), who are preparing the sale of a number of very well-kept 4:3 T61's with the X3100 GPU; I will transplant the mainboards from these T61's to my T60's. These T61's for sale all appear to almost always having been used in docking stations, and therefore seems to be more or less "like-new"... at least from a cosmetical point-of-view. I am in the midst of buying a couple of these for myself, but in the case that you are perhaps also hunting for a 4:3 X3100 T61 as a FrankenPad for your T60, let me know and I will provide you with contact-information to the German seller. It goes without saying, that inter-EU shipping is far cheaper compared to buying parts (or laptops) from outside the EU.

Bottom line? Do go ahead along your T601 FrankenPad line; with an e.g. T9300 CPU, 4 or 8 GB of RAM, Middleton's BIOS and a newer SATA-II SSD, you'll surely be in fine shape for years to come, for the applications you mention.

Good luck with your endeavour!

Johan

Johan wrote: [snip]
I am in the midst of buying a couple of these for myself, but in the case that you are perhaps also hunting for a 4:3 X3100 T61 as a FrankenPad for your T60, let me know and I will provide you with contact-information to the German seller. It goes without saying, that inter-EU shipping is far cheaper compared to buying parts (or laptops) from outside the EU.

Bottom line? Do go ahead along your T601 FrankenPad line; with an e.g. T9300 CPU, 4 or 8 GB of RAM, Middleton's BIOS and a newer SATA-II SSD, you'll surely be in fine shape for years to come, for the applications you mention.

Good luck with your endeavour!

Johan

Thank you Johan, and everyone, I feel much better now. I think I will persevere with the Frankenpad, so I just have to decide whether to try to acquire one ready-made, approach TuuS again, or locate my own parts.

I am wondering about the motherboard and GPU combinations, and their respective physical and driver longevity. I had been leaning towards just Intel integrated graphics for low heat output, but are there other considerations?

Johan, I think the X3100 is the Intel graphics, is that right? I always get confused with ATI X1300.

Yeah X3100 is the Intel version. TuuS is awesome to deal with. I've got parts from him to build my T601 Frankenpad. I really like my Frankenpad and find it's more than adequate for my computing needs. Unless you require a laptop for gaming, GPU or CPU intensive operations, Frankenpad are still very much relevant. The Flexview screens and 4:3 format makes it worth the effort and expense.

I've found that 16:10 screens are a great compromise, providing comfortable multimedia consumption (minimizing "black bars" for both 16:9 and 4:3 video) and decent productivity. Whatever you do, don't get one of these .

SurrealMustard wrote:Whatever you do, don't get one of these .

I would agree if you were referring to a 21:9 laptop, but completely disagree for desktop monitors. Many people use multiple desktop monitors, and it's better to have one 2560x1080 21:9 monitor than two 1280x1024 5:4 monitors. Better because: 1) you no longer have a gap in the middle; 2) you need just one video output instead of two; 3) 2560x1080 has a higher total pixel count than two times 1280x1024; and 4) you save a little bit of space on the desk.

Those 34" 3440x1440 21:9 monitors are quite appealing, much better than having two 20" 1600x1200 4:3 monitors. I don't own one yet simply because I am waiting for prices to come down further. I paid only about $500 for each of my 40" 3840x2160 monitors, so I refuse to pay over $600 for a smaller monitor with fewer pixels.

Want a super tall desktop monitor? Get a 16:9 or 16:10 monitor and rotate it into portrait mode. 4:3 and 5:4 monitors become just a tad taller in portrait orientation.

pianowizard wrote:

SurrealMustard wrote:Whatever you do, don't get one of these .

I would agree if you were referring to a 21:9 laptop, but completely disagree for desktop monitors. Many people use multiple desktop monitors, and it's better to have one 2560x1080 21:9 monitor than two 1280x1024 5:4 monitors. Better because: 1) you no longer have a gap in the middle; 2) you need just one video output instead of two; 3) 2560x1080 has a higher total pixel count than two times 1280x1024; and 4) you save a little bit of space on the desk.

Those 34" 3440x1440 21:9 monitors are quite appealing, much better than having two 20" 1600x1200 4:3 monitors. I don't own one yet simply because I am waiting for prices to come down further. I paid only about $500 for each of my 40" 3840x2160 monitors, so I refuse to pay over $600 for a smaller monitor with fewer pixels.

Want a super tall desktop monitor? Get a 16:9 or 16:10 monitor and rotate it into portrait mode. 4:3 and 5:4 monitors become just a tad taller in portrait orientation.

Fair enough. A laptop with a 21:9 screen would indeed look really silly .

I think silly is an understatement: https://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpres ... g_5084.jpg

600X wrote:I think silly is an understatement: https://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpres ... g_5084.jpg

Wow. I honestly didn't know that it was a thing.

if you enjoy your T60, except find it difficult to deal with it's limited performance, then a T61 retrofit (frankenpad) is the solution. Many are shocked at the performance difference and you don't have to go with the fastest cpu or largest ram options to get significant performance upgrade. Even a moderately specced T61 frankenpad will run circles around the T60. This is also the best time ever to do the conversion in my opinion. The NOS nVidia boards that originally sold for $299 and later for $250 are now as low as half price (quantity 2 or more), or $129 for one, and the Frankenpad kits I offer now have a free upgrade to one of these brand new boards. There are also others here that are offering to build these machines for you. RealBlackStuff to name one would gladly do the conversion for you, or I can teach you how to do it over email which is included with the kits I offer. Just a couple years ago there was virtually no hope of finding one of these boards with the updated GPU chips, most of us T61 fans spent years looking for an August 2008 unit to salvage a board from and soon realized they never existed in the first place. We knew some new production boards were made, but the supply was quickly exhausted, but we didn't realize until recently that many were shipped to IBM's corporate customers to assure brand loyalty when the defect became widely known. Since then I've been grabbing any that were unused that went into liquidation, but I had to pay a premium to get them before they went to auction and although they were worth every penny, infact were priceless to those who really love these computers, but it wasn't until just before Christmas that I was able to get them at a price more inline with the value of good tested used boards that had a significantly higher risk of GPU failure.

I recently listed these boards on notebookreview as well and was required to produce photographic evidence that I had them in my possession, so I'll share a photo I made of a newly opened case of 12 factory sealed NOS boards.

http://i.imgur.com/MwrrhoV.jpg

I'm also offering some barebones kits with intel graphics for those on a budget, these kits contain only the essential parts as opposed to all the ideal parts needed to do the conversion. Those who don't need or want the reliable and more powerful nVidia graphics and like the cool running Intel X3100 gpu may want to consider this option, but IMO the best option is one of these NOS boards as long as they remain available.

To me the benefits of a modern notebook are obviously the performance and they're significantly lighter than notebooks of yore. A T450s weighs almost half what a T60s does and the T460s will be even better. With the FHD LCD, it'll give you more vertical resolution, though the density is a bit high. After having my 3.5 pound 14" notebook, I would want to go back to a six pounder.

Of course the T450s is lighter --- it has a smaller screen. The T60/T601 weights 5.4lbs without the DVD and its screen is 30% taller and 29% larger in area than the T450s.

A T601 is lighter than a P50 and its screen is 18% taller and 4% larger in area (and its keyboard has an extra row).