Thinkpads Forum

Hi everybody. I've been lurking here for a while, great info on this board.

So I ordered a T60 back in Feb, ship date is 3/14. Then I saw IBM had dropped its prices by about $200 on the used certified equipment. I jumped on that. I just called to cancel the T60, citing long ship times, and they said it's packing right now, even thought the site doesn't show it! I'm sure the guy wasn't BSing me to keep the sale because he said he could send the request through, but it might ship anyways (yay.) I will have the two of them side by side before the return dates come around (7 days to make a decision), but I am torn between the two. Here are the specs:

T60: 20074EU (3 year warranty) $1500
14.1" SXGA, 80GB 7200RPM, 512DDR2, dual core 1.83 etc etc

T42: 2378FVU (6 Mo warranty) $1000
14.1" SXGA, 40GB 5400RPM, 256DDR, Pentium M 1.7 etc etc

I will be popping in a GB or so of memory into the one I keep.

So, other than the other standard differences, the biggest thing for me is the warranty. I am a graduating college student, and after this june I will be bumping around the country for about a year going to various training sites(+1 T60). On the other hand, I am still just a starving college student, and once I get my salary, I plan on bumping up to Memron Santa Rosa (+1 T42). I assuming that, because the T42 has already depreciated, and the T60 is new, the T42 will depreciate less in the span of a year or so until Santa Rosa comes out. Kind of like a car.

I use my comp primarily for web crawling, but I tend to pop in COD2, WOW, or other such pastimes once or twice a month, and i do like to watch movies ala divx. This will be replacing my desktop. I am fairly tech savvy, but not a solder soldier. This machine might follow me to a dusty climate. Your thoughts are welcome, however please keep any "Lenovo sucks!" commentary to yourself.

Unless you do lot of programming and database work (or gaming) I would buy T42. Dont worry about depreciation as no matter what you are spending it will be less by the time you want to sell to the point you might as well keep it. There will be always some thing better by that time.
(Only 2 years ago T42 is state of the art and one year ago T43 is state of the art and my first laptop I used for school had 4M ram and 256 HDD and wow a passive matrix color screen)

One more additiona + for T42 for me is easy to upgrade the memory (I am mechanically challenged to use T60 upgrade mechanism)

If you're looking at used T42's, I just saw some fantastic deals posted around on CraigsList. There's a Nice T42, 14", wireless, 1.6GHz for $500 in great condition that I have my eye on, just to buy and give to my nephew.

If you're buying new, I'd stay with your T60. If you get it and don't like it, you always have 30 days "no questions asked" to return it.

When I have the two side by side, is there anything along the lines of benchmarks neone would like me to run?

And so a reviewer is born...

i would jump on the T60...

honestly, do i need a T60? probably not, but it would be helpful. i'm planning on replacing my desktop w/ my T60. i do some video editing, C# development, database developement and sometimes i'll use Photoshop to build some graphics for a webpage. a T42 will definitely take care of the job but I believe the T60 is a newer model and why waste $1000 on something that could easily be worth only $700 tomorrow? the 3yr warranty alone makes it worth at least 3yrs more, plus you're getting something BRAND NEW. it really has to be up to what you do with it. my gf still surfs the web and writes doc and does powerpoint on my T22, b/c that's all the power she needs. i built her a Shuttle with an AMD64 3400+ and 1gb of ram and she doesn't notice a difference from the AMD Mobile Barton 2600+ Overclocked to 2.6ghz. so if you're going to wait for a the new Dual 64bit processors, just get a cheap $500 laptop for now ( i will not name the brands, but they are available) or a used one and save the $500 towards the new Lenovo's coming out.

I have the two side by side right now. I actually like the new build much better than the T42. I know it's blasphemy, but the T60 is just more elegant.

As for general useage, I can run other applications while, say, running superpi on the 60 much easier than the 42. It may be in my head, but i swear it seems that the 42 runs single or low intensity apps (firefox etc) faster. Maybe its just the amount of thinkvantage stuff loaded on the 60...

Any links or advice for speeding up the 60?

With Windows Vista coming up near end of 2006, it might be worth it if you can wait until then... at the very minimum, you would have a computer that has Factory Restore CD's that can auto-install Win-Vista !


But if you need to buy now, consider this:

-T60 has no S-Video output. So no way to connect to your TV without buying additional hardware and maybe software.

-T60 has an ExpressCard slot, but have you seen an ExpressCard accessory? Neither have I.


Here in Hong Kong, Lenovo is giving away Port Replicator II & additional spare 6-cell battery for buying the T4x series...