Thinkpads Forum

I will travel soon to the States (I live in EU), and I almost ordered a 2623D6U either from Lenovo with the rebate or from costcentral, but I've read that International Warrany (IWS) is not available for 2623's! What a non-sense! When I bought my old trusty T40 that was not an issue!

So I need advice what TP to buy, if I need IWS and I would like to spend about $1400-1500 max for a 14 SXGA Dual-core model (2623D6U + IWS would be the perfect choice)

I bought the 2623D6U from costcentral and it should arrive tomorrow. The lack of IWS does suck quite a bit. I'm headed to Germany for likely 3-4 years and needed the TP before the end of August. I bought now with the incredible rebate and thinking that you can purchase an IWS after you have the machine. I would be very curious as to if anyone has done this on the forum, purchase a US only warrantied machine and upgraded to an IWS. Anyone with this experience care to share some wisdom? Erozolst, with the $200 off, the 2623D6U seems like an outrageous deal imo. It doesn't have the whole 15" Flexview working for it, but with my upgrades and $600 + in music production software, I will get all I want for under $2100 plus an external 80gig drive which is still less then a number of comparably equipped 15" (minus video card, but I don't play video games).

Does the rebate valid for purchases from costcental and euclid computers too? Isn't it a Lenovo direct special?
Bemps, thank you for sharing your information, I think I will do that too. An other idea is to buy that $990 buy.com XGA model and swap the display with some Sony one Still under the price of $1400. Can you share what upgrades you purchased for $600, is it Lenovo specific stuff, or just the music production software?

I just ordered a 2623 and Lenovo told me the warranty works internationally.

I hope that too! It's so strange, just look up some model numbers from the rebate page in the IWS search form, and some models have warrany US+China, some US+Japan, some worldwide, some US+Canada and some US only. It doesn't seem racional that Lenovo make so complex warranty scheme!

I just had a look on buy.com and they give the same rebate offer, so I think it is valid for Costcentral too. Any info on this?

???
Do you think is it worth buying the 2623D6U now, if I need exactly that model, but I can wait until august? Will there be a better offer then, or generally I cannot have a better deal than $1240 for 2623D6U for a long time?
???

The danger is that these models often have 3-6 week waiting periods, even when going through a stockist who says it is in stock.

When I last bought a thinkpad, I went through an official dealer who said they were gettign some in stock the following day and I wated 4 weeks becaise IBM were so slow to get the stock out.

If you are pretty sure that where you are buying has some in stock when they say so then you can wait as the prices will drop.

Sure. The $200 rebate will work at costcentral as they are an authorized lenovo reseller.

Costcentral

2623D6U - $1442
Hitachi Travelstar 72K 100gb HD - $163
Free Shipping on both

Newegg

Transcend 1gb ram - (2x) @ $79 - $158
ASM Venus 2.5" HD Enclosure - $15
Shipping - $9

Lenovo Rebate = -$200
Transcend Rebate = -$10 (I believe the rebate only works on one purchase from a customer even though I bought 2)

These are the prices as far as I can remember, so they may not be spot on, but are very close. There isn't tax on it, but my real total for all of this will be under $1600 which I think is a huge deal. I'll have 2gb ram dual channel a fast HD in the machine and an 80 exteranal drive to boot. I will try to sell the 512gb stock ram too.

Music software:

Spectrasonics Atmosphere - $350 + free shipping
Native Instruments Battery 2 - $95
FL Studio XXL - $170

Yeah fruity loops is kinda lame but I've used it now for about 5 years and know it very well. These are student prices except for spectrasonics. It pays sometimes to be a poor student. I've got an echo indigo sound card I picked up a few months back too for about $130. So including the sound card and software it tips just a little over $2300 which is still less than the 2623DDU I tried to buy a few weeks ago. All in all this deal seems to work the best for me. I think it wil be difficult to find a better deal on the 2623 in time to have it for August, but you never know. Last month's deal was just money off accessories, so $200 off a machine is much more appealing than that.

Can you share your experience when you get the notebook and the 2 gig ram? I've read the other thread and I still don't know, whether the
1. specific 2x1 G RAM, or
2. video card driver version, or
3. BIOS version
makes problems.

BTW, does anybody have any strong suggestion to go with Kingston ($160) and not with any cheaper ones, like Crucial ($80-90) or A.Data, etc.? Stability issues?

I went with Transcend JetRam from newegg and it works perfectly in my T60.

I tried ordering the D6U from costcentral but they wanted a copy of my driver's license. I was like wtf? talk about enabling identity theft.

so I ordered from california computer. they had a better price and I received the D6U the next day! It shipped from a distributor in PA.

I saw one guy with issues using 2gb, but it sounded like defective memory. newegg is great about returns so you can't go wrong with them. get a copy of memtest and use pc doctor as well to thoroughly test each stick.

I prefer 2 x 512 because I use hibernate quite frequently.

I just istalled two transcend jetram 1gb sticks and it recognized them right away and have been running without problems for a few hours. After creating back up disks I'm going to install hitachi 100gb 72k drive. I bought my 2623D6U from costcentral and got it in 6 days and didn't need to provide any extra info other than the normal credit card details. Were your billing and mail to adresses different? That does seem odd to ask for that much info. I received my thinkpad and hitachi drive all quickly and without any issue.

Can anyone speak more to IWS? On the website it clearly says 2623 machines do not carry international warranties yet some members here quote conversations with sales reps who say it is int'l warrantied. I spoke with a representative a few weeks ago and he said the same, that it is covered internationally. Someone here is mistaken either customer service reps or their website and documentation with the machines. My bets are on the reps being mistaken. Can one purchase int'l coverage post thinkpad purchase?

costcentral claimed that because I only have a cell phone I needed to fax in a copy of my driver's license. I guess they do some kind of verification with the phone company, even though my cell phone is on file with all my credit card companies. I do a ton of business online and have never once had to give my driver's license to anyone. the most I've had to do is accept a quick phone call.

hoya and Bemps (if you install your hard drive), how much performance gain did you get after swapping hard drives? Did you run HDTune before/after? How do they compare noise-wise? I know there is a review somewhere but it compares ATA drives, but SATA II and NCQ implementation can differ quite a lot on drives, so I cannot rely on that review.
Bemps, if you havn't installed your drive yet, could you please run a HDTune test on the factory drive?

$1240 for 2623D6U

is real?

$1,437.88 at costcentral now, and -$200 with the rebate until 30th of June. That's why I was asking if it could be cheaper by august.