Thinkpads Forum

Hi,

My old Toshiba laptop died last night and I'm thinking of replacing it with a ThinkPad T60. Specifically, this one:

http://www5.pc.ibm.com/uk/products.nsf/ ... t#warranty

But I'd really like to see one in the flesh before I buy. I'm having problems finding a (bricks and mortar) shop that sells ThinkPads though. Can anyone recommend somewhere? I'm based in Hertfordshire in the UK, so I guess I'm looking for somewhere in London.

A second question. Looking at the recommended resellers, the cheapest is http://www.technoworld.com/ and the next cheapest is http://www.dabs.com/. I've used dabs.com in the past, but I've never heard of Technoworld.com, which makes me slightly nervous. Has anyone used them?

Thanks very much in advance.

Cheers,
Ian

iansealy wrote:My old Toshiba laptop died last night and I'm thinking of replacing it with a ThinkPad T60.

Greetings and Welcome to the Forum...

I made the move from Toshiba to ThinkPads a decade ago, and have not looked back since. You will be amazed how nice a ThinkPad is.

Here is a link to an authorized reseller here in the US. Euclid Computers

I have purhased several ThinkPads from them and they are reliable, honest and provide good customer service. They have discount pricing and their inventory is amongst the largest. Your new ThinkPad is shipped direct to you in the factory sealed box.

I have friends and family in the UK that have purchased from them with excellent results. I do not work for this company, just a happy customer.

Cheers...
Archer6

archer6 wrote:Greetings and Welcome to the Forum...

Thanks!

archer6 wrote:I made the move from Toshiba to ThinkPads a decade ago, and have not looked back since. You will be amazed how nice a ThinkPad is.

I hope so. I've been using Toshibas for a decade, but I'm switching because of problems with my current laptop and because Toshiba seem to be moving away from TrackPoints.

archer6 wrote:Here is a link to an authorized reseller here in the US. Euclid Computers

I have purhased several ThinkPads from them and they are reliable, honest and provide good customer service. They have discount pricing and their inventory is amongst the largest. Your new ThinkPad is shipped direct to you in the factory sealed box.

I have friends and family in the UK that have purchased from them with excellent results. I do not work for this company, just a happy customer.

Thanks for that, but I think I'm going avoid buying from overseas. I think it'll be quicker to buy in the UK and also I know what my statutory rights are.

Cheers,
Ian

<jest on>Well, I'll need a ride from LHR to Oxford on the 9th. That could be combined with a late pub lunch looking over my T60 </jest off>

Seriously, now, the fact that it is so hard to get your hands on the product for a physical inspection has got to cost Lenovo a lot of sales with small businesses and professionals. For big accounts of course the showroom comes to them. Basically, though, if you've seen a fairly ThinkPad the T60 is very much like that. I have an "old fashioned" screen on mine so I can't speak to the fancier ones. Not being able to actuall see the other screens to compare was the most infuriating part of buying this one.

Hi there, I've bought my T42p and T60p from Hemini (www.hemini.co.uk) in the past. Don't be put off by their really bad website. (Both times I've dealt with a guy called Barry Dodhia)

3 or 4 things which I'd say put them over Insight (where I initially ordered, but eventually cancelled, my T60p):

1) Hemini is an IBM auth dealer and can get any model you want. Insight and Dabs have a limited range
2) Hemini order direct from IBM and will give you a straight and realistic answer about order time.
3) Deals are possible: I got my extended warranty on my T60p for hardly anything
4) When your laptop arrives at their depot they call you, then ship it to you same day!

NB - I'm not associated with Hemini, just wanted to communicate my good experience!

With Insight the delivery times can be a real lottery unless the TP you want is in stock.

Technoworld are a good supplier also - again, I've had good experiences with them. Their range of T series laptops isn't always great though.

To the best of my knowledge you won't find T series in retail showrooms anywhere in the UK. Nor X series. I have seen old R series laptops for sale in my local Staples before now but that's it.

pvetch wrote:Hi there, I've bought my T42p and T60p from Hemini (www.hemini.co.uk) in the past. Don't be put off by their really bad website. (Both times I've dealt with a guy called Barry Dodhia)

[snip]

I did have a look at Hemini (I checked all the dealers linked to from Lenovo's site), but the laptop is a hundred quid more expensive than Technoworld.com or dabs.com, so I dismissed them.

pvetch wrote:Technoworld are a good supplier also - again, I've had good experiences with them. Their range of T series laptops isn't always great though.

Excellent. Thanks very much for reassuring me.

pvetch wrote:To the best of my knowledge you won't find T series in retail showrooms anywhere in the UK. Nor X series. I have seen old R series laptops for sale in my local Staples before now but that's it.

Oh well. I think I'm just going to go ahead and buy one tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

Thanks for replying.

Cheers,
Ian

iansealy wrote:Oh well. I think I'm just going to go ahead and buy one tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

Sounds good! Please be sure to get back to all of us here with a report of how things went and how you like your new ThinkPad

Cheers....
Archer6

archer6 wrote:Sounds good! Please be sure to get back to all of us here with a report of how things went and how you like your new ThinkPad

I thought I'd leave it for a month or so before reporting.

I'm really pleased with my T60. I bought it from Technoworld.com in the end and it arrived the following day, which was fantastic. Initially, I wasn't going to be able to have it so quickly, because they wanted me to fax them a recent credit card statement as proof of address. But after quite a few phone calls they were able to verify me via my work email address and phone number.

The ThinkPad itself is great. They're not the prettiest laptops, but that's not really important to me. The display is really good and I'm very happy with the hardware. This is the first laptop that I haven't need to immediately by extra RAM for. My only complaint is the keyboard. Having Fn as the bottom-right key, rather than Ctrl, is an odd decision. I've got used to it, but I now find it difficult to go back to my old Toshibas or to a full size keyboard. Also, the Home, End, PgUp and PgDn keys are a little bit further away than I'd prefer, whereas the pointless browser back and forward keys are nice and handy.

One other thing I preferred on my last Toshiba laptop was having a physical volume control. The T60 has two buttons instead and they obviously only work if the laptop is on. With my Toshiba, I could turn the volume down whilst it was still off and know that all would be quiet as it booted.

I thought the keyboard light would be a useless gimmick, but it's actually been really useful at least a couple of times already.

I'm using Ubuntu Dapper and it installed fine. Most things worked right out of the box and things that needed a bit more work were well documented on the Web. It's running so well that I'd be tempted to just get rid of Windows if disk space gets tight. Under Windows, I've had a few blue screens of death. I think they were related to plugging in my mobile phone's USB connection. Even with the latest drivers, I was still having problems.

Reading the above back again, it sounds slightly negative, but I'm actually really pleased. I'm much more pleased than with the last Toshiba I bought. My only real complaint is the keyboard layout.

Cheers,
Ian