Thinkpads Forum

Newbie here. I have a T22 from 2001 that I love. However, I'm starting to do a lot more financial consulting and amd finding that QuickBooks runs very slowly and after 6 years, it's time for an upgrade. I am currently evaluating two machines and have a question. They are identical in price and configuration except as follows:

ThinkPad T60 2623KFU
  Hard drive: 120GB, 5400rpm Serial ATA (Standard)
  Optical device: 8X Max DVD Recordable EIDE Ultrabay Slim Drive
  Integrated WiFi wireless LAN: Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG and Bluetooth (Standard)
  Integrated wireless WAN: Verizon Sierra CDMA2000 (Standard)

ThinkPad T60 2613HKU
Hard drive: 100GB 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive 41N8355
Optical device: 8x Max Dual Layer DVD Recordable Ultrabay
Slim Drive [41N8358]
Integrated WiFi wireless LAN: Wi-Fi wireless upgradable and
Bluetooth
Integrated WiFi wireless LAN adapters: ThinkPad 11a/b/g
Wireless LAN MiniPCI Express Adapter 41A4070

Both are about the same price.

I don't intend to use the Verizon card - I have high speed at home and at work, and don't travel enough to justify the monthly charge. It's nice to have, but not necessary.

My questions regard the tradeoffs.

Are the ThinkPad wireless and the Intel wireless cards essentially the same?

Is the 2623 DVD burner the same DVD burner that I upgraded to in the 2613 (I'm confused by the different language)?

Is it worth giving up the WAN card for a faster hard drive even though the tradeoff is 20GB? Currently I have a 20GB and am using about half so space is not really an issue.

Any advice/guidance would be helpful.

Regards,
Lisa

Go for the faster HDD. Essentially all the wireless cards have the same funcionality (networks A,B,G) My T42p has only a BG wireless card and works very good. I think the DVD burners are the same.

Don't forget to budget for a big exernal USB hard drive for your backups...

Go for the SATA drive.

You can buy another ATA HDD and use it externally to do your backups as recommended by claudeo.

The one with the faster HDD.

Ditto all this. The one with the 100GB/7200 HD (ThinkPad T60 2613HKU) is the clear choice.

Thanks very much! Great board - glad I found it.

I don't know why IBM has their machines somewhat pre-configured...anyhow, I've narrowed it down to the 2613. Reading the boards I'm seeing several people complain about the fan noise with the 128 MB graphics card - is there a general consensus that one should stay away? It would be $100 less for me to buy the 2613 with the 64MB card. Considering the fact that i have a 16MB, I think any improvement would be fine, but am I missing out (even though I don't plan on upgrading to Vista right away)?

Recommendations on 64 vs 128?

I have a T60 with the 128MB X1400 ATI video. I cannot hear the fan on the machine except when the room is VERY quiet. I really have to put my hand by the vent to tell if it's running.

I went from a 'T' to an 'X' and suggest you do same. X60 is lightweight and you carry it with you everywhere. The built-in graphics is sufficient for my needs and gives you much longer battery life. You can buy a portable USB 2.0 Multi-burner for CD/DVD.

I think the intel and ibm wireless cards are essentially identical, and that the only reason theres a separate 'intel' one is that you can only use the brand 'Centrino' on laptops with specific intel processors AND specific intel wireless cards. I could well be wrong about this though.

If youre not going to use the Verizon card then the faster hard drive is the clear chioce.

I would definitely go with the 100Gb model, of those two.

I would recommend the 100GB 7200RPM HDD as well; unless you *really need* that extra 20GB of space at the cost of performance and, if you need it that badly to begin with, you should go with either the 2nd HDD Ultrabay or a USB external HDD enclosure.

The wireless cards, unless you work with a seriously touchy setup and/or area that drops the signal strength dramatically, perform about the same at similar transmission powers.

Thanks for all your help!

Based on the majority of advice in the thread I ended up going with the 2613HKU T60 with the following additions:

Extra 1 GB PC2-5300 CL5 NP DDR2 SDRAM (Total 2 GB)
8 Max Dual Layer DVD Drive
XP Professional
100 GB 7200 rpm SATA HD
3 year depot warranty

Hopefully I'll have it in a couple of weeks! Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

klnam,

Everyone is busy giving you their suggestions and none of them noticed your joined date. I will represent every single one of them to welcome you to this forum.

Welcome to thinkpads.com & enjoy your stay here



CheerZ

You may want to have a look at the 2623 D7U.

The configuration is nealy identical to what you are looking at, and it has the Wann in case you opt to use it in the future.

I picked my unit up 2 months ago New factory sealed for $1,300 bucks. I thought it was a really decent price. It also came with an extra 512 of ram, brining up to 1 gig. Also, the 9 cell battery and 90 watt charger.

This particular unit 2623 D7U has the following:

Duo: 2 GHZ.
100 gig H/D 5400
1 gig ram.
Intel Pro Wireless a,b,g.
Verizon Wann.
1400 Ati Video card w/128mb ram
svga 14.1" LCD.
Slim DVD Multi Burner
F/P Reader
3 year warn.