Thinkpads Forum

Thinking about getting a T60 for my sister.

I'm looking at two models, the 2623KEU (XP Pro) and 2623P2U (Vista Business).

Vista looks beautiful but I've heard a lot of bad things. A LOT.

XP seems the natural route but the prices are really close. Not sure what to do, exactly...

What are your experiences? Thanks a lot.

Its actually pretty great. Do get 2GB ram for the 2623P3U (it ships with 1GB by default). No real issues. Some stuff is moved around so might take getting used to after using XP for years.

Look at it this way - you're going to have to convert some time anyway, so if you're buying a new laptop, may as well go with it now. That was my logic anyway.

I would just make the decision on the application you are planning to use. There are some sites (offical and not offical) on which you can get information if your apps would work with vista.

Take a look at:

http://www.iexbeta.com/wiki/index.php/W ... ility_List

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/933305/en-us

http://kb.wisc.edu/helpdesk/page.php?id=5175#a

If you do go for Vista, buy the second gig of ram.

I agree on the 2 GB recommendations -- not because Vista requires it, but because it will use it to speed things up. Vista will use available memory for its SuperFetch cache, reducing application startup times, for example.

My t60 is runnng 1.5gigs of ram and a 7200rpm hard drive, and vista run great, I prefer it right now over XP

However, the software compatibility in the real world leaves me to run XP on a second partition. THere are not a lot of hardware drivers out for vista yet unfortunately, like printers for one thing.

Highly recommend Vista for the T60. I've had minimal issues, and this is with a system that originally was built for XP. Not sure what horror stories you've heard, but a couple of months of regular use has convinced me that it's a worthy upgrade that works well.

Chief

I upgraded my T60p to Vista (on a different hard drive) to evaluate Vista. Even with the visuals set to classic mode (ie no animations) it sucked 40% more power than XP Pro.

I didn't have any rogue processes running up the CPU. My best guess is that Vista uses the 3D capabilities of the GPU whether it needs them or not -- the V5200 is a power hog when it's being used for 3D.

At the time that I ran the test (November) the ThinkPad power manager tray applet was broken under Vista and I couldn't check the settings -- this could have played a part. Recent patches may have improved things as well. Note: I was using the RTM, not a beta.

-darren

Thanks for the pointers. That will definitely factor into my decision.

How would Vista be versus XP for a real novice, which is what she is?

Be sure the peripherals you want to use with Vista have drivers for the OS.

How do you use the IBM battery maximizer and the vista energy control that still working even if you have the IBM battery maximizer?

Got Vista on my old T41P..and I've used it quite a bit on a T60p.
In short, Vista rocks, as long as you have 2GB.

No noticable difference in battery life, all Lenovo drivers, etc just work. Heck, Lenovo even had full drivers for the old T41!
Performance is slightly slower than XP on the T41p, and seems very speedy on the T60p.

Battery life has been an issue for some, but newer ATI drivers help a lot. Also, upgrading to Stardock Windowblinds will help considerably, as will the updated Thinkpad power management drivers.

An additional gig of ram will cost about $144 or something like that...not too bad I guess but I dunno.

The source of my worries was reading this:
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3529

Now, try and ignore the incendiary title, but how do you Vista users respond to some his observations? Are they accurate, at least on a T60 with the 2 gigs? How bothersome are the intrusions and such?

I'd be curious to know another opinion. The response to Vista has been lukewarm so I'm not sure what to expect.

I read through some of the article, it reminds of a lot of others I have read. It seems the point they want to make is "change is bad" or "if it ain't broke don't change it". I do networking and have for a couple years now, and agree with his comments on the intuitive nature of mac, and the big changes in Vista. The thing is that most of us use computers for our own unique purposes, as an example setting up mac's on a network can be a pain, just like a windows machine, connectivity can create problems in any environment or OS.

Vista Business is different than XPpro and I am still getting used to the changes, but personally I am glad it is different and when I get used to it like I did with OSX, (which I also like) all will be great.

FWIW I had a beta version of Vista and it really did have problems. But I have had none with the new release. One more point is to read through the Vista forum below, there is a tweak guide link, which is very helpful to get started, the UAC can be disabled, etc. but I recommend reading the guide to see what the ramifications are as well as all the new features built in to the OS.
I have not seen any of the home editions yet, but they sound pretty barren to me. I agree with Proteus, Vista does work very well on a t60 with the proper specs. I have 1.5G Ram and a 7200 rpm hard drive and 2gig processor and dedicated video ram so it runs very well. I believe those installing it on lower spec machines may experience some sluggishness.

To address some of the points in the article based on the very limited amount of time that I've used Vista.

1. You can add the menu bar to most if not all the places that by default Vista does not include it. It's very similar to IE7. By default the menu bar does not appear but if you like it you can always add it back.

2. Drivers is a legitimate gripe. There is a definite lack of driver support. However I don't think you can lay the blame directly on MS's feet. This is a somewhat moot issue as if you get a thinkpad you'll have all the drivers that you need for your machine.

3. UAC. Yes these prompts are annoying but again if you don't like this turning off UAC is a trivial excercise.

I absolutely hated Vista the first two days that I had it but now that I've gotten more comfortable with it I realize that for the most part it's only going to get "better" as more drivers are released and as I get more familiar with it.

Proteus wrote:Got Vista on my old T41P..and I've used it quite a bit on a T60p.
In short, Vista rocks, as long as you have 2GB.

No noticable difference in battery life, all Lenovo drivers, etc just work. Heck, Lenovo even had full drivers for the old T41!
Performance is slightly slower than XP on the T41p, and seems very speedy on the T60p.

Battery life has been an issue for some, but newer ATI drivers help a lot. Also, upgrading to Stardock Windowblinds will help considerably, as will the updated Thinkpad power management drivers.

So running Windowblinds in Vista will speed it up without running a skin, or only if you enable a simple skin in Vista?