Thinkpads Forum

Guys! help me out - Which should I buy

I'm buying the computer for School only - I'll probably never play games on the laptop but only do some coding and a little gfx with Photoshop. Long battery time is important and so it the noise from the computer and thereby how often the fan runs.
Money is not an issue.


ThinkPad T60p - Model: 2613-CTO-B80-1
TFT 15" SXGA+ 1400 x 1024 FlexView
ATI Mobility FireGL V5250
Core 2 Duo 2.16 GHz/4 MB,
RAM 2 GB,
HD 1 x 100 GB/7200 rpm
DVD Multi Recorder,
WLAN 802.11b, 802.11g,
Gigabit EN,
Modem,
Win XP Pro engl.,
9 Cell Lithium-Ion

About 1875€

ThinkPad T60, Model: 2613-CTO-B209
Monitor: TFT 15" SXGA+ FlexView, ,
Core 2 Duo 2 GHz/4 MB,
RAM 2 GB,
HD 1 x 100 GB / 7200 rpm,
ATI Mobility Raedon X1300,
DVD Multi Recorder,
LAN 802.11b, 802.11g,
Gigabit EN,
Modem,
Fingerprint,
Microsoft Windows Vista Business
9 Cell Lithium-Ion

About: 1725€

T60 - Model: 2007-C1G (UT0C1GE)
Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 2 GHz, 667 MHz Front Side Bus, 4 MB-L2-Cache
1 GB PC2-5300 DDR2-SDRAM 667 MHz, max. 4 GB
100 GB SATA, 5.400U/min
14.1" TFT-Farbdisplay, SXGA+ (1400x1050)
ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 - 128 MB SD-DDRAM
Super Multiburner Plus
10/100/1000 Ethernetadapter
56k Modem
Intel WLan 3945 a/b/g
Bluetooth
Infrarot
9 Cell Lithium-Ion Akku mit bis zu 6 Std. Betriebsdauer
Windows ® XP Professional

About €1650

I'd go for the last one, primarily for the smaller screen size. That should maximize your battery life, if that's your main concern.

The Only thing I don't like about the 14 " is that it's Non Flexview. The others are flexview.. another thing is that the others have 2 gb ram and the 14 doesn't.. so I get the most value from the money by getting the top ones?

I've noticed that 14" models seem to go for a slight premium compared to the larger screened models, so perhaps they don't strictly represent the best value. But you ought to be able to upgrade that one to 2 GB (which you'll definitely want to do) for approx. 75 euros (or less, I would think) so long as it ships with a single 1 GB chip.

I don't know much about Flexview, having never seen a screen, so I can't contribute anything useful there.

Silenceofdk wrote:The Only thing I don't like about the 14 " is that it's Non Flexview. The others are flexview.. another thing is that the others have 2 gb ram and the 14 doesn't.. so I get the most value from the money by getting the top ones?

You said you probably never were going to play any games and it's main task will be coding and a little photoshop?

Then the V5250 is going to waste, and the X1400 partly too.

OTOH, the middle 15" will be the best for any graphics use, and has the slowest GFX, not that it can't be used for gaming. It's a little faster then the 9600 mobility.

If i were you i'd see if i could find som Core Duos instead of Core2Duo, mainly because of price.

As for screens it is borderline decision. While the FlexView screen is definitely the best you can get now (and probably never in the future), the 14" screen is one of the most ugly screen you can get in notebook. It is worse than average screens of cheap notebooks.

Puppy wrote:... the 14" screen is one of the most ugly screen you can get in notebook. It is worse than average screens of cheap notebooks.

I can't agree with what you say. Remember it is a 14" SXGA+ (1400x1050) , not 14" XGA (1024x768). Therefore, it is much better than an average 14" screen considering it displays 86.9% more than the latter.

If you carry your laptop and walk a lot, you will find the merit of the 14" SXGA+ screen without compromising resolution.

Thank you very much for your contributions guys.

I will be carrying my laptop around a lot - Probably every day to and from school. I had a 15 " before and it wasn't that big a problem I must say..

I've narrowed it down to two of them - 64 mb gfx is a bit too small imho:

ThinkPad T60 - Model: 2007-C1G (UT0C1GE) = 14" SXGA+
ThinkPad T60p - Model: 2613-CTO-B80-1 = 15" flexview

I guess the question is, will the T60p be "hotter" than the T60 because of the bigger CPU and GFX? I hate when fans just keep on running. The price difference doesn't mean a whole lot to me.

And is the 15" so much bigger than the 14" ? Sry, but don't know that much about the sizes

crazyfrog wrote:I can't agree with what you say. Remember it is a 14" SXGA+ (1400x1050) , not 14" XGA (1024x768).

Yes, but the quality of the panel is horrible (excessive backlight leakage and very bad contrast).

Just received my first thinkpad a few days ago and my specs match closest your first choice. I had similar needs and it was a tough choice. Ultimately, I went for the screen over maximum portability and battery life. I didn't feel the 14" footprint was that much smaller than the 15" (but I did consider seriously the X60) I purchased an extra 9 cell battery and a car/air/ac combo adapter for when I need to work on the road. I was also concerned that the svga+ on the 14" would be too small, but it is just right on the 15". The flexview screen is wonderful, especially for photo work. I haven't noticed any significant ghosting issues with video. The fan does run nearly constantly irrespective of indoor or system temp. But it is very quiet and so doesn't bother me. I did stay with XP for now and will wait until the first service pack before upgrading to Vista.

I finally decided to max out my system as much as my budget would allow because while I know my needs now, I wanted a computer that could grow with me for the next several years. I just, for ex., started using Adobe Illustrator to work with some large graphics files. This will put demands on this system that a more pared down version would not have handled as well. Who knows what I'll be tackling a few years from now?

Hope this helps. Good luck with the decision

Puppy wrote:

crazyfrog wrote:I can't agree with what you say. Remember it is a 14" SXGA+ (1400x1050) , not 14" XGA (1024x768).

Yes, but the quality of the panel is horrible (excessive backlight leakage and very bad contrast).

I would say what you've seen is only a single example. Actually my 14" SXGA+ never leaks any backlight, but I do see my friend's T60p 15" UXGA leaking at the bottom edge. I won't mention that to downgrade 15" UXGA(Flexview), as I think it is only a single example too.

BTW, I am upgrading to 15" Flexview recently, but not because of excessive backlight leakage and very bad contrast.

Puppy comes off as a bit cynic and harsh sometimes, i don't think it's his intention.
I wouldn't call it horrible compared to other 14" TN offerings. On the contrary it offers SXGA+, and no glossy screens and the machine is in a smaller footprint with less empty space.

The 14" does not offer good color accuracy when comparing with many other notebooks, but i'd say it fares in the upper end of that segment as one of the better screens.

But it's all relative... when looking all up to the flexview in comparison, the 14" has nothing to offer except it's (imo much) smaller size
http://www.notebookreview.com/assets/13261.jpg

Troels wrote:Puppy comes off as a bit cynic and harsh sometimes, i don't think it's his intention.

Not only me I'll quote this comment:

the horror was going to the only shop in switzerland, that has thinkpads to see and realising, that the displays (from x60 (worst) through the whole palette to T60p new (no IPS) - the best was XGA-x60t) are clearly brighter than the older ones, but that the quality of the picture (saturation, contrast, angle-view, …) is almost the level it was in 1998 on the old Compaq Armada P2 i still have. actually, the old compaq has a better quality screen.

There are better pictures showing the problem:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/11221256@N00/115612499/
http://home.att.net/~murphj/wsb/html/vi ... 04192.html

Sorry but getting something like that in 2007 year for premium ThinkPad price is simply unacceptable. Even low-end Acer or Prestigio have better screen quality. There are cases where people wanted to repair the 14" T display because they thought it is defective.

You've been warned

Okay guys to sum up the choices according to u-

I've got the choice between:

A T60p 15" flexview with a fan that will run pretty much all the time
A T60 15" flexview with a gfx of only 64 mb (What I had like 3 years ago)
A T60 14" with a screen which sucks [censored] to be quite frank

Doesn't seem all that good to me The best part - I gotta decide tomorrow morning more or less :/