Thinkpads Forum

Buying a T60 with Flexview screen while it's available. Am trying to strike a balance between economy and having this last, especially because Flexview is being phased out.

Don't use demanding apps, and dont edit video or play games much.

I will get XPP because it's less resource-intensive and and more stable/compatible with existing drivers & apps. Maybe switch to Vista in a year or two.

Opinions please:

#1) Is it worth an extra $100 to upgrade from a 5400 rpm drive to 7200 rpm? I've never had 7200 (except in my tivo!)

#2) Which processor should i get??
- CD T2500 (2.0 ghz, 2mb L2)
- C2D T5500/5600 (1.67-1.83, 2mb L2)
- C2D T7200 (2.0 ghz, 4mb L2) <--- "Lenovo recommended", lol

I'm inclined to save nearly a couple hundred with the T2500 compared to the T7200 because I dont need processing power... but is that being too short-sighted? (there's no 64-bit apps yet). I heard merom & vista aren't entirely 64-bit yet anyway. Is that 4mb cache a must-have. Is T5500 a decent compromise or a waste?

Thanks!

(this TP will be the first I've owned; the ones in my sig belong to work LOL)

Get a T60 with Integrated Graphics Chip (GMA). The T5500 is a fast processor, T7200 would be ideal if you intent do run Vista in the future and have snappier performance. 2GB for Vista are recommended.

xtr wrote:Get a T60 with Integrated Graphics Chip (GMA). The T5500 is a fast processor, T7200 would be ideal if you intent do run Vista in the future and have snappier performance. 2GB for Vista are recommended.

Agreed. I'd try to spring for the T7200 so that it will last you a while. I'd definitely steer clear of the older Core Duos at this point.

I say save the money. Only in CPU intensive tasks like video coding is where the extra oomph of the T7200 will really make a difference. For things like Office and Internet, the performance difference is marginal. 32 bit is going to be around for awhile. A lot of people don't upgrade unless there is a reason. I was just working on a old Dell with a PII. It did Office and Internet just fine albeit a little slow mostly due to the hard drive. Perhaps if you plan to keep for notebook for five years. I personally don't. Three is usually it for me.

As for the hard drive, I like 7200RPM drives a lot. I've upgraded my laptops to them since they became available despite being horrible expensive. It gives desktop like performance. I hate the lag associated with slower drives even more than the slower boot times. It's a value judgment with no wrong answer. You can get the 7200RPM after market for about the same price. Sell the old drive to offset the cost or get the modular drive for backups or whatnot.

Thanks for your input

Apparently Lenovo uses first gen 7200rpm Seagate drives. So the throughput of those isn't much more than the current 5400rpm drives

Average write transfer performance:
7200.1: 37.9 MB/s
5400.3: 34.5 MB/s

Average read transfer performance:
7200.1: 37.9 MB/s
5400.3: 34.6 MB/s

Maybe that's why the price difference narrowed on the lenovo site

Now you can get a 7200rpm 100gb for the same price as a 160gb 5400. I think I would save $40 and get the 120gb 5400. It supposedly runs cooler and quieter too.

As for the processor, I went for the bottom end C2D (1.67 ghz). Cheapest option.

xtr wrote:Get a T60 with Integrated Graphics Chip (GMA).

but IPS Flexview must be configured with dedicated graphics

I upgraded from a 5400 rpm to 7200 dirve in my z60t and saw very little performance increase. I would say thew same about the processor speed too and lenovo charges a premium for the top of the line processors which makes the machines expensive. The most important options are plenty of ram, and a DVD writer which enables you to make a full miror backup to DVD's using the included rescue & recovery program - really a lifesaver when your computer crashes or falls off a cliff - you still can recover with no worries.

The difference from a 7200 rpm drive really depends on what you do -- it makes a big difference when you are working with large multimedia files, whether photos, music or video. But for many other applications the difference is indeed relatively small.