T61 first ten days - observations

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larsv · #1 Post by **larsv** » Wed May 30, 2007 2:35 am

Thought I'd share a few impressions, in random order:

NVidia graphics driver for the 140M crashes now and then, mostly when running the video "Dreamscene" background under Vista Ultimate. I'm looking forward to more stable driver.

Active Protection System driver crashes hard when machine is tilted, BSOD and reboot.

Most solidly built laptop I ever had.

Keyboard, trackpad, trackpoint are all great. I wish I could reprogram arrow keys to do PgUp/PgDn/Home/End with Fn key since I am used to that.

This computer is wickedly fast! but Vista is a dog...

I have yet to see any benefits with Robson (turbo memory).

Battery life around 3 hours in real use (6-cell).

Fan is incredibly silent!!! it just blows warm air, no fan sound whatsover, just a quiet whooooosh. Impressive!

Screen (WXGA+ LG Philips) is ok but not impressive. Horizontal view angles are OK, vertical are a bit narrow. I find myself correctling the angle of the screen much more than on my two previous laptops (Sony Vaio A190, Fujitsu P7110).

I measured the display with my Gretag-Macbeth EyeOne. Max brightness landed at 206 cd/m2. This is OK in most conditions but slightly low in a sunlit room with bright walls. The display has slight reflective properties - you can read text in direct sunlight but like most displays it is not really possible to work in sunlight.

Dmax was pretty bad, 1.4 cd/m2 gives a contrast range of 150:1. My sony had Dmin at 350 cd/m2 and Dmax at 0.5 cd/m2 so 700:1 (but gamut was crappy).

Recovery discs: I had to call Lenovo to find out if the recovery discs I made actually contained Vista or not. They did, so I could safely wipe the entire drive and do a clean install.

When I got the T61 with the preinstalled Vista Business it had 95-100 processes running after boot. Now I'm down to 55-60 after boot.

I hope there will be more XP drivers available soon, my first few days with Vista have been a bit traumatic.

meditate2001 · #2 Post by **meditate2001** » Wed May 30, 2007 5:49 am

thanks for sharing !

<<Fan is incredibly silent!!! it just blows warm air, no fan sound whatsover, just a quiet whooooosh. Impressive!

wow, this is awesome news ! finally !

so how is the mysterious nvidia card now ? how fast ? done any benchmarks ???

cshbc · #3 Post by **cshbc** » Wed May 30, 2007 6:57 am

Thanks for the review! Anxiously awaiting mine! C'mon AUGUST! lol

Dead1nside · #4 Post by **Dead1nside** » Wed May 30, 2007 10:43 am

I think more stable drivers will just take time, Lenovo have been updating their Windows XP ones for so long now. It will surely take them some time to familiarise with Vista, and add more features etc.

Battery life sounds reasonable to be honest. The build quality also sounds very pleasing. However, the screen still sounds like a bit of a let down.

I'd need to try before I buy.

Thanks for your impressions.

jd1010 · #5 Post by **jd1010** » Wed May 30, 2007 10:50 am

You clean installed xp on your laptop? What exactly happens with the turbo memory when you do that? I ordered the turbo memory too and was gonna clean install with xp if I didn't like vista. I was a little concerned about what would happen and if the turbo memory would cause problems with xp running.

agarza · #6 Post by **agarza** » Wed May 30, 2007 11:27 am

Another positive review on the T61. Seems the main problem is the drivers for Vista. I'd like to get a T61 in the future but would need someone to buy for me since I do not live in the US

I liked the fact the fan is very silent, my T43p fan installed on my T42p is pulsating and drives me nuts.

Rose · #7 Post by **Rose** » Wed May 30, 2007 12:57 pm

xtr wrote:
I liked the fact the fan is very silent, my T43p fan installed on my T42p is pulsating and drives me nuts.

for what reason did you do that?. I have both a T41p, T42p and T43p and the T43 is a whole lot louder than the previous ones.

agarza · #8 Post by **agarza** » Wed May 30, 2007 2:51 pm

Rose wrote: for what reason did you do that?. I have both a T41p, T42p and T43p and the T43 is a whole lot louder than the previous ones.

Well, it's a long history: My laptop came with the short fan, so when I started to play NFS Most Wanted, the screen went blank, so I though there was something wrong with the laptop (I had no idea there was a LONG assembly fan). So, I called the person who sold me the laptop (a former IBM employee) and explained to her the problem. In 2 days this person's brother came to my house and did the fan exchange (he also carried a replacement motherboard just in case). I don't remember my new fan FRU, but it's the M10, the FRU starts with 26R.... something.

You sure the T41/T42p fans are silent than the T43 uses?

larsv · #9 Post by **larsv** » Wed May 30, 2007 4:44 pm

Nvidia performance: I ran 3dmark05 and 3dmark06 on XP and Vista, got the following scores:
Vista: 3179/1592 (Quadro driver that came with the preinstall)
XP: 3461/1830 (Forceware beta driver 160.02)

Re my screen comments, keep in mind that my two previous laptops were selected primarily for screen quality. My T61 was selected for performance and price. My T61 has a screen that I feel is average but not stellar.

Turbo memory and XP: There are no drivers available for XP. All you get is "Cannot install hardware" at startup. Potentially a driver could allow it to be used as a fast RAM-disk.

Thinkpad Man · #10 Post by **Thinkpad Man** » Wed May 30, 2007 6:30 pm

Thanks for the review...

agarza · #11 Post by **agarza** » Wed May 30, 2007 10:25 pm

T42p 128MB FireGL T2 3DMark05 Benchmark Results:
1260 3DMarks
3059 CPUMarks

Wow 3461 vs 1260! T61p GFX should be even more powerful

Dead1nside · #12 Post by **Dead1nside** » Wed May 30, 2007 10:48 pm

Thanks for that xtr, I can guess that my T41p would maybe be a hundred or so under that. Gives a good reference. Looks like the Quadro 140M on the T61s beats easily the Fire Gl T2

T61 first ten days - observations

T61 first ten days - observations

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