Should I buy my friend a T61? Poll/answer :)

[iamdmc]

My friend's bag was recently stolen - horrible news, I know. It was the one day she brought her big hp 15" media center laptop to University, as well as her glasses, and a host of other things.

The GOOD news is that insurance covers that loss!!! She gets everything new, including a laptop up to (and including) $2000 covered by the insurance policy.

Now, as a Thinkpad user (/lover), I'm letting her know about the Thinkpad option as opposed to the Dell M1330/M1530 option.
She's big on the built-in optical drive, and she's not as much for shiny as she was - she's pragmatic and wants something reliable.

My question is this: Is the T61 a good choice? Specifically, would the T61p be a better choice? I can get it off of eBay with a 3 year warranty for less than $2000, and that sounds good to me.

I'm also wondering when Lenovo will be releasing the T70/T400/T500 series notebooks with Intel's 45nm Penryn core - should I wait to get a new Thinkpad?

She likes my X61s, but I feel like the screen would be too small for her, and she prefers to use the touchpad. She was interested in tablets (Specifically the Dell tablet, the X61T, and some junk by Toshiba) but after having a talk with her about reliability, sensitivity, and battery life, she opted away from that...

ANY INPUT WILL BE GREATLY APPRECIATED!

[Padhead]

I would have her go to a local reseller to get a look for herself.

Here is the list of resellers:

http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/cont ... er_locator.

And of course, if buying a newer machine then go to the Lenovo website for specials.

[iamdmc]

Anyone else?

And should we wait for the 45nm Penryn cores to be included or just go for it now?

[Padhead]

There's always new chipsets and processors coming out. You know the drill, you will have to wait and then pay a big premium for the latest greatest, etc. It never ends.

The Penryn release is just the latest rendition of Moore's law. If you need a PC now, get one now. I'd go with a C2D 2.0GHz processor, 800MHz front-side bus and 4MB L2.

The key is that she tries the keyboard, screen etc. before you buy it.