Thinkpads Forum

I currently have a T61 with: 14.1" WXGA+, 2.0ghz C2D, 4gb RAM, 160gb 5400rpm, NVS 140m graphics, DVDRW, Turbo Memory 1gb, 4695AGN, Bluetooth, 6 cell battery. I get around 3hrs Max with this setup.

I'm thinking of upgrading to T61 with same specs but change: 2.5ghz T9300, 3gb RAM (4gb useless in 32 bit vista), integrated graphics, integrated webcam, no turbo memory, 7200rpm HD

I know the HD and processor (when under max usage) will decrease battery life, but will the integrated graphics card offset this decrease and hopefully increase total battery life? The processor can easily be throttled to a lower % of max usage under battery profile, so this may not matter as much as the faster HD batt decrease vs. slower graphics batt increase.

Is the integrated graphics much worse than the NVS 140M? I use the VGA port to hookup my 32" LCD tv to watch movies in 1360x768 (extended display), and I edit photos often, but never play games or edit video.

I realize the 7cell and ultrabay batter also increase battery life, but I want to keep the battery variable constant and focus on other hardware

Any thoughts much appreciated, thanks!

Integrated graphics should increase your battery life by at least an hour. At such low resolutions performance doesn't really matter.
7200rpm drives consume more power than 5400rpm.
Turbo memory should help to save power, but test aren't really conclusive. With 3-4GB RAM you can probably skip that.
Bigger batteries always result in more battery life, this would be your best take. There are 9 cell batteries also available. This should get you at least 6 hours on light use.

If you really want battery life, you should go for X series.

The faster harddisk will only marginally increase the powerconsumption as will the processor. You probably won't use the processor on max all the time and even if you do, the new Penryns have the same TDP of 35W as the previouse Meroms had.

But the integrated graphics will most certainly give you a big boost in batterylife. Discrete graphics still consume too much power for a notebook and if you read the official specs from Lenovo you will see differences of one hour and more when switching from discrete graphics to integrated.

If you are not a gamer and batterylife is important to you I would definitely consider the switch. The advantages of discrete graphics are mostly 3D performance and video decode acceleration. Display output quality should be at the same lever for both. But are you so unhappy with your current batterlylife to consider upgrading your 'new' T61?

thanks, just what I needed to know. Current battery life is pretty poor for what I was expecting from a T series. I used to had a T42p that got close to 6hrs even with the discrete graphics, hence the disappointment. I will be getting the widescreen model so I can only use upto a 7 cell battery, which won't make too much difference over the 6cell I'm assuming.

Are any big changes going to be coming out before the endof the summer to the T61 line? I will be starting medical school and if changes are expected, I can wait till summer's end before the "upgrade."

Thanks again!

I have noticed the same thing as you did. My T61 has a 9-cell battery but even 5 hours is very difficult to achieve by turning everything off and down to the minimum. My old T41 could achieve 4 hours at max with just a 6 cell battery, which is only one hour less.
Actually there seems to be even a 9 cell battery for the widescreen T61 according to this topic but it sticks out too much and is plain ugly. Considering the fact that the nVidia chip is a major energy consumer I think that switching to Intel graphics would give a comparable boost.

To back this up I checked the specs in the Lenovo Tabook:

• T61 14W nVidia 4 cell: 2.5 hr 6 cell: 3.8 hr
  T61 14W Intel 4 cell: 3.6 hr 6 cell: 5.7 hr
  T61 14 nvidia 6 cell: 4.0 hr 9 cell: 6.0 hr
  T61 14 Intel 6 cell: 5.7 hr 9 cell: 8.6 hr

Although the widescreen and standard versions are not completely comparable you can tell that going from what you have to integrated graphics will let you go from 3.8 hr to 5.7 hr. Just buying a 9 cell would let you go from 3.8 hr to 6.0 hr and the 7 cell will give you even less. Judging by this going for integrated graphics makes perfectly sense. Just don't forget these are official specs and real life numbers will be less, depending on your usage.

For the future. Intel is releasing its Montevina platform this summer. So there might be a T62 coming soon. If so, it would be great if Lenovo could implement the new Geforce 9M series in it. It supports hybrid SLI so you can switch between the integrated graphics and the nVidia graphics to have the best of both worlds. Since there has been no announcement yet let alone a releasedate, there is no way to tell if you should wait or not. But considering the fact your notebook is recently new it might be worth it.

wow awesome, thanks for the reply!

Do you all think there will be another 35% off sale before August? This is my biggest concern.