T60p newbie: IPS vs Flexview - 5200 vs 5250

[Worzyl]

I've been searching on these forums for a good week and there are q few questions that I couldn't find the answers to. I would be extremely happy if they could be laid to rest:)

1) Are IPS and Flexview the same thing?
2) Do ALL T60p 1600 x 1200 UXGA, come with IPS and Flexview?
3) Are ALL T60p Rev 3 motherboards? (Were there Rev 1 and 2 in existence?)
4) What is the difference between a ATI MOBILITY FireGL V5200 and a ATI MOBILITY FireGL V5250 and how noticeable are these differences?

I'm currently using a Toshiba Satellite A30 and I make my living as an animator and an illustrator (high res and pixelart). I'm really at my tether with my current screen when doing illustrations because of the angle viewing and colours. But I can't really go for the widescreen laptops as the toolbars and layout area start looking a bit to squashed if I have to use 3DS Max (I can't deal with all that zooming/scrolling buisness!). I always use my desktop for animation work if the job is large and heavy, but sometimes if I'm away a small job may come up where I will have to use a laptop.

I really want to invest in a T60p as it seems like the right laptop for my uses. (I don't do gaming on my laptop).

Thanks:)

[dr_st]

1) IPS is the LCD manufacturing technology, which offers better color depth and wider viewing angles.

Flexview is the brand name Lenovo used to use for their IPS screen.

2) Yes

3) Everybody mentioned that you need a Rev3, but I've never seen anything but Rev3, on any T60/T60p.

4) V5250 is slightly faster (X1700-based vs X1600-based), but according to what I've heard, tends to run a bit hotter, and also according to what I've heard, a bit less compatible in terms of available drivers and tweaks. But this should be more an issue with people trying to use it for games, and not for people actually using it as a CAD tool.

[Worzyl]

Thank you so much for the answers:)

I had a feeling that IPS and flexview were the same thing but I just needed to be sure.

Regarding the graphics card - it sounds like it maybe best to get a 5200 with a T7400, rather than the 5250 and T7600 that I had in mind. I wouldn't want the laptop cutting out on me due to heat while working. (I've had enough of that with my Toshiba Satellite which is balancing on a set of vhs cassette tapes as we speak - 12 cm of gap underneath, and it still has the odd brutal shutdown:/)

[RealBlackStuff]

Once you have your T60p, you can give your Satellite a flying lesson. Out the Windows...

Keep an eye on our Market Forum, there are several T60p for sale right now, but none (yet) with UXGA.
Or post a Want To Buy (WTB) ad there.
Or, as the 15" 4:3 are getting rare, get one of those SXGA+ versions and get a separate UXGA LCD, if all else fails.

[Worzyl]

Once you have your T60p, you can give your Satellite a flying lesson. Out the Windows...

Keep an eye on our Market Forum, there are several T60p for sale right now, but none (yet) with UXGA.
Or post a Want To Buy (WTB) ad there.
Or, as the 15" 4:3 are getting rare, get one of those SXGA+ versions and get a separate UXGA LCD, if all else fails.

Heh heh!! My friend just left a few minutes ago and wasn't to sure about the upgrade (being an older Thinkpad) until he saw that my Satellite is only a pentium 4, intel based 64MB graphics card, 512MB of ram and a 40GB harddrive!! But it's being doing very well for my animation jobs (probably due to the fact that I don't have to light and render anything - I just make the characters move:))

[LegendaryKA8]

I'm going to say to personally hold out for a UXGA Flexview if you have the time and patience to do so. Going from a T42 with an SXGA+ Flexview was a night and day difference. The screen is bright enough for my needs, extremely vibrant, and overall a very, very nice viewing experience. I like having a lot of screen real estate, and in my opinion this is one of the nicest 4:3 notebook LCDs you can get with fairly modern hardware.

Compared to your P4-based Satellite, it will run much cooler at idle. Load temps on these machines can be a little high, but my idle temps are reasonable. Other nice features you might appreciate are the ability to go up to 3GB of RAM and a maximum of a 500GB HDD... or a SSD if you prefer to go that route.

While these are slightly older systems, I think they're about the best ones you can get with the 4:3 form factor screens.

[Worzyl]

Yup! I definitely want a UXGA screen for this laptop. I´m currently in Peru at the moment (got here on saturday) and believe me - I was so close to chucking that breeze block of a laptop out of the airplane window! The weight is killing me!
I´ll check and do a search on the forums and investigate more on SSD hardives. I read somewhere that the t60p is unable to take full advantage of the capabilites of the drives, but I´ll delve deeper and see.

Thank you guys for the comments and suggestions:)

[Troels]

Hehe... I really remember people carrying around these noisy, hot and heavy P4-M laptops, which costed a ton of money - times have really changed, ey?

Currently, i'd only really recommend looking into SSD if you need the speed and not the amount of storage. Alright, you have survived with 40 GB this far it seems, so a 64 GB or 80 GB might be excellent for you.
The T60 series is limited by the SATA-I speed of 1.5 GBits/s (including overhead) which limits the transfer rates of sequential data for SSDs... this is not really an important measure alone, although it seems to be a figure which is presented in many benchmarks. What is also (more) important are the random reads, which occurs most often. This is where the great difference between SSDs and HDDs lie, due to the differences in seek time. No matter if you have SATA-I or -II this should create a perceiveable amount of difference.

By the way, Peru - sounds nice!

[Worzyl]

Hehe... I really remember people carrying around these noisy, hot and heavy P4-M laptops, which costed a ton of money - times have really changed, ey?

Currently, i'd only really recommend looking into SSD if you need the speed and not the amount of storage. Alright, you have survived with 40 GB this far it seems, so a 64 GB or 80 GB might be excellent for you.
The T60 series is limited by the SATA-I speed of 1.5 GBits/s (including overhead) which limits the transfer rates of sequential data for SSDs... this is not really an important measure alone, although it seems to be a figure which is presented in many benchmarks. What is also (more) important are the random reads, which occurs most often. This is where the great difference between SSDs and HDDs lie, due to the differences in seek time. No matter if you have SATA-I or -II this should create a perceiveable amount of difference.

By the way, Peru - sounds nice!

Ahhh...thanks for the info. I also read about the lastability of the drives which seem to downgrade severly unlike the HDD, so I`ll stick with a HDD for now.
I managed to get a 1600 x 1200 t60p off ebay. Only 1GB of ram with a soon to be expired warranty (can I get this renewed after it has expired?). It cost me £520. I`m not to sure how much the prices are on these, but seeing as my Satellite was £650 second hand (2004), I think it seems reasonable.

Peru is pretty cool but the drivers are insane! Will also be doing Picchu next week:)

Edit: Those T7400 processors are pretty expensive

[AvalonXIII]

Ahhh...thanks for the info. I also read about the lastability of the drives which seem to downgrade severly unlike the HDD, so I`ll stick with a HDD for now.
I managed to get a 1600 x 1200 t60p off ebay. Only 1GB of ram with a soon to be expired warranty (can I get this renewed after it has expired?). It cost me £520. I`m not to sure how much the prices are on these, but seeing as my Satellite was £650 second hand (2004), I think it seems reasonable.

Peru is pretty cool but the drivers are insane! Will also be doing Picchu next week:)

Edit: Those T7400 processors are pretty expensive

SSD's performance degradation issue is horribly exaggerated. I can guarantee you, even a completely filled SSD will outperform a HDD, provided that you pick a really good and stable SSD (Samsung and Intel SSD comes to mind)
T7400 is indeed expensive. T7200, however, will provide the best performance to price ratio for a CPU upgrade in T60p.

[Worzyl]

AvalonXIII: Thanks. Just had a look at the OCZ Vertex SSD. I`ll check out the Samsungs.

As this laptop is going to be specifically for my job, I`ts just common sense to go out full wack as I have a specific need as an animator and artist. Think I will therefore go for the T7600 and stick in an extra 2GB of Ram bringing it up to 3GB. I need this laptop to last as long as possible. Looked up the info regarding renewing a warranty that has already expired and I think it`s possible.

I´ll get the SSD at a later date.

Not to sure whether I paid too much for this laptop, but I´m very excited at putting it to use

[Temetka]

That sounds like a killer laptop you got yourself. The 7600 is an awesome CPU and with it being coupled with a great graphics chip will mean you can do things on the Thinkpad that your Toshiba could only dream about.

I'm on an XGA display and your UXGA sounds positively perfect.

May she serve you well.