Getting rid of the T500 1650 x 1080 laptop and going back to the T60, still hoping on the T520

[fefrie]

Got a T500 with 8gb of Ram for $125 while I was waiting on a replacement CCFL.

Windows 7 was a bit meh for me.

It's like a clunky version of W8.1, and on the T60, I have the T60 customized to work exactly as I want it to.

The T500 8gb was nicer, it surfed a smidge faster than the T60, a smidge faster in everything, but not that amazingly better. The T60 did have a SSD, but I did put chrome on a 1gb ramdrive and while it did speed up surfing, it wasn't THAT much faster. It also ran hotter.

W7 on it felt clunky. Not sure why. Maybe because it was a stock install without actual restore discs, so no specific Lenovo drivers were installed.

I was thinking of keeping it and replacing the other T60 I have (XGA) as a torrent server/bulk encoding machine, but the final straw came in when on ethernet, it's max internet/LAN speed was 10mbps. A restart would fix it, or maybe it was the router, or maybe the cable, but it always had ethernet issues. I play Battlefield 1942, a 15 year old game and the T60 was perfect, and the T500, just not that great.

So I'm mourning letting the nice screen go. I don't like wide screen, but the 16:10 format is the one that I would want. The T520 19:10 just seems too wide. 16:10 was wide enough already. Working on it for multi tasking was good, but for plain old web browsing, it was just a lot of wasted space. It was like watching a tennis match.

So one day I hope T520's hit the Sub $150 price with sufficient memory, until then I'm happy with my T60.

[Utwig]

You can use Lenovo System update which will bring up a lot of original functionality. Usually when rolling out new system at work (I roll out 5-10 systems a year which differ) I install latest Windows from USB and remove preloaded apps settings, then on Thinkpads I install System update.

The T510/520 don't have IPS option. There was a big hole between T60p and current Thinkpads in screen quality, where IPS and hi-res (1200 vertical) disappeared, then showed up on high end models in xx40 and only got to mainstream models with xx60 -ish.

[TPFanatic]

While they didn't have IPS options ta the time there are 15.6" LVDS IPS screens from other laptops you can put in the T510/T520, some by LG and AUO.

[CrazyTPFan]

If you want a T520 for super cheap that needs some work, I found one on ebay for $49.95 without a keyboard and in good cosmetic condition.