Thinkpads Forum

Not sure if this is the right place to post, but, has anyone had success finding these discontinued models reasonably priced anywhere? I spoke with a seller on Ebay who actually ADMITTED to purchasing other sellers items to hoard them for later resale. I am trying to find a configuration with the WUXGA monitor, color sensor, and digitizer tablet for less than what I've been seeing on Ebay. When I google the models I'm looking for, I see expired selling prices around $1400 on Overstock and other places, but, I can't seem to locate one (even refurbished) at that price. I need a 17" monitor and don't want Dell or HP (personal preference.) I've even considered looking overseas, but, I don't know what problems that will open up, either in shipping, keyboard issues, operating system issues, etc. Does anyone have any advice? I'm really frustrated now, and am looking for GOOD ideas. Thanks!

yips... end of line for DS models are RARE....
I have mine - packed away in factory shipped box and so far used in total of 3-4 hrs since arrrving - all of which is spent @ doing" SYSTEM UPDATES and Windows Updates" (SP1 is major it got to 3-4 hrs by now)....
Sorry not ready to sell mine as of yet & certinaly wont be $1400......

Try Lenovo Outlet Store , good luck
Cheers

Hoarding of the W700/W701 line is a pretty dicey biz, imo. These things have depreciated like a rock in the past few months. Anything other than top line quad core is tough to get more than $1000 for in the W700 line, and I suspect the W701 stuff will soon crater as well. Hardly a profit making endeavor. The higher priced units on ebay are -not- selling(at least for starting bids; may be that sellers do deals on the side).

That said, the DS model is scarcer. However, there's no demand for DS either, so any way you read it, I don't see much here.

Ebay & stuff left in the pipeline is all I know about; other sources, who knows.

I've bought quite a few thinkpads off of ebay over many years, and as long as you're picky in what you buy, I don't see a problem there.

As more and more of the heavy lifting work shifts to the W520 line, W70x is probably gonna fade into the background. There's just not enough to distinguish it anymore.

Too bad, as I like the expandability aspect of the W70x, and some people like the DS angle.

G'Day AmA*.... back from India i c ?
Yip , my W7xxds Quads+ raid = purely ONE OF A KIND!
and for personal 'collection' and reselling is way way in future!.....

The W7Xxds = same way now as was OTHER NEW LINEs & or DESIGNS released by IBM. W7xxds = last iast of the "OLD IBM" designs....and purely from nostalgia am choosing to keep it in storage!

Hope ya sorted out the Multi-screen + Xenon issues ?

Cheers mate

ausmike wrote:G'Day AmA*.... back from India i c ?
Yip , my W7xxds Quads+ raid = purely ONE OF A KIND!
and for personal 'collection' and reselling is way way in future!.....

The W7Xxds = same way now as was OTHER NEW LINEs & or DESIGNS released by IBM. W7xxds = last iast of the "OLD IBM" designs....and purely from nostalgia am choosing to keep it in storage!

Hope ya sorted out the Multi-screen + Xenon issues ?

Cheers mate

I suspect the demand for your one-of-a-kind, gold plated, sub-zero cooled, filtered electron powered, Rabbi/Pope blessed DS laptops is pretty thin, my man...

In -this- thread, we're discussing real world goodies, NOT fantasy items...

And, yes, when the dust settled, I managed to make my multi-monitor, ram powered, cpu starved setup work...on a STOCK quad-core W700, of all things... Had to do a LOT of tweaking, try many chunks of software, but got it working.

And, am saving the pennies to buy some 8G sticks we discussed some time ago. Real world pricing now:

http://www.memory4less.com/m4l_itemdeta ... G73BH0-CF8

I'm able to get by now with 8G on the W700, but if I could cram it up to a total of 16G, I could do most of my processing on a Ramdrive vs. some of it going to a scratch SSD now.

LOL ..LOL
FYI...... those "sticks" costs me NOTHING !!! NOR DID the FRIST OF INTEL's SSDs (RAID)..... and thus the intel VT tech worked NICELY during Beta testing for "intel" ,,,,, thus that laptop will STAY BOXED up ..... like my other "FIRST OFF" Thinkpad 700 series designed by Tom Hardy.... which I bought for $2000 at that time is now worth 10x that (and STILL NOT FOR SALE!!!) ,,,,,,
So in short , it goes towards my collections of laptops and cars .............. works for me !!

Easter3 wrote:I need a 17" monitor and don't want Dell or HP (personal preference.)

For 17.0" 1920x1200 business laptops, the Dell Precisions and the HP EliteBooks are/were fantastic and have dominated the business market for several years, and I believe they were one of the reasons why the W70* Thinkpads sold so poorly. The refurbished ones on the Dell Outlet Business site have good prices and come with 3-year warranty. Right now, there is a 15% coupon for Precisions on the Dell Outlet: http://dealsea.com/view-deal/50660 .

I would be interested as well. I like the numeric keypad and 16GB RAM (and SSD) options. I almost pulled the trigger when they were on clearance on their web site but expected a better model around the corner. This time it bit me...

Lol@ monkey*;
..seems LOTS of pple who choose dell/HP are paying the 'price' ....sorry
Keep an eye open for ya @ outlet store ....will pm ya when I have one on reserve!
Cheers

I am sure the Dells and HPs are decent machines, but it is hard to go to another brand after having a ThinkPad and gotten used to their keyboard, hinges, etc. At the time I thought I might jump ship when the were bought by the Chinese but they are surprisingly still making decent products. Last one is an X61 so the W701ds would be on the other end of the spectrum but this would be for virtualization and lab testing. I think it would be a good machine for that.

ausmike wrote:..seems LOTS of pple who choose dell/HP are paying the 'price' ....sorry

As much as I like Dell (and a few HP) laptops, I have to admit Thinkpads have better quality and reliability, but only slightly. In fact, most laptop brands don't differ that much in terms of customer satisfaction -- take a look at the survey published by PC Magazine just last week:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2384243,00.asp

As you can see, while Apple, Samsung, Alienware (which is made by Dell), Asus and Sony do stand out, the other brands' scores cluster very close together. Lenovo is 7.8, HP 7.7, and Dell 7.6.

Gosh, I ordered my W701DS and it immediately disappeared from the lenovo website. It must have been one of the last W701DS models to be shipped. I'm sure it's a great computer, but I have yet to get used to the wide gamut color that seems so oversaturated. I ordered it because I wanted the 17" laptop screen, plus 1920 x 1200 resolution. I also wanted something beefier than standard consumer models; but it hasn't been as user-friendly as I'm used to. Or maybe I'm just not as savvy as I thought I was.

Jill

Hi Jill;
glad you got that DS model; they tuff to get % to MAKE!! I guess thats why Lenovo kinda dropped it after a 6-9mths of mfg. W701 DS will be an ICOn for long time - only laptop with DUAL SCREEN built from factory!
As far as getting used to - YES it does take a while if you NOT USED to the RED BUTTON <lol> ..... wish you happy days !

Enjoy ... Cheers

I've pretty much decided to sell my w701ds. It's still practically brand new (received it February 2011), but haven't I never logged much time on it because I couldn't get used to the wide gamut display. I just kept using my old Dell laptop instead. I admit that the w701ds has lots of great features, like the dual screen and the digitizer, plus I ordered it with all the bells, whistles and upgrades. Unfortunately, it was just the wrong computer for my needs. Jill

To Jill pqtex
If you are ready to sell I am interested in buying
I have a W701DS and love that thing
Put in thousands of hours on it and then the main screen died
I found a replacement screen, just waiting for it to come in
But now ready to buy a backup
Whats your asking price?

Not to disillusion you, but you are replying to a post from 5 years ago...
I doubt very much that the machine is still available.
Also, pqtex hasn't been on the forum in 5 years either.

Don't be disillusioned.... I have one I am looking at selling..

RealBlackStuff wrote:Not to disillusion you, but you are replying to a post from 5 years ago...
I doubt very much that the machine is still available.
Also, pqtex hasn't been on the forum in 5 years either.

Ha Ha! I'm back. I kept the W701ds and did indeed get used to it. It has been a great computer, although through my own fault I damaged the keyboard and the space bar no longer works. I just added a wireless keyboard and plodded on. I stop in the forum now and again when I have a problem and just now saw this thread. I'll be searching the forum for some help on some fixes as my computer crashed the other day and I had to use the Thinkvantage blue button to do a quick restore.

Jill

I have gave up on trying to sell my W700 Funny how people here are hunting them out.

pqtex wrote:

RealBlackStuff wrote:Not to disillusion you, but you are replying to a post from 5 years ago...
I doubt very much that the machine is still available.
Also, pqtex hasn't been on the forum in 5 years either.

Ha Ha! I'm back. I kept the W701ds and did indeed get used to it. It has been a great computer, although through my own fault I damaged the keyboard and the space bar no longer works. I just added a wireless keyboard and plodded on. I stop in the forum now and again when I have a problem and just now saw this thread. I'll be searching the forum for some help on some fixes as my computer crashed the other day and I had to use the Thinkvantage blue button to do a quick restore.

Jill

The W700 & W701 use the same keyboard as the T60, T61 and W500. A replacement costs around $20-30 and involves removing 5 screws to replace. Around a 10 minute job at most.

The W701ds sells for quite a bit these days but the non ds models don't seem to sell for much more than $300-400. There have been a few lingering on eBay for quite a while listed at between $250-300. Anyone who was hoarding them was not making a particularly good investment. It took several months to sell my spare W700 which came with Windows 7, dock and power adapter and had the digitizer palmrest.

Still a great machine to use as a terminal if you use a networking window system (i.e., X)

MisterB wrote:
The W700 & W701 use the same keyboard as the T60, T61 and W500. A replacement costs around $20-30 and involves removing 5 screws to replace. Around a 10 minute job at most.

The W701ds sells for quite a bit these days but the non ds models don't seem to sell for much more than $300-400. There have been a few lingering on eBay for quite a while listed at between $250-300. Anyone who was hoarding them was not making a particularly good investment. It took several months to sell my spare W700 which came with Windows 7, dock and power adapter and had the digitizer palmrest.

Thanks for the info on the keyboard. I tried to remove the keyboard before but didn't figure it out. I must have been overthinking it.

After I read your post, I looked at completed sales on ebay and I'm quite surprised by the selling prices. I didn't expect the resale value to be so high, even the lowest ones.