The Z-series comparison (Picture warning!)

[wujstefan]

Hello fellow thinkpadders.

Tempted by a G41 to G50 comparison made by screamer here I'd like to follow up with a Z-thread. Not quite as rare as G50 for instance, but I just wanted to pop it out since I was planning that for 5-6 years and always found something to do extra to the stuff

Featuring (left to right):

Z60m 2529-FKG
CPU PM 760 - 2GHz
GPU ATI X600
RAM 2Gb DDR2
LCD 15,4" WSXGA+
HDD 120Gb SSD
OS Win XP preloaded
Battery No
Extras Titanium cover

Z60t 2513-29G
CPU P-M 2.0GHz
GPU Intel
RAM 2Gb DDR WXGA
LCD 14,1" 16:10
HDD 80Gb HDD
OS Win XP
Battery No
Extras Titanium cover

Z61M 9650-D6U
CPU T2600 / 2.16GHz
GPU ATI X1400
RAM 4Gb DDR2
LCD 15,4" SHARP WUXGA
HDD 120Gb SSD
OS Win XP preloaded
Battery O.K.
Extras Titanium cover

All pictures available here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... drive_link

[mikemex]

Nice retro post!

[dr_st]

Lovely collection! The Z series is so special. First widescreen Thinkpads, first generation with a Windows key and a webcam option. Beautiful curvy design. I used to find the silver Titanium cover strange and out of place, and briefly owned a normal cover Z61t. Now, though, I think that it's the Ti cover models that are special.

The worst thing about these series, especially the 14" "t" models is the batteries. Very short production run, so genuine batteries are unobtanium nowadays, and I'm not sure about the aftermarket options. The 15.4" models can at least take a 9-cell T/R/W battery.

The 14" Z**t suffered from a couple of design limitations. They are very compact in terms of height, but there were trade-offs because of the limited chassis space. The USB port placement was quite poor, with all 3 on one side, and 2 of them positioned in a way that wide USB connectors would block the adjacent port. There is only one expansion card slot and it was given away to CardBus - no ExpressCard support. Integrated graphics are the only option, and most of them don't even support DVI output (only late Z61t models do).

The 15"4 Z**m/p/e do not have these limits, but they are much bigger and heavier. They are more like R series rather than T series in construction. The Z61p was the first Thinkpad with stock WUXGA 1920x1200 screens. Pity they weren't IPS, but no one had IPS widescreens back in the day.

[wujstefan]

Lovely collection! The Z series is so special. First widescreen Thinkpads, first generation with a Windows key and a webcam option. Beautiful curvy design. I used to find the silver Titanium cover strange and out of place, and briefly owned a normal cover Z61t. Now, though, I think that it's the Ti cover models that are special.

Well thank you Hint: those titanium covers do accept powder coating and I do plan to powder coat at least one of them in either yellow, red or orange.

The 15"4 Z**m/p/e do not have these limits, but they are much bigger and heavier. They are more like R series rather than T series in construction. The Z61p was the first Thinkpad with stock WUXGA 1920x1200 screens. Pity they weren't IPS, but no one had IPS widescreens back in the day.

This particular UXGA is a SHARP unit from D810 - at some point RBS mentioned that D610 sharp screen could be supplemented to T60/T601 as a cheaper replacement, so I checked for possibility to get the WUXGA working in other system. Way better than any other WUXGA screen installed in any thinkpad. I'm a little upset I ran out of xiphmont LED sets so no possibility to mod this one anymore :/

AFAIR back those days the best 16:10 panels was either Dell M6400 RBG LED UWXGA (still TN panel, and 17" to that) or HP 8730w Dreamcolor Panel (RGB but TN). First IPS option came out for HP elitebook 8740w, but all of these were 17", and super-premium to that

[RowanBird779]

ooo! I quite like Z series myself and it's kinda become my specialty, they're just so cool, kinda hard to hate. I personally own a Z61m, with a T7200/X1400/WSXGA+, titanium lid of course. My only real issue with it is that the lid smudges super easily, it's irritating.

I see you put a 1920x1200 panel in yours? Interesting, what drove you to do that?

[wujstefan]

I see you put a 1920x1200 panel in yours? Interesting, what drove you to do that?

Well I had a Dell unit lying around with a far better panel than the stock one installed in my Z61. Add in some curiosity and voila!
The display quality difference is huge btw.

[ZaZ]

The Z series, particularly with the titanium lid, do look fantastic, but were prone to scratching. I put a visible one on the Z61m review unit I had from Lenovo for a month or so. I felt bad about it, but did not drop or abuse it. I wasn't sure how it came to be.

[solidpro]

Well I had a Dell unit lying around with a far better panel than the stock one installed in my Z61. Add in some curiosity and voila!
The display quality difference is huge btw.

What was the dell unit part number?

[wujstefan]

The Z series, particularly with the titanium lid, do look fantastic, but were prone to scratching. I put a visible one on the Z61m review unit I had from Lenovo for a month or so. I felt bad about it, but did not drop or abuse it. I wasn't sure how it came to be.

Well honestly I didn't observe that. And I do own these systems for quite a number of years.

What was the dell unit part number?

Uh... I can't recall it now really. Will check what HWinfo says after work.

[RealBlackStuff]

Most likely one of these Sharp LCDs, https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.p ... 37#p836937

[wujstefan]

Most likely one of these Sharp LCDs, https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.p ... 37#p836937

LQ154M1LW02 to be precise.