T23 performance both as a laptop and a DVD player

[tandyhx89]

Hi,
Just wondering if anyone can give me first-hand feedback on the performance of the T23. I am contemplating purchasing one soon and was hoping for some good feedback to help my decision.

My questions are:

1) How well is the DVD quality is when playing a DVD movie on the T23?

2) What is the cost of a replacement battery?

3) How well does it perform even though it is a "slower" machine by today's standards?

4) Where is the most reliable source to purchase a T23 from, in excellent condition at a very good price as well (I would appreciate having a blemish-free monitor screen).

Thank you

[BillMorrow]

Hi,
Just wondering if anyone can give me first-hand feedback on the performance of the T23. I am contemplating purchasing one soon and was hoping for some good feedback to help my decision.

My questions are:

1) How well is the DVD quality is when playing a DVD movie on the T23?

2) What is the cost of a replacement battery?

3) How well does it perform even though it is a "slower" machine by today's standards?

4) Where is the most reliable source to purchase a T23 from, in excellent condition at a very good price as well (I would appreciate having a blemish-free monitor screen).

Thank you

i tend to be a bit parsimonious with words in my replies..
so here goes..
1. what do you mean, quality of picture? depends upon display you get.. quality of playback? should be adequate to play a movie "shudder" or "skip" free..

2. depends.. you get what you pay for.. IMO buy one from ibm (or lenovo)..

3. subjective question, be more specific and say what you will be using it for..

4. everyone wants a free lunch.. very rare.. again, you get what you pay for..
and SOMETIMES you pay for it and don't get it..
don't try to "cheap out" as you might lose in the long run..

[aabram]

3) How well does it perform even though it is a "slower" machine by today's standards?

Depends what you want to use it for. It has plenty of power for regular office work and web-browsing and windows runs at decent speed, at least when you get 1GHz+ model. Throw in 512M of RAM or more and you're all set. Perhaps change harddrive for a faster one in the future and buy a second battery and it should last for a while, especially if you get 1400x1050 screen. I had one for a while and swapped it out not because of its slowness but because I needed a smaller X model.

[mysbca]

4) reliable source - IBM certified used equipment (7 day money back guarantee):
http://www-132.ibm.com/webapp/wcs/store ... Id=2576396

[tandyhx89]

Hi..
Thanks for feedback so far!

Sorry some of my original qustions were a little vague, so let me re-phrase...

1) Regarding the DVD player feature, I am looking for DVD Playback quality like from a regular DVD player or a portable DVD player where the video is smooth and not choppy, or any sputtering or skipping.


2) I currently use my Compaq (350 MHZ) when it comes to using basic Windows applications while I am away.

I travel fairly frequently and also bring it on my vacations--and I would use the T23 for entertainment purposes (DVD Player mainly) or to surf the internet (via modem is OK as this is what I do with my Compac now).

Can I expect to see a marked improvement in performance/speed if I buy a T23 since it is about 3x faster (1.13 GHz if I recall correctly for the T23)?

The T23 seems to be a reliable machine--for the approximately $400 pricetag I have seen them sell for lately.

Will look forward to additional feedback and thanks again in advance for your advice

[aabram]

I travel fairly frequently and also bring it on my vacations--and I would use the T23 for entertainment purposes (DVD Player mainly) or to surf the internet (via modem is OK as this is what I do with my Compac now).

For frequent travel you might consider lighter X-series instead, if you carry it with you all day long or if you're a backpacker. It doesn't have built-in optical drive though.

Can I expect to see a marked improvement in performance/speed if I buy a T23 since it is about 3x faster (1.13 GHz if I recall correctly for the T23)?

Speed improvement is huge though you can't compare processor speeds and percieved application speeds quite linearily. For most of us the speed increase above, say, 1-1.2GHz have rapidly dimishing returns but in your case, yes, the speed increas is very much worth it. There are multiple speed T23 models (see overview) so get the fastest one while you're at it.

[Thinker]

I don't quite understand why when someone asks about the T23 performance, everybody says that it is a good machine to do web surfing and email and office applications. The truth is that the T23 is a very good performing machine (with some caveats).

I have used my T23 to run much more than office apps and web browsers. I have used it to run a soft sampler and Sonar 3 XL simultaneously with no problems and good performance. I have used it to run Adobe After Effects (performance is not great, but you can work on it with no problem).
What I mean is that if you put a fast drive and lots of RAM (I have a 60 Gb 5400 HD and 1 Gb of RAM on mine now), your T23 will be a very capable machine. As a matter of fact, I now have a T42 with a 1.8 Ghz CPU, and while it is faster, it is only about 1.7 times faster (rough estimation).

The first caveat is that the T23's graphics system is rather obsolete (S3 SuperSavage with 16MB of memory), so if you plan on running 3D apps you need a different laptop (or better yet, build yourself a small factor desktop). I have managed to play GTA3 on it, but it was a painfully slow experience and I quit after 15 minutes.
The second (potential) caveat is that the T23 doesn't have integrated USB 2 ports, but USB 1 (or 1.1 if I remember correctly). This is no problem for me, as I use PCMCIA USB 2 and Firewire cards, which right now are dirt cheap.

Bottom line is that the T23 is a great machine, perhaps one of the best within historical context released by IBM (I keep hearing that the 600 was even better, but I never used one). It still kicks butt today as long as you don't ask for graphics performance. But it is much, much more than a machine to run office applications and web browsers on.

If you want to buy one, I suggest to get an IBM refurbished one, either directly from IBM (you have the option to return it within 7 days for any reason for a refund), or save some money and buy in eBay from a certified IBM dealer (same warranty, which should be 90 days, but no unconditional 7 day return policy).

Finally, if you don't manage to get a T23 with XP installed, I recommend that you go ahead and install XP SP2 on your own. I upgraded my T23 from Windows 2000 Pro to XP Pro SP2, and it is performing even better now (applications start faster, boot and shut down times are faster).
Using the Lenovo Software Installer the whole process was completely problem free.

[Thinker]

I forgot to comment on the DVD playability.
The T23 plays DVDs without any problems. As a matter of fact, I can play DVDs with only 20% CPU usage by using the free VLC player. For anyone that doesn't know what VLC is, it is a free multimedia player for different platforms (Windows, Linux, etc). It will pretty much play anything you throw at it, it plays DVDs of any region in any DVD player (without the need to hack your firmware or run any additional background application), it is capable of playing video directly on the Desktop (kind of neat), and best of all, it is extremely efficient (low CPU usage). Do a Yahoo or Google search on VLC and you will come up with it in no time.

As for the LCD quality, I was pleasantly surprised when I got my refurbished T23 from IBM. It seems that most of the refurbished T23 units are getting newer generation LCD panels, so the LCD that I got is extremely bright and clean (as a matter of fact, it is way brighter than the LCD on my T42).
Picture quality is excellent. The sound is typical laptop quality by using the external speakers, but if you get a decent pair of headphones (I suggest low impedance ones, such as the Sony MDR-7506) the sound is excellent (Thinkpads in general put out very good sound from the headphone jack, much better than other manufacturers such as Dell).

[myckee]

I have a t23, and it works excellent to do everything, except play games.

I use it to watch movies, email, surf, etc, and it works flawlessly. No skipping while watching movies, nice smooth playback. As well, my t23 only has an 8MB video, unlike most others which have 16MB, and my video is still smooth and beautiful.

[Temetka]

I have a T23. It specs:

1.2Ghz Mobile Pentium 3
768MB PC133 RAM
60GB 5400RPM HD w / 16MB Cache
DVD-ROM / CD-RW Drive
Dual Batteries (T30 Battery and Ultrabay2k Battery)
PCMCIA Wireless internet
XP Pro SP2 and Ubuntu Linux

This thing runs great. I do a lot of VB programming and I can tell you that VB Pro and Crystal Reports run nice and fast. I do watch the occasional DVD on it, no problems whatsoever. The games I play aren't graphic intensive so that's all good in that department.

It's a nice reasonable fast laptop with great styling and ruggedness as well. IBM did an excellent job when they designed this machine.

I would like to be able to upgrade from the 16MB Savage card, but that's mainly to say I have 32 or 64MB of VRAM. Heck Deus Ex plays nice and smooth on it. The video feels faster than the Rage128 card I used to have in my old 750MHz Athlon 'Gaming' tower.

I did add the Ultrabay 2000 battery. I also swapped the stock main battery with one from a T30. I gained more run time.

I love this machine. I expect it to remain in service to me for atleast 3 years. My demands of a laptop are not that great. (Heck my demands of a desktop hardly equal the Athlon64 4000+ tower I have).

I recommend that you (google) run the following programs to help speed it up:

1. Microsoft Bootvis <- speeds up boot time and can monitor system performance
2. Tweak XP <- let's you make some changes in how NTFS is laid out as well as some other things.
3. Defrag. Atleast once a month.

I could keep going on about what a wonderful machine this is, but I think you get my point by now...

Oh yeah. I just picked it up from e-bay about a month ago. I could have grabbed a T30 or something else but I used my friends T23 and really liked it. So I bought one.

[SirZog]

As for the LCD quality, I was pleasantly surprised when I got my refurbished T23 from IBM. It seems that most of the refurbished T23 units are getting newer generation LCD panels, so the LCD that I got is extremely bright and clean (as a matter of fact, it is way brighter than the LCD on my T42).

I have a certified T23 1.13 w/30g HD shipping (delivery this week). How could you tell the LCD was new or of a newer generation? When did you order it? Since Lenovo took over?

Cheers,

[beeblebrox]

I just bought an out-of-lease T23 last week and the display is faaar better and brighter than the 1st. generation display on my old T20 from year 2000. IBM exchanged the old T20 display last year by a new one, which is similar to the T23 display.

There was a great technology upgrade in LCDs about 15 months ago. I compare it with my old 570E display, which is extremely slow in response time.

(I am not worried about that, since the T23 serves as a iTunes MP3 player in the living room and the display is static)