URGENT: Have to decide and order today: R60 vs R60e vs T42

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What laptop to buy ? ThinkPad R60e vs R60 vs T42

Since it's mostly an "R" series question, i decided to post it here
as well...
With all others being equal i would definetly go for a brand new laptop.
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Hi all.
I'm a university student and i am about to work as a programmer (Visual Studio/C++/C#, databases)
I want to buy a laptop that should serve as my one and only computer, both at the campus and home(whenever i need to do some programming or just for entertainment).
I am not a gaming person, but i like to watch some movies from time to time and i would probably use Photoshop or do/study some image processing(MATLAB?) by myself.
I have to be able to read .PDF files smoothly.

Basically, i would like to buy a cheapest ThinkPad laptop to suit my needs.
(Best money to "power" ratio, longest "up-to-date" configuration).

I am considering R60e/R60/second hand T42( T60 is a way out of my budget)
What would you recommend and why ?

R60e - Dual Core 1.83Ghz, 1Gb Ram, Hd: 80Gb/5400 Rpm, DVD-RW
===============================================
Pros: Relatively cheap.
Cons: Very basic, there is no dedicated video memory, no SVideo out, no port replicator support, no ibm extras like fingerprint reader etc.
Hesitation: Do i really need all those for my purposes? Vista ?



R60 - Dual Core, 1.83Ghz, 1Gb Ram, HD 80Gb/5400 Rpm, ATI X1400 128mb,
DVD-RW
===============================================
Pros - Basically good configuration, considering this laptop is about to be the only computer, SVideo out, port replicator support, swappable optical drive, dedicated VRAM, fingerprint reader and other extras.
Allmost "T60" in case of "R"
Cons - About 500$ more expensive then R60e
Hesitation - The most notable difference between R60 and R60e is port replicator support and dedicated VRam.
How "often" would i notice the difference of dedicated graphic solution against the shared one (GMA950)?



T42 - M735 1.70Ghz, 1 Gb Ram, HD 60Gb/7200 Rpm, ATI 7500, 32mb, DVD-RW
===============================================
Pros - Well balanced "T" series, build quality, light, 1 year warrantly remaining, P-M is still quite a good CPU, cheap (about the price of R60e above), SVideo out, replicator support, extras.
Cons - Outdated CPU series and architecture (400Mhz FSB, 333 Mhz RAM), not much of VRAM (graphic card is not Vista Ready),
only 2 USBs
Hesitation - Is this configuration is already too old and i would have to buy another laptop/computer in a 1-1.5 years time?

How T42's 60Gb 7200RPM hard drive is vs R60's 80Gb 5400 RPM ?
How would it affect the overall R60 vs T42 perfomance equation ?
Is 60gb considered to be enough ?
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I would appreciate any help.

[tomh009]

What laptop to buy? ThinkPad R60e vs R60 vs T42

These are very personal decisions in the end ... but if you are a student on a limited budget, and you expect to be doing mostly programming for the next 3-4 years, I would personally suggest the R60. Why?

• The video memory really won't make a difference unless you are doing graphics-intensive stuff like games.
  As a student you probably won't need a docking station. S-video -- I don't know?
  The dual-core CPU will keep you running longer -- the T42's M735 might be OK two years from now, or it might be that your needs (like the next version of Photoshop) exceed it. The R60 is more likely to still be fast enough.
  The warranty? Do the R60 models have three years?
  With the $500 you save, you can next year upgrade to 2 GB and a 100 GB 7200 rpm hybrid drive, which will perform better and use less battery.

The T42's drive is definitely faster, but you can easily upgrade the one in the R60 and then use your old drive as an external archive/backup drive.

As to whether 60 GB is enough, I'd say that if you are not storing lots of photos or movies on the disk, even 40 GB is more than enough. At least for now ...

[pixel]

Thanks a lot for the answer.
It's indeed a personal thing, but there are still some general
"prons" and "cons"...

Features:
=======
SVideo is nice, but i don't think it's "live or die" feature.
Docking station support is neither as well, at least for now.
The only way i could think of using docking station right now is
bringing my personal laptop to a work and the need to connect it...
Probably more of a hypothetic reasoning

Warranty:
=======
Both Rs have 1 year warranty, but i can upgrade it by paying about 100$ a year extra (+100$ for 2 years, +200$ for 3 years)
T has 1 year warranty remaining out of 3.

Price:
====
T42 <(about 250$) R60e <(about 500$) R60 (about 1800$ incl. Vat)



So, in your opinion it's better to stock with R60e featuring
Intel GMA950 rather then R60 with ATI X1400.
What about Vista ?
It seems like GMA950 is Visa ready at least accordingly to current requirements...

As for T42, the main reason to go this way is price, some small extras and overall build quality.
On the other hand, i am getting a used machine (2years old), that is never a good thing.
Battery life after 2 years drops drastically.
While i took T42 for a test I could squeeze about 1 - 1.5 hour on its current battery.
Again, Dual Core in general is probably better for purposes of Vista than M735 as well...
So many hesitations here and not just about architecture.

Hard Drive:
========
The question here is not whenever 5400Rpm drive is slower then 7200Rpm one, it's obvious! , but how(surely an estimation) it would affect the overall perfomance in a real life, not just the calculation of the Pi_Power.
Would it bring T42 close to R60 in terms of performance under Visual Studio and XP Pro/Vista operating systems, Matlab, Photoshop, Acrobat, Media players, Internet use, downloads.

What about wi-fi cards ?
How better the new Intel 3945 is ?


Thanks again.

[tomh009]

So, in your opinion it's better to stock with R60e featuring Intel GMA950 rather then R60 with ATI X1400.

What about Vista ? It seems like GMA950 is Visa ready at least accordingly to current requirements...

As for T42, the main reason to go this way is price, some small extras and overall build quality. On the other hand, i am getting a used machine (2years old), that is never a good thing. Again, Dual Core in general is probably better for purposes of Vista than M735 as well...

The T42 is definitely a nice machine, but it's two years old. So, yes, I would personally go with an R60. The US site offers 1.5 GB of memory for a very nice price, don't know if you get that in Israel.

You could also upgrade to the faster disk immediately, but if your budget is tight, I'd start with the slower disk (or a 7200 rpm 60 GB for the same price?) and then upgrade next year or the year after, when big disks are cheaper, and you can get them as hybrid versions, too. One additional note: R60/R60e use SATA disks, which will definitely be more popular than PATA a few years from now, making for wider disk upgrade choice in the future.

[pixel]

Well...
The prices in Israel are about 15 to 20 percent higher, at least compared to Hong Kong(been there about a year ago)
and as far as i guess Hong Kong prices should be very close to US.


Anyway, the question regarding the HD is how(surely an estimation) it would affect the overall perfomance in a real life, not just the calculation of the Pi_Power.
Would it bring T42 close to R60 in terms of performance under Visual Studio and XP Pro/Vista operating systems, Matlab, Photoshop, Acrobat, Media players, Internet use, downloads.
How critical it's for R60 itself to have 7200 rpm ?

What about wi-fi cards ?
How better the new Intel 3945 is ?

Do you have any experience with Lenovo laptops ?
As far as i could notice they are not as solid as ThinkPads, not
as nice and "smart" designed either, but otherwise many of the ThinkPad features have made their ways to Lenovo laptops ?
It usually costs about 150$ less.
May be it's the way to go ?
Any opionions ?

[tomh009]

Anyway, the question regarding the HD is how(surely an estimation) it would affect the overall perfomance in a real life, not just the calculation of the Pi_Power.
Would it bring T42 close to R60 in terms of performance under Visual Studio and XP Pro/Vista operating systems, Matlab, Photoshop, Acrobat, Media players, Internet use, downloads.
How critical it's for R60 itself to have 7200 rpm ?

Certainly 7200 rpm is not critical. It makes a difference in startup (I don't do that so often) but the big difference I see is with Photoshop, reading and writing files. If you need the disk space, take the 80 GB 5400 rpm right now and upgrade later. If you are OK with 60 GB, 7200 rpm provides much snappier performance. (I have only real-life testing, no benchmarks!)

What about wi-fi cards ? How better the new Intel 3945 is ?

The popular opinion on the forums is that the Atheros ("ThinkPad wireless 11a/b/g") is preferable to the Intel version.[/quote]

Do you have any experience with Lenovo laptops ?
As far as i could notice they are not as solid as ThinkPads, not
as nice and "smart" designed either, but otherwise many of the ThinkPad features have made their ways to Lenovo laptops ?
It usually costs about 150$ less.

The 3000 series? Definitely not as well built. Would take a base model R60e in a heartbeat over a 3000 series.

[pixel]

Ok, it seems like T42 is loosing the competition and it brings the decision down to the almost similar


R60 vs R60e
=========
Considering the discussion so far
It seems like R60 with GMA950 instead of ATI X1400 and probably the 60gb/7200 instead of 80gb/5400 is the best option among the 2 (if there is no huge price differences), since basically R60 has docking station/S-Video/Firewire support, while R60e has none of them. Firewire, for example, could be usefull.
Otherwise, stock for the simpler R60e, if possible with 7200 rpm HD.
Any opinions ?


In case i'm running out of my budget, where would you put your money on - 1gb of Ram (instead of 512Mb) or 7200rpm Hd (instead of 5400 rpm).
My original thought was - 1gb of memory is basically
"A MUST!"



Warranty:
=======
Extra warranty is always a good thing.
Is it worth to pay 100$ for extra year of warranty ?
It seems to me like almost every sort of problem that requires a technician in the lab would cost more(labour + parts)


It seems like on Dual Core (?60 series) the default is Intel3945 instead of ?40-?50 series 802.11a/b/g card.


I know we're on the thinkpads.com, but i have to ask this question
Would you consider any other quality brand, say LG/Fujitsu/Toshiba. (Probably not over R60, but over R60e, since it's too basic in terms of ports, on the other hand for some reason most of the new T60s have the same port policy as R60e - no SVideo, no IEEE1394, no card readers - just 3 USB2.0
Not the best decision to my opinion)
No blind loyality these days !
As with Lenovo i can either get some minor, but usefull extras or save some money.
Fujitsu, for example, is quite a nice laptop, well built laptop, not as solid as IBM, but of a good quality, my cousin has it.
What sells me for Thinkpads is their working reputation (i am heavy computer user that moves a lot around the country - well, our country is quite small ), their PERFECT keyboards(big, responsible keys with sort of a feedback... mmmm....) and point device (i hate those touch pads... brrrrr!!!! )
While it's possible to buy an external keyboard and mouse for home usage, it's definetly impossible to carry one everywhere you go...

[agarza]

Go for the R60 with the GMA950, but be sure to have 1GB or RAM. Opting for the GMA instead of ATI X1400 will help to have a quiet system with the GPU don't being the hottest component of your laptop.

I strongly recommend to get a 7200rpm drive, but just if you need it. Maybe you could probably do the upgrade in the future or see the options at the moment of the purchase.

T4x series laptops are very nice, but if you don't get something new then is not worth the money. I've just upgraded my T30 to a T41p but the processing power on the CPU is about the double or more the P4M 1.6 could handle.

Do you plan to use the S-Video / Port Replicator?

Dell laptops seem to have quite a decent reputation, but I will for the moment stick with Thinkpads, hope you do the same

[pixel]

Hi,
as i said, SVideo, Docking Station/Port Replicator, FireWire is just nice things to have (and why don't!)
After all it's not a corporate laptop that is going to be used only for a work, it's also a private computer of a student, so who knows i could connect it to a Tv in the dorms, to DivX cameras, etc.
It's just convinient to have all those ports, since you never have a clue whenever you need one
On the other hand, those are by any means not a "make-it or break-it" features, just nice to have.

So, if on a short budget you would stick with
1Gb Ram and 5400 RPM drive rather go for
512Mb Ram and 7200 RPM?

The main reason behind going for T42 as i might see could be the idea of getting a good enough laptop for, let's say about 2 years, save some money and when Vista is really becoming a force on the market make a majour update to a new, powerfull laptop/desktop.

Buying R60e/R60 now,
i would spend a bit more money (about 250$) but on the other hand my system will be more powerfull and probably ready for a Vista this way or another. If could give me about 3 years of powerfull laptop before an upgrade...
So, strategically there are not much differences between the two.

I am a bit afraid of getting a second-hand laptop, even of the T series, since there are many small things beside the architecture such as battery life, product life etc, that worth to consider.
For example while testing, i could squeeze about 1-1.5 hours out of T42, that is not much...
I am not sure that price difference of 250$ in favour of 2nd hand T worth it...
May be, with the difference being about 500$ i would consider T42 as an excellent choice for my student years and go for something more solid and powerfull within 2-3 years time.
This is the main reasoning go R for me right now

[tomh009]

So, if on a short budget you would stick with
1Gb Ram and 5400 RPM drive rather go for
512Mb Ram and 7200 RPM?

As much as I like my 7200 rpm drive, I would go with 1 GB (one module!) and 5400 rpm. 1 GB will make a big difference IMHO, and the disks will be cheaper (and better) yet in a year or two if you decide to upgrade. And then you can keep your old disk as an external ...

[tomh009]

Dell laptops seem to have quite a decent reputation (...)

Eh? Around here, we spell "DELL" with an "H", not a "D"! The build quality on their laptops is not even close to the ThinkPads ...

[pixel]

Don't know about DELLs, but here in Israel HPs have quite a bad reputation
Actually, last time i saw some commercial structure using a laptop that is not part of a ThinkPad line was about 5 years ago...
It was some old and heavy Compaq, produced before the
Compaq-HP merge.

So, are there any other companies to consider ?