R60e upgrades

[qanunji]

Hi,

my R60e served me well for the past 3 years,
traveling around the world and survived a lot of falls.

Since i don't have much money now, i have decided to upgrade it a bit.

Can i replace my T2300 core duo CPU with core 2 duo CPUs?
Can I change my XGA screen?
Those the Intel 945 support higher resolutions?

Thanks,

Ariel

[ZaZ]

Yes, you should be able to upgrade to a Core 2 Duo. If you've not done so already, upgrading to a faster 7200RPM hard drive will probably yield more snappy performance than upgrading the CPU unless you've got a need to do CPU intensive stuff all the time.

The screen is upgradable. I'd recommend either the 15" T60 SXGA+ or UXGA LCDs if you like small stuff. They're IPS screen and probably the best notebook screens ever made. They offer high contrast and wide viewing angles. I just bought a R60e to use as a Linux box. I swapped in one of the SXGA+ screens into my R60e with no issues. It was a straight swap. I also have one in my regular R60. The Intel graphics card should have no trouble driving SXGA+ or UXGA resolutions. The difference is quite remarkable. You can see the screen here. It's a shot of my 15" R60 with the LG IPS next to my 14" R60 with the BOE-Hydis SXGA+ LCD. The part numbers are:

SXGA+
LG - 13N7078
BOE-Hydis - 13N7196

UXGA
BOE-Hydis - 13N7076
BOE-Hydis - 13N7194

You might want to post over in the marketplace forum to see if anyone's got one. Otherwise eBay is probably your next best option, but you've got to be careful there. If you search by part number, you'll get screens that are compatible, but not the Lenovo part. Unless it specifically states it's IPS or AFFS, I would assume it's not.

Oh yeah, welcome to ThinkPads.com.

[qanunji]

Thank you so much!
what a great and detailed answer.

what about stereo speakers and firewire?

[ZaZ]

With enough skill anything's possible, but I'd guess there'd some some heavy tinkering involved in adding FireWire or a second speaker.