new second hand thinkpad

[cascarudo]

Hello everybody,

I am new here. I've been reading the other posts; I feel my post will sound too basic for many of you. Sorry about that.

I had got a TP 600X for the last two years. It serves me well, and I am very happy with it. The software I normally use is MS-office, SigmaPlot, and some statistical and mathematical packages. I do not game, but once in a while I see a movie. As I said, my 600X does all this very well. But I would like something that can do it faster.

My question (to those of you who perhaps were in a similar position) is whether I should upgrade to something like a T23, or rather think about a T40 (I couldn't stretch my budget above that).

ANY comments will be welcome and appreciated. thanks a lot,

Fernando

[Thinker]

My question (to those of you who perhaps were in a similar position) is whether I should upgrade to something like a T23, or rather think about a T40 (I couldn't stretch my budget above that).

Hi,

Well, my philosophy is "If it ain't broken, don't fix it". That being said, if you wish to upgrade my vote goes for a T23. I got one from the IBM Certified Used Program 3 months ago, and I am very pleased with it. You can probably get one from IBM directly (90 day warranty) for around $650.00.

I upgraded mine with a 512 Mb stick from Kingston and it is working great.
One point of advice: You have to watch out for the memory configurations. I got mine with 256 Mb from IBM, but unfortunately this was in a configuration of 2 banks of 128 Mb, so now I only have 640 Mb as opposed to 768 Mb.

Also, the memory for the T23 is expensive for some reason, so if you can get a model configured with 512 Mb or 1Gb from IBM (I remember seeing some models that had 1Gb for a good price), get it. I wouldn't be giving this advice if you were getting a new model, but for some reason it seems that the price differential for the RAM in this case might make it worth to avoid having to upgrade the memory afterwards. However, you should shop for it to see what's best for you.

I can't compare the 600 to the T23, but my previous computer was a Tecra 8100 with a 650 Mhz CPU (probably in the same league as your 600), and the T23 is noticeably faster.

Also, there seems to be a consensus that the T23 is the actual sweet spot in price/performance ratio in the Thinkpad used market.

Good luck,

Ruben

[carbon_unit]

I went from a 600 with a 366 processor to a T23 then added a gig of memory and then a 7K60 drive and there is no comparison to the 600. A T23 like that is magnitudes faster than a plain 600, and I agree that they are the sweet spot in the performance/price ratio right now.
I have not used any Thinkpad faster than my T23 yet but I imagine the T43's are at least 50% faster due to DDR and other improvements.

[davidlg16]

so a T23 is just as fast as a T42 with comparable specs?

[JHEM]

so a T23 is just as fast as a T42 with comparable specs?

No.

The fastest T23 was the 1.2GHz PIII-M. Add 1GB max RAM and it's still not a match for my old and trusty 1.5GHz PentiumM T40. Hell, it's not even in the same race!

Don't get me wrong, the T23 is a great machine, especially for what they're selling for of late. Find one with an SXGA+ display and internal WiFi and it's a runner.

Regards,

James

PS: David, does CA stand for California or Canada??? Please bear in mind that we are very much an international Forum.

[Ted_E]

My question (to those of you who perhaps were in a similar position) is whether I should upgrade to something like a T23, or rather think about a T40 (I couldn't stretch my budget above that).

Hi,

Well, my philosophy is "If it ain't broken, don't fix it". That being said, if you wish to upgrade my vote goes for a T23. I got one from the IBM Certified Used Program 3 months ago, and I am very pleased with it. You can probably get one from IBM directly (90 day warranty) for around $650.00.

SO SECONDED. I got two a few months ago - one for me and one for my daughter. I see several T23s on the IBM site
< http://www-132.ibm.com/webapp/wcs/store ... Id=2576396 >
between US$600 and 700. I got the 2468-4RUs because I wanted the 40GB drive. I add 256MB RAM for a total of 512MB. I have yet to get below about 130MB left and do some pretty heavy duty stuff but I use mostly OS/2-eCS which is much less resource hungry than 'doze. I have Boot Manager and W2K as well but don't use it much.

A friend had a 600 which served him well for a while 'til he upgraded to a T22 and wished a T23 had been available at the time.

Oh. Did I say I was *very* pleased with my T23?

Ted

[whizkid]

Another thing that may tip the balance (ha!) toward a T40 is weight. The T40 is the first of the T series that isn't heavier than a 600X.

[Ted_E]

Another thing that may tip the balance (ha!) toward a T40 is weight. The T40 is the first of the T series that isn't heavier than a 600X.

While I have to admit that faster, more memory, longer battery life and lighter weight are all very desireable, according to the IBM web site the T40 weighs 4.9 lbs and my model of T23 weighs 5.13 lbs. Even in my aged and decrepid state I find it hard to get excited over ~4ounces!

Also, while critical in some applications, very few users will notice the difference between 1.2GHz and 1.5GHz. If you want more performance in tech stuff, consider using OS/2-eCS and look for a copy of APL2 for OS/2 (ebay???). 'doze is very resource hungry. Just for kicks, I ran a little test using APL2 on my T23: Create a 100x100 matrix of random floating point numbers, invert it, multiply the original by its inverse, subtract the identity matrix, and compute the maximum of the absolute value of what's left. In a perfect world, you'd get zero. I got 1.7E-14 in 0.035seconds.

What I would and did notice is a refurb T23 like mine is going for US$660 while a typical refurb T40 is US$1200 on the IBM site. That $540 is enough to let me upgrade to the Multiburner plus CD/DVD burner and buy some cool software.

[whizkid]

While 25% in CPU speed isn't a huge difference, 100% memory speed increase sure can be. If you'll be doing things that require a lot of data, the 2133MB/s (PC2100) speed of the T40's memory can make a world of difference from the 1067MB/s (PC133) speed of the T23.

It might not be the right purchase for you or me now, but some would value the time saved at more than $500.

But I have to admit, it would have to save me a LOT of time to make up for the extra cash.

[JHEM]

Also, while critical in some applications, very few users will notice the difference between 1.2GHz and 1.5GHz.

You're comparing apples and oranges. You simply can't equate a PIII-M T23 running at 1.2GHz with a PentiumM T40 running at 1.5GHz and pass it off as only a 25% increase in processing speed!

A 1.5GHz PentiumM is faster than a 2.4GHz Pentium4-M.

Regards,

James

[Ted_E]

Also, while critical in some applications, very few users will notice the difference between 1.2GHz and 1.5GHz.

You're comparing apples and oranges. You simply can't equate a PIII-M T23 running at 1.2GHz with a PentiumM T40 running at 1.5GHz and pass it off as only a 25% increase in processing speed!

A 1.5GHz PentiumM is faster than a 2.4GHz Pentium4-M.

Regards,

James

I suppose it depends on your intrests. I'm not into gaming but I am interested in math, physics, electronics and some mechanical design. For my uses the most serious bottleneck on my T23 is those things that go just above the keyboard. I think they're called "fingers". (I envy those of you who are touch typists, a skill I never aquired.)

For example, two of my applications:
I have a lung disorder and keep track of my breathing performance. I have nearly 15,000 by 4 data points covering a ten year period. The calculations to plot these with five different degrees of curve smoothing occurs in too short a time to measure manually. Electronically it was just under 3 seconds but since I have to press enter after each graph appears, this is mostly a measure of my reaction time.

I shoot a bow for exercise and enjoyment. I wish to calculate the drag coefficient for my arrows. I have a way to do this that requires a binary search on many Runge-Kutta solutions to a set of differential equations. Then, just for fun, I put that inside a function to seek the initial angle for maximum distance. There's an *awfull* lot of itteration here!! That took a couple seconds to run and plot.

My point here is that, at least for me, reliability, a good display and portability are more important than raw speed once a certain point is reached. YMMV.