PC Magazine Reviews T43 *Editors' Choice*

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rickslate · #1 Post by **rickslate** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 7:01 pm

PC Magazine's review of IBM Thinkpad T43...

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1788030,00.asp

#2 Post by **K. Eng** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 8:16 pm

Pretty stark contrast to the CNET review that gave it a mere 6.5/10. PC Magazine didn't compare the T43 to the T42 though, and I think that the T42 has an edge in battery life as well as price/performance ratio.

Overall, I'd say that the T43 falls somewhere between the merely "good" that CNET gave it and the "almost perfect" that PC Magazine gives it. Now I haven't seen a T43 in person yet, so I can't compare it to the T40s and T42s I've seen, but I would probably give the T43 an 8/10. Great performance and a bit of a hit on the battery life.

T41mbi · #3 Post by **T41mbi** » Thu Apr 21, 2005 8:24 am

I'd say 7/10

-3 points because IBM has still yet to add more than a mere 2 USB Ports, and need to replace the legacy ports with something more useful)

#4 Post by **daeojkim** » Thu Apr 21, 2005 8:29 am

The reason that TPs still have those legacy ports is that so many business and enginners still use them a lot. If TP was meant to be a multimedia notebook then I would agree with getting rid of those ports (parallel, serial, etc) and add firewire and more USB ports.

But TP was first ment to be used as business and engineers so the design priorities are different than say Sony, ACER, etc...

stgreek · #5 Post by **stgreek** » Thu Apr 21, 2005 11:26 am

T41mbi wrote:I'd say 7/10

-3 points because IBM has still yet to add more than a mere 2 USB Ports, and need to replace the legacy ports with something more useful)

The legacy ports are far more useful than USB, although 2 is indeed low.

JHEM · #6 Post by **JHEM** » Thu Apr 21, 2005 3:03 pm

stgreek wrote:The legacy ports are far more useful than USB, although 2 is indeed low.

But that then begs the question, where would you put them?

The only time I use my USB ports is to connect a memory key or one of my cameras. All of my printers are WiFi accessible and I don't use a mouse, so I'd be happy with just one and don't understand the desire of some for more than two.

Regards,

James

stgreek · #7 Post by **stgreek** » Thu Apr 21, 2005 3:51 pm

..which is why I always said that it would be a good idea to scrap the port replicator and reduce the price of the mini-dock. 4 ports on a laptop on the road are a bit useless, on a dock are excellent.

Stavros

JHEM · #8 Post by **JHEM** » Thu Apr 21, 2005 10:29 pm

Stavros,

stgreek wrote:..which is why I always said that it would be a good idea to scrap the port replicator and reduce the price of the mini-dock. 4 ports on a laptop on the road are a bit useless, on a dock are excellent.

But, with the PR you do at least get three! Two on the laptop and one on the PR.

With the mini-dock you wind up with six in total.

I guess I just have a problem wrapping my ancient mind around the need to connect 4 USB devices at the same time to a laptop.

Regards,

James

#9 Post by **aamsel** » Thu Apr 21, 2005 10:59 pm

For the rare occasion that you might need to connect more than 2 USB devices, I have an Iogear Model# GUH275 4 port USB 2.0 hub smaller in size than a pack of gum. Toss it in your carrying case, weighs about 1 ounce. I bought it at FRY's but newegg has it for $14 shipped at:
http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product. ... 6817111711

It does not have power for an external drive, but other than that...works like a champ!

(there is a link to the manufacturer's page from newegg's site with spec's, etc. and it says the weight is .10 lbs, so actually weighs 1.6 ounces.)

Anyhow, with this plugged into one port, you have a total of 5 ports available!!
(that should take care of your/my USB needs)!

Andrew
Austin, TX

kanate · #10 Post by **kanate** » Thu Apr 21, 2005 11:51 pm

I read somewhere that mini-dock comes with it's own power adapter(diff than the one for thinkpad).
If that's the case, I don't see the point of getting mini-dock.
Port Replicator sounds better to me that you can buy another ac adapter (cheap on ebay) to use with it while also can be used directly with the thinkpad.

And more USB ports in mini-dock? Aren't they (mini-dock, port replicator, dock ii, whatever) supposed to be used on the desk, which means not move/carry around. Just use external powered USB hub with it if you need more USB ports.

JHEM · #11 Post by **JHEM** » Fri Apr 22, 2005 12:04 am

kanate wrote:I read somewhere that mini-dock comes with it's own power adapter(diff than the one for thinkpad).

Yes, it does. Nor can the adapter be used with the Thinkpad directly, only with the mini-dock.

It's rated at 7.5A vs. the normal T series brick's 4.5A. Need all that added power for all the added ports.

Regards,

James

Steve007 · #12 Post by **Steve007** » Fri Apr 22, 2005 5:12 am

T41mbi wrote:I'd say 7/10

-3 points because IBM has still yet to add more than a mere 2 USB Ports, and need to replace the legacy ports with something more useful)

Like what? A toaster?

1000's upon 1000's of our customers require the legacy ports hence the reason why they are there. You'd also be surpised how many people still require the serial port and end up having to buy the adapter (22P5298). ThinkPad's are a business tool, those looking for 12 built-in USB ports, TV tuner cards, built-in FireWire hubs, WS displays and 256MB NVIDIA 6800's should look elsewhere.

tttttada · #13 Post by **tttttada** » Fri Apr 22, 2005 5:35 am

I just bought a copy of the LAPTOP magazine and was disappointed. to say the least. Here are some of the benchmarks:

MobileMark 2002:
IBM T43 144
Toshiba M45 189
Fujitsu N3510 212
Sony FS570 152
JVC MP-XP741 146 (This is a 2 pounder with a 1.1GHz processor!!)

3D Mark:
IBM T43 2909
Toshiba M45 3745
Fujitsu N3510 9530
Sony FS570 4715

The Toshiba M45 has a 1.73GHz Pentium M vs a 1.86GHz Pentium M on the T43, and a Integrated Intel 915GM graphics chipset vs a X300 on the T43. How could this be? Dedicated graphics + Faster processor + Same amount of memory = better video performance, no? Am I missing something?

This is a direct quote from the magazine:
As good as its hardware is, the T43's performance is a disappointment, with slower T42s blowing by it. Despite the faster CPU and memory the T43's MobileMark 2002 score of 144 is well off the pace set by the T42 just a few months ago.

Steve007 · #14 Post by **Steve007** » Fri Apr 22, 2005 5:47 am

tttttada wrote:The Toshiba M45 has a 1.73GHz Pentium M vs a 1.86GHz Pentium M on the T43, and a Integrated Intel 915GM graphics chipset vs a X300 on the T43. How could this be? Dedicated graphics + Faster processor + Same amount of memory = better video performance, no? Am I missing something?

Depends how much RAM the machine had on board. If it was a standard T43 it would have been only 256MB or a more reasonable 512MB. Video performance is not something to worry about anyway, it's not a gaming platform and 90% of people use it for e-mail and Office docs which is why a MR7500 is sufficient for most people's needs. However, like yourself I would expect at least a half decent performance by a T43.

tttttada · #15 Post by **tttttada** » Fri Apr 22, 2005 6:13 am

Yeah, I know what you are saying but under the same circumstance(Sonoma platform in this case), wouldn't the laptop with the higher configuration excel?

The T43's specs:
CPU: 1.86 GHz
RAM: 512MB
HD: 5400RPM 60GB
GPU: X300 64MB

Can someone explain this? How can the T43 underachieve so much? And how could it be slower than the T42 with 400MHz FSB and DDRI?

#16 Post by **AlphaKilo470** » Fri Apr 22, 2005 8:26 am

The T43 uses new technology. As with most things, it will take some time to get better. Remember the original 386's, the ones that could be easily outperformed by one of the higher up fast ticking 286's, or the Pentium III 450 that showed no real boost over the Pentium II, or the original Pentium 4, it was slower at the time than some of the newer Pentium III's.

I think the main reason for the T43 being released is for IBM to establish a new hardware platform for future ThinkPad's and also to simply keep the ThinkPad line fresh.

Rhodan · #17 Post by **Rhodan** » Fri Apr 22, 2005 9:01 am

tttttada wrote:I just bought a copy of the LAPTOP magazine and was disappointed. to say the least. Here are some of the benchmarks:

My problem with these magazines is that they are very unprofessional in their benchmarking. I'd bet that most of those notebooks had more RAM and probably faster HDD's, different versions of drivers, different software and services running in the background etc. How can that be a fair comparison ?

Maybe if a professional hardware review site like Tomshardware or Anandtech reviewed it, then I'd accept the results.

Take it with a pinch of salt I say.

stgreek · #18 Post by **stgreek** » Fri Apr 22, 2005 9:07 am

Rhodan wrote:
Maybe if a professional hardware review site like Tomshardware or Anandtech reviewed it, then I'd accept the results.

Take it with a pinch of salt I say.

Tomshardware a professional site? Take THAT with a pinch of salt, I'd say!

DoS · #19 Post by **DoS** » Fri Apr 22, 2005 9:11 am

stgreek wrote:
Rhodan wrote:
Maybe if a professional hardware review site like Tomshardware..

Take it with a pinch of salt I say.
Tomshardware a professional site? Take THAT with a pinch of salt, I'd say!

I haven't read Tom in years. Used to be whoever was his biggest advertiser won the "benchmark game". You don't feed him, your hardware was junk.

Rhodan · #20 Post by **Rhodan** » Fri Apr 22, 2005 9:24 am

DoS wrote:I haven't read Tom in years. Used to be whoever was his biggest advertiser won the "benchmark game". You don't feed him, your hardware was junk.

What's stopping the magazine from doing the same for all the manufacturers advertising in it ?

NaT · #21 Post by **NaT** » Fri Apr 22, 2005 10:44 am

tttttada wrote:I just bought a copy of the LAPTOP magazine and was disappointed. to say the least. Here are some of the benchmarks:

MobileMark 2002:
IBM T43 144
Toshiba M45 189
Fujitsu N3510 212
Sony FS570 152
JVC MP-XP741 146 (This is a 2 pounder with a 1.1GHz processor!!)

3D Mark:
IBM T43 2909
Toshiba M45 3745
Fujitsu N3510 9530
Sony FS570 4715
.[/i]

Correct me if I am wrong but I think MobileMark shows how long the battery can last, based on a certain working set of applications and 3D Mark based on graphics performance. Well, from my own experience with T43 (my friends'), I agree that T43's GPU X300 is slow. A lot of ppl says about this and I don't know why IBM decided on this lowest end model form ATI. Even for normal business use, like powerpoint, I can feel that it is much slower than ATI 9200 on my HP.

How about other performance aspects of the review (the one that really utilize CPU and memory bandwidth)? Can you share with us the name and the issued month of this magazine?

NaT

#22 Post by **aamsel** » Fri Apr 22, 2005 11:54 am

Nothing at all!!
That has been one of the biggest "gripes" against PC Magazine for years, with people saying that Dell gets too many editor's choice awards, etc.
Money does talk. That is an old, old story.

You have to take pure benchmarks with a grain of salt, or, at face-value. Basically, if you want accurate benchmarks, you need to run them yourself.

However, keep in mind that video card manufacturers are notorious for optimizing their firmware for benchmarks.

3DMark and other benchmarks are not an unknown to ATI and nVidia, and I assure you that their engineers are running the benchmarks everyday in their labs. They are even capable of producing a chip that will perform better on a benchmark score than in real world useage.

Anyhow...since we are talking benchmarks, I did post a comparison earlier of a 64MB 9600 T42 2378FVU and a 64MB X300 T43 2687E9U and got these scores:

3DMark05 :
2668 with 64MB X300 got a score of 710.
2378 with 64MB 9600 got a score of 688.
(no real difference).

Then I ran Aquamark version 3 benchmark:
2378 got a score of 19,530.
2668 got a score of 17,269.
(not sure why, or how accurate Aquamark is, although it is supposed to be “real world” based.

I then ran all of the SiSoft Sandra Lite 2005 SR1 benchmarks:
I won’t post all of the scores (too many, too boring).
In general, the 2668 beat the 2378 by about 10% (not surprising.)
This included CPU Arithmetic, CPU Multimedia.
However, the 2668 TROUNCED the 2378 in all memory-related testing.
It beat the 2378 BY ABOUT A THIRD, in Memory Bandwidth, Cache and Memory Bandwidth !!!
Everything else was either a wash or a 10% victory to the 2668.

I also ran some older versions of 3DMark. I realize that some of the techniques used for these tests is obsolete but some is still valid, I believe.

3DMark03 v.3.6.0
--------------------
2668 got 1909 3DMarks
2378 got 2508 3DMarks !!!!
(the 2378 put the 2668 to bed!)

This is a DirectX 9.0 enabled benchmark

3DMark01 Second Edition Build 330
----------------------------------------
2668 got 7021 3DMarks
2378 got 9779 3DMarks

This older version of 3DMark uses DirectX 8.1
However, the 2668 got smoked by the 2378 on this as well.

Anyhow, note the 3DMark03 benchmark, etc. and make your own judgement of this. Each system had the same memory, and the results are definately accurate.

I don't know how much this helps anyone???

However, I WOULD SAY that it appears (from my numbers) that the Thinkpad T43 score above, from LAPTOP MAGAZINE was probably accurate.

Also, just FYI, in my testing I found that amount of RAM made VERY little difference in 3DMark scores. Almost none.

This can not be repeated enough:
People don't buy Thinkpads for graphics performance!! They buy them because they are reliable and well-built. They are business tools, not gaming notebooks. Gamers can find MUCH faster graphics performance on less well-built, less-reliable notebooks for less (or more) money.
What do you want in a notebook?
Reliability, great construction, or the absolute best performance.
These are trade-offs that you have to weigh in your mind before you purchase a notebook.
If it is best performance that is #1, the Thinkpad is probably not for you.

There are forums such as:
www.notebookforums.com
where the majority of members are gamers looking for top-performance in graphics, etc.

Few Thinkpad owners, by percentage, care about this.

Andrew
Austin, TX

(sorry that this ended up being wordy!)

Rhodan wrote:...What's stopping the magazine from doing the same for all the manufacturers advertising in it ?

danny_isr · #23 Post by **danny_isr** » Fri Apr 22, 2005 12:41 pm

NaT wrote:
tttttada wrote: I agree that T43's GPU X300 is slow. A lot of ppl says about this and I don't know why IBM decided on this lowest end model form ATI. Even for normal business use, like powerpoint, I can feel that it is much slower than ATI 9200 on my HP.

How about other performance aspects of the review (the one that really utilize CPU and memory bandwidth)? Can you share with us the name and the issued month of this magazine?

NaT

this is not true , i had Compaq x1000 with the 9200 (same as HP zt 1000) and i can tell you that te T43 is much faster in games. i run the same game and i'm getting higher frame rate on the T43. so "feels" is not real measurment.

i run Doom 3 , running really good , so how can it be slow ?

buy a T43 and use it , then comment.

i just don't buy "facts" that claims 1.1Ghz laptop is faster then T43 1.8Ghz .
doesn't make sense.

#24 Post by **aamsel** » Fri Apr 22, 2005 12:51 pm

Well, you are both incorrect to some degree:

1.) Saying that the X300 is slower than an ATI 9200 running Powerpoint is not valid. Powerpoint is NOT a 3D enabled application. 2D performance is going to be about the same on just about any modern card. The difference would be negligible. Above, there was discussion of benchmarks, but that is only applicable to 3D performance.

2.) As for the Compaq X1000 having an ATI 9200 card, that also is not accurate. In fact, HP/Compaq used an ATI 9000 card in it, but got it to report in BIOS that it was a 9200.
There is an absolutely HUGE discussion of this (long closed but archived) over at:
www.x1000forums.com
There was talk long ago about a class-action suit against HP, etc. etc.

Andrew
Austin, TX

danny_isr · #25 Post by **danny_isr** » Fri Apr 22, 2005 1:26 pm

i'm aware to the fact it's actually a 9000 , i didn't go into that because it's
not relevant to our discussion .

tttttada · #26 Post by **tttttada** » Fri Apr 22, 2005 1:59 pm

AlphaKilo470 wrote:The T43 uses new technology. As with most things, it will take some time to get better. Remember the original 386's, the ones that could be easily outperformed by one of the higher up fast ticking 286's, or the Pentium III 450 that showed no real boost over the Pentium II, or the original Pentium 4, it was slower at the time than some of the newer Pentium III's.

So the T42 is the better buy in anyones book right now. Better performance and price. It's a no-brainer, right?

Rhodan wrote:My problem with these magazines is that they are very unprofessional in their benchmarking. I'd bet that most of those notebooks had more RAM and probably faster HDD's, different versions of drivers, different software and services running in the background etc. How can that be a fair comparison ?

Actually the other notebooks had equal or inferior configurations compared to the T43. Thats why I don't understand. Thats like having two different chassis cars with the same engine and gear box doing a 0-60 and one blowing past the other. Just doesn't make sense....

NaT wrote: Correct me if I am wrong but I think MobileMark shows how long the battery can last, based on a certain working set of applications and 3D Mark based on graphics performance.
Can you share with us the name and the issued month of this magazine?
NaT

Actually they say the MobileMark analyzes the performance of a full range of business and productivity applications, including Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop Thats why I'm concerned. I had my heart set on the T43 for its reliability and overall reputation in business apps and everyday use. According to this benchmark, a 1.1Ghz JVC performs better in this regard. Unbelievable.

The name of the magazine is LAPTOP and its a May 2005 issue.

aamsel wrote:This can not be repeated enough:
People don't buy Thinkpads for graphics performance!! They buy them because they are reliable and well-built. They are business tools, not gaming notebooks. Gamers can find MUCH faster graphics performance on less well-built, less-reliable notebooks for less (or more) money.
What do you want in a notebook?
Reliability, great construction, or the absolute best performance.
These are trade-offs that you have to weigh in your mind before you purchase a notebook.
If it is best performance that is #1, the Thinkpad is probably not for you.

I think IBM is a good comparison to Lexus. They both are reliable, well-built, and have excellent service. People don't buy them for how they look nor for their performance. Having said that, who will buy a Lexus that is reliable and well-built yet can't outaccelerate a Corolla on the highway? Seriously, everyone knows Thinkpads aren't for graphics. But being beat on benchmark by lower priced, lower configured notebooks? Unacceptable, in my book, or anyone's book actually.

danny_isr · #27 Post by **danny_isr** » Fri Apr 22, 2005 2:10 pm

exactly it's not acceptable , it's just a magazine - it's not the bible

fbrdphreak · #28 Post by **fbrdphreak** » Fri Apr 22, 2005 2:40 pm

I have to say I'm not a fan of PCMag, CNet, or Tom's reviews. Tom's goes into more depth than PCMag and Cnet, but I still like none of them :p

PCMag and CNet gloss over all the details that notebook buyers want.
Now I am biased considered I'm working with a laptop review site (see sig), but even if I weren't I know what is missing from their reviews.

I have a T43 from IBM that I am reviewing and I hope to have the complete review done in a couple weeks. Unfortunately in addition to being a Senior Editor, I'm also a Senior in CPE/EE with final exams coming up

There will be a "First Impressions" of the T43 posted shortly and at that point I will open up to questions from ppl on this forum.
Hopefully any questions I can answer and the full review (when it comes out) will lay to rest all of your questions about the T43.

Steve007 · #29 Post by **Steve007** » Fri Apr 22, 2005 2:41 pm

danny_isr wrote:exactly it's not acceptable , it's just a magazine - it's not the bible

But in this case are both are full of fictitious nonsense

PC Magazine Reviews T43 Editors' Choice

PC Magazine Reviews T43 Editors' Choice

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