Replacing ThinkPad R61.....What should I buy?

[JimP77]

My R61 has Intel Core 2 Duo, T8100 @ 2.1 Ghz with 1.97 GB RAM. Running Win XP Pro. All is well but running out of hard drive capacity. Drive has only 142 GB capacity and only 15 GB left.

I have determined that I do not want a touch screen and do not want Windows 8 at this time. I want to go with Win 7 Pro on some version of Lenovo laptop. I have been reading the forums looking for opinions on hardware. I am not a gamer. My most serious usage is photo editing with Adobe Photoshop Elements (which sometimes crashes if I leave too many jpegs open) and I do video editing with Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 9.0. The video editing process works pretty well but rendering is lenghthy and I do experience occasional crashes with long videos (10 minutes or more).

Some questions I have are ;

What hardware would you buy and why? I have been looking at the T530 with Intel Core i5-3210 processor

Will the 16 GB mSATA SSD do anything for me as it comes from Lenovo? I plan to go with the 500GB , 7200 RPM HDD. I was also looking at the standard 4 GB (1 DIMM) of main memory....from what I could read that should be good....?

I have no interest in any other option like a different drive that I get and try to install myself. After reading all the various forums on this I gather that Lenovo uses some software to support it and there were cases of the software not being installed on some t530 boxes. Will I see any decrease in boot up time?

What about the WiFi card...I gather I should get the most advanced ?

Will the NVIDIA 5400M Graphics card benefit me and how?

I welcome all opinions

Thanks,

JimP77

[ajkula66]

Welcome to the forum!

You could upgrade your existing machine with a SSD in the main bay, throw a 500GB or larger conventional drive in the Ultrabay, spring for a bit more RAM and possibly live happily ever after...an upgraded wireless card would not be a problem either.

Mu $0.02 only...

[JimP77]

Interesting suggestion...would your upgrades include going to Windows 7 or staying with XP?

[Radioguy]

Mu $0.02 only...

Which, going by today's currency rates, is priceless.

[ajkula66]

Interesting suggestion...would your upgrades include going to Windows 7 or staying with XP?

I'd go with W7 unless you have a very strong reason for sticking with XP.

[pianowizard]

I have determined that I do not want a touch screen and do not want Windows 8 at this time.

But it costs much less to upgrade to 8 than to 7. I am typing this on my Toughbook with Windows 8 and once I got used to the Metro-style Start Screen, it's just as easy to use as 7. And 8 would probably allow you to "live happily ever after" for longer than 7, since Microsoft will most likely support the former for 2 to 3 years longer than the latter.

Interesting suggestion...would your upgrades include going to Windows 7 or staying with XP?

Don't stay with XP. Microsoft support for XP is ending in mid April 2014, beyond which it won't be safe to go online. BTW, is the COA sticker on this machine for XP or Vista? If it's for Vista, then the easiest and cheapest thing to do is to upgrade to Vista. Vista runs well with Core2 Duo and 2GB RAM, although upgrading to 3 or 4GB would be even better. If you or your friends had bad experience with Vista back in 2006 and 2007, I assure you that Vista runs just as smoothly as 7 now. If you don't have a Vista installation disc, you can make one for free (and legally) by following these instructions: http://en.community.dell.com/support-fo ... river.aspx

I'd go with W7 unless you have a very strong reason for sticking with XP.

I doubt that he does because if he did, he would know that he needs to stick with XP and wouldn't be asking for opinions.

[JimP77]

Thanks for the replies to my query...I may not have made it clear in my original post that I planned to go to Windows 7 but I do. I was only asking the person who suggested upgrading my R61 if he would also go to W7 as part of his suggested upgrade.

After thinking about it a bit more, I do not want to upgrade my current box because I want to keep it as a second laptop to have at home. And, when I travel I can leave one at home for my wife. I would put all my current files on the new one and that would be the one that would grow (more photos, videos etc). When the support runs out on Win XP I will either junk the old box or upgrade it to W7 then.

So, what model ThinkPad would you recommend and with what featrures?

Again, I would be grateful for your suggestions and ideas

Thanks again