T43/T43p 15" First Impressions, Reviews ??

[pointfielder]

Hi,

Now that many people are receiving or have already received the T43/T43p 15" models,
if you are one of these lucky people, can you share your first impressions, thoughts,
may be even impromptu reviews? Please also include the model number for reference.
Thanks in advance.

Pointfielder

[baertracks]

Check out this post for an in depth review.

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... t43+review

I've been using Thinkpads ten years so I am naturally biased, but my T43 is the best ThinkPad ever.

Regards,
FRANK

[eharley]

Never owned a Thinkpad before, but have played around enough with one to know I liked it. Got a great deal on this, so I had to go for it.

Most of my impressions are in comparison to a Dell Inspiron 6000d (without integrated graphics) that I've been using for a little over a month. That computer has the same motherboard chipset, a 2.0 GHz Pentium M (instead of 2.13), and the memory is running at 400 MHz instead of 533. It's a 15.4" widescreen with 1920x1200 resolution. DVD burner, 9 cell battery.

One impression is that the different aspect ratio makes a big difference in the pitch of the pixels. This 15" 1600x1200 screen (on the T43p) has the same number of pixels vertically, but it's about an inch taller - if any of you have the default wallpaper with the time zones, the Dell screen only reaches up to the bottom of the black bar. As a result, things are just a little easier to read on the T43p. The T43p also came with some larger fonts set up in Windows, I believe, which I will get around to setting back at some point to reclaim some real estate. Subjectively, the T43p's screen seems more usable at lower brightness levels. It might be a tad brighter at the brightest setting, but it's a little hard to say. I am a screen hog, so I'll miss the real estate of the Dell, but the size difference alone makes the tradeoff worth it.

As far as size goes, the T43p wins hands down. Even though the 15" is considerably bigger than the 14.1", the 15" is narrower and thinner than the 15.4" Dell by a considerable margin. Subjectively it feels lighter, too. A little hard to tell from specs how much lighter the IBM actually is, but I think a little less than a pound. It's deeper than the Dell, especially with the 9 cell battery, but it still feels much more manuverable. One other thing that helps in this respect is the fact that it is noticeably stiffer than the Dell. The frame around the screen on the T43p helps (as well as the fact that the case is not just made from plastic). The Dell just creaks like crazy when you grab the corner of the screen to adjust the angle. I can't say it feels like a good idea, though, to pick up either computer by the front corner with one hand.

I also prefer the keyboard on the T43p. I actually was surprised to like it so much better, since I was quite pleased with the keyboard on this Dell. But the Dell's key travel is too short for my tastes, and every once in a while I'd catch a my finger on the bottom corner of an adjacent key, which felt like I was going to break the keyboard.

The trackpoint and trackpad buttons have a much better feel on the T43p. There's a very positive feel to the engagement and just the right amount of travel. They are also quite quiet. In contrast, the buttons on the Dell have a very sloppy feel, flex a little when you push them (as if they are too wide and made out of very thin plastic), and make a very loud clicking sound.

From installing software, I can say that using the Dell's optical drive is a more pleasant experience. It is much quieter and doesn't tend to vibrate the laptop as much. I can hear the read head move back and forth much more on the T43p. Much of this can probably be attributed to the greater weight of the Dell and the fact that, with the lid open, the base of the Dell seems to be almost twice as thick as the base of the T43p in places.

Then there's the "T43 fan issue." I can say that, as far as my particular T43p goes, the fan seems to do what it's supposed to do. It speeds up when the processor is loaded down, and then it slows down again when the load drops. I can also say that, at any given fan speed, the fan on my T43p is definitely more noticeable than the fan on the Dell. Some of this has to do with vent placement - the Dell's fan vents out of the back of the notebook in the left corner, where much of the reflected sound is blocked by the screen. Some of it also certainly has to do with the fact that the IBM is so much thinner - there's just less there to muffle the fan noise. Something that's perhaps harder to explain is why there is a noticeable whine along with the T43p's fan. With the Dell, even at max speed, I just hear a whoosh of air coming out the back. With the T43p, at the speed the fan runs for low-power tasks like writing this post, I can hear a little bit of the whine (sitting in a silent room). The whine gets louder with increasing fan speed. I suppose it's possible that this would bother some people, but I do not find it obtrusive. That said, I may check out Centrino Hardware Control at some point anyway.

The speed of the T43p is something I was really not prepared for. I didn't think the specs were enough different that it would really be noticeably faster than the Dell. Of course I can't tell a difference for ordinary tasks, but there is a noticeable difference when I perform calculations in Mathematica. Calculations of a few seconds or more take about 75% of the time on the T43p that they did on the Dell. It's really hard for me to account for this based on the specifications of the systems, so perhaps some of it has to do with power saving schemes. I am using SpeedSwitchXP on the Dell, and the ordinary IBM utility on the T43p. The tests were with both plugged in to AC power and set to dynamic switching, so if SpeedSwitch takes longer to set the processor to its highest clock speed, that could account for some of the difference.

Anyway, just been using the T43p for a day (it arrived yesterday morning), so that about does it for my initial impressions.