Very happy with new 2379DXU

[jayk]

I just got my T42 2379DXU today and I'm thrilled. I've bought and worked with laptops from a fair number of manufacturers over the past few years, and this is the best built machine I've seen in this class so far. For a business machine (no firewire, flash slots, etc.), it's just about perfect. Some other machines we've had around here and my impressions are as follows:

HP Omnibook 6000/6100: very nice machines - I'm replacing one with this T42 (it's still working fine, BTW), we've seen excellent reliability from these - a shame HP dropped them

Sony VAIOs... JUNK! - at least the ones circa 2001-2002. We've got a pile of 3 or 4 dead VAIOs sitting around here someplace. The newer machines (A and Z class) seem to be built much better, but only time will tell.

Dell Latitude and M60... decent but nothing spectacular. Seem reliable enough. Case doesn't seem nearly as tough or as well put-together as this T42.

This is our first Thinkpad, but surely won't be the last. Nice job IBM!

[jayk]

I was happy to find out that the machine shipped with 512MB and an expansion slot open (I was expecting 2x256MB). I added a Transcend PC2700 1GB SODIMM ($281 from Newegg) and it seems to be working great. I was a little nervous about this memory because I always buy expansion memory from Crucial (which always works flawlessly), but so far so good. I'll post if I have any trouble with it.