T43 questions: display, fan noise, battery life, performance

[ddutta]

Hi

I am planning to buy a T43 and am looking at the 2687D8U and I want to compare with a T42 with 1.6/1.8Ghz. I have the following questions:

* is the fan noise really bad compared to the T42?

* how is the battery life?

* is the SXGA display significantly brighter/sharper/saturated (color) than the XGA display? Also, is this a flexview? I am concerned about my eyes gettin strained due to the small fonts on the high res screen?

* how fast is it compared to a dothan 1.6 and a 1.8Ghz processor? I dont intend to play games. I will use it for programming and running math programs. A simple T42 with a lower processor spec is way cheaper these days (350ish).

Thanks!

[K. Eng]

This should answer some of your questions, and there are lots of great pic as well!

http://www.laptoplogic.com/reviews/ibm/81/1/1/

The SXGA+ display isn't significantly better than the XGA display. The model of ThinkPad you are looking at is a 14" display and thus not Flexview (only 15" SXGA+ and UXGA are Flexview).

The 1.86 GHz Dothan will be marginally faster than the 1.80 Dothan. Most of the benefit will be in FP oriented code, due to the faster 533 MHz FSB on the 1.86. The 1.86 should be somewhat faster than the 1.60 Dothan.

I would say that you would probably be fine with the 1.86, 1.8, or 1.6 GHz processor. I believe compiling is mostly integer code, so the 1.8 is probably the best balance between cost and performance. Get the 1.86 if you absolutely need the speed

[Navck]

The fan isn't "HORRIDLY" bad, its just loud if you're close to it (Ear = 6 inches away from it)
Well I did have a desktop with 6 Vantec Tornados, so you may want to ask others on noise tolerance

[ddutta]

This should answer some of your questions, and there are lots of great pic as well!

http://www.laptoplogic.com/reviews/ibm/81/1/1/

The SXGA+ display isn't significantly better than the XGA display. The model of ThinkPad you are looking at is a 14" display and thus not Flexview (only 15" SXGA+ and UXGA are Flexview).

The 1.86 GHz Dothan will be marginally faster than the 1.80 Dothan. Most of the benefit will be in FP oriented code, due to the faster 533 MHz FSB on the 1.86. The 1.86 should be somewhat faster than the 1.60 Dothan.

I would say that you would probably be fine with the 1.86, 1.8, or 1.6 GHz processor. I believe compiling is mostly integer code, so the 1.8 is probably the best balance between cost and performance. Get the 1.86 if you absolutely need the speed

Thanks a lot for the link to the review. It seems that the community is not happy with the fan noise.

I have a few more questions:

* Are there benchmarks of the newer sonoma based PMs comparing them to the regular Dothan ones? Whats the difference between a 1.6 and 1.86 in terms of FP performance. I agree that even a 1.6 should good enough for most stuff.

* Are there some decent T42 models that I can purchase? I need a 1.6/1.8, a 60GB and ram isnt an issue as I will buy 1GB anyway.

* I compared the XGA display on a T42+7500 with a SXGA+ on a T43+x300 and it seems that the XGA has a better color saturation. Is that generally true? The real estate on the SXGA+ was great though!

[nirvana0001]

recommend go get a t42p with the smiliar price from ebay.