Played with the Z's today - Initial Impressions...

[AVANTI]

Hello. This is my first post. I am not a Thinkpad user but hopefully will be soon. So far I've used several HPs, Dells, even a Gateway and two Toshiba notebooks. In summary, I'm fed up of all this trash and am finally convinced that I need a bulletproof thinkpad. Only the older Dells stood up to rigorous use. Nowadays, everything out there is unreliable.

I spent the day at the GITEX computer expo in Dubai and got to tinker with the Z60t and m. My basic impressions:

I disagree with a poster on this board that the Titanium cover doesn't help in terms of flex. It SURE DOES!! It stiffens the cover by a factor of at least 2 or 3 times. I specifically toyed with the X, R, T series and then did the same to the titanium covered Z and there is a very obvious difference.

And the titanium cover is NOT silver. It may look it in the slick advertisement photos but its not. It is a gorgeous dark bronze hue. They couldn't possibly have picked a sexier shade of metallic carbon/brown/grey/black...its hard to tell exactly what color it is. FYI, the Titanium cover adds 100 grams in weight over the regular black one.


The ergonomics are even better than the R and T series. Substantially so. The most obvious improvement is that the fingerprint reader is closer to the touchpad. The touchpad's buttons are very close to the edge which I love. The trackpoint has a fat, blunt head which is a joy to use. The windows button is a nice addition, no matter what those stuck up purists say (if you use windows at all this is a useful button - you can't deny that).

I was a little surprised by the weight of the Z60t. I thought it would be lighter. But then again, it had the extended life 7 cell battery bolted on.

Although initial news of the rounded edges may have been disconcerting to the thinkpad purists and even myself, I very quickly adopted the new look and the sharper cornered edges of the T series began to look dated. All this in the span of the first half hour of comparing them side by side.

Build quality - I couldn't detect even the slightest sign of reduced quality in the new Z series. In fact, it seemed even better packaged than the T and R series. I feel that a lot of X series buyers will now think twice before taking the plunge when faced with the option of the Z.

The z60m is really a great notebook, but i definitely prefer the form factor of the t. Unfortunately, the t's resolution leaves a lot to be desired. I upped the screen resolution settings but that resulted in having to move the mouse beyond the desktop into virtual territory. Returning it to the default resolution proved the limitation of this notebook. There's no point having a wide screen on such a low resolution setting - you won't be able to view two documents side by side as they should be. Incidentally, I am typing this on my Dell Inspiron 9300 17" with WUXGA, so I am surely spoiled and biased, but still 1280x768 is too low a resolution.

The z60m with 1680x1050 that I played with was a perfect resolution for the screen size.

The new speakers are significantly better, but still not comparable to my subwoofer on the Dell 9300 or some of the Toshiba subwoofer-endowed lappies. Then again, who bloody cares... If you need bass, stick headphones into your notebook.

Overall, I am mightily impressed with the latest series from IBM/lenovo. I will hold out until they announce a higher resolution screen for the Z60t as that is the form factor I am aiming for. Once they do that, I'll be first in line. Until then I'm impatiently waiting.

If there is anything I might have missed out on first impressions, please point it out and I'll see if I can add any more comments. Please remember that I am not a hard core thinkpad user - I've never owned one, so my description might have sounded a little amateurish.

Ciao from Dubai!

[Michael1980]

Nice. Z60t looks like a winner. Does it have the Titanium option as well?

[AVANTI]

Yeah it does. I think in the US the titanium cover will initially come standard on the higher-specced models.

In our market they come standard and are not an option. You shoulda seen how giddy the Lenovo reps were about the fact that the venerable IBM thinkpads finally have a new color casing. It was as if they had ingested a couple speed pills.

The Z60t is absolutely stunning. With a higher resolution screen and a discrete video card it would be the most desirable laptop out there.

[fbrdphreak]

Hey guys,
I got my Z60t in yesterday and wrote up my first impressions:
http://www.laptoplogic.com/news/09/29/2005/534/0/

A full review is in the works

[snife]

I personally don't see the WSXGA resolution coming out on the Z60t - I like my big resolutions too but with most users it just causes complaints that "everything is too small" so I think it will remain an option for the 15" model only - I have been wrong once of twice before though so you never know once a Z61t comes out.

I'm not sure where you get the bronze from though - my one and the ones I have seen are definately silvery - kind of similar to the hinge colour on the other systems.

Nice to see some more positive opinions now that more people are getting to see the machines cause they are nice systems and I think it is important they sell well to ensure widescreen remains an option for ThinkPads - remember how long we had to wait for a tablet after the TransNote incident.

[AVANTI]

I'm not sure where you get the bronze from though - my one and the ones I have seen are definately silvery - kind of similar to the hinge colour on the other systems.

That's weird cause I'm certain that the models i tested were not silver. They were quite dark metallic covers. In any case, I think they are the coolest (and sturdiest) notebook covers out there. I tried to scratch them with my nails but luckily failed.

Is there any news on the possibility of AMD powered thinkpads?

[fbrdphreak]

Is there any news on the possibility of AMD powered thinkpads?

There are rumors, but nothing official yet. I'm due to meet with Lenovo when the Z60m becomes available, hopefully I'll remember to ask

And no, there will be no WSXGA+ or discrete graphics on the Z60t. No WSXGA+ because (A) I've never seen a 14" WSXGA+ and (B) users who buy Z60t's are not looking for high res workspace. Those users will buy a T-series.

Discrete graphics won't be included because Lenovo plans to use the same chassis for next year's new machine. Think *dual core*

[rajm]

thanks for all your help fdrdphreak. I was wondering, when will the z60m's with the 128mb graphics be available?

[fbrdphreak]

In the next 1-2 weeks. I think I heard a rough date of Oct 14, but that's not concrete.

[K. Eng]

Wow... I can't wait for the full review

In the next 1-2 weeks. I think I heard a rough date of Oct 14, but that's not concrete.

[fbrdphreak]

Our review on the Z60m won't be out for a little while, but the Z60t review is in the works.

[Zak]

And no, there will be no WSXGA+ or discrete graphics on the Z60t. No WSXGA+ because (A) I've never seen a 14" WSXGA+ and (B) users who buy Z60t's are not looking for high res workspace. Those users will buy a T-series.

What about the users who want a thin and light Thinkpad with a high resolution wide-aspect screen? That happens to be exactly what I want.

As for the Winkey, I don't use Windows on my primary machine, at all. Remapping the key doesn't solve the problem; the problem is that there's an extra key in a place where I don't want it to be. I understand that I'm part of a small and vocal minority here, but the lack of a Winkey happens to be one of my favorite things about the Thinkpad. It would be nice to have an optional - even aftermarket keyboard without it.

[fbrdphreak]

That's the problem Zak, you are in the minority

I also suspect that WSXGA+ 14" screens are rare/not present in the current market. You do not see 14" WSXGA+ screens in any other makes or models...

[Daniel]

How is the screen on the Z60t? Is it one of those bright/glossy displays?

[Steve007]

Excellent summery AVANTI! Thanks!

[fbrdphreak]

How is the screen on the Z60t? Is it one of those bright/glossy displays?

No, it is a regular matte screen. Mine has been running benchmarks for the past few days, so I'll report on brightness/clarify in the next couple days

[emorphien]

What is the cover made of if you don't get the titanium? I sure hope they didn't just use some flimsy layer of plastic.

[fbrdphreak]

Very good question.......

[AVANTI]

What is the cover made of if you don't get the titanium? I sure hope they didn't just use some flimsy layer of plastic.

I have no idea. The two models I tested both had the new titanium covers. I suppose the standard covers will be the same as the current lineup.

[lfeagan]

Argh, I read over your preview and noted the addition of the Windows and Application keys to the keyboard. This is very disappointing. I don't mind being able to map one of my Ctrl keys to the Windows key, but I don't like having to give up valuable keyboard real estate for the silly keys. As a programmer, I find myself doing combinations of Ctrl-Shift + <some other key> on an extremely regular basis to set formatting options, debug code, and other things. By regular, I mean that I find myself having to do alt- or ctrl- combinations every 2 minutes. The extra space afforded by removing the Windows and Application keys and making they Ctrl and Alt larger is greatly appreciated by this (and other) programmers. Hopefully they will continue to offer the more traditional keyboards on the T- and X-series.

[phr]

Uh oh, it looks like it uses Radeon 300M/600M video chip--anyone know if that's like the Xpressa 200M that all the Turion laptops are using? That chip has a secret API so there's no open source drivers possible. The only way to run Linux is through a closed driver from ATI, which defeats the purpose. Thinkpads up to now have always been very Linux friendly. It's looking like my next laptop will be a T43p rather than a Z series, and after that I'm probably up a creek.