Yet another T42 vs T43 thread

[ddutta]

I am waiting for a CTO T43 with 2G, 9cell, 256MB, 7K60HDD, SXGA+, FPR, 3yr. On the other hand I also odered a T42 2373H6U with 1.8G, 9cell, 256MB, 7K60HDD, SXGA+, FPR, 3yr on teh last day of the sale because the T43 is taking too much time.

pros of T43 over the T42:
* 10-15% faster proc
* 15% cheaper, DDR2-533 RAM is also cheaper
* might be less noisy due to sep05 model

cons
* less battery life than T42s
* supposedly more noisy than T42s
* no BT

neutral:

* X300 vs 9600 is a hot topic! but i think its the same for me as I use a little openGL and thats it.
* same configs for HDD, battery
* same 3 yr warranty
* ordering memory from newegg

Any comments? FYI, I am not nitpicky about 1db increase in noise and 1C increase in heat. Nor am I a gamer. If anyone has both a T42 and T43, I would like to know if the build quality is the same. Then the decision will be easy.

[variable]

no bt? You mean bluetooth? cause my t43 has bluetooth. In fact I don't think I could get it without it... I'll have to get back to you on the battery life. My roomate has a t42 so we'll have to compare notes. hah. get it? nevermind.

[bhtooefr]

He's probably meaning that the T43 that he ordered has no BT module.

[ddutta]

Yes thats correct. My t43 CTO model lacks btooth.

[ayilar]

Funny, I am in the same boat. My wife just received a T43 (delivered Saturday). I have a slightly different T43 (2668-75U) on order, slated for delivery sometime next week (still showing 2 weeks, though, but my rep tells me something more precise).

My other half and I worked together for a while on Monday night, in a very quiet environment, and after about 15 minutes she said "it's noisy." I was thinking the same, but had not said anything so as not to bias her -- wanted to see if she noticed as well. In addition, she is barely getting 2 hours of work time on the battery (15-in screen). She is not very happy about that, as she often flies cross-continent -- will rec. that she get a 9-cell battery as well.

Her machine is very fast -- but, based on the above, I am now working with my sales rep to change my order to the T42 (2373-H6U) with XP Professional, 6-cell, 256MB, 80GB HD, Multi, Intel 2200, 3-yr onsite. The certainty of increased battery life and the likelihood of a quieter machine should more than offset the 10% or so performance hit.

Question: bluetooth and a/b/g wireless are standard on the H6U, right? That is, will the machine as I configured it be ready to run out of the box?

[emorphien]

She should get at least 2.5 hrs on the 6 cell in the T43, I have a T43p with the 2ghz chip and with adaptive clocking I get at least 2.5 (more often it's 3 or a little above).

Also I have not found it to be noisy except when it gets hot which is not very often (like any laptop).

I guess it's relative.

[ayilar]

noise: Rep said the same thing, it should not be noisy. I guess the problem is that the fan is always on. As you say, it's relative -- in an officer, one would not hear it. At home, which is very quite, we do.

battery: I checked the battery state, it said "good". screen was off two pegs from full brightness. She was doing ppt work, internet in background, wireless on -- not impressed indeed, I may suggest she ask for a replacement battery after we make some tests with my (still TBO) T42.

[emorphien]

A replacement battery might be a good idea. Also make sure her CPU isn't running at full speed that entire time as it doesn't need to and that will gobble up battery life. I would think having the CPU at full speed would run it down faster than that but I've played games on mine for over an hour and having it at full speed is one thing, having it throttled up and at 60% or better CPU usage is far more draining.

The fan on my T43p is fairly quiet but as I understand it because of my video card I have a different cooling system so that might explain the difference (I think the FireGL V3200 comes with a longer more elaborate heat pipe/heat sink system and maybe a different fan).

[Sleepy]

I am getting close to 4h on my T43 (under Maximum Battery Life scheme). Of course, it depends what you intend to do with your laptop. 4h is with typing, opening pdf files and occasional web browsing.

[ctgilles]

no bt? You mean bluetooth? cause my t43 has bluetooth. In fact I don't think I could get it without it... I'll have to get back to you on the battery life. My roomate has a t42 so we'll have to compare notes. hah. get it? nevermind.

lawl
No bt is a big setback, I never thought I would ever use it on my T43! But since I have it I've been using it like crazy. If only everything had bt

But anyhow, my T43p with 6cell pack (9cell ordered yesterday) is holding out quite nicely. I am running 1001 processes at once, constantly synching with servers and I use Photoshop all the time. This battery lasts about 2.5~3 hours and it's fine by me. I'm running a custom dynamic switching scheme (performance optimised) and the highest brightness I can get on batteries.

I don't know about the cooling design of my V3200 or something, but I don't get the fuss. I've seen many posts of people shouting their T43 is way too loud but I disagree. On battery power, it's really quiet in my book. It's a bit more noisy with the AC plugged in.

I'm really happy! I can't compare with another IBM laptop, but I'm so happy I kicked out that XPS2

[ddutta]

We have a XGA T42 and it gives us only 3hrs on a new original 6cell battery with wireless on and brightness at 60% .....

So T43's 3hrs should be ok.

Suppose I keep the CPU to be in adaptive mode, turn the birghtness to 100% and leave the wireless on, how much battery life do people get on their T42s and T43s?

[ddutta]

With full brightness, I am getting only 2.5hrs on a new 6cell for my T42 with my proc at 600mhz