Not sure I got the right laptop

[Stunt101]

Hey guys/gals,

I recently ordered a fully-loaded t42p. While the construction is excellent, and I've had no problems with the hardware, I'm starting to wonder if I made a wise choice for my college laptop. For example, I doubt I really need the 1 gig of ram, and although the graphics card may be really good for business applications that are graphic-intensive, it is not impressive when it comes to games, and I probably won't be gaming much anyway. Bottom line, do you think that a 1.2 ghz x40 with 512 mb of ram will be sufficient to handle anything a college student could throw at it, minus games (which I don't care much for anyway)? With the $700 price difference, I could get myself a 19" lcd for my dorm (so I can work more easily) and an external hard drive to compensate for the x40's limitations. What do you think? Is it worth the switch, or am I just jabbering for no good reason? Also, what is IBM's return policy?


Thanks in advance

[admsteiner]

I believe IBM has a 30 day no questions asked policy.

Do you want a 14/15" screen or is a 12.1 enough? I found that a 12" XGA display doesn't give me enough screen real estate (especially when coding). I just purchased a T42 (14.1" SXGA+) for law school, and so far I am very happy with it.

[Logi7]

well if you bought it within 30 days of the order, then IBM will take it back no questions asked.

personally, i wont be brinign my big rig with me to college cause theres just no space for it (but sinch u haev a lcd screen space isnt really an issue)

as for handling college stuff .. i mean u caould get a 500 dollar laptop that will be more than enough for websurfing + word processing, which jsut about sums up anything that u would be doing for assignments and such. So its more of a personal preference than an issue with the computrer being able to get you through school.

So is your main issue here, the money u spent on the t42?

The x series is great but sometimes u need a CD rom - the T4x is pretty small as is, maybe you shoudl just return it and get a lower model + your 19" lcd screen?

[Chun-Yu]

It really depends on what you want out of it - if you want the screen space of SXGA+ or UXGA, then the T series is really the way to go. Personally, I wouldn't trade the SXGA+ display I currently have for the smaller XGA an X series would have. However, if you would be content using 1024x768 while away from your room and then plug in to a 19" LCD in your room, then the X is probably the way to go. In normal use, the extra CPU speed is probably not needed - mine is usually sitting at 600 MHz probably over 90% of the time anyway. You're right about the 1GB of memory probably being excessive too - unless you're running virtual machines in something like VMWare or doing some intensive photo/video editing, you should be totally fine with 512 MB. With my 1.25GB, I haven't even seen Linux use the swapfile at all so far, even when I am running a LOT of stuff (although Windows pages #*&$#* to disk even when it doesn't *really* need to just so it can expand it's cache to like 800 MB...a minimized Mozilla window takes FOREVER to restore sometimes).

IBM has a 30-day no questions asked return policy. If I were you I would probably at least exchange it for a T42 and save some money there.

BTW, the chicks would probably find the X series "cuter" too ^_^

[rhema83]

Just my 2 cents here...

A T42p is pretty excessive for college, no matter what you're going to study. Even if you do a lot of graphics, I doubt you will need the 128MB FireGL or the 1GB RAM. Not to mention the Bluetooth, 802.11a/b/g and 7200rpm HDD. You are be paying for power you might never utilise.

It's like buying a Ferrari Modena or a Yamaha R1 for city commuting, if you know what I'm talking about. It's good to have the extra power, the prestige and bragging rights. But how often are you going to throttle 100%? It's going to burn a hole in your wallet and less than a year later, newer and meaner machines will make your expensive baby a relic.

It's really a personal choice. I'm going to college and I bought a T42 2378-FVU. Added in another 512MB of RAM, extended the warranty to 3 years and bought both neoprene slip case and leather carrying case. All for less than $2000. That's about the maximum I would spend on a computer, whether desktop or laptop.

Don't worry about not having enough computing power. If there are applications which a P3 laptop cannot run, the college probably have them on their powerful workstations. Always go for the "second best models" for the best value.

[sktn77a]

A state-of-the-art laptop will last you (technologically-speaking) all the way through college. Anything less will have you limping along in your 4th (and maybe 3rd) year wishing you had got the best one. By the time you upgrade the X40 with a larger hard drive, ultrabase and monitor, you'll have a bulky system that underperforms the T42 by a significant margin.

On the other hand, if you really want to take your laptop to class with you - the smaller the better.