Help me choose! t40 or t41?

[bearpig]

Hi. I'm looking to buy a laptop for university. I've played around with my friend's ibm t40 and i really like it. The keyboard feels right, the size and weight is perfect, and the battery life is great.

The problem is, now that I've done some reasearch, I found that there are also t41 and t42 models! The t42 is out of my price range so its either the t40 or t41 for me. I'm going to use my laptop for word processing, spreadsheets, autocad, internet surfing, and listening to music. Here are some questions I'm seeking answers to before I make my purchase.

1. One thing my friend had to do was to buy a wireless card so he can surf the net with his wireless router. Does the t series have a built in wireless card?
2. What is the main difference between the t40 and t41?
3. What does the p stand for in some t models?
4. Which one would YOU get?

Thanks in advance for the help!

[Flightvector]

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=2734

This earlier post will answer your questions about what the main difference between the T40 and T41 is, and what the "p" refers to. But I'd recommend the T41 if you can afford it, since it is the successor to the T40 and has the APS active hard disk protection. Truthfully you won't see much, if any, difference from the outside, but the faster memory bus and more effective graphics card will make a difference.

The T series will always have integrated wireless capability by now since most are Centrino-badged and the rest have IBM's more effective Atheros chipset miniPCIs. There may have been custom (I forget the term) models sold without a PCI card, but at this point almost all available T40s will have integrated wireless. I also see that you mention autoCAD, if this is a major use for you, you really should go with the T41 or even T41p since these tasks will generate a good amount of load.

Also, which models are you considering, and where are you seeing the deals you are getting?

[bearpig]

I'm looking at the clearance deals on ibm.ca. I'm located in Canada (Toronto) and I don't know anywhere else that sells ibm notebooks :p . As for other models I'm considering, I've looked at some sony models like the S and V series but I don't think sony products are all that worth it. Based on your very helpful info, it sounds like the t41 is what I'm looking for.

[awolfe63]

I would not get anything less that a T41p if you plan to use Autocad.