T61 Pre-purchase

[markg2]

I will be buying a T61 to replace my screen dead A21p sometime during June. It is during that month that the sales person said Lenovo will have an ~15" screen for the 61.

In the meantime I would like to clarify a few purchase option questions.

1. Whether to get WXGA or WXGA+...The signficant downside for the "+" is ending up with screen data too darn tiny to read. If that were the only real consideration I would not have a question. I just want to be certain that there isn't something hugely important in having the greater resolution of a "+" screen that I'm unaware of?

2. Can someone either point me toward or advise as to how much greater the average access time is for a drive spinning at ~7k vs ~5k?

3. The cost for a processor running at 2.2 GHz vs 1.8 is a couple of hundred or so dollars. Does it manke any $ sense for such a small increase in speed?

Thanks,

Mark

[turnerpr]

Re: point #3, I believe there is an option to choose a processor running at 2.0 ghz (the T7300) Not a great jump between 1.8 and 2.0, but the 2.0 has 4 mg of cache instead of just 2. That translates into a genuine performance boost for only a small uptick in price ($37.50 more on lenovo.com for the T7300 versus the T7100)

[smd.smd]

As for question 3, I wouldn't focus on the clock speed alone, the 1.8 only has a 2MB L2 cache, while the others have a 4MB L2 cache.

The extra $40 to go from 1.8 GHz/2MB L2 to 2.0 GHz/4MB L2 is probably worth it, while going from a 2.0 GHz/4MB L2 to 2.2 GHz/4MB L2 is probably NOT worth it, especially considering the price jump.

As a rule of thumb when ordering, or pretending to order laptop, I usually go for the cheapest processor with the highest L2 cache (if that makes any sense).

-- Danny

[brnf]

1. Although I don't own a 14.1" WXGA+, or an LCD with the same dpi, yet, I think it is better to take the WXGA+ one. I don't know if you can do that in Windows, but in Linux (KDE) you can change the font and icon sizes, so having a too high resolution is not a real issue.

2. A big part of the access time is the rotational latency, in average your disk will have to rotate 1/2 times until the read head is at the right position, the latency is 25% lower for a 7.2k drive. Transfer rates during continuous reads are also higher, you can find some comparisons here:
http://www.storagereview.com/articles/ ... ook_3.html
Since hard drive are a major bottleneck, it is wise to take a 7.2k drive, combined with turbo memory it will be even faster. One minor drawback might be the higher power consumption, but I don't know how significant that is.

3. AFAIK the 1.8GHz version is the only one of the new Core 2 Duo's with 2MB cache instead of 4MB, so you should take the 2GHz version or higher.

[markg2]

My Replies:

1. Excellent point regarding the L2 cache size--I will definitely go for the 2.0 and will go higher if the $ reduces by the time I buy in several weeks.

2. If I could increase the font point size of characters within applications I would go with the "+" in a heartbeat. I know I could not do so under W2K. I will check the CompuServe Win OS forum regarding Vista Biz.

3. Even a 20% increase in disk access time is very reasonable. What I do not understand is why the drive sizes top out so low relative ot those offered at the lower rpm with the T61?

One last Question-

Does it make any sense to purchase the serial ATA hard drive adapter now for $49 "in the event" I would need an extra drive later?

Thanks,

Mark