A31p or T40

[lilserenity]

Hiya,

Quick question, if you could go for an A31p UXGA Pentium 4m 1.8GHz or a T40 with SXGA and Pentium-M 1.6GHz, which would you go for?

Vicky

[JHEM]

Vicky,

As others have responded in the T Series forum, go for the T40!

Regards,

James

[G-Man]

Vicky,

I have a T40, and never had any problem with it. I never experienced the fan problem. I like the screen, the performance, and the slim height. So as James already said, go for the T40!

Regards,
G-Man

[dperron]

Vicky,

I own an A31p and I love it! It is fully equiped and it has a superb screen. (watch out if you have presbyopia...) It also has 2 ultrabay, so you can add a second hard drive (while keeping the CD-R/DVD). And it also has video in/out, which is extremely rare for a laptop (but otherwise pretty much useless...

However it is a "desktop replacement", the battery lasts no more than 2 hours (best case scenario!!...with a new battery) and it is heavy...

The T40 is more powerful (Pentium M 1.6) and it has longer battery life.

So the only reason for choosing the A31p is the screen, the extra features/ports (does the T40 have serial and parallel ports?) and upgradability.

[Rene.Lochmann]

Hiya,

Quick question, if you could go for an A31p UXGA Pentium 4m 1.8GHz or a T40 with SXGA and Pentium-M 1.6GHz, which would you go for?

Vicky

Tough question - both are great notebooks: For private purposes I own a Thinkad A31 (unfortunately no A31p), in the office I'm working with a T40. So which one would I prefer I had to choose? The 15" Flexview Screen of the A31p is simply the best; I miss this screen when working with the T40. On the other side the A31 is much bulkier und looks much cheaper (ABS plastic) in comparison to the T40 (oh yes, the T40 is slim and handy). So it depends what you're gonna do with your notebook. If you want to carry it around and if you don't need a really great screen, go with the T40. If you most of the times work at the office and if you need a big, very sharp screen, choose the A31p.

Hopefully, this helps.

Rene (Germany)

[khamsin]

I don't know about the A31 or the T40 I have, however, been using an A30p for 2.5 years now. Luckily I got the everything including the kitchen sink version that includes a 3 years warranty. I have had occassion to use call on this twice. In both cases IBM had to replace mainboard because of a failing video card (vertical lines appearing, slight torsion on the machine would temporarily cure the problem, I believe it is heat related and that the memory chips of the video card loosen.) Since this has happened twice at approx 1 year and 3 months intervals I believe it to be a design error in the A30 series (possibly A3x. series)

IBM no longer sells the A3x series laptops so the ones you can buy are either second hand or old stock. Parts availability is becoming a problem I had to wait 7 weeks for the mainboard to arrive so it could be fixed the second time. The IBM service desk mentioned that another 58 mainboards were in backorder when I called after 10 days.

Going on just that I would think the T40 would be a better choice.

That said, aside from the video card issue this A30p has never let me down. I immediatly downsized the win2k partition and installed debian linux in dual boot configuration. I have since migrated my original 48 GB HDD to the ultrabay 2000 and run linux os off an 80GB Toshiba HDD. I am still running the original installation of win2k off the 48GB HDD and it has not yet needed a reinstall. Upgrading to 1GB of memory has proved a blessing, and the wireless lan card and bluetooth connection work under both win2k and linux without any problems. I have not needed to use the modem so I do not know if it works in all likelyhood it does. The TV in I have never used, but the TV out is handy for presentations or watching DVDs

What I love about my A30p is the superb LCD screen I do not know who the manufacturer is, but I have yet to see a better LCD on any laptop. Added to that expandability of the system was my main concern at the time. qv. the 80 GB HDD and 1GB ram.

What I dislike is the 2.5 hour battery time. Since I use this machine as a desktop replacement it has rerely become an _real_ issue.

HTH

Khamsin

Update:
The T42p seems to have some heat related issues. Removing the CD/DVD if you do not need it seems to solve the problem (more air) so if stability is important maybe not get the T42p but the R50 wich uses the same mainboard.