Thinkpad purchase - need second opinions

[abower]

Hi all,

Quick synopsis of my situation. Was a longtime thinkpad user and had bought a T61 about 9 months ago. It was pretty decent but I was not a big fan of the widescreen. I had been on the fence about getting a T60 with 4:3 vs T61 with WS but ended up with T61. Prior TP was T42 which I really liked but was getting a little slow for dev work with VS2008. SQL2005 etc etc.

Anyhow, current T61 was destroyed ( not fixable unless you can unburn a thinkpad..... ) and long story short Insurance will not be covering it so I am back in the market. The budget won't stand for another full load T61( or T400/500 gen) so am back looking to T60 as a somewhat lower cost option. Given that I had T61 before, will the perf difference be noticeable or not. I am thinking it will be minor but would welcome others opinions. Would also consider a used R / Z model if they are considered decent but I am not familiar enough with the screen choices / performance / reliability on those to make an educated choice on those models. I think Z was WS only but not sure on that.

Forgot to add - need 1440 minimum, and 1680 preferably for res on screen. T61 was 1680, t42 was 1440.

Anyhow thanks for any and all feedback.

Abower

[RealBlackStuff]

This very informative post by Johan should give you a great start:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=68248
15" UXGA T60/T61
UXGA = 1600x1200 in a 4:3 format, which would be right up your street.
An alternative would be a T42/p or T43/p with the same screen, which would save you quite a few bucks...
Or right now, there's a great A31p with UXGA for sale in our Market forum which has everything you (probably) need:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=71960

[abower]

Hi, yes that was a great post to point me to.
Thanks very much. I did see that A31p, but I was thinking that might be a little long in the tooth although I agree the price is attractive, and same for stepping back to T43. As mentioned I had been at T61 perf levels so I don't want to step too far back as most of my work is in VS2008/ERP/SQL2005/SQL2008 which all need some decent specs to run nice and fast together.

- Abower

[ajkula66]

T60/p was available in WSXGA+ which is what you're looking for, as well as with C2D CPUs, so that might work for you. The same holds true for Z61m, and some of R61 units.

Z61t was available in WXGA+, as were some R61s as well.

No machine on this list should break your budget...

[Marin85]

Also, Z61p is available with WUXGA (1920x1200), it was actually the first Lenovo ThinkPad with such resolution (because of the widescreen). It has the same hardware as T60p (C2D, ATI FireGL 5200 etc.) and it might be even cheaper than a T60p unit. Still, if I was you, I would go for a 4:3 aspect ratio. I still sometimes regret that I didn´t buy a T60p with 4:3 Flexview display when I had the opportunity to...

[basketb]

What exactly is your budget?
I've seen 1 to 1 and 1/2-year old WUXGA T61ps on ebay for around $800 recently. WUXGA is definitively great for software development.
You may also find some decent offers in the Lenovo outlet (though I haven't looked there is quite some time).