Help Me pull the trigger R50p T42 DXU or T42p HTU ??????

[trikster2]

Hi all

First time caller long time listener.

Trying to decide between three thinkpads, all with the flexview screen:

$1599 183222U R50p
$1699 T42 2379DXU
$2134 R42p 2373HTU

Prices are EPP discount. Is that the best price?

The Ps have a 3 year waranty, the Fire GL 128mb and the 60gb 7200rpm hard drive.

Pros/Cons
R50P has the older banias 1.7 ghz, but it also has a 9 cell battery with a claimed life of 6hrs.

The DXU has only the 1440 res screen (better on my eyes), but lacks the DVD recorder and a decent waranty will cost extra $$$$

the R42p has it all and 1gb of ram but is $500 more.

Is the donthan, an extra 512mb and T42p chasis worth the additional $500.? Am I missing any pros/cons? Leaning slightly towards the R50p right now just based on price and battery life. Places are still selling the P for $3550. I know it's outdated technology and overpriced but still, kind of cool to be carying around an almost $4g laptop....

A distant contender is the 14" FVU. Attractive price at $1401 but concerned by the dimness of the 14" non flexview screens.....

Are the R's keyboards as good as the Ps?

Thank you very much for any input!


Oh, my requiremetns: Laptop for the road to play MMORPG (hense the radeon) and work on an online masters that so far has required a ton of typing (hense the thinkpads for the keyboard).

[trikster2]

Wow 4 votes and none for the 50p

Are they that bad or is it just that it is a year+ old laptop?

Maybe you guys are right. I just realized if I got te 50p I would have to move over to the almost postless A/R/G forum. Blech.......
]

[redsb3]

Not sure what you mean by better warranty. Though both the DXU and the HTU had 3 year warranties. If you mean accident insurance, you would have to buy that on any one of the three. IBM DVD recorder is a waste. Only 2X and takes about 40 minutes to burn a DVD, in your words, blech. Better off with an external that you can use on any machine. My .02 worth.

[trikster2]

Not sure what you mean by better warranty. Though both the DXU and the HTU had 3 year warranties. If you mean accident insurance, you would have to buy that on any one of the three. IBM DVD recorder is a waste. Only 2X and takes about 40 minutes to burn a DVD, in your words, blech. Better off with an external that you can use on any machine. My .02 worth.

Lol

Redsb3 I'm not sure what I meant either. Maybe I thought the DXU was a one year waranty but it looks like a 3 year.

So now I just need to decide if I want the 1600x1200 res and if I do is T42p chasis and donthan worth $500

One thing I like to do with my current Dell D800 is use it with the DVI passthrough in the port replicator to hook it up to my 19 inch LCD. I run the external LCD in portrait mode. the 1200 on the vertical resolution is nice because my monitor rotated has almost the same vertical resolution, 1280.

I'm just assuming I can do the same with the DVI passthrough on the thinkpads? Run a second monitor and rotate it into portrait mode? It's really great when writing papers to have a full page on the big monitor while doing all my research/reading on the laptop screen.....

Thanks for all the votes everyone. Don't be shy and let me know why you voted for dell or the ancient T50p.

I just noticed that the only "instock" is the T50p. It might win by default as I don't think I want to wait 2 weeks for this thing to ship (that just kills me).

Thanks!!!!!

[Daver]

Wow 4 votes and none for the 50p

Are they that bad or is it just that it is a year+ old laptop?

Maybe you guys are right. I just realized if I got te 50p I would have to move over to the almost postless A/R/G forum. Blech.......
]

Yeah, you must consider our bias after all. Of course we weren't gonna pick the R.

-Daver

[LumberJack]

hehe...

What I want to know is where those 2 Dell votes came from!




LJ

[Roisin]

right now, my winner is 2668-4EU (t43) going for $2299, and hopefully the epp price will be $1495

14" 1400x1050, 3 years, 6 cell, ati x300, intel abg, expresscard slot, but only a 40GB 5400rmp drive, wish they had put a 7200rpm into this one...

with the R-series, you dont get the elite feel

the worst thing is, that i know i dont need any more performance then x40 offers right now, both graphics and the slower smaller hardrive, only if i could figure out how to do norton ghost replication, when i cant even make bootable cdroms, as i wanted to blow that ibm recovery partition to hell, maybe a bootable primary partition with DOS and ghost, or learn how to make system images usable with ibm recovery options. (docking stations and external cdrom bricks just ruin my minimalistic cravings

would someone post images physically comparing a 14" t4x and a x40, please?

p.s. 9cell batteries ruin your visual pleasure

[trikster2]

ATI X300?????


How will that compare with Radeon 9600? Faster I hope????

I thought the discrete graphis would not be available until March. Not sure I want to wait ANOTHER month.

Thanks for the input all!

[Roisin]

x300 is pciexpress, but performancewise its pretty much the same as Radeon 9600, and btw, firegl cards arent any faster in real gaming anyway

[NathanA]

What I *WAS* going to ask was how you expected to get an R50p 183222U for ~55% off, but THEN I took a look at the current EPP pricing...

DANG! You ARE right!

Sounds like now is the time to buy! What, are they liquidating that model or something? It still sells for full price on both the main IBM site as well as on the BusinessCenter ones (15% off).

Dang!

Taking into account the sales tax rate in my state, I could have saved nearly $800 by going with the R50p if I had waited only one more month before buying! Not that I regret my purchase or anything...I love my T42p 2373KXU, to be sure, but...

Daaaaang!

That's a good machine at a good price. It has most of the features of the top-end T42s (and has an even faster DVD burner than the T42s...8x). And it's over half off!! You're not likely to see a deal like this again for some time, I'd think (unless someone out there who knows how the prices at EPP ebb and flow can prove me wrong...which I hope they can ). If *I* were in your position, I would be strongly tempted to go for the R-series laptop under the circumstances (don't hurt me, T-series forum regulars!). All you need to do is give it a little lovin' in the RAM dept. (bump it up to 1GB) and you have yourself a machine that's basically a T42p except slightly bulkier physically and with a slightly slower processor (but so what? from the reports on this forum, Banias-based notebooks CAN be upgraded to a Dothan CPU, so there's room to grow there, too...drop a 2.1GHz in there a few months down the road...).

The only reason I can think of not to get the R-series is on account of its slightly bigger frame and extra poundage. But, then again, at that price, with all those extra features, does it really matter that it's almost (not even quite) a pound heavier?

I'll say it again...

...DANG!!!

-- Nathan

[BranE]

Prices are EPP discount. Is that the best price?

Newbie question: Is EPP Educational?

[redsb3]

EPP = Employee Pricing Program.

[RS_003]

I am not going to read everything. But would like to comment on the poll.

I had to choose between the R50p and a T42 2373 WNF (CTO model)

I must say, the reaction time of the 1600x1200 screens are much (verry much) beter. On the T42 I can see some ghosting (like 35ms response time) and on the R50P more like 20ms, (so not so present at all)

In the end I did go for the T42 (1.7 Dothan, 786 PC2700, 9600 64mb, 5k80 60gb)


Mainly because it has a better housing, I move my laptop a lot, and a lot of fools get in touching range of my laptop, so it must be verry strong, the r50p uses diferent material, also the hinges are better on the T42.

So, T42 of T42P should be the poll.

R50P owners don't get me wrong, its a verry nice machine, but just not for me

[NathanA]

RS_003,

Yeah, but... $2,000 off!

Daaaang!



-- Nathan

P.S. - I'm not really sure how you can say that the reaction time of the LCD is better on the R50p anyway...it's the exact same panel, down to the FRU number. Has anyone else noticed the R50p panel being "better" in terms of reaction time that the T42p UXGA panels?

[RS_003]

RS_003,

Yeah, but... $2,000 off!

Daaaang!



-- Nathan

P.S. - I'm not really sure how you can say that the reaction time of the LCD is better on the R50p anyway...it's the exact same panel, down to the FRU number. Has anyone else noticed the R50p panel being "better" in terms of reaction time that the T42p UXGA panels?

No, I was talking about my T42 but you might read over that.
So I was saying, the 1600x1200 screens is faster, and also has a good viewing angle, but the brightnes is a bit less.

So thats why I am now working on a 15" SXGA Flexvieq

[sethstorm]

Since they dropped the double spindle A series(not the best thing to do to that kind of model and replace it with the low end-midrange R series), the R50P is in most respects, a heavier T42. With that in mind, going with the T42p has only one disadvantage - the 9.5mm bay (it's not that bad if you get a multiburner later if it's not in the model).

[NathanA]

sethstrom,

Actually, going with the T42 may have a second disadvantage: not being able to upgrade your LCD to a QXGA model later on, unlike the R50p.

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=495

After having seen the LCD cable that is in my T42p while the IBM on-site service-man was working on it, I really doubt that we're going to be seeing QXGA in a T42p become a reality...the cable is too specialized. Not only is it the actual *cable* that has the suspend switch on it (I kid you not), but the ThinkLight is actually a part of the cable as well. Unless IBM comes out with an inverter and cable set for the 2048x1536 FlexView panel that fits the 15" T42p, that combination will most likely never see the light of day, sadly enough.

If I had another $1,600 at my disposal and a willing IBM employee to get me in on the deal, I would be sorely tempted to grab an R50p while they're hot just so that I could try the QXGA mod in the future. That would be a killer display. Just KILLER! Alas, I cannot afford to do anything more about this but dream.

-- Nathan

[trikster2]

QXGA??????????

Thats insane!!!!!!

I can just see me holding a magnifying glass over the screen trying to read the text.....

[mjbauer]

I am in between the 2379DXU and the R50p as well...Things holding me back from the r50p:

-1600x1200 native on a 15" LCD. This is a bit tiny! I wonder how undesirable it would look taken down a level from native.
-Older Pentium M chip (1MB L2 cache)
-R Series build vs T Series build

Other than that, I'm not sure why I should pass up for the r50p from 2379 DXU, especially at $100 less via EPP...

[trikster2]

I agree. Really surpised R50p is getting only 10% here. Looks like the same power a little bulky compared to the T42 but I'm used to carrying around a dell D800 a pretty tanky laptop.

[NathanA]

So, what was your final decision, if I may ask?

If you haven't made a purchase yet, it looks like at least part of your decision has been made for you already since NONE of the shopping sites on ibm.com (the main one, the BusinessCenter credit card discount ones, OR EPP/SPP) show the R50p as being for sale any longer...I'm guessing that IBM was clearing them out and wanted to give preference to employees and their family/friends for the special clearance price (since the other sites didn't have this deal).

The R50p is no longer! May it rest in peace.

-- Nathan

[trikster2]

I spent too long deciding and IBM EPP sold out.

Gosh darn it.

Of course now I think It would have been a great choice. Esp since when it was in stock people were getting it the same week they ordered it

I hate waiting and now almost everything decent on the EPP site has a "2 week wait". DOH. If I'm gonna wait two weeks I might as well wait for the T43's with descrete graphics. Or see what the new dell sonoma's have to offer.

Thanks for the input everyone!