What to do for accessories?

[LegendaryKA8]

The upgrade bug has hit me again and I'm starting to find myself itching to do something new to my T60p. I had considered going to a W500, but have decided against it as I want to save some money and the T60p is able to do pretty much anything I really need it to do.

So... what sort of accessories do you consider essential with your T6x? Do you have a specific case you really love? I'm really just looking for ideas, since my rig's hardware specs are pretty much maxed out. I currently have the Lenovo bluetooth laser mouse and love it, and am considering a second hard drive and a USB-powered mini-monitor. I also use an Ultrabay battery for time to time, so does the second hard drive bay act like a USB drive enclosure in terms of being able to hot-swap?

[EOMtp]

... does the second hard drive bay act like a USB drive enclosure in terms of being able to hot-swap?

Yes, with respect to hot-swapping. Bonus: a hard drive in the UltraBay is not constrained by the comparatively low USB bandwidth.

[Yacek]

first of all - docking station.....

[dr_st]

A docking station, a good external monitor, keyboard/mouse, speakers if you like.

My laptop desk consists of:

* Advanced mini-dock
* DELL 2007WFP monitor
* Lenovo enhanced performance USB keyboard
* Logitech MX310 optical mouse
* Creative I-trigue 2200 speakers

I have two T60s, one personal, one company-issued. The docking station allows be to use either one easily with all the accessories.

[Aroc]

Hello -

Must have accessories for me (other than a Bluetooth mouse, which the OP already mentioned):

• Lenovo ThinkPad Advanced Mini-Dock Port replicator ( 250410U )
• keyboard. I use a Siltech (Gateway branded) with decent switches in the keys.
• trackball. I like the both Logitech Trackman Marble and the Kensington Trackball ultimate (4-buttons)
• large external monitor, or two. I have a Dell 3007WFP-HC and a viewsonic 19 inch.
• spacious desk, I got mine for free from a friend's business that was renovating. I just had to haul it away.
• Ultrabay slim hard disk drive adapter and plenty of 2.5 inch hard disk drives (needed for extra O/Ss, needed for Virtual machines, backups etc)
• Ultrabay slim DVD+-RW, it's not really needed since I keep .iso files on the hard disks.
• plenty of extra AC power supplies so I don't need to carry them around.
• 9-cell battery. A must IMO for any workstation computer. The GPU is thirsty for battery power.
• plenty of USB flash drives, or just two large ones. Useful for moving files or making backups of important files!
• It's nice to also have some sort of a NAS for backup!

Carrying bags or briefcases are highly personal. What you choose is also dependent on if you need to use air travel a lot or not. I don't fly very often (once per year on business at most, even less often for pleasure) so quality carry-on luggage is less important to me. I tend to prefer hardcase briefcases nowadays. However, my workhorses are two soft cases One is a overnight leather bag that came with my gateway notebook PC in the 1990's. That thing is simply huge and it is still in excellent shape for being 12 years old. I can fit three computer slugly in there or two with ample room. The other is a Kenneth Cole Hot Rod double gusset dowel briefcase.

Aaron

[LegendaryKA8]

Excellent advice... thanks for the tips! I'm still a little on the fence about getting a dock, as my desk already has an old 'retro' gaming desktop I have built to run my DOS/Win95 stuff as well as my M1730. My T60p spends most of its time on the go or in my living room.. although getting a dock and an external monitor for a dual display setup is very tempting.

I carry the T60p around with a lot of added accessories, so a bag that is both comfortable and spacious is very important to me. I have a US Luggage over the shoulder bag that I got with an old Latitude I bought years ago that is big enough to carry just about any notebook I've ever seen... in fact I used it to lug my M1730 around for a while. However, the major complaint that it is over the shoulder... walking around any sort of real distance with it just plain hurts. Being as I tote around the T60p, two 9-cell batteries, an Ultrabay battery, schoolbooks, and other essentials it gets very heavy, very quickly.

I just picked up a Swiss Gear backpack off of Amazon for $35(list price $100). It looks smaller than the one I normally use, and I'll admit that I can't organize things as well with it as I can my older one. However, it is just about as roomy, and with all my normal day-to-day computing and other accessories it feels much, much lighter. I just tried loading it up with all my schoolbooks(which is a worst case scenario as I typically only have one or two classes a day), my T60p, all its accessories, and threw my old 380ED in there for good measure... and everything felt more or less okay. I'm thinking this will be the perfect bag for me, especially as I don't travel by air.

[portsample]

Speaking of accessories, I've been tempted to try a "skin" on my T60. Has anyone else tried one of these yet?