Homepage
Forum
Drivers
HMM
MTM
Feed
What I want in a laptop. I am a computational scientist and do most of my work in Linux. In general, I value text resolution most highly since I typically have 2-3 terminal windows open plus a text editor for whatever I am doing. Occasionally, I also do visualization and one of my goals was to have a laptop that could accomplish some basic tasks in this regard. I travel alot, and I always carry on my bags, weight and portability were a huge concern.
The T40 series was basically my choice from day one. I have always loved the IBM trackpoint, and the T4x offers the thinnest, lightest solution that does not really sacrifice power. To me, the 14.1" screen models are the absolute perfect form factor...just big enough to give you a good amount of screen, but still small enough to be extremely portable. The other concern that the the T4x was one of the only systems that give you more than XGA resolution. As I said, I value screen real-estate tremendously, so the extra resolution is a huge plus. An extra bonus would be something like a screen that uses a newer technology like IPS or MVA in order to achieve higher brightness, contrast, and viewing angle. But so far, none of the ultra-portable laptops had this ability (although Fujitsu has just come out with an MVA screen for their 13" laptop...but only in XGA).
Why I got the 2379-DYU. I was all set to order the T41p (2373-GEU) and one week before I ordered, I heard that IBM was set to announce the T42 line. So I decided to wait. I still would have happily bought the T41p except for one thing: Flexview screen. After looking at pictures, I decided that the 15" T42 was not that much bigger than the 14" T4x, so I bit the bullet and got a 15" T42p, as yet unseen.
Size/weight. I have to say, I am very surprised at how little I notice the extra bulk of the 15" model. Honestly, yes when I compare it side-by-side to my friends' T40s it is slightly bigger and heavier, but in practical terms this does little to affect how portable I find it. Aside from the fact that it adds an extra 0.6 pounds to my backpack every day (over a 14.1" model), I cannot say I suffer any loss in portability whatsoever. The benefit of the Flexview screen, for me personally, far surpasses any sacrifice in weight and size. In a perfect world, I would have loved a 14.1" Flexview screen. But in a world of compromise, I feel I made the right choice.
Flexview. The Flexview screen is fantastic. I compared it to my fiance's Toshiba's "Clear Advanced Super View" screen (which I think is actually an MVA screen made by Fujitsu), I actually prefer the Flexview. It has less variance in color and intensity over viewing angle than the Toshiba. The text is super-crisp and bright. The only drawback is now I notice how blurry my 6-year-old Mitsubishi CRT on my home workstation is.
Some people complain about the small text under UXGA. Under Linux, it is incredibly simple to scale up the size of fonts for anything I use, so I so not have the issues that other people seem to have under Windows. In Windows, I just selected "Large Fonts" and "Cleartype" and everything is easily readable for me. I use Mozilla Firefox as a browser and I can scale up fonts in any web page with the touch of a button. The response time is the only thing for which the Flexview is less than perfect. I have tried playing Neverwinter Nights and Enter the Matrix. In both, I can notice some blurring as I move around due to the slow pixel response time. The most acute example of this is in Matrix, when I am looking at a brightly lit object (like a white sign or a TV screen in the game) and I rotate the view. This leaves a white streak behind the bright object that lasts a fraction of a second. In the end, however, if I just settle down and play the game, I no longer notice anything. Part of the reason I notice these kind of imperfections is that the screen is so good. With a dimmer screen with less contrast and a more washed-out appearance, it would be much harder to notice this kind of thing.
Again, in a world of compromise, having a faster response time would probably have meant more power usage and possibly more weight.
The only "ghosting" effect I have noticed is if I go to http://webmail.att.net, I notice a very very very slight whitening of the blue background directly underneath the while login box. I would never have noticed this at all if Conmee had not pointed it out on his 15" SXGA+ screen. I have not noticed any other artifacts whatsoever. Also, I have no dead pixels (knock on wood).
FireGL T2. I have not done any benchmarking on it, but it plays Enter the Matrix and NWN more smoothly than the GeForce4 Ti 4600 on my Athlon XP2500+ workstation.
Battery life. I get about 3.5 hours on the standard 6-cell battery in "Battery Performance" mode with WiFi enabled and the screen on brightness setting 2 or 3. This pretty much fits what the IBM TABOOK says. A 9-cell battery (that comes with every other "p" model) would therefore last 5.25 hours. This is somewhat less than the 14.1" models, but the IPS screen eats up more power than the 14.1" TN LCD. It's something like an extra 2-3 watts.
Hard drive. This model is also the only "p" model to come with something other than the 60GB 7200RPM drive. In the end, I am actually glad it came with the 80GB since with a dual-boot system, I really do need the extra space. The drive is very quiet and does not get hot or warm up the palmrest noticeably. The only annoyance I had with it at the very beginning was that when it parked its heads (which it does aggressively, and after something less than 1 second of idle time) it made this "tick" sound that was, shall we say, quite audible. Much more audible than any other noise the drive made when it was busy. In Windows, even if you are not touching the machine, it will access the drive about once a second for at least 10 seconds (and after each access, the heads would park themselves again: "tick"). So the machine would sit there idle, and I would hear "tick......tick......tick.....tick...." After about a day or two, however, the intensity of the "tick" decreased dramatically, and now although I can still hear it, it is quiet enough that I tune it out with no problem.
I cannot make any speed comparisons to the 7200RPM drive because I have never used one. It is definitely slower than the 7200RPM (8MB cache) 3.5" Western Digital 800JB and 2000JB models I have on my workstations, but that's to be expected.
Summary. Overall, I am extremely satisfied with my T42p. The slightly extra bulk and power drain are, for me, worth sacrificing to get the Flexview/IPS screen. The screen is really wonderful. I cannot keep saying that enough. If you want to get an idea of how it looks, go to Fry's and look at any Fujitsu that has their "Crystal View" screen and imagine the same screen, but without the glossy reflective coat (the Flexview has superior anti-glare characteristics, although I think the color depth on the Fujitsu may be ever so slightly better). An alternative would be to go to Best Buy or CompUSA and look at a Sony XBrite screen, but also try to imagine it without the glossy reflective coat (and even then I do not think the XBrite display is as good as either the "Crystal View" or Flexview). Then compare these to a run of the mill machine. This will give you a feeling for the difference between the 14.1" TN screen and the 15" Flexview/IPS. Then you can decide for yourself whether the Flexview screen is worth it to you. It might not be...everybody is different.
The keyboard is rock solid. The fan makes virtually no noise. Build quality is first-class. Everything one would expect (although in the past might not necessarily have gotten) from a Thinkpad.
Mofongo
) and hasn't posted a single Dothan notebook review!