Think T61p replacement - T400? T500? W500? Mac Book Pro?

[Kn0bby]

Hi Guys,

Im a massive ThinkPad fan and have been for years, my current machine is a T61p, its 18 months old and I am thinking of replacing the machine. I've been looking at W500's but really not sure if they are a direct replacement, my T61p is a 14.1 inch and dont really fancy the big bulky 15 inch.

Been a PC man for 20 years, wondering if I should take the plunge and buy a Mac, the Mac book pro seems like a worthy machine, i can still run Win7 VM on it.

Your thoughts

Cheers

Dave
PS my ThinkPad T61p is currently for sale.
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=84971

[archer6]

Hi Guys,

Im a massive ThinkPad fan and have been for years, my current machine is a T61p, its 18 months old and I am thinking of replacing the machine. I've been looking at W500's but really not sure if they are a direct replacement, my T61p is a 14.1 inch and dont really fancy the big bulky 15 inch.

Been a PC man for 20 years, wondering if I should take the plunge and buy a Mac, the Mac book pro seems like a worthy machine, i can still run Win7 VM on it.

Your thoughts

I have all four laptops you are considering.

Admittedly I'm a huge ThinkPad advocate, however my personal choice is to remain open minded as times change and companies change. During the "IBM" years I was a very staunch supporter that was very happy with both the ThinkPad brand and the company behind it. Their operations while not perfect where extremely impressive and filled both my personal and corporate needs quite nicely. Now in the years following the sale to Lenovo, I remain on guard so to speak. There are signs that concern me about the way the ThinkPad line in particular is going. The T500 I have is a bit of a disappointment for a variety of reasons that are largely a matter of personal preference. I dislike the offset display, the somewhat soft less than rigid keyboard, and the cheap looking volume and power buttons. That said, I'm not giving up on them just yet. I've just taken delivery of a new T510 which I will setup this week and evaluate. I truly hope that it lives up to my somewhat reduced expectations.

I've also used Apple laptops for years strictly for personal use. There is quite a difference between a PC based machine and an Apple one, as I'm sure you know. One thing that comes to mind is the closed nature of Apple. Steve Jobs is obsessed with power and control, thus everything in the way of software and hardware as provided by Apple, works very well and the experience is devoid of the many challenges on the PC side. A limitation is the fact that there is very little that one can do in the way of customizing the machine to your personal taste. Yet that said, it's a nice change of pace which can be very appealing. Depending on what your usage requirements are a Mac may very well be an ideal machine for you.

If you enjoy the TrackPoint on a ThinkPad, I will say that you will truly miss it. That is one of the biggest drawbacks for me. The current, over sized glass trackpad on the MacBook Pro is the best one I've used. Far better than the ones on any other brand of laptop. It's very accurate and easy to become proficient with. The chic-let style keyboard takes a bit of getting used to, due to the flat top shape of the keys. Set in the new Aluminum Unibody chassis, the keyboard is very firm and quite nice to type on. I would encourage you to do as much reading about this machine as possible before you make a decision, as it's just different enough to be one that you may truly enjoy, or truly dislike. I've used both Boot Camp and the three major virtualization programs to run Windows, it's important for you to know that if you choose to run Windows via Boot Camp, the machine will run quite a bit hotter, as they have yet to get the fan control properly setup for use under boot camp. Running Windows via VM is a good solution depending on your particular needs, yet it's not as stable as running VM's on a PC. Close, but not quite there yet. Between Parallels and VMware, I find the VMware Fusion 3 desktop program the best and most stable. Parallels offers a few more mac-like features and interface yet one gives up the more stable operation offered by Fusion. Finally the free Virtual Box program is more bare bones, yet does the job.

Cheers...

[dr_st]

archer's summary is very well done and I agree with everything said, up to the little things.

I would just add a couple of things:

It is my personal opinion that if your intention is to work with Windows, don't get a Mac. As archer said, these machines are sufficiently different, and if you want to use them, embrace them fully, hardware and software. Although Macs do run Windows and run it just fine, they do not perform as well with Windows as they do with MacOS. In addition to the mentioned extra heat, you may also encounter reduced battery life, less than stellar support of touchpad gestures, and a few other small quirks. Apple is constantly improving their Windows drivers, but due to the nature and priorities of the company, it is reasonable to expect that MacOS capabilities will always be a step ahead of the Windows capabilities of those machines, so if you are using a Mac to run Windows, you are not utilizing its full potential, and can probably get something more Windows-friendly from other manufacturers.

T61p has been the last of Lenovo's workstation-class machines to come in 14" flavor. At some point the engineers decided that the combination of a powerful CPU and a powerful GPU in such a small box does not allow for adequate cooling. This was after a few generations of very hot-running 14" workstations (T43p, T60p, and on T61p they actually cut the RAM and bandwidth of the GPU in half on the 14" model to somehow cope with the heat). Therefore, the W series (which is the new category of Thinkpad workstations) only comes in 15" and 17" flavors in present time.

15" T series are identical to 15" W series in many ways, except the professional CAD video cards and some high-end specs only available on the W. T4x0 series are the smaller siblings, and the natural evolution of the 14" T61/p, again minus the GPU. With that said, modern GPUs and CPUs on a T410 should still offer better performance than your current T61p.

If you are interested in workstation-grade machines but in 14", you can still find some. DELL makes a 14" widescreen Precision currently, the M2400. The GPU is FX 370M, which does not have a very strong core (equivalent to 9300M GS), but it is CAD-optimized.

[Kn0bby]

Thanks Guys, two excellent write ups.

However still in a major kerfuffle...

I don't use my ThinkPad for day to day work, I use an HP desktop. My notebook is used for home activities, surfing, emails, photos, video editing and the odd game. I know the T61P is probably total over kill for this but I just like the best and fastest.

The main reason for starting to look at a Mac is the fact ive just purchased myself an HD video camera and i'd like to start editing the HD content. I thought the Mac might be better suited.

Cheers

Dave

[archer6]

I agree 100% with dr_st's post. He's added some very good information regarding the Mac running windows. Personally I don't "need" nor do I run Windows on my MacBook Pro any longer. I just tried it, out of curiosity and because I just couldn't resist...ha...ha... That said, I find the Mac OS X operating system a fun change from Windows, even though I will never stop using some version of Windows as my work OS.
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I use my Mac for all my personal photo & video work. Its great fun to use in that way. I've even created a hard bound coffee table book of my still photography work using the Mac. As someone who gets bored easily, the change of pace the Mac offers is very welcomed. Also, its important to note that I also use Linux, and consider myself "Platform Neutral" as I like to find the positive aspects of each unique OS & appreciate it for what it is.
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Cheers...

[Kn0bby]

Been offered a cheap 13.3 Mac book pro, thinking about getting it, its one of the top spec 13" versions.. My T61p is a 14.1" so not a massive difference in screen size..

[Kn0bby]

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... :MESELX:IT

My thinkpad ends tonight on ebay.. 2 hours to go.

Enjoying my Mac

[wild_bill]

the Mac book pro seems like a worthy machine, i can still run Win7 VM on it.

Mac Book Pro??

YUCK!

Macs are for the "more money than brains" crowd

and virtual Windows 7 is slow and ridiculous compared to the real thing

why would you want to willingly be under Stalinist Apple's regime that heavily restricts what you can and can't do with your hardware, software & music, for 3X the price and lower performance than a PC?

did you fall and hit your head and are thinking irrationally?

[InlawBiker]

I agree with the other guys for the most part... I have a Thinkpad and my wife has a Macbook.

If you get a Mac then go full Mac. Don't run Windows on it. The only reason to pay the premium for Macbook Pro hardware is OS X. If you do that, be aware that you have to buy new software that you probably already own for your Windows PC - Office, video editing software, etc.

There is vastly more shareware / freeware available for Windows. But there is usually a Mac equivalent. There is less free software though.

If all you need is a surfing machine then personally I would keep that T61p. An upgrade will not make your life any different, other than having a new machine. Which is always nice of course.

[makaveli559m]

I got a T61 to replace my R61 so far the experience hasnt been all great. I have issues I never had on my R61 and I miss the S Video plug in, I got a dvd burner for it but it has an odd problem I can read and install anything from any disk but I cant rip the disk. I say go with either a R500 or an W500 or W700.