T-series buying advice please

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vserghi · #1 Post by **vserghi** » Thu Apr 28, 2011 9:17 am

I have around £400 (maybe a little more if it was worth it) to spend on a laptop. Always fancied an IBM/Lenovo even though I can get a brand new laptop for the same price brand, I would rather get a second hand Lenovo.

It must have Bluetooth and Firewire, intel wireless card (wirless N would be nice but not a deal breaker), as high a screen resolution as I can get, around 14" screen, SATA drive, DVD writer, support for at least 4GB RAM. I will end up wiping the hardrive and installing 64-bit openSuse, I may keep a small partition set aside for WinXP in case I need it for win-centric only applications. Something reliable and as fast as I can get for my money.

Been looking at T61, T61p, T400, T410 can't decide, any preferences? I hate not getting value for my money so anything that will last performance wise for a few years to come would be preferable.

I keep on changing between models, first it was T400, but I keep on hearing not so favourable reviews about it. Then it was T410, but there is not so many around for my price range, started looking at T61/T61p. Also see various reviews on the keyboard and screen lid protection. Can I get what I want with one of these?

Vas.

craigmontHunter · #2 Post by **craigmontHunter** » Thu Apr 28, 2011 9:29 am

One thing that you need to remember is that people will tend to post complaints more than praise when reviewing a product - this has consequences, with products appearing worse than they are.

Out of the listed thinkpads, the only one I can comment on is the T61, which I have. It is a durable system, with decent battery life (I get ~5 hours with the 6? cell battery in vista x64, wireless on, screen set to 3 and surfing the web/working in office). As long as you get one with the intergrated (intel) gpu, it should be a dependable system for years to come. The highest resolution you can get in any of the systems you listed is 1440X900. In respect to the keyboard and screen protection, the keyboard feels great, and the screen is well protected (mine was able to support my weight standing on top of it - ~250lbs). Worst case, try to get a cheap T61 with intel graphics and a high resolution screen, and you can upgrade the rest as you need it (I took mine from 1gb to 4gb of ram, and upgraded to a 500gb hard drive, next up a DVD burner). Even the slowest T61 should be powerful enough for basic things for years to come, since you have not listed anything specific, I can't be more helpful than that.

jdk · #3 Post by **jdk** » Thu Apr 28, 2011 10:34 am

I can also vouch for the T61. I had one for a few years which got me through college. Make sure you get Intel graphics and Intel Wireless 4965 card. If you are running KDE, you may have to whitelist the graphics card in order to get composite functions of KWin, especially newer than 4.5. Generally, graphics under Gnome 2.x and XFce were fast. Also, you might not need that XP partition if you have plenty of RAM. I had 4GB in mine and was able to run a virtualized Windows XP, Visual Studio, and Eclipse with no problem under VirtualBox.

If I were in your shoes, with that amount of $, I would do this:

Get the T61. Refurb is nice since they generally come with new parts.
Get a second hard drive caddy (the one that fits in the CD bay). Take whatever hard drive that came with the laptop, and put it in the caddy.
Use the remaining $$$ to get a fast SSD and max out the RAM.

Then install OpenSUSE on the SSD, and point your /home partition to use the second hard drive.

vserghi · #4 Post by **vserghi** » Sat Apr 30, 2011 8:10 am

Thanks for your advice.

I think I have settled on getting a T61 or hopefully a T61p if I can find one. If I can stretch I try for a T410.

I like the idea of substituting the DVD drive for a second hardrive, didn't think of that. Sounds interesting.

If my laptop comes with a wireless card that only supports up to G, can I replace it with one that goes up to N.
I have seen some laptops that come with wireless N (N disabled). What does that mean exactly?
The wireless N card comes with three connectors for the antennae. Would a wireless G equipped laptop need new aerials leads?

yak · #5 Post by **yak** » Sat Apr 30, 2011 8:39 am

Avoid T61p, there is a known issue with the GPU causing the laptop to die prematurely. A T61 with Intel integrated graphics on the other hand is a very good and durable system.

vserghi · #6 Post by **vserghi** » Sat Apr 30, 2011 8:46 am

Thanks, I was not aware of this. Do all the T61's come with the same Intel graphics card? What is the level of OpenGL support in this card?

yak · #7 Post by **yak** » Sat Apr 30, 2011 11:41 am

vserghi wrote:Thanks, I was not aware of this. Do all the T61's come with the same Intel graphics card? What is the level of OpenGL support in this card?

There are T61 with Intel and with nVidia graphics. The "p" model came with nVidia graphics only (more powerful than in non-p version). As far as I know, all these nVidias had a bug so you want to stick to Intel in the T61 series. All of them had the Intel GMA X3100 graphics. I don't know how the OpenGL support looks like, google may know. I'd say the chip is fine for office work, if you're interested in any form of 3D acceleration, look at some newer ThinkPads.

ajkula66 · #8 Post by **ajkula66** » Sat Apr 30, 2011 11:04 pm

My suggestion - if you can fit it in your budget - would be T400 with switchable graphics. More powerful than T61/p, well-built and with no known issues.

I've owned one recently and was pleased with everything apart from the screen, but I'm very difficult when it comes to LCDs...most people would be OK with it.

As for the wireless cards, "N-disabled" means physically disabled, and can't be re-enabled. No need for a new set of antennae if one were to use a "g" card in a machine that originally shipped with "agn", you'd just leave one spare...

My $0.02 only...

hunterman223 · #9 Post by **hunterman223** » Mon May 02, 2011 6:31 am

+1 for T400.

yak wrote:Avoid T61p, there is a known issue with the GPU causing the laptop to die prematurely. A T61 with Intel integrated graphics on the other hand is a very good and durable system.

Unless you can find a T61p with a manufacturing date past, 08/08 is it? Can someone confirm? If you can find one of those than definitely get it, the nvidia graphics will be much more powerful and more future proof. Otherwise i recommend doing the same thing that I plan to do with my T400 when it gets here, max out the ram and install an SSD.

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ssd_thinkpad · #10 Post by **ssd_thinkpad** » Mon May 02, 2011 12:10 pm

If you use the docking station, as I remember, the switchable T400 and T500 can only output dvi on the docking once they activated the not-integrated-gpu (intel gpu).

If you have an intel gpu T400 or T500, it can output dvi with the intel gpu.