[PLUG] Thinkpad T61

Jason Martin nsxfreddy at gmail.com
Sat Oct 20 06:51:38 UTC 2007


On 10/19/07, John Jason Jordan <johnxj at comcast.net> wrote:
> On Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:09:33 -0700
> Kris <krisa at subtend.net> wrote:
>
> > I'm happy to report that with Gusty, everything is working nicely.
> > Though I was a bit surprised that compiz/beryl doesn't work.  Sure I
> > expected crappy 3d support form the Intel card, but not nothing. :)
> > No big loss though, it would have been neat but not functional for me.
> >
> > Noticeable physical differences between the HP and the Lenovo:
> >  * HP has a standard desktop keyboard ctrl-alt placement, the
> > lenovo's are closer together (IBM used to boycott the windows key
> > too.. but this Lenovo now has it)
> >  * The LCD is much cooler (in color temp) than the HP, which you just
> > get used to, but side to side is quite noticeable.  I use greys and
> > blues in my theme anyway, so I guess I'm cool color-temp kind of
> > person. :)  Compared to my viewsonic 19" LCD at home laptop LCD's
> > just suck.
> >  * For the pointer-mouse users like me, Lenovo provides 3 mouse
> > buttons.  The HP had a pointer-mouse but only two (trackpad on both
> > have only 2).
> >
> > I have the fingerprint reader but haven't tried to use it (I've been
> > using dm-crypt on /home since it was available with much success).
>
> Thanks to you and others for the comments. I thought this would become
> an off-list discussion, but it appears the Lenovo T61 is of general
> interest.
>
> About 4:00 today I stopped at Computek, which is a short walk from
> PSU, where I needed to go anyway. I spoke there with a fine gentleman
> who showed me a sealed box with a T61 inside, and he provided me with
> the written specs for it, and a price of $1500. He said he sells
> hundreds of Thinkpads to large business customers. After talking with
> him for 15 minutes it became apparent that if I am going to buy one
> from a local person, he is the man with the knowledge to do a good job
> of selling a Lenovo.
>
> The specs on it are:
>
> Core 2 Duo 2 GHz
> 160 GB HD 5400 rpm SATA (I or II is unclear)
> Intel PM965 chipset
> 15.4" widescreen 1680 x 1050, up to 2048 x 1536 externally
> 1 GB RAM (he said he can add more)
> DVD+- dual layer 24X
> 800 MHz bus speed
> 1.56 Kg (with/without battery?)
> nVidvia NB8M-GS
> Intel wireless 4965AGN
> Gigabit ethernet
> Bluetooth
> Three years warranty
> Windows XP Professional
>
> It all looks like what I want, except I want 2 GB RAM.
>
> I went to lenovo.com and put all these specs into the Customize window.
> It came to $1473 with free shipping. Considering the stories in this
> thread regarding shipping time, the $27 is worth it, plus I'd be
> supporting a local merchant. And the Lenovo site gives me one year
> warranty; he gives me three years.
>
> I'd like to find out if the hard drive is SATA 150 or SATA 300 (he
> didn't know, and I can't find out anything on the Lenovo site). And on
> the Lenovo site there is an option for a 1 GB disk cache, which this
> computer doesn't seem to have. I wonder if it can be added, because I
> want a fast hard drive. It might make up for the fact that the drive is
> only 5400 rpm.

The chipset should support SATA 300.  Don't know about the drive,
perhaps see if you can get the actual drive model.  I'd be surprised
if they're hooking up a SATA 150 drive to a SATA 300 port.

The 1GB "cache" is Intel Turbo Memory, which is not a cache in the
same sense as a traditional hard drive cache.  See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Turbo_Memory.  I don't think Linux
is currently supported (or XP, for that matter), only Vista at the
moment since it uses ReadyBoost.

> Methinks the gentleman is close to making a sale.

My wife has a T61, overall it seems to continue the long line of
Thinkpad T-series goodness.  All of the problems we've had with it can
be traced to XP, not the hardware.  BTW, if you can get it, the
extended battery is quite nice.

Jason



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