any experience with IBM thinkpad T60

[rocklandxjer]

hey guys,
I'll be at Rensselaer polytech. inst. in the fall, and laptops are mandatory. the one they offer is the thinkpad t60.

now, ive been thinking about my options, as the computer will be a vital part of my college carreer. ive been looking around at other computers, [which would then have to be equipped with their software package anyway] and deciding whether or not it would be worth it to just stick with the t60.

the t60 would have a 4 year full warrenty
and the others would all have either 3-4 year full warranties.

just let me know your guys experiences,
Thank You
Travis

[Glenn B]

IMHO, go for it. It should be rock solid and last a long while.

hey guys,
I'll be at Rensselaer polytech. inst. in the fall, and laptops are mandatory. the one they offer is the thinkpad t60.

now, ive been thinking about my options, as the computer will be a vital part of my college carreer. ive been looking around at other computers, [which would then have to be equipped with their software package anyway] and deciding whether or not it would be worth it to just stick with the t60.

the t60 would have a 4 year full warrenty
and the others would all have either 3-4 year full warranties.

just let me know your guys experiences,
Thank You
Travis

[IntrepidXJ]

that's what i have at work. seems to be a solid laptop. i would go for it, too

[5-90]

My experience with ThinkPads has been nothing but good - I've been using them for a dozen years or so.

I don't have a T60 yet - I've topped out at a T30 for the moment, and that's only because it was the latest I could find that ran 2KPro OEM. I'm not impressed enough with XP, 2003, or Vista to bother upgrading - but I suppose I'll have to (eventually. Damn.)

[rocklandxjer]

good to hear, as the campus has a tech place for anything, and everything.

just a couple questions on it:
how is the screen color/picture. i do alot of rendering and 3d modeling [and will continue to do so..] so i need to be able to at least OPEN some of these files on this computer, and id like to be able to see it clearly and in good color...

lots of space, [i assume so since most of what i hear about it is that its used in offices and such]

thanks guys, you're all definately making this whole process easier
Travis

[89Daytona]

I have a T30 that fried its system board twice, once under warranty once out of warranty, so it is now just a pile of parts as the system board cost $500 last I checked. The 2 year college I went to required the laptop for a lot of their programs, the T30s were always crashing and getting their system boards and hard drives replaced.

As long as it is under warranty it will be a descent laptop though.

[RichP]

You want the T60P, it has an ATI graphics card with 256mb on it, DO NOT get any of the models with the Intel extreme graphics, it uses shared memory. It will also come with 1gb of memory and that memory will be in ONE slot for $10 extra so you can upgrade to 2gb with just another stick, also order the DVD burner and I'd up the hard drive to 120gig for $40 while it's on sale. Order any others from HP, Dell, etc and they will give you 1 gig but it will be in BOTH slots which means to upgrade you throw the two away that are already in there and start from scratch. Thinkpads are about the best you can buy for day after day of working. Get the warranty, it's worth it. For more info go to www.thinkpads.com.
I just bought a T30 for $400, factory refurb w/warranty, upgraded to a gig memory and it has an ATI card w/seperate memory, runs great and with it's 2.0gig processor meets my needs. I also ordered a new harddrive that will get Suse 10.2 installed on it as well as a smartbay2k DVD burner, the dvd/cdrw that came with it won't recognize dvd+r's. That drive in the carrier just cost me $79.
Even this old one is fast, I ran a ant build on this laptop and my 2.6 gig dell desktop, the laptop did the java build a full 1.2 minutes ahead of the dell and the laptop had mysql running as well as AVG doing a scan and it was still faster. I bought my daughter a T43 back in sept, Temple had some crummy dells and HP's and I wanted no part of them, My desk was next to the support guy all last year at another gig and that was my biggest exposure, the number of HP and Dells that had to be RMA'd blew me away. To get 24 laptops in one delivery and have 4 of them DOA, no excuse and they had to be sent back, IBM would have had a service person out there in a heartbeat with a spare. When my daughter had a problem with the LCD, the service guy cloned her hard drive onto a loaner because she needed it for class, he had it back 4 hours later, he cloned and picked it up at the student center and then delivered it back to her apartment. It was two weeks old.

[Rob Mayercik]

Thinkpads are about the best you can buy for day after day of working. Get the warranty, it's worth it. For more info go to www.thinkpads.com. (http://www.thinkpads.com.)

Damn, you beat me to providing that link! Got a screen name there?

Anyhow, to give the O/P an info nugget, the secondhand 600 (circa 1998) I bought a couple years ago is as reliable as a rock (depending on which rock you compare to, it might even be MORE reliable) - and even though it's only a PII, I'm upgrading it to XP in the next couple of weeks.

Not only are the TPs solid and reliable, they're bloody easy to work on yourself - with a copy of the Hardware Maintenance Manual (like a FSM for a Jeep), I did a processor swap in about 20 minutes flat on mine.

Check out the website Rich linked - more TP info than you can shake a stick(mouse) at.

Rob

[RichP]

Damn, you beat me to providing that link! Got a screen name there?

Anyhow, to give the O/P an info nugget, the secondhand 600 (circa 1998) I bought a couple years ago is as reliable as a rock (depending on which rock you compare to, it might even be MORE reliable) - and even though it's only a PII, I'm upgrading it to XP in the next couple of weeks.

Not only are the TPs solid and reliable, they're bloody easy to work on yourself - with a copy of the Hardware Maintenance Manual (like a FSM for a Jeep), I did a processor swap in about 20 minutes flat on mine.

Check out the website Rich linked - more TP info than you can shake a stick(mouse) at.

Rob

Same as here, just started using it two weeks ago...

[rocklandxjer]

thanks so much guys.
great info. ill definately check out that site.

Travis

[Rob Mayercik]

Same as here, just started using it two weeks ago...

I've been hanging around there for a couple years (same handle as here), but I usually inhabit the 600/770/570 forum.

I'll keep an eye peeled in the more general forums for you, though.

[RichP]

Got home friday nite to find my new DVD burner in it's IBM bay carrier. Works like a dream, plugged in a homemade dvd+r, ran an svideo out to my 27" sony tv, ran the sound to the tv thru the aux in puts and watched battle star galactica. The pic on the LCD was pretty darn good too. Got a nice new option on the 1 and 20 min train ride home now besides reading and taking a nap...
If any of you need a new dvd drive for your ThinkPads and don't want to pay IBM/Lenovo $450 there is a company on ebay selling them for $80-$100 depending on speed, I settled for 8X...it's an NEC ND6500A in an IBM 2k carrier.