In today’s world of technology buying a computer can be difficult and confusing. Because of this we’ve decided to write this article to guide you next time you buy a computer.
Before you buy a computer it’s important to decide what you want. Consider what your needs are. This will affect the decision you make in which kind of computer to buy. How much memory will you need? What kind of video card will suit you best? Should you buy a desktop or laptop? What sort of processor will suit you best?
When you want to buy a computer it is important that you buy when you need to buy. After all, no matter how long you wait, what you want will always be cheaper in six months time.
Choose the computer you want to buy based on its functions, quality and ongoing technical support. The salesperson at your local computer should be able to help you with this when you tell them you want to buy a computer.
You will also need to decide which additional drives you will need when you buy a computer. These can include CD and DVD burners, CD drives and Zip drives.
There are also extra accessories to consider when you buy a computer. Will you want to connect to the internet? You will need a modem, whether it be built into the computer or external. Sound cards, video cards and speakers also need to be considered when you buy a computer as well as what pre-installed software – such as an operating system (eg. Windows) you will need.
The ThinkPad T61 14.1" widescreen notebook was recently released by Lenovo as an update to the T60 series. The T61 uses the new Intel Centrino Duo platform (Santa Rosa) and offers a number of design updates.
ThinkPad T61 14.1" widescreen notebook (view large image)
Buying Choices for the Lenovo ThinkPad T61 (Core 2 Duo 2GHz, 1GB RAM, 160GB HDD, Vista Business)
Important to note is that this review covers the 14.1" widescreen version of the T61 series. As with any laptop model series, there are going to be widely varying configurations you can choose that will greatly affect system performance. For this review, we're dealing with a T61 with the following specifications:
Hard Drive: 100GB 7200RPM (Seagate Momentus 7200.1)
Memory: 2GB (1GB x 1GB), up to 4GB max
Ports: 3 USB 2.0, 1 FireWire, Monitor out, modem, Ethernet, headphone out, microphone in
Slots: 1 PC Card Slot, 1 ExpressCard slot (optional media card reader and Smart Card reader)
Optical Drive: Ultra-slim Super-Multi Drive
Dimensions: 13.2" x 9.3" x 1.09 - 1.26" (335mm x 237mm x 27.6 - 31.9mm)
Weight: 5.1lbs
Design and Build
The ThinkPad T61 is a premium product with a durable build, it is geared towards business users or simply those willing to pay a bit more to get something that won't fall apart after 1-year of use. For somebody that travels a lot or relies on their notebook to earn a livelihood, the build and reliability factor is probably more important than having the latest and greatest components inside.
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So how does the T61 excel build-wise? Basically the same as its predecessor T-series notebooks did. The T61 body is a rugged plastic that does not flex. Inside the stiff and thick plastic casing is a magnesium roll cage in both the lid and main chassis. The lid on the previous T60 was a magnesium material, while the lid on the T61 is a plastic composite with a magnesium "roll cage" plate inside. The reason for plastic now being used in the lid is to allow better penetration of radio waves, such as 802.11 and WWAN, thus providing greater wireless range and signal strength.
The keyboard remains the same between the T61 and T60 -- meaning it's once again excellent. The only difference is that now there's more room on the keyboard side areas since the notebook body is wider, the speakers have been relocated to this extra real estate. The keyboard is spill proof and has two drain holes to make sure if you do happen to spill your morning Starbucks coffee, the liquid is carried away from sensitive components and out through the bottom of the notebook
The thick metal hinges that attach the screen are very rigid and ensure the screen does not wobble. You'll need two hands to adjust and open the screen as the hinges are very tight. The double screen latch system locks securely to make sure the screen stays down when being carried around.
The hard drive is protected within the magnesium roll cage and shock mounted. Even if your T61 is dropped the included Active Protection System (APS) software will work with the on board accelerometer to detect a fall situation and end hard drive activity to prevent data loss.
Dimension wise the ThinkPad T61 14.1" certainly changes from its predecessors, it is wider but not as deep since it has shifted to widescreen. The dimensions of the T61 (assuming 4-cell battery that does not stick out) are as follows: (WxDxH): 13.2" x 9.3" x 1.09 - 1.26" (335mm x 237mm x 27.6 - 31.9mm)
The T61 is actually thicker than the T60 was, which is a little disappointing, here’s the dimensions for the 14.1” T60: (WxDxH): 12.2" x 10.0" x 1.0 - 1.2" (311mm x 255mm x 26.6-31mm)
So the T61 is about .1-inches thicker than the previous T43 and T60. A picture demonstrates this difference in thickness between the T43 and T61:
ThinkPad T43 on the left, ThinkPad T61 on the right -- the T61 is about .1-inch thicker (view large image)
While the shape has changed, aesthetically the T61 is pretty much the same as past ThinkPad T series notebooks -- just wider. It is an all black look with the iconic red trackpoint. Black is a fine look, it never goes out of style, just ask Steve Jobs.
One subtle change that may rattle some is the new ThinkPad logo you see pictured in this review. But don’t get too excited, those ordering over the web are still going to get the same old IBM logo on past ThinkPads, the logo change is an option for business channel buyers.
New ThinkPad logo option (view large image)
Input and Output Ports
The port layout of the T61 has also changed quite a bit, and mostly for the good since we now have a standard FireWire port and optional media-card reader port. I’m not so thrilled with the fact that all of the USB ports are vertically oriented; I find this more awkward than horizontal.
The media-card reader is an option, but it replaces the ExpressCard slot if you go for it. You can also get a Smart Card slot in place of the ExpressCard if your company needs that. Let’s take a tour around the T61 to see all of the ports that you get.
On the left side of the T61 from back to front is the main heat vent and fan, monitor out port, modem and Ethernet LAN port, 2 USB 2.0 ports, ExpressCard and PC card slot. The ExpressCard can be swapped for a media card reader or Smart Card reader if you so choose:
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On the right side of the T61 from back to front is a USB 2.0 port, then the ultra-slim multi-bay drive. This drive is hot swappable and can be removed and replaced with an extra hard drive or battery:
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On the back side of the T61 you can see the 6-cell battery protruding, and then the power jack and another heat vent. Notice how thick those hinges are:
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On the front side of the T61from left to right is the IEEE 1394 port (FireWire), Wi-Fi on/off switch, headphone jack, microphone jack, and the screen opening latch:
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Screen
The new widescreen format screen for the 14.1” T-series is either good, bad or somewhere in between depending on your personal preference. Lenovo will try and convince you widescreen offers more screen real estate and so it’s better, the reality is the guys making the LCD screens are forcing it down the throats of the PC manufacturers because it’s cheaper to make widescreen LCDs. For a more complete look at the benefit of standard versus widescreen read the review I did of the initial rollout of a ThinkPad T60-Wide here.
Rest assured, Lenovo will offer other formats of the T61 so you’re not in a widescreen or nothing situation. It will be interesting to see if the standard screen costs more; it will almost certainly be less available.
The particular screen I got is a WXGA+ resolution (1440 x 900). It provides easy viewing and you can fit a good amount on the screen, so no complaints on that front. The screen is crisp and there are no issues with graininess. The matte finish ensures there’s little to no glare in office lighting situations.
What the T61 screen lacks is brightness, which has always been the case with ThinkPad notebooks. I wish the screen would go about two notches brighter than it does, Fujitsu and HP definitely do a better job offering brighter screens on their business notebooks.
When toggling screen brightness I didn’t get a heads up screen display of current system screen brightness level. I found this annoying as this was always included on past ThinkPads, maybe it’s a Vista driver issue still to be ironed out.
Some will be disappointed to know that the popular FlexView option in the T60 series will no longer be offered for the T61. This is a shame. The vertical viewing angles on the T61 are, like most laptops, poor. A video of the T61 executing graphics benchmark program 3DMark05 in which I tilt the screen to different vertical angles gives you an idea of how coloration varies greatly depending on how you view the screen:
Horizontal viewing angles fair better though, you can see that moving from left to right around the screen keeps coloration pretty much so consistent:
Another thing you may notice about the screen is that it’s off center within the frame -- there’s a greater bezel area to the left than the right. This doesn’t bother me, I know it will some people.
One change that you won’t see, but that is present, is the fact the lid is now constructed with a magnesium roll cage inside for better protection of the screen area when you shove books on top of the lid. The actual outer lid is now made of a high-tech plastic composite, that actually feels like a metal when tapped (very cool). The benefit of the outer lid now being plastic is that radio waves (Wi-Fi, WWAN) penetrate through the lid more easily and provide better wireless throughput.
Speakers
The T61 speakers are located on the sides of the keyboard, taking advantage of the extra real estate width due to the wide format. The speakers are quiet; you have to be fairly close to the laptop to hear the audio, it won’t work to try and watch a DVD from across the room as the audio won’t carry (especially dialogue). But Lenovo made an interesting move by putting the headphone jack on the front side of the laptop. This is to make it easier to quickly plug in your headphones and get superior audio. The slight downside now is that if you plug in external speakers the wiring running around the front is not as convenient. The move is better for me because I use headphones more, with a portable laptop such as this I think that will be the case for most.
The hardware buttons at the top of the keyboard to quickly adjust audio volume are very nice to have, the quick mute button is clutch in business situations as well.
Processor and Performance
The ThinkPad T61 now uses the Intel Centrino Duo (Santa Rosa) platform. You get a faster processor front side bus (800MHz), more processor cache (4MB) and an improved integrated graphics solution in the form of the Intel X3100. If all that talk is nonsense to you, then suffice it to say the T61 offers newer and better processing components than the T60. Will this performance be perceivable in helping to run MS Word faster? No of course not, but certain processor intensive tasks such as encoding video will be faster. And even if you won’t be utilizing every ounce of processing power, just knowing the processor is faster and you’re on top of the game is enough to make people like myself want to buy it.
I was pleasantly surprised by the Intel X3100 performance in 3DMark05, it certainly performed much better than the Intel GMA 950 ever scored. Intel claims they’re still working on better drivers for the X3100, so there might be quite a bit of room to grow in terms of performance here too.
The included 2GB of memory and 100GB 7200RPM hard drive helped to light a bit of a fire under Windows Vista. I feel like a curmudgeon saying it, but the extra graphics and features of Vista still don’t outweigh the pain factor involved with a) getting around the new interface and b) dealing with the currently worse performance than you get with XP. You really do have to throw hardware at Vista to get it to run better, and larger amounts of fast memory and a speedy hard drive to improve bootup speed are two great ways to do that. Lenovo aren’t fools though, they know most of their business customers won’t stand for Vista being forced upon them, and so Windows XP Professional is still an option for the T61 if you so choose.
On the subject of getting Vista to perform better, the 1GB Intel Turbo Cache memory option on the T61 is designed to cooperate with Vista to improve system performance, I did not have the opportunity to test this though.
Benchmarks
The benchmarks will play out all this talk of the new Intel Santa Rosa platform being faster.
Super PI, used to test CPU performance by calculating pi to 2 million digits of accuracy, demonstrates that the T61 was able to outperform the older generation ThinkPads with similar clockspeeds.
Super Pi Comparison Results
Notebook
Time
Lenovo ThinkPad T61 (2.00GHz Core 2 Duo Intel T7300)
59s
Lenovo ThinkPad T60 (2.00GHz Core 2 Duo T7200)
1m 03s
IBM ThinkPad T43 (1.86GHz Alviso Pentium M)
1m 45s
Toshiba Satellite P205-S6287 (1.73 GHz Core 2 Duo Intel T5300)
1m 24s
Toshiba Satellite A205 (1.66GHz Core 2 Duo)
1m 34s
HP Compaq 6515b (1.6GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-52)
2m 05s
HP dv6000t (2.16 GHz Intel T2400)
59s
Dell Inspiron e1705 (2.0GHz Core 2 Duo)
1m 02s
Toshiba A100 (2.0GHz Core Duo)
1m 18s
Samsung X60 (1.66GHz Core Duo)
1m 29s
HP dv5000z (2.0GHz Sempron 3300+)
2m 02s
The 3DMark05 synthetic graphics benchmark results. It's quite apparent that the Intel X3100 graphics card is an improvement upon the proceeding Intel GMA 950.
3DMark05 Comparison Results
Notebook
3D Mark 05 Results
Lenovo ThinkPad T61 (2.00GHz Core 2 Duo Intel T7300)
PCMark05 is a synthetic benchmark that tests overall system performance. The T61 with integrated graphics performed very well, outperforming systems from last year that had dedicated graphics:
Comparison table for PCMark05
Notebook
PCMark05 Score
Lenovo ThinkPad T61 (2.00GHz Core 2 Duo Intel T7300)
Cinebench is a good rendering benchmark tool based on the powerful 3D software, CINEMA 4D. Its rendering tasks can stress up to sixteen multiprocessors on the same computer. It is a free benchmarking tool, and can be found here: http://www.cinebench.com. The basic CPU test provided the following results, you can see the T61 Core 2 Duo was able to easily outperform the 2-year old ThinkPad T43 and edge out the T60:
Test
ThinkPad T43 Pentium M 2.0GHz
ThinkPad T60 Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz
ThinkPad T61 Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz
Single Core rendering mode
222 CB-CPU points
327 CB-CPU points
331 CB-CPU points
Dual Core rendering mode
not available
592 CB-CPU points
616 CB-CPU points
Everest Benchmarks and Report
Everest is an application that runs a full analysis of a notebooks components and drivers and creates a report, we ran this on the T61 wide, here is the report Everest produced.
Windows Experience Index
Windows Vista has a built-in benchmarking application to indicate how well the system will run, below are the results for the T61 (scores are out of 5.0):
HDTune showed that the 7200RPM Seagate hard drive performed admirably:
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BatteryLife
One thing that’s always a concern with a new platform is battery life. Reading the first reviews that came out about the T61 sounded like gloom and doom with reports of 2 hour battery life. It seems most of the initial reviews were done using very power hungry dedicated graphics solutions and with a 4-cell battery.
I had the opportunity to test a larger 6-cell battery on an integrated graphics system, and got 3 hours and 41 minutes of battery life under what I would deem normal usage. I was using the T61 with screen brightness set to half or lower, Vista battery optimized setting, wireless off to get this number. In a torture test, I set the screen brightness to top level, put in a DVD (Stargate) and played it until the battery hit 5% and the PC went to sleep – which happened after exactly 2 hours 15 minutes. I wouldn’t call that bad, it’ll get you through most movies.
The downside of a 6-cell battery is that it sticks out of the back (see pics) and weighs more, but I’m always be willing to carry a bit more weight for an extra hour of battery life. A positive comment that should be made is the power adapter is nice and small, it's actually the same size as the X60 ultraportable series adapter.
One cool feature Lenovo has added is called battery stretch. Basically it’s a software applet that allows you to opt in and out of certain power saving features and it shows you how much battery life an option will get you. For instance, check the reduce screen refresh option and you can gain a couple of minutes of battery life, and the interface will show you that approximation. A video best demonstrates this:
Heat and Fan
Whenever a notebook is released that’s faster and a company claims it is cooler and quieter than the last generation, you have to raise an eyebrow. I was a skeptic when hearing this, but after putting the T61 head to head with my 2-year old T43 to measure system temps and noise when performing similar tasks, I’m a believer.
Basically, the T61 ran far, far cooler than my ThinkPad T43. The bottom never got as hot on the T61, and all around it just felt cooler. Since there’s a lot more heat vents on the T61, the fan doesn’t need to run as much. But even when it does run, the T61 fan is very quiet.
A chart best demonstrates how much cooler the T61 was than my T43, both are using 2.0GHz processors (temps taken in the same room at the same times):
Notebook
Temperature when Idling
Temp. After running 3DMark05
ThinkPad T43 (2.0GHz Pentium M)
57C
68C
ThinkPad T61 (2.0GHz Core 2 Duo)
42C
50C
The addition of more vents on the T61 really goes a long way to keeping the system cool, but internally the T61 uses a new cooling system too, so some true design innovation is at work here.
More heat vents are now located on the underneath of the T-series (view large image)
Keyboard / Touchpad / Pointing Stick
The ThinkPad T-series hasn’t changed too much over time, and that’s a good thing, there’s no use changing something that’s just right. The ThinkPad keyboard is one of, if not the best, notebook keyboards out there. There's zero flex, every key feels individual, every key has great travel/feedback and the keyboard is full-size.
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The T61 has a pointing stick, I love using this and find it much easier than the provided touchpad -- it makes it so you can move the cursor around the screen without having to lift your hand from the keys, a much faster and easier to control style of input. But the great thing is that if the pointing stick isn't your cup of tea then you've got the touchpad as well.
Volume and ThinkVantage button (view large image)
Power button (view large image)
Wireless
The ThinkPad T61 uses the Intel 4965 wireless chip that offers 802.11 a/b/g/n wireless reception. All of your bases are covered there, and the greater range 802.11n offers is on the table if you have an 802.11n router. The range of the ThinkPad is theoretically greater now that the lid material has changed to plastic too. The antenna is run up through the lid for better reception you see, and the new lid material allows radio waves to reach the antenna more easily. I was only able to test up to 100-feet away from my NetGear WGR614 802.11g wireless router, which I despise for its bad performance and tendency to drop connections, but the T61 worked just fine with it and I never suffered a connection drop and throughput was consistently good.
The T61 also offers with integrated WWAN via Verizon as an option, Bluetooth can also be configured as a built-in option.
Software
You can get the various flavors of Vista or Windows XP Professional as the pre-loaded OS on the T61. Bloatware is kept to an absolute minimum as this is a business notebook. Interestingly Google software is no longer present like it was on the T60, you actually get a Windows Live Toolbar and search included now – I found those to be useless, but you can remove them. The quick list of what you get in terms of software is as follows: Rescue and Recovery, Access Connections, Client Security Solution, ThinkVantage Productivity Center, ThinkVantage System Update, System Migration Assistant, Lenovo Multimedia Center, Norton Internet Security, Diskeeper Home, PC-Doctor, ThinkPad Utilities (Power Manager and Presentation Director), Adobe Reader, Windows Live Toolbar, Windows Live Search, Picasa from Google.
Most of that software is useful, especially the ThinkVantage related applications, they’re very mature software tools that make things like backing up data, managing your system settings and configuring the notebook easy to do. Picasa is actually nice to have pre-loaded as I always download that whenever I’m setting up a new system, it’s a nice and easy (and free) photo editing tool to use.
Warranty
The default warranty for a T61 is one-year, but you can always upgrade to 3-years. View our warranty guide for further information. One interesting tid-bit to know is that ThinkPad warranties are different than most other notebooks. They follow the machine, not the buyer. No registration or proof of purchase is ever necessary. If you sell your ThinkPad, there is no need to transfer the warranty. Machine type and serial number are required to look it up: Warranty
Conclusion
The ThinkPad T61 14.1" widescreen notebook is easy to recommend as a laptop for those that want a highly durable system that provides powerful performance while on the go. The new cooling system design works wonders for keeping the temperature of the notebook down below 50C and limiting the need for the fan to run. The keyboard is as excellent as ever, the sturdy build is great, and the new port options are appreciated. I'd like to see a brighter screen option, in strong office lighting situations the screen can appear pretty washed out. Overall though the ThinkPad T61 does a great job of combining excellent usability features and performance, keeping the T-series well established as the leading portable business notebook.
Buying Choices for the Lenovo ThinkPad T61 (Core 2 Duo 2GHz, 1GB RAM, 160GB HDD, Vista Business)
Standard 6-cell battery and optional 9-cell extended life battery
Ports: 2 USB 2.0, 1 ExpressCard slot, 1 PCMCIA card slot, 56K Modem, Ethernet LAN port, PS2 port, headphone jack, microphone jack, parallel port, VGA out port Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2
The latest ThinkPad thin-and-light T series notebook addition comes in the form of the T43. The ThinkPad brand has been built over many years now and has come to stand for high-quality, solidly built notebooks that are rugged in their matte black look, yet sleek and professional at the same time. Usability is second-to-none with the ThinkPad line and consumer oriented bells and whistles such as multicard readers or widescreen LCDs are shunned in favor of things such as adding keyboard lights, biometric security readers, hard-drive shock protection or other things that generally add to the usability, durability and security of a notebook.
T43 Design
Aside from the new fingerprint reader (optional), we find that the design for the T43 does not deviate from previous T4X models. Since the ThinkPad T43 is intended for and targeted at business buyers, continuing on this look is just perfect.
Important to note is that there is both a 15.0" and 14.1" screen configuration available, our T43 is the 14.1". Settling for the smaller sized screen results in a smaller overall footprint, less weight and longer battery life and so is better for someone that desires to be more mobile.
A 15.0" model T42 on the left, 14.1" screen model T43 (with extended life battery installed) on the right (view larger image)
Like IBM's previous T4X series models, the T43 is a textbook definition of physical quality. From the first time you touch it, you know it's just good. The screen cover for the ThinkPad T42 is constructed of magnesium alloy and prevents any screen flexing. With other laptops you can usually push on the back of the lid and get a worrying ripple effect on the LCD screen, the T43 protective case will prevent such a thing from happening. The ThinkPad's insides are housed in a case of titanium-reinforced plastic. The whole thing is held together by a pair of sturdy metal hinges that attach the screen and main body of the laptop. These metal hinges ensure that there is no screen wobble, even when on a turbulent plane ride. The T43 simply looks like it's been designed to take a beating (although you should still avoid abusing the notebook when possible).
Input and Output Ports
Below are some pictures of each side of the ThinkPad T43 that displays what ports we have on each side of the notebook. Please note that I have the optional 9-cell extended life battery installed so the battery sticks out, the standard 6-cell battery is flushed with the back of the T43.
On the right side of the T43 we have the optical drive and what's called the D-SUB port (can be used to carry analogue video signals to a monitor). With this configuration the optical drive comes in the form of a CD-RW/DVD-RW drive. This bay is actually completely modular and is called the UltraBay by IBM. You can use the UltraBay to put in an extra battery, a different type of optical drive or even a sled that contains a secondary hard drive that is possible to boot to. Also of note is the hard drive for the T43 is at the front right side and you simply remove a screw from the bottom of the laptop and then slide out the tray it's stored in to swap the hard drive out if you wish.
On the left side of the ThinkPad T43 we have a majority of our ports. Two USB 2.0 ports are on the back right side. Personally I'd like to see more than just 2 ports, but for a thin and light this is acceptable, although not optimal. We also have an S-Video output port available. The modem and Ethernet jacks reside next to the S-Video port. Headphone out and microphone in ports are sandwiched between the Ethernet port and fan vent. On the front right side we have a PC card slot (PCMCIA slot) and ExpressCard slot. It's nice to have the ExpressCard slot as that will be the standard of the future for allowing accessory expansion on notebooks. However, for right now there are very few ExpressCard compatible accessories available.
On the back of the T43 you can see the battery (sticking out in this case because it's an extended life battery), power jack input and parallel port. The parallel port is a legacy port hangover and is completely unnecessary for the consumer, but there are some corporate customers that still need this.
On the front of the notebook the only thing we find are the two latches to hold the screen down (two latches work much better than one for keeping the lid down and tightly closed by the way) and an IrDA port for wireless infrared communication with other devices or laptops.
My IBM T43 notebook came with an SXGA (1,280 x 1,024) resolution display. Personally I prefer having an SXGA screen over XGA. I used a 15-inch screen IBM T42 with an XGA screen (1,024 x 768 resolution) for a period of time, and I can verify that you are able to see more on the screen using a T43 14-inch SXGA (1,400 x 1,050) resolution screen. You can probably see about 10% - 15% more on the 14-inch SXGA screen relative to a 15-inch XGA screen. It's very reasonable to have more than one document open at a time with an SXGA 14-inch screen.
The screen quality and brightness is middle of the road. When compared to other notebook screens such as the Sony XBrite screen or Toshiba TruBrite screen, the IBM T43 falls short. Brightness and clarity on the T43 does not match the top screens out on the market today. The whites on this screen are also not pure white but rather have a very slight tint of yellow, it's not uncommon to find that an LCD presents whites with either a very slight yellowish or bluish hue.
Although the screen brightness is not the best out there, I find the horizontal viewing angle of the T43 to be quite excellent. At a 45 degree horizontal viewing angle things are very readable and viewable still, and even from a full 90 degree viewing angle horizontally I am able to read text on web pages and in MS Word. There are no dead pixels present on the notebook's display. Ghosting on the display (a phenomenon in which fast motion on a screen causes streaks or trails of ghost images) has not been an issue with this display, some T42 users reported such issues, especially on 15-inch display models.
The TrackPoint navigation featuring a pointing stick, touchpad and multiple mouse buttons lets you choose your favorite way to navigate the cursor on the screen. I'm a huge fan of the pointing stick. The pointing stick and TrackPoint navigation are great for three reasons.
The pointing stick makes it really easy to get the cursor where you want it to go on the screen. I've never met a touchpad that gives you precise control and gets the cursor where you want it to go 100% of the time. With the pointing stick the cursor goes exactly where you want it, and if it begins to act funny and not go where you want it to, simply let go and the machine recalibrates the pointing stick automatically.
When the pointing stick is combined with the scroll button (located between the two upper mouse buttons) you can scroll through web pages and long documents with ease. Just hold down the scroll button and push the pointing stick up or down to scroll to where you want on a page.
The mouse buttons are raised very nicely making it easy to feel the buttons and push them. Competitors often have buttons that are barely raised, or even worse, flat.
The keyboard on the T43 is in line with the usual IBM exacting standards, there's not a notebook out there with as usable a keyboard. In fact, I prefer the T43 keyboard to even some external computer keyboards I've used. The IBM ThinkPad keyboard uses 7-rows of keys as opposed to the usual 6-rows competitors' use, this makes for more typing room and less cramping of the fingers. Each keyboard key is firm and has excellent travel, and each key feels individual. On a lot of notebooks you'll get flexing of the keyboard, so when pushing in a key you'll see other keys around it get slightly depressed and if you push in on the keyboard you'll see the entire keyboard sag. Not so with any ThinkPad, the keyboard is solid with zero rattle and zero flex. The usability and ergonomics of a keyboard is hugely important for a laptop, IBM has done much research and exerted great effort to ensure this important feature is as good as it can be.
IBM ThinkPad keyboards are sealed and sit inside of a tray so that spills do not get to the electronics underneath. Now this doesn't mean the T43 is waterproof and 100% spill proof by any means (liquid can still get in the vents if your aim is really bad), what it does mean is that if you spill some water onto the keyboard then you'll have time to tip up the notebook and pour the liquid out before it seeps down into the internal components of the notebook.
One thing I should note regarding any ThinkPad keyboard is that IBM has always been stubborn about not putting a "Windows" key on the bottom left-side that nearly every other notebook has. Pushing this key by default pops up the start menu in Windows. Some people like having this and find it annoying when it's not there, personally I don't care, and I'm sure some Linux fans are just plain chuffed that IBM chooses to leave this Windows friendly button out!
Above the main keyboard are a few hardware buttons: the power button, volume up and down buttons, a mute button and the blue "Access IBM" button. The Access IBM button will launch an IBM software application called Access IBM that will guide you in using, protecting, configuring and updating software on your T43. Once again, this shows IBM is highly concerned about the ThinkPad's usability and end user experience. It would have been nice to have play, pause and stop buttons for the DVD player, but these are more consumer oriented features and in general IBM shies away from such things. Apparently in the future this "Access IBM" button is going to be named "ThinkVantage" due to the Lenovo buyout of the IBM PC division (more on that later).
Processor and Performance
This particular ThinkPad T43 I'm using comes with a Pentium M 750 1.86GHz processor, and for using standard work applications this is absolutely more than enough for what you'll need. In general, with a 7200RPM hard drive and 512MB of RAM (my T43's configuration) you'll be very happy with the overall T43 speed performance. Running programs such as Microsoft Visual Studio, Adobe PhotoShop, Microsoft Word and Media Player at the same time, and flipping between them, were common tasks I performed and never made the T43 hiccup.
We use Super Pi to get a benchmark of processor speed. The Super Pi program simply forces the processor to calculate Pi to a selected number of digits of accuracy. Calculating to 2 million digits is our benchmark:
Comparison of notebooks using Super Pi to calculate Pi to 2 million digits (plugged in):
Notebook
Time to Calculate Pi to 2 Million Digits
IBM ThinkPad T43 (1.86GHz Alviso Pentium M)
1m 45s
Fujitsu LifeBook N3510 (1.73 GHz Alviso Pentium M)
1m 48s
IBM ThinkPad T41 (1.6GHz Banias Pentium M)
2m 23s
Compaq R3000T (Celeron 2.8GHz)
3m 3s
Dell Inspiron 600m (1.6 GHz Dothan Pentium M)
2m 10s
Dell Inspiron 8600 (1.7GHz Banias Pentium M)
2m 28s
Although the T43 is fast for common applications, if you want to play games, it's a bit of a different story. The T43 I have comes with an ATI X300 64MB graphics card. This is certainly better than integrated graphics, but the X300 won't deliver enough power to run Doom 3 with any type of satisfactory playing experience.
Benchmarks for ThinkPad T43 compared to Fujitsu N3510 (both have X300 64MB Graphics Card)
Futuremark PCMark04 Scores
IBM T43 (1.86GHz)
Fujitsu N3510 (1.73 GHz)
Multithreaded Test 1 / File Compression
3.33 MB/s
3.24 MB/s
Multithreaded Test 1 / File Encryption
27.19 MB/s
25.58 MB/s
Multithreaded Test 2 / File Decompression
23.4 MB/s
22.72 MB/s
Multithreaded Test 2 / Image Processing
10.88 MPixels/s
10.03 MPixels/s
Multithreaded Test 3 / Virus Scanning
1914.17 MB/s
1752.97 MB/s
Multithreaded Test 3 / Grammar Check
2.82 KB/s
2.8 KB/s
File Decryption
54.11 MB/s
51.45 MB/s
Audio Conversion
2496.87 KB/s
2346.96 KB/s
Web Page Rendering
5.27 Pages/s
5.25 Pages/s
DivX Video Compression
51.71 FPS
46.08 FPS
Physics Calculation and 3D
159.19 FPS
168.02 FPS
Graphics Memory - 64 Lines
868.44 FPS
1486.18 FPS
Futuremark 3DMark05 Scores
3DMark Score
727 3DMarks
721 3D Marks
CPU Score
3414 CPUMarks
3242 CPUMarks
Gaming Tests
GT1 - Return To Proxycon
3.3 FPS
3.7 FPS
GT2 - Firefly Forest
2.2 FPS
1.8 FPS
GT3 - Canyon Flight
3.4 FPS
3.5 FPS
CPU Tests
CPU Test 1
1.18 FPS
1.6 FPS
CPU Test 2
2.9 FPS
2.9 FPS
So the graphics performance specs aren't terrible for a thin-and-light, but if you compare it to the Dell Inspiron XPS2 desktop replacement/gaming ntebook's(http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2282) 3DMark05 score of 4,915 3DMarks...well, you can see that a gaming notebook will put the ThinkPad T43 to absolute shame. So a gaming notebook the T43 is not, but you will be able to play a few recent 3D games on their low settings or run older games without any problem.
Sound
I've used one laptop in the past two years that has truly impressed me with its built-in speaker performance (and I've lost count of how many total laptops I've used!), that computer was the Dell Inspiron 9100. Ironically, Dell made the 9100 for all of six months before ending its production. The ThinkPad 43 does not end the streak of disappointing laptop speakers. The T43 speakers are very average, there's no bass whatsoever provided by them and any high notes sound thin. Headphones or a pair of external speakers are a necessity for decent sound. I can say the same for just about every other laptop I use though.
Heat & Fan
The palm rest areas on the T43 are extremely sturdy and, more importantly, don't get too hot, even with prolonged use. I recently used a Dell Inspiron 600m and on the left palm rest the heat build was a big annoyance at best, uncomfortable at worst. The ThinkPad T43 won't make you sweat though. The bottom does get warm after a while, but not to the point of discomfort if you are using it on your lap. The right side palm rest does get warmer than the left side because that's where the hard drive is, but never has that area become hot to the point of being uncomfortable.
The cooling system of the T43 is not entirely dependent upon the fans. Clever internal design and placement of vents goes a long way to keeping the T43 cool enough. However, a fan is of course necessary after a point. The fan on the T43 is on the left side; it doesn't run very often and makes a quiet "whirr" sound when it does. No loud vacuum cleaner sounds here. You'll get a little bit of vibration in the left side palm rest when the fan runs, but nothing bad. The internal heat and frequency of the fan running on the T43 is largely dependent upon how many and what applications you are running and what the external environment temperature is. This is the same for any laptop. I ran the program HD Tune (http://www.hdtune.com/) for a few days and found the average temperature of the hard drive to bounce between 96 and 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Not bad.
Wireless Connectivity
The ThinkPad T43 I have comes with an Intel 2915 PRO/Wireless 802.11 a/b/g internal wi-fi card. I had no problems using wireless on the T43. Using the built-in IBM Access Connections application makes it very easy to find networks and manage various wireless connection profiles. IBM places what it calls the UltraConnect Wireless Antenna in the upper right-hand part of the screen. You can't see it of course as it's enclosed in the casing, but it really helps to extend your wireless range. Most manufacturers take the cheap route and put the antenna in the base part of the system where it's susceptible to interference from all the other components there.
The T43 has an antenna in the screen area for better reception
There is no internal Bluetooth in the T43 I have, but Infrared (IrDA) is integrated into the ThinkPad and can serve as a useful way to connect to PDAs or cellphones. When a ThinkPad with IrDA gets close to another ThinkPad with IrDA you'll get a noise effect that sounds like a spring and you'll be asked if you'd like to transfer files between the two machines.
Battery
The battery included with the T43 is a standard 6-cell Lithium Ion rechargeable battery. If you crave more battery life you can buy an extended life 9-cell battery for around $140. Using the 9-cell battery I was able to get 5 hours and 39 minutes of life just doing things like web browsing and using Word. I had the screen brightness just above half (4 bars out of 7) and wi-fi was on. Using the 6-cell battery you can expect 33% less battery life, but it's still pretty good. With the 6-cell I'd usually run out of battery at about 4 hours of usage.
You can also swap out the CD drive and place an UltraBay Slim battery there so that when your #1 battery gets low you can just tell the notebook to switch to using the #2 battery, or it will do this automatically for you if battery #1 gets low. An ultrabay slim battery retails for around $120 (UltraBay Slim Battery). If you have an extended life battery and UltraBay battery you'll have all day usage of your T43 without needing to plug in -- but it'll be a lot heavier with those two batteries!
Fingerprint Reader Security and Software
The T43 can be configured with a built-in fingerprint reader on the right side to provide biometric security. The fingerprint reader is unobtrusive in nature and won't be noticed unless you know to look
Fingerprint reader on the lower right-side of the T43 (view larger image)
The first question to answer regarding this feature would be, why is IBM even offering it? According to Big Blue, the fingerprint reader provides a convenient means for unique user identification to a Windows system and eliminates the need for users to remember multiple passwords. In a large corporate environment this reduces the number of calls to support for forgotten passwords.
Moving away from the rational factor and onto the usability factor, the biggest concern I had with the biometric security was that it would be a pain to get things setup. This is not the case though. The first time you start using the T43 with biometric security you'll get the following screen that prompts you to "enroll" at least two fingers for the ability to scan and use as your Windows logon.
As soon as you start using the T42 a wizard pops-up to guide you through setting up biometric security (view larger image)
You can pick any two fingers of your ten to enroll (view larger image)
You have to do three successful finger swipes, using the same finger, over the reader and then the software will record your fingerprint and converge the three successful swipe images (view larger image)
Once you've successfully enrolled two fingers you will be prompted by the software as to whether you'd like to now use finger swipes to logon to Windows. In addition to substituting a fingerswipe for Windows logon you can also use the fingerscan for what IBM calls "Power Up" security. This means that when you turn your computer on it will sit and wait for you to scan your finger before it will even start to boot. So for the ultimate security use both the Power Up and Windows logon passwords/fingerscan.
Actually using the finger reader is relatively easy. Just slide the end of your finger over the reader, and if it does not read right the software will actually coach you to move your finger to the right or left. It does take a little bit of training to use the reader properly, you can move your finger too fast or too slow and you do need to line the finger up right, I can basically get the read right in one or two tries, but I won't say it's sure fire to work every time on the first try.
Although biometric security sounds really secure, it's not necessarily more secure than a good password. In fact, there is a just slightly less than .5% chance that some random person could authenticate as you using their own finger. This is actually a lot worse security-wise than what a secure password can achieve. A secure password consists of at least 6 characters (more is better) with combined alpha, numeric and lower/upper case characters. If you use a secure password, there's slim to no chance anyone will get into your windows account. The trouble is that people use their favorite pet's name, spouse's name, the city they live in, or their last name as passwords. Using these for passwords is very insecure and hackers will get into your machine in seconds if they know just a little bit of personal information about you. And that's when biometric security is better than a typed password.
Also, consider the fact that when you do use a very secure password, our feeble human mind is much more likely to forget that password. If you are at work, where a secure password is much more important for a computer, a forgotten password insinuates a call to the IT department and lost time. Fortunately, the likelihood of losing your finger is pretty low (please be careful when handling knives and scissors) so if you're using biometric security there's little chance of a "forgotten password".
Having covered a lot of the basic features of a notebook, it might sound like the T43 is just a darn good machine that rises above the crowd with a basic approach to better quality for each notebook feature. But it's the extra little things that you get on an IBM notebook that makes it that much better too. For instance, the ThinkLight is a small light at the top of the screen that can be turned on by holding "Fn" + "Pg-Up", this light illuminates the keyboard in a dark room -- pretty handy. Or Hold in "Fn" + "F7" and a utility to easily select what presentation mode/monitor-output/screen resolution mode you want will pop up. If your notebook all of a sudden one day is behaving strangely and crashing, you can use the built-in Restore and Recovery utility and take your notebook back to a point in time so everything is setup exactly as it was at that chosen time. If you want to "zoom-in" to and enlarge images and text on your screen, use the "Fn" + "Space Bar" and the screen will enlarge so you can zoom more easily see a character that might have been too small to read in normal resolution mode. There are also two keys next to the arrow cursor keys that are dedicated to allowing you to go "Back" and "Forward" in a web browser simply by pushing these buttons. The unique IBM Active Protection System (APS) will save you in the event of dropping the T43 by causing the hard drive to shut off and prevent data loss.
The list of little features and utilities built into the T43 goes on and on. It's these things people don't think about when buying a notebook, but once you start using a ThinkPad your eyes are opened and you become dependent on certain features -- and then you can't switch to anything else!
Service and Support
The ThinkPad T43 comes with a standard 3-yr parts and labor warranty when you purchase through IBM.com. This is very good, many manufacturers will give just a year unless you want to cough up more money.
There's a disaster story for every manufacturer out there in which a person has had a bad experience with a broken laptop and then subsequently being mistreated by customer service and support for that manufacturer. I won't deny IBM is immune from this, but in general IBM is the best there is for service and support. They got the second best support rating in PC World's latest reader survey. So yes, it is good. Their support department is in Atlanta, Georgia. So unless you have problems understanding a Southern accent, you'll be able to communicate with these nice people just fine.
Survey Results from PCWorld.com for customer satisfaction with notebooks, IBM placed 2nd (view larger image)
The Lenovo Factor
By now everyone has likely heard about the fact that Lenovo, a Chinese computer manufacturing company, has bought the PC division of IBM. Many people are concerned that this would mean all of the design, production and support for the IBM ThinkPad would be revamped and shifted overseas. But this is not the case, it is in fact business as usual within the IBM PC division and Lenovo has no intentions to change the ThinkPad brand a whole lot because it would be foolish to tinker too much with a business unit that has been able to produce and support quality computer products for years now. What Lenovo will be doing over the next 5-years is figuring out how to get costs of production down while maintaining the ThinkPad brand and quality, not a small feat by any means. However, the design team, marketing team and product development team will all stay the same for the ThinkPad brand. I don't foresee any major changes in the way ThinkPad's are designed, made and supported for a few years yet and so you can feel safe buying a ThinkPad product that will have the same quality and support as IBM has established in years past. That might sound like a sales pitch for IBM, but in all honesty I've read about this a lot and talked with those in the know and it will be interesting to see if things are still the same in 5-years time, but I don't think a whole lot will change before that amount of time.
Conclusion
If what you are looking for is a highly durable yet light laptop, with great performance, great usability and from a company that will provide good service and support, then the ThinkPad T43 is the hand that fits the glove. On paper you will be able to configure a Dell Inspiron with the same specs as a T43 for a lower price, but you won't get the same build quality and usability with an Inspiron.
The T43 is particularly good for business related work and for computer programmers -- two occupations in which you spend a lot of time using a computer and keyboard and also might need extra security to protect your data. If you're going to be parking your laptop on a desk and want a lot of multimedia options, the T43 is not a good choice as it has no flash card readers, no FireWire port, limited USB ports and just so-so graphics performance. Alternatively, anybody that travels a lot and desires a thin and light notebook that can be a real workhorse should look to the T43 as a fantastic solution.
Pros
The best keyboard around, combined with TrackPoint navigation allows for easy use and input
Tough case (titanium reinforced plastic) and rugged design, yet still thin-and-light
Using finger scanner as a substitute for password logon makes for easy yet secure protection of your account.
Great wireless range and features
UltraBay provides option to easily put in an extra hard drive, different optical drive such as a DVD burner, or an extra battery.
Cons
Pricey, you'll pay $2,000 and up for a good configuration
No FireWire port or media card reader, only two USB 2.0 ports
If you're upgrading from a ThinkPad T40, T41 or T42, nobody will notice you got a new notebook because it looks the same (I had to find one more con!)
