Durable build, wild performance, comfortable feel
Written: Mar 26 '08
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Pros: Durability and build quality
Pointing Stick
Keyboard
Wifi is excellent
Battery life
Cons: Support, but if you compare with my Dell support experience I will take Lenovo anyday
The Bottom Line: Buy it, it is the best laptop you will ever find, you can't beat it!
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| visio's Full Review: Lenovo ThinkPad T61 (64659TU) PC Notebook |
I am not kidding, when I go from using my T61 Thinkpad to any other brand I feel like I am using a kids toy...
this is not the case with any thinkpad I have ever owned and the T61 is no let-down.
I have bought many laptops over the years and none beat the quality and durability of a Thinkpad... some are better than others but most laptops have a plastic cheap feel, something you won't find in the T61 and no other Thinkpad I have ever used for that matter.
The keyboard is one of my favorites for a laptop, it makes far less noise than any computer keyboard but feels as comfortable as a real keyboard...
The ThinkStick is also one of my fav points of the Thinkpad line... so far I haven't used the touch pad once except to kind of compare them for this review. The thinkstick is so easy to use and so accurate that once you get used to using it(within minutes) you will never want to go back to the old touchpad. There are also a second set of buttons located at the top of the touchpad which coincide with the thinkstick.
The durability remains in the hinging and screen lock... when you open your laptop you will likely find you will need both hands to do it, the hinges are just that secure. It gets me a feeling of security that my screen is going nowhere.
I have heard some people complain about the weight of the laptop... with the 9-cell battery it is giving me about 5 abouts give or take a few ounces. Sorry but if you can't handle that your a wimp, and I would rather carry and extra few ounces over having a cheap plastic laptop which may break down at any moment.
I highly recommend the 9-cell battery... under max battery performance settings with wifi ON and browsing the internet with my local email open as well as chatting with friends via IM, I got about 3:30 to 4 hours out of it. On max performance with no battery saving options on I was getting about 2 hours... but either way the battery takes about 2:30 to 3 hours to charge which IMO is not bad.
The integrated Wifi system is the best... well I should clarify, it is the same "card" as my Dell counterpart however the wifi antenna in my T61 goes through the back of my lcd giving me better signal from longer distances.
My Dell Vostro from about 20 feet from the wifi router was giving me 20-30% signal strength... the T61 at 20-30 feet away gives about 80%... I have also had no trouble with it losing signal which sometimes happens with wifi devices.
Keep in mind I also bought the lowest wifi card so theoretically if you get a "better" card you will even have better performance in this area. I would recommend the WAN card if you travel alot, buy the Sprint unlimited card and you will be hooked up nearly anywheres.
I find that this laptop runs very quiet for the greater degree, when running a dvd off the battery I found the fan started up but it is much quieter than even my personal desktop lol
If you sit for hours with the laptop on our lap it can get warm but it never got unbearable, I also like that Lenovo has put rubber sliders on the bottom so when you place your Thinkpad on a table it is not sitting directly on the table, it gives the laptop air to the vents and keeps the thing from overheating and the fan going wild... something other laptops have but I have never seen them really work as good as this does. So far I am very satisfied in this area. It has lots of vents and very quiet.
So my conclusion... if you want a durable personal or business laptop which will last forever, this is it. It stands true to the thinkpad line, and believe me they are the best.
The laptop also comes with built in ThinkVantage software, such as the shock detection for the hard drive, this software detects a situation where your laptop is in a free fall for instance where you to drop it the system would lock the hard drive so that your data would not be lost...
It of course also comes with tools to backup data, keep your hard drive clean and things running smooth.
One thing I do recommend is that you purchase with XP(don't get Vista, its garbage and a memory hog), get atleast 2GB of ram unless you plan to do nothing but browsing the web and email. XP will run fine with 1GB and even when multi-tasking you shouldn't have any trouble but I find the 2GB is many times as cheap or slightly more than a 1GB so it is well worth it.
I bought this laptop because I have always been satisfied with Thinkpads, the first one I bought had Win 95 and was one of the best of that time... since then I have not found a better laptop brand...
The review writing guide tells me to tell you what I hate... honestly I have nothing bad to say about it. Okay the screen is not as bright as my true-life Vostro. But I am satisfied even there, I don't really care about that. It is way bright enough for me.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1100
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Other
Processor speed: over 1000
Screen Size: 15 inches
RAM: More than 256
Internal Storage: DVD
Hard Drive (GB): Over 50
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Epinions.com ID:
visio
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Reviews written: 7
Trusted by: 1 member
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