The best balance between power and portability... so far.
Written: Dec 08 '01
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Pros: Good balance between power and portability, bright screen
Cons: cost, reduced size keyboard, support issues, 2 spindle design
The Bottom Line: Great screen, light weight, good performance, nice keyboard. You *do* get what you pay for!
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| manowar's Full Review: Lenovo ThinkPad T20 (264746U) PC Notebook |
I bought this computer a few months back and wanted to use it a little before I submitted a review. Here it goes, the good, the bad, and the ugly on this notebook:
The good:
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This is a light machine with a 14.1" TFT screen. Weighing in at 5.3lbs, its one of the lightest notebooks with this large of a monitor. You will not be disappointed by IBM's "black" TFT screen--its been the best for many years now and this notebook is no different. It beats lugging around a "desktop replacement".
The keyboard is very responsive and has a great feel to it. Its a lot softer than the touch of a Gateway or Dell laptop, and less noisy than either. However, the keys dont feel cheap and the keyboard types surprisingly well for a reduced size keyboard.
Battery life is good. I get about 3.5 hours of usage per charge and IBM has a great utility that does a fair job of predicting the battery life. I have never actually run out of batteries when I forgot my AC adapter--and I do a lot of notebook work in class or doing graphic design.
The performance of this computer is very good. It may not run Premiere or After Effects as smoothly as a premium desktop, but for most uses, it works well. It will *never* have a problem with daily usage like email and word processing. Even the video performance is surprisingly good--I believed that a Savage IX video card with only 8mb SGRAM would not compare to the GeForce Go (Toshiba/Dell use this) or the ATI Radeon Mobility (Sony GR series), but even large MPEG/AVI files play smoothly.
Lastly, IBM has a good technical support resource site. Once you enter in your Thinkpad model number and serial, you can log into their support site and pull up accessory lists for your computer and complete technical specifications. It's something all laptop manufacturers should do.
Not to nitpick, but the Trackpoint cap gets dirty *very* easily. IBM changed their caps to be more rough so that your finger wouldn't slip some years back, but it also attracts a lot more dirt and dust. Expect to buy some trackpoint cap replacements every 6-12 months.
The bad:
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Note, I did have 1 bad pixel on my screen, will address the issue in the bad. Perhaps it wouldn't be considered much of a fault with other laptops, but when you pay this much for a Thinkpad, I believe you deserve perfection.
The cost of this machine. I paid 1800 for my Thinkpad and got a great deal--the street price was still about 2800 when I purchased. THe Thinkpad T is great and its my favorite to date, but you will pay an arm and a leg. If you have money to burn, this is a good place. But overall, this is a negative. Not only that, but IBM accessories are extremely expensive and even eBay doesnt alleviate the problem well. Moral of the story: you will pay an arm and a leg to do upgrade work.
This machine is a 2 spindle design, which means you can only use the floppy or CD/DVD/CD-RW one at a time. I've gotten use to it, but when you install software, it can be a pain. Make sure you use Win 2000 or XP because you can hotswap with these OSes without too much difficulty. However, it is rather inconvenient.
Lastly, the keyboard. Now it feels great and touch types wonderfully, but its still a 95% keyboard. My fingers cramp up after about 4 hours of usage per day, which is very bad. My repetitive stress injuries have substantially increased and I recommend buying an external keyboard as well.
The "ugly":
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IBM's tech support policy. I had a problem on my PC (and I am a computer support technician/administrator!) and could not fix some sound problems. They refused to help me with my machine because I didn't use the Recovery software CD to configure my system. I realize this won't apply to most users, but for any "power user", be aware: IBM will only support machines with their default OS setup. If you want to install additional/custom OS's, you're on your own. As well, IBM technical support doesnt strike me as being as impressive as Dell's. Much better than Gateway's, but still leaves room to be desired.
IBM's screeen pixel policy. On a 1024x768 XGA TFT screen (14.1"), they allow for a whopping 12 pixels going bad before they will call it a defect. One bad pixel is bearable, two gets annoying... and up to 12 is rather ridiculous.
Conclusion:
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A great laptop, period. It's not perfect, and I wished that IBM had put a fullsize keyboard on this machine like the Thinkpad R30. (and halved the price) Other than that, this is the best laptop I have ever owned and the best balance between power, large screen, and portability thus far. (The Sony GR series comes very close though) I highly recommend this machine if you can afford it.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1800
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Pentium III
Processor speed: 701-800
Screen Size: 14
RAM: 256
Internal Storage: DVD
Hard Drive (GB): 13-20
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Epinions.com ID:
manowar
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Member: Tom
Location: San Francisco, CA
Reviews written: 12
Trusted by: 1 member
About Me:
Computer junky. Web/graphic designer. Law student. Jack of all trades basically.
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