Really solid professional laptop...
Written: Dec 09 '00 (Updated Dec 10 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Light, good screen, tough case, very good performance. Very nice keyboard lamp!
Cons: keyboard was a little 'cheap' compared to other Thinkpad's, no LCD battery display. Battery life could be better.
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| gjmacd's Full Review: Lenovo ThinkPad A20 2629 (262962U) PC Notebook |
The company I own purchased 2 A20M's for our consulting business.
We paid $2549.00 each (these were Oct. 2000 prices).
They have:
- DVD drives (removable)
- 2 PC-Card slots
- 128MB's of Ram
- 12 gig disks.
- 15' inch screens.
- ATI Rage 3D Mobility
- Crystal audio DirectX compliant sound card.
- Windows 2000 Professional
- 10/100 Ethernet (Mini-PC card).
- 56K modem.
- Build in floppy.
- offer for SmartSuite (big whoop!).
A little background on ordering from IBM...
The one thing I'll say about IBM is that they have the laptop market pretty much by the "you know whats". After ordering these puppies in August, we didn't get them until October!!! IBM was totally out-of-stock on these things (or did they really have any?!?) and delayed delivery for almost three months (we almost gave up and ordered something else). The funny part, I would get 1-800-IBM-Direct flyers in the mail, these flyers would advertise (better) prices almost weekly for the exact same model that we couldn't get!!! According to each sales rep. that I talked too, "they simply couldn't fill the demand...". I doubt they even had these things ready before they sold them. IBM isn't the same IBM of old, I guess.
Research...
I should preface this review with the understanding that I'm a software developer who demands performance and capicity in a machine. I'm also REALLY hard on machines, I'll do quite a bit of tinkering such as installing several operating systems (linux, WinNT 4.0, windows 98 etc. etc.) at any given time, changing PC-Card's, adding memory, etc. etc. I'm not your typical user/reviewer doing MS-Word and Excel. This machine HAD to hold up to my demands.
I had done the research on laptops, even used one at a client site (Thinkpad 770Z) for about a year. I had come to the conclusion that after seeing people use DELL's, Gateway's and Compaq's... The Thinkpad's were the ones to have, simply because they stood up in all of my "tests" with durability and performance and capicity. The others were either too fragile, or simply to damn "klunky". For example, Dell's had this thick and heavy feel [note: The new Inspriron's had not hit the street yet]. I couldn't honestly say that the existing models compared to the tough and good performing Thinkpad model I had been currently using (770Z, PII 330mhz, which was a monster in size and price!! But a professional machine at that). The Compaq's, at least the ones I had used were in my mind "junk" with horrible "chicklet" like keyboards, and really poor quality screens. I did like the fact that the Compaq's I had used had a "hot swappable-like" hard drive that I could simply replace from the outside of the case (the A20m doesn't have this feature, the harddrive is internal). The benefit to that feature would have been the ability to have many disks with many confiurations (not something the average user would do...but a nice feature). The price of the Compaq's were also more, almost 20% more in cost to the a20m. I'm not talking about the Presario stuff folks, I'm talking about the higher end, Pro models. Btw, Gateway's, in my mind couldn't handle a slight drop and they are REALLY big units... sorry, I dismissed these suckers right from the onset...
Sony also has some nice laptop's, they came packed with features that I would have loved (the Firewire link was very cool). Why not go for them? Price... they too, for the same "performance and capicity" were about 20% more. Also, when I tested the Sony's, I really hated that mouse pad... it was horrible. Incidently, I hate all mouse pad interfaces, as a developer, i tend to use the keyboard more, and of all the laptops I tested, the slightest touch on the pad (from the palm of your hand or thumb) would through the mouse cursor someplace on the screen.
Call me crazy, but I think the the Thinkpad mouse stick on the keyboard is a MUCH better way of managing the mouse on a laptop. It takes days to get used to it, but once you do, you'll find that removing your hand to use a real mouse becomes annoying, "touching a pad" will drive you nuts. The "mouse stick" also reduces the size of the keyboard real estate, so the overall laptop is smaller... Of all the laptops I looked at, they all, with the exception of the Thinkpad's had the touch sensitive pad's, which causes you to move your hands off the keyboard... picky? maybe.
The a20m....
First off, it's thinner, not as small and light as those pricey T's, but hey, it's thinner than anything that I looked at in the price range and features. It's about 10%-15% lighter than a co-workers iSeries. So its a "tweener" model for IBM. I believe the weight of the unit is
around 6.2 lbs.
The keyboard.
The overall layout of the keyboard is nice, missing is the "Windows Key", which is a bummer on a laptop because it is helpful to have in a windows environment. The actual mouse buttons themselves are fine, well located and easy to click with your thumb. By the way, what the HECK is that bigger button for? It's a scroll button, I know, but does ANYONE use this? I don't... they should lose that thing!
IBM loses minor points for having a keyboard that doesn't feel like the older Thinkpad's... it's a little "cheaper" in that if you really look at the keyboard it's simply a small, thin plastic layer on top of the chasis. Of the other Thinkpad's (I series comes to mind) the keyboard FEELS like a normal Thinkpad-like keyboard. This keyboard, although not as horrible as the Compaq is somewhat slight and looser than its brothers and sisters. It has that quasi-chicklet feel to it, not totally, but its its there. I'd be interested in knowing of the T's have the same issue, or even the X-Series for that matter.
The screen is VERY nice, bright and clear. This is due to a solid TTFand the ATI card, which, for my use is pretty good. I get a nice clean display at 1024x768, a resolution that I use.
The card not a kick-butt gaming card by any stretch, but it will run 3D games with DirectX without a hitch and help with DVD playback. The screen for things like documents and reading code is excellent, better than average. With the Intel Speedstep enabled, you'll notice that if your on "battery time", the screen will dim for obvious reasons. That becomes annoying, but it's required to conserve power--just a note on that.
The on-screen display of the controls are pretty good. They resemble a television display and are easy to understand. They are accessed from the blue function keys on the keyboard, the key icons are a little hard to understand exactly what they do until you play with them.. but there aren't that many to be concerned about. Sound, video and system standby, thats about all you really care about.
Which leads to my next point. The documentation was terrible. I think everyone should AT LEAST get a "quick tips" card with every laptop that describes what "modes" and how to operate the hardware. This was not included in the package and the manual was pretty lame. With this model, you basically have to read the online documentation pre-installed or play around. Then again, IBM never had good doc.
Sound, well, I could care less about sound. But since we wanted DVD's in our units, we needed sound. The sound I'd say is adequate to good. Not great. Hey folks, this is a laptop, how good can the sound be? The Sony's had the best I'd heard and even that sounded like a transister radio in a shoe box...
IBM trys to mask the lack of good speakers (which are located below the screen in the base of the unit facing up...weird, I would have put them in the screen themselves facing toward the user, but again, the unit IS thinner and I'm sure the magnenticity would have caused some issues).
With a DVD playing the sound is fine. Not great, but not aweful, just OK.
If your on a plane watching a DVD, then you should use headphones...
The nice thing that IBM does is they give you the option of sound output on with a stereo headphone jack, very nice (good for presentations and listening to those CD/DVD's, right?). There is also a Mic input (there is also a build in Mic). Nice features.
These are located above the build-in floppy. Easy access, very solidly mounted and labelled.
The DVD drive we got installed in these machines are pretty good. But the software WAS HORRIBLE. Since playing DVD's (unless you have a hardware card) require software decoders, you need DVD player software, this software was not worth the time and effort of trying to figure it out what the problem was. It wouldn't play anything (Austin Powers, the Spy Who Shagged Me for example wouldn't play because of a region code issue), when it did play something it was terrible looking.
Most users will have a heart attack that they just bought a machine with DVD and can't play them! For myself, I knew that it wasn't a big deal, I just download Power-DVD, and installed it and BOOM! lovely DVD playback... rock solid... good picture, nice audio...
IBM, you listening? Your DVD software stinks! They lose points for pre-installing a piece of software that essentially does nothing for the user but generate a support call to themselves.
The software is from some company called "intervideo", its bad... I've used Power-DVD and WinDVD, both work nice, but will set you back about 30 bucks, something that should have come with the unit and cost nothing.
The stand-by modes are pretty useful and function well, there is essentially one power on/off button and thats it. No reset, software reset or that dumb "paper-clip" reset of older models. It's one button on, standby, or off... pretty nice and simple.
The power brick (the place where you power the unit with, is small and light with a detachable power cord), this is an improvement and it runs pretty cool, not that warmer like the old ones...
Pulling the power puts the unit into "battery mode" automatically, which is nice. In the taskbar you'll have a meter that will display the available battery. I do wish they included the LCD diplay to show battery life, that was a super nice feature that really helped you know how much battery was left without having to boot the machine to tell, it also allowed you to run one less program! Always better when your conserving battering, disk, memory and power... :)
There is a nice keyboard light that they've included that is mounted inside the top of the TFT, very well hidden, I've found this helpful on planes and in dark rooms. Very well hidden!
Overall machine performance is great. The PIII 600 is fast and the added memory really helps. I do a lot of C++ compiling with this machine it smokes! I don't have numbers, but I feel and know that this machine is performing as well, if not better than my desktop PIII 600 with 128.
It'll start Word, Access and then run my DevStudio without a hitch. For the un-demanding user, this machine might be too much... But for someone who will run applications that this, its great. A+
So to wrap it up, thats my review, it's a great machine for the price and performance, and yes, it installed Red Hat, Windows 2000 and 98 without a hitch, I also write a lot of software on this machine, so in essence it has replaced my desktop when I'm at a client site, or at home.
The things that I would consider about this machine? If your looking for a solid performance is that the machine didn't come bundled with that many "added" features, missing was MS Office. But that was a plus for me.
I would also make sure I do the 64MB upgrade and the DVD (updgrade)... It's worth the extra 300 bucks...
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
gjmacd
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Reviews written: 1
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