IBM Thinkpad opinions

Fungtank

I'm looking at getting a laptop, but with so many different types available i'm finding it hard pushed to pick one.
At the moment the Thinkpad T42 has caught my eye. Anybody got any experience with this laptop.

Will be used for audio editing, wtching movies and some light gaming.

Opinions wanted.

Tom Dunne

Thinkpads are well renowned for being solid, well built, feature laden machines. Battery life is excellent (three hours with WiFi on), they are quite slim and slender and reliable. I use a T40 at work and I can't complain. While the work I do doesn't really tax the machine (Database development, app support, etc.), I have found it never lets me down.

I know one or two at work who have the T41, same feelings really, so I would suspect the T42 isn't too far off.

Villain

I've been using one for about 6 months now, no problems at all, very nice machine, I have 1 gig of ram with 1.7Ghz Centrino and 40 gig HD. The only thing I might change was the graphics card I have the ATI Radeon 7500 which is ok but not the best.

preilly79

i too have a thinkpad t40 and like the previous poster i think it's about as good as they come. they're the rolls-royce of laptops, a view which is held by many many people who need a good BUSINESS oriented laptop.

i had mine for sale right here on boards but i just couldnt bare to part with it in the end. i would have had to replace it with something eventually and i would only end up replacing it with another thinkpad

theres only one thing you need to be aware of: i see you're going to be doing audio editing, and if that's the case i imagine you would have a large 'timeline'(?) with lots of different audio tracks. if thats the case you'll want to try and get one of the higher rez screens. the standard thinkpad comes with a 1024x768 screen which would be fine for most uses but for your kind of work i'd recommend the 1400x1050 screem, or if you're feeling flush, the thinkpad t42p with an awesome 1600x1200 screen. they're a joy to use for any kind of work where you need large amounts of desktop real-estate.

GiuseppeConlon

i have been using IBM thinkpads for a number of years. up until now... I am using a Dell Latitude now. Would switch back to IBM thinkpad any day of the week, very reliable.

segadreamcast

Just thought I'd throw in my opinion:

The Thinkpad was a lovely machine for me - however, unlike most others it was rather unreliable. The hard drive died once within the warranty and was replaced with an extended warranty - however - within 8 months, the second hard drive had died and, sadly, I've never used it since. Bit of a damn waste really.

Fungtank

Thanks everyone for all the input. Think i'll try n get one of the aldi ones in the morning, failing that i think i'll go with the T42 UC2F6UK model.

I really like that finger print scanner feature. I love gadgets.

Fibonacci

I've had about 5 Thinkpads now, and I swear by them. Built like a rock. the daddy of laptops. and I love that little nipple mouse.....

ambro25

Hate the nipple... But I love my (old) T-Pad to bits.

I'm not so experienced as previous posters, having had (and still owning) 1 'old' Tpad, but I'm usually into the (2nd-hand) ultra-portable side of lappies, mostly for Wi-Fi surfing & Word proc' at home. I've had a Fujitsu Lifebook B25-something (Celeron 400, 128 RAM), Tosh' Portege 7020 (PII 300, 128 RAM), but battery life went to sh*t for both (& both got sluggish with XP Pro on 128MB RAM) so replaced instead with a TPad 240X ('bout 7 years old, single spindle, PIII 500, 192MB RAM) off eBay.

I still get 2hours + battery life (with PCMCIA 801b) on original battery, it boots XP Pro (full, not 'Lite') under 40 secs and runs Office Pro like a dream (with AVG+Sygate Firewall+Windows Firewall+Intel Secure WLAN in the background). Just as fast for surfing as my other, Dell D600 (Centrino 1.6, 512 RAM).

Would definitely replace with another Tpad if/when it dies, instead of trying yet another brand or going back to Tosh/Fujitsu. If only they'd put a touchpad...but I got myself a clip-on-side trackball instead anyways

ironape

Thinkpads are the absolute business. I had a crappy Maxdata laptop before and it ust fell apart in about 6 months. Literally cracked and crumbled apart. I've had an R40e for two years now and its still like new, battery life hasn't gone down at all as far as I can tell. Still get close to 3 hours with wifi. Only thing I would change is the screen resolution, 1024x768. Something higher would be nice, but its hardly a deal-breaker. Oh, and no serial port, I'm a sysadmin so I'm often consoling into things, thats a bit of a nuicance. I'm def getting another one in the next 6 months - probably X30/X40 or T42/T43. You can get an extended battery for the X40 and get 8hours. The nipple is the greatest thing ever. I'd get a keyboard with one built in if I ever used my desktop anymore.

One thing to watch is that IBM won't be making PCs much longer. Lenovo have bought IBMs pc business, and the thinkpad/thinkstation names. This may or may not affect the quality of the machines. All I know is I'm gonna get a genuine IBM one before their all gone.

andrea

Definitely recommend backing up your data if you use a thinkpad. Worked in a group of about 25-30 people in a research dept who all had ibm notebooks. Within a year about 6 of them had hard drive crashes and lost their data because server space was limited for backups. Definitely put me off buying an ibm!

ironape

one other thing I'll add, they have all these stories on their website about thinkpads being set on fire an driven over by cars and still working. Don't know if its true or not.

http://www.pc.ibm.com/us/thinkpad/truestories/story1.html