C90 info

Ok well as you can see from my sig my first attempt at a new laptop didn't go well. I'm still curious about the C90's, I see there are still some issues with the overclock features and other assorted problems. What it's come down to in my mind though is havening a laptop that is dependable vs a laptop that might be upgradeable. My choices have been narrowed down to the Lenovo T61p and the asus c90s. Lenovo seems to be very dependable and should last a decent amount of time and i'm sure the c90 will also.
I'm curious about the c90s upgrade ability, I know there really is no update for future graphics card updates, so the only way i can figure out how high my odds are of a future upgrade, is to base it off what older graphics cards it can run.

 

The C90S "unusal" fan design requiere some modifications over your standard MXM II. The only avaiable cards are the 8500GT and the 8600GT for now. A HD 2600 should be coming soon and we can only hope for a 9600GT next year

 

I'm not interested in future upgrades, i'm trying to base is potential off previously released cards, older than 8k series. >.> unless your saying it can't even do that , then i guess it really isn't upgradeable.

 

The older MXM II are the 7600, X1600 and 6600, I guess no one has tried them though, since MXM cards are pretty rare, and expensive on ebay

 

That's all if you consider an older gpu an "upgrade"...

I was also down to the T61p and the C90S a short while ago. I guess my main selling point of my purchase of the C90S, was that, even is as new as it is, it's reliability rating seems heavily dependant on the user. Unlike what I've seen with Lenovo. I can't remember what site it was on, but there is a rather high failure rate of standard components on the T61p. Regardless, even those who have no problems out of the box or a couple weeks down the road, still don't seem to be too happy with their purchase o fthe T61p. That's what helped make my decision the most.

 

take more than 1 minute to read please... I specifically stated it was a bases for future upgrades. There are no new Gpu's to test in a c90 so its impossible to say you can upgrade it because what are you going to upgrade it to hmmm?
Take this card for example x1300 256MB, this card is a mxm2 card it should work right? The c90s is a barebone notebook and several features in the notebook are directly targeted to be more affordable. Being able to pop out your current mxm type2 and put it in your new mxm2 is something that i would think temps a lot of people. Maybe my understanding of what mxm is, isn't very clear but from what i have read thats what its all about being able to use other mxm cards that are the same "type" and not being bound to buy parts from a single maker.

I'M NOT LOOKING FOR AN AVERAGE JOY ANSWER because its really only something a reseller could answer.

 

Yea, sorry about that. Power skipped out on me here and I had to reply before the desktop went down.

I see what your saying, it has to be a true mxm2 card, and theoretically it should work. But like you said, it's only something Asus or another eseller can answer.

 

well theres drivers for a Geforce m 7700 up on the asus site... wouldnt that be considered and "older card"?

 

I think I understand what your saying. No each company like dell, asus, clevo, etc. all have their own mxm technology. Though mxm is supposed to be universal each company designs their specifically for their laptops so an older card won't work. The c90 8600 is actually on sale by itself and you will see the retailers state its specifically for the c90. THe reasonins behind each company's propietary design for mxm is up to them but I'm pretty sure its mainly because they don't want their gpu cards slotted into other laptops and also I'm sure they have to take the design of their own laptop into account when designing the card. Older mxm cards have been tried ont he c90 and shown they are not compatible. THis is true of most or all companies, like I said dell and sager do the very same thing.

 

Decided to go with the T61p my student discount put the price at $1,166.15 with a 2 year on site repair warranty and I think thats the better deal for me.

 

I can't believe how buying a laptop is SO much cheaper in the US =/. Being able to customize a T61p would have been so cool

 

>.> its mostly my discount that helped so much otherwise it would have been like another 300-400$, but still i think its a great deal considering the t61p seems to have very close specs compared to the G1s or at least it does on paper.

 

Yeah but still, for exemple, the t61p is only available with WUSXGA & T7700 (or 7500?) in Canada with vista ultimate & 3yrs onsite warranty.

 

O_O wth....being forced to buy that stuff is just not right. The processor alone adds almost 500$. I didn't get as many warranty choices for my discount but what was odd, was that i had more options for everything else like the screens and wireless cards compared to the main purchase site. Not that I'm complaining through my experience with dell i learned a good lesson and that is on site repair is well worth it...I'll never buy a notebook without it again.

 

The same goes with Toshibas, they aren't customizable here. It's really annoying. And I think it's same things with the MacBook

 

I've never looked in macs so wouldn't know to much about that, as for toshiba they didn't seem that customizable here either. The other option i was looking at was a E1705 and modifying it with a 7950 gtx. I'm probably going to look into what Lenovo offers when the 9k series comes out, from what i've read the T series has been pretty much the same for a while now and it might be possible later on.

 

From what I know and understand, is that the T series has been the same design since '95, but the internals took a huge overhaul when the 61 came out.

I was moving forward on buying a T61p about amonth before I got the C90S; but my credit card company was declined by Lenovo for some reason. I was trying to buy when they had a double deal going on. It was the back to school sale, 4th of july sale, and I could also get a military discount. I grabbed up all the options I could think of that I would ever want in a laptop, including a 5 year accidental warranty and I came out to about $2350. Maybe a little lower than that, and they declined it. I called up my cc company and they said it was all good and that I could charge it, I tried again and got declined again. Called them up the next day before the sale was over and they said that I would have to call my cc company. I told them they said it was all good and that it was clear, I could charge and they kept declining it, even over the phone.

The week after I tried again, Only there was no discounts except calling them and getting a military discount, and it came out to about $3150, give or take 5 or 6 bucks. Still got declined. Then I moved on to the Asus. Can't say that I'm disappointed now though. I'm extatic that I got the C90S, I love this thing.