And so the waiting game begins...

Hey all, I've been at NBR for nearly a year, but never ventured into the ThinkPad forum, until today. I wasn't planning on buying a Lenovo, but, price, specs, and recommendations from a lot of people on the ThinkPad line got me to take a look at the ThinkPad series, specifically the T61.

So, I just ordered a T61 for my use at college this fall. Looking forward to being a ThinkPad owner.

Specs are as follows:

• Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7300 (2.0GHz 800MHz 4MBL2)
• Genuine Windows Vista Home Basic *
• 15.4 WSXGA+ TFT
• Intel GMA X3100 GM965 w/ WWAN
• 512 MB PC2-5300 SDRAM DDR2 667MHz SODIMM Memory (1 DIMM) **
• UltraNav (TrackPoint and TouchPad) with Fingerprint Reader
• 80GB Hard Disk Drive, 5400rpm
• DVD-ROM 8x Max, Ultrabay Slim ***
• Intel Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN
• 9 cell Li-Ion Battery

Explanations for asterisks:

* I'll probably buy a copy of XP Pro or Vista Business later down the road.

** I'll be ordering a 2GB kit from NewEgg before the system arrives.

*** I'll be using the Ultrabay for the Ultrabay Battery; I'll burn any files to disk on my desktop.

Anyways, estimated ship date is the 20th, I don't know how much validity that has from what I've seen before, but we shall see.

Any well-experianced Lenovo/IBM/ThinkPad users have any recommendations for me? I'd love to know of anything I can do to get ready (any recommended accessories, etc) my notebook gets here.



Looking forward to my notebook, and chatting with you all in the future once I have better knowledge of my own ThinkPad.



- Jon-Michael.

 

I would recommend a can of air and some monitor wipes. You really don't need anything else, maybe a surge protector, a nice laptop bag and a good pair of headphones?

Out of the box this thing will probably be a bit of a dog. You will have to dump that 512 and replace it with the 2 gigs before your first boot(just so you dont pull your hair out). Then, after you have your fun for a few minutes, go ahead and remove some of the thinkvantage tools from your startup.

As for the ship date, lenovo seems to be pretty disciplined when it comes to the shipment of their 15.4 inch laptops, the 14.1/14.2's are a different story though.

 

Congrats on the purchase! Cross your fingers and hope you don't get the samsung wsxga+ panel... check your order status and when they have a s/n posted, run a parts lookup and see if you got a Samsung or LG/Phillips panel... I'd reorder if I got Samsung...

 

1) If you don't already have one, buy a non-Lenovo notebook case. (They tend to suck. )

2) Immediately reformat, but do a custom Factory Default. (Thus avoiding Norton crap and other bloatware.)

3) Create Recovery discs. (I wiped out my entire hard drive awhile back, and made no recovery discs.)

4) Save yourself some trouble by making a full backup once you have everything the way you want it.


Matt

 

I'll get the can of air and monitor wipes.

Already have the rest.



Out of the box this thing will probably be a bit of a dog. You will have to dump that 512 and replace it with the 2 gigs before your first boot(just so you dont pull your hair out). Then, after you have your fun for a few minutes, go ahead and remove some of the thinkvantage tools from your startup.

Yeah, I know how it is with 512MB. That's my plan, to put it in before I even start it up.

As for the ship date, lenovo seems to be pretty disciplined when it comes to the shipment of their 15.4 inch laptops, the 14.1/14.2's are a different story though.

Thanks! It had me wondering for awhile when I'd get my T61.

 

Yeah, some people on here have got their customized US 15.4" T61s shipped in two days...!

But overall they are getting better, my 14.1" only took 9 days to ship. And my EST was over 6 weeks?!?! no complaints

 

I don't know how much you travel or take your laptop around, but a bluetooth mouse looks like a good investment. The T61 having internal bluetooth is nice, even though it hurts your battery life.

 

AWESOME!

But overall they are getting better, my 14.1" only took 9 days to ship. And my EST was over 6 weeks?!?! no complaints

Heehee.

Yeah, I know they were having a problem with shipping, but I wasn't exactly sure on which models.



I don't know how much you travel or take your laptop around, but a bluetooth mouse looks like a good investment. The T61 having internal bluetooth is nice, even though it hurts your battery life.

I didn't order BlueTooth, as I don't have a use for it.

And I'll be traveling basically everyday with the notebook this Fall, when I start college.

 

I only see the 15" T60 ones that are shipping in two days, mine included.
Ordered - 07/04
Shipped - 07/06

 

I don't know you, but I already hate you.

Just kidding.

 

I ordered mine on 6/28 and I have a 7/30 estimated shipping date. I find it a bit odd that you have a 20th shipping date and our configs are almost the same including the WSXGA+ LCD.

 

Hmm, that is a bit odd.

What's different on your system's config?

 

Instead of the 2GB kit, I would recommend that you get a single 2GB stick. You can then utilise the 512MB that comes with it in combination and get 2.5GB total, plus it will be better for upgrading to 4GB later on. It shouldn't be too much more expensive either, maybe $10 or so.

 

From what I can tell at NewEgg, it'd be more like a $40 or $50 difference.

 

I think that 512 MB of ram will be insignificant compared to the added speed dual channel memory brings. If you have one 2 GB stick and one 512 stick, I think you'd be better off getting the dual-channel 2 GB (1x1) instead.

 

Dual-channel doesn't bring any added speed (real world)

 

I got the 6 cell, CD-RW drive, and I skipped on the fingerprint reader.

It's just a estimated date, so it would probably be shipped sooner then it says but it is weird that we have different dates /shrug.

I guess the saying is true that Lenovo isn't a normal company

 

I've had experiences where dual-channel helped. In WoW I noticed that it helped with the choppiness when loading from loaded city to outside (from Org to the zeppelins and vice versa).

This was a Athlon 3000+ desktop machine with 1 GB of ram, I changed the dimms around in the slots to keep the memory at the same amount while turning off dual-channel.

So yes dual-channel does help when the game is loading the game on the fly. This is my experiences so it isn't a 100%, people could of moved around in the city (I kinda doubt it since at the time everyone would hang out at Org) but from what I saw it did help.

As for non-gaming stuff, I don't know.

 

Here is one of the few articles that specifically tests gaming performance.
The difference is too small.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/image/61471/index.html

 

You aren't kidding about small, that graph is so small it's hard to read

Anyways it was a test I did awhile ago, the Core 2 machines with their massive amount of cache probably makes the boost small. Since AMD has the memory controller on the cpu itself, it would benefit it a lot more.

 

I'd say so.

My shipment date mysteriously changed from the 20th to the 25th.

 

Don't stress over shipping, you'll probably have it before that ship date. Supposedly that particular optical delays your order, but I've ordered two recently, both with the DVD-ROM. The t-61 ordered 6/13, shipped 6/23; t-60 ordered 7/2, shipped 7/5.

So if they charge your card the right amount, and it gets to you in one piece... you're ahead of the game. They're getting them out fast enough now.

Congrats.

 

Heh, yeah, I know. But, I'm always a bit pessimistic when it comes to having to wait for stuff like this.

I always think "I'll be the one..." and end up having to go through a nightmare to get my stuff.



Supposedly that particular optical delays your order, but I've ordered two recently, both with the DVD-ROM. The t-61 ordered 6/13, shipped 6/23; t-60 ordered 7/2, shipped 7/5.

Well, that's very helpful, to know the dates for the T61 that you ordered.

Thanks!



So if they charge your card the right amount, and it gets to you in one piece... you're ahead of the game. They're getting them out fast enough now.

Heh, agreed.



Congrats.

Thanks.