Just purchased a T61: Few questions

Well after some thought and research I settled on buying a T61 for my new laptop...I have a few questions for you all.

1. What kind of issues can I expect to have with the PC out of the box? I just skimmed over the clean install guide at the top of the page...it mentioned that the ThinkVantage utilities may have been cauysing problems with the Santa Rosa platform...I notice that guide was posted almost 3 months ago and I am curious for more recent input on the issue...like can anyone give me some general thoughts on issues I might encounter with it...I know there's going to be some issues realted to Vista just generally speaking, but can anyone share what kind of hiccups they've encountered...I am mainly going to be doing office productivity/multitasking.

2. How can I obtain recovery DVDs, esp a Vista Ultimate DVD & Office 2007 DVD. Lenovo ships no recovery CD/DVDs with the system? All that it has is the recovery partition? Will it be possible for me, while my system is still under warranty, just to order some kind of recovery DVD (like possibly even a Vista Ultimate DVD and Office 2007 Basic DVD, both of which came with my configuration) from them? In a related question, how can I get a 64-bit DVD of Vista? I read of the Anytime Upgrade disc, and that would probably work for both getting a Vista DVD and for getting a 64-bit Vista, correct?

3. Battery life...I ordered the lowest speed (2GHz I believe) CPU and Integrated video with the 9-cell battery...should I expect at least 4 hr on office productivity? That's what I'm hoping for.

4. The screen...I have read in many reviews that the screen is the Thinkpad's weak spot...I'm curious from actual users, who ended up going with the Thinkpad, how the screen is...did you get used to the lower brightness? How bad is the screen? I have been used a Dell Inspiron 1150 screen for the last three years

Thanks everyone.

 

on my t60, i get 3.75 hours at full brightness (integrated graphics, max. performance) on the 9-cell..... i think you'll be right around there without problem

 

No sense in getting worked up for something that may not even happen. Be positive. I think there were some blue screen issues with some of the earlier builds. Hopefully they've cleaned it up.

You have to burn off the recovery discs when you get your machine. You can order a set if you would like. They are $45 I believe. If you ordered Office, you should get the disc.

Hard to say without knowing which screen you have. The widescreens are brighter. I have the 14" SXGA+ which is the dimmest of the screens. Cranked up it looks alright. If you drop it below four, it starts to get kinda dim.

Congrats on the machine. It's a fine choice.

 

I don't think you got much to think about.

Recovery DVDs / CDs - Make your own.

Screen is fine. On mine and on a few store models I've seen. Out of the box, I experienced no problems. Any glitches I've had have related to Vista and not the PC but overall, very few.

Battery life though is nothing to write home about but to be honest, I dunno if I have a 9 cell or less. Never paid attention to it because I'm usually plugged in. Unplugged, doing a whole spat of stuff including internet, I'd say I get to the danger zone at just over two hours. But that's doing a whole spat of stuff..

 

I'm largely against making factory recovery discs. The Lenovo image for the T61 is horrible and you're better off not even going back to it. You're better off formatting both the partitions and installing the 64 bit version of Vista. After you have all your drivers and things set up properly then you'll want to make a recovery disc using either Lenovo's software or other imaging software.

You'll also want to find all the cd keys for the software you bought and write them down. After you're done reinstalling Vista you can usually download a version of the software and use the key to activate it.

The screen is kind hard to describe, you would need to see it yourself. Mostly its about the viewing angles, or the lack off.