Opinions on some preconfigured T60 options?

My school just started offering some new preconfigured T60s (by "just," I mean within the last 24 hours). Anyways, I'm wondering what peoples' takes are on them: whether they're well priced or whether the school bookstore is ripping people off yet again.

The two options that I'm looking at (there's a cheaper one that I know I want more than) are:

T60 "Mainstream"- $1522.00
* 5.1 lbs. (2.32kg) with battery and optical drive installed
* Intel Core Duo T2400 processor @ 1.83GHz
* 512MB DDR SDRAM PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM
* 14.1-inch LCD display; XGA resolution (1024x768 pixels)
* ATI Radeon Mobility X1300 graphics with 64MB SDRAM
* 60GB, 5400rpm hard disk drive with Active Disk Protection
* DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo drive
* Gigabit Ethernet
* Built-in 802.11a/b/g wireless
* Built-in 56K V.92 modem
* Includes 6-cell battery and AC power adapter
* 3 USB 2.0; parallel; S-video out; infrared; dock/port replicator; external displa; AC adapter; RJ-11; RJ-45; audio: headphone/line-out, external microphone; 2 card slots
* Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 (Microsoft Office sold separately.)
* Up to 4.3 hours of battery life
* 3-Year IBM international limited warranty with Next Business Day, On Site Service (one year warranty on included battery) and ThinkPad Protection accidental damage coverage

T60 "Premium"- $1726.00
* 5.1 lbs. (2.32kg) with battery and optical drive installed
* Intel Core Duo T2400 processor @ 1.83GHz
* 1.0GB DDR SDRAM PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM
* 14.1-inch LCD display; SXGA+ resolution (1400x1050 pixels)
* ATI Radeon Mobility X1400 graphics with 128MB SDRAM
* 80GB, 5400rpm hard disk drive with Active Disk Protection
* DVD±RW/CD-RW multiburner drive
* Gigabit Ethernet
* Built-in 802.11a/b/g wireless
* Built-in 56K V.92 modem
* Includes 6-cell battery and AC power adapter
* 3 USB 2.0; parallel; S-video out; infrared; dock/port replicator; external displa; AC adapter; RJ-11; RJ-45; audio: headphone/line-out, external microphone; 2 card slots
* Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 (Microsoft Office sold separately.)
* Up to 4.3 hours of battery life
* 3-Year IBM international limited warranty with Next Business Day, On Site Service (one year warranty on included battery) and ThinkPad Protection accidental damage coverage.

 

The bottom one looks good to me.

 

Those look like fair prices for a thinkpad.

I would say spend the extra money on the second one, if only for the SXGA screen. The DVD burner is worth the $200 too, in addition to the larger harddrive and more ram. The screen would be big for me though.

 

The "premium" also has an X1400 video card instead of the X1300 in the "mainstream".

With the additional memory, larger hard drive, DVD burner, and better video card, the "premium" looks like a pretty good bargain. I'm sold.

 

Unless you don't game and don't want SXGA screen in which case you'll save some money on option A. You should note ThinkPad DVD burners are junky and you are probably better off with an external.

 

I'll probably be doing some light gaming, but nothing all that intensive. On the other hand, I would definitely be upgrading to 1GB of ram regardless, so w'ere talking an automatic $50-75 for sure (if the 512 is one SODIMM...if it's two, then far more). I'm not entirely sure that I want the SXGA screen, but it'll be nice for looking at graphics and such and I'm used to using an LCD with the text size turned up in Windows and firefox anyways. I'm thinking the bottom one looks pretty good, especially after noting the "$2950 for $2100" laptop being largely the same. Thanks for the advice guys!

 

Those are some funky prices. Does that include tax? What are the part numbers of those two systems? I don't see anything on lenovo.com like those configs for those prices.

 

Like I said, they're offerred through the school, discounted for students and faculty. A number of schools have deals with places like Dell, Lenovo, etc, and offer better pricing.

 

can we have your pennkey and password so we can get those deals?

 

Hmmm...trying to remember when I mentioned Penn.

Sorry, but I'm pretty sure they only allow one laptop per year...and since I'm graduating, that wouldn't work so well.