Pulling the trigger on T61p - final doubts

It has taken me ages to finally decide to purchase a T61p. Having owned other thinkpads in the past it should not have taken me so long but I guess I was lured by the new glossy machines from the likes of Dell and Sony. Anyway, I came to my senses and decided that nothing out there compares to the thinkpad keyboard. I also want something that runs cool and is not noisy. Thanks to all you out there who posted impressions and reviews - it really helped me.

I ordered the following:
42V8191 SBBB INTEL CORE 2 DUO T7500
42V8012 VBB MS WIN VISTA HOME BASIC
42V8568 SBB MS WINVISTA HM BS32 US ENG
42V8285 SBB 14.1 SXGA+ TFT
42X0811 SBB NVID Q FX 570M W/-WWAN
41W2059 VBB 1GB PC2-5300 667MHZ 2DIMM
42V8195 SBB KEYBOARD US ENGLISH
42V8296 SBB UN(TRCKP+TOUCHPAD)FINGERRE
42X5218 SBB 160GB HDD,7200RPM
42V8193 SBB INTEL TURBO MEMORY 1GB
42V8171 SBB CD-RW/DVD-R24X24X24X8XUB-S
42X0805 VBB PC CARDSLOT EX CARDSLOT
42V8177 SBB INT.WIRE.WIFI/LINK4965AGN
62P6054 VBB INTEGR.BLUETOOTH PAN
41W1508 SBB 6 CELL LI-ION BATTERY
39T6442 SBB COUNTRY PACK NORTH AMERICA
42X1524 SBB LP-US ENGLISH
41C9334 LENOVO THINKPAD PROTECTION EXTENDED SERVICE AGREEMENT - 3 YEARS

All in, including shipping and tax it comes to just over $1600. (Using EPP and online discounts)
I then went to Crucial and bought 4GB of DDR2 PC2-6400 memory (2 sticks) that is 800MHz thinking I could swap out the GB for these two sticks. Can I get access to both slots on the machine? Will the memory run at 800Mhz or was that a waste of money? I thought the memory slots were accessible (via the bottom of the machine and/or under the keyboard) but someone I was talking today thought that one of the modules is on the motherboard.

My final concern is the screen. Did I choose well? I'm not a gamer (AOE is the only game I play). However, I do alot of dev work and remote desktop into my dev machines at work. The 15.4 WSXGA+ real estate may have been handy but I opted for the smaller footprint and slightly less weight. I'm assuming the 128MB grpahics card will suffice and felt the 256MB card was a bit over-the-top for me. I will use indoors all the time and I don't care about viewing angles as long as I get a crisp, clear screen.

So I still have time to cancel and I suppose I am not really in that much of a hurry - just felt like getting one before xmas. Would anyone sway me from my decision or have any other advice (particularly around memory and screen).

On the OS front I chose the minimal/lowest cost OS since I can get Vista 32/64 in work for little or no cost.

Thanks!

 

Yes you have access to both memory slots by taking off the palm rest. Nowadays only ultraportables are soldered to the board. Since PC6400 is not supported by the chipset, you'd have to wait for Penryn for that, it will downclock.

I have the 14.1" SXGA+ screen on my R60. It's relatively dim in my opinion. It's probably my only major complaint about my R60. Cranked up it looks decent, but that hits the battery life. I'm willing to live with it for the extra real estate of the screen, but the widescreens are brighter if you are inclined. AOE isn't all that demanding, you'd probably be fine with the 140m card.

 

Thanks Zaz. Good that I can use my new memory but it is a pity it won't run at the specified speed. I presume downclocking will have no side effects? Should I bother sending back to crucial for some PC2-5300 instead?

As for the screen, as long as it is uniform and crisp I don't mind. And I can crank up the brightness to its max on battery, right?

The card I have order is the 570m not the 140m so that should be perfect for what I have in mind.

I should look for the weight of the 15.4 and 14.1 just to confirm I am saving something there.

Thanks again!

 

If the PC2-5300 are the same price, I wouldn't bother. There are no ill side effects to the memory downclocking. BTW, no mobile chipset supports 800mhz memory speeds currently that I know of.

This is true. You can change the brightness to any level you want even on battery

 

I just bought a nearly identical T61p (15.4" though) for a little over a grand. You got the additional service agreement, besides that, not sure why yours was so much more. I also took advantage of their current promotion (online savings), an e-coupon I found on this site and an EPP program discount. I thought all company discounts were the same.

As for the weight, someone else might want to confirm, but I believe my 15.4" model weighs in around 5.9 lbs. The 14" screen model starts at 5 lbs on the nose, depending obviously on what accessories you may have added. So about a pound lighter.

I wanted the 14" screen and the lighter model, but the ability to upgrade to the 256 MB of ram lured me into the 15.4" model. If they would have made the 256 MB of video ram an option on yours, I would have gotten that one too.

 

Wow - just over a grand - nice! Did you get the WSXGA+ screen or the WUXGA? What is it like? DId you also just get 1GB ram? Does your price include shipping and tax? Sounds like there are better deals to be had

 

As a software developer and a gamer, I think you made an excellent choice in the 14 SXGA+ model. I've found my 15.4" WSXGA+ nice, but a little inconvenient for remote desktops, due to quirks with RDP and aspect ratio differences. It's also a bit big...I'm used to my old T43 14" XGA form factor, so if I were less into gaming, the smaller 14" notebook would be nice to have, even at the expense of a little resolution. But in order to get the 128-bit bus 570M, I had to get the 15" version, so that's what I went with.

 

I also went for the 14.1 SXGA+ T61p (delivered about two weeks ago) and mine came with a very bright Samsung screen. It is so bright that I actually have had to turn the brightness down a few notches. Also, after changing the color profile from the "Lenovo" default to another one that was already preinstalled in the machine, colors look very rich and saturated too.

Except for a slight graininess most apparent in the whites, the display seems pretty nice to me. After turning off UAC and learning my way around Vista, I'm really starting to enjoy this machine.

Oh, you might not have as much time to cancel as you might think. Mine shipped about 3 days after I placed the order even though the original estimated shipping date was 12/20.

 

These are great replies and much appreciated. I feel more comfortable/reassured about my 14.1" choice. I just now have to decide whether sending back my PC2-6400 memory to Crucial is worth it, or whether there is a way to get it to actually run at 800 Mhz. I feel they did some false advertising here since it seems no laptops can run memory at this speed. Perhaps there's a hack to do it but I have no idea.

Anyway, looking forward to my babies arrival. I feel like a kid again waiting for Santa to deliver - 12/14 is the scheduled delivery date but my order status hasn't changed this week. When talking to the reps earlier in the week he said he "felt" that it would be shipped earlier. And the reason I went for the 6-cell battery is because a rep told me that there was a supply backlog on the 9-cell and this would definitely cause a shipping delay. I hope I get at least a couple of hours dev work at a time from this config.

 

What coupon did you find that stacks with EPP? The only one I found was 2% off T610p.

 

Hi everyone,

Sorry, a bit of a newbie here, but definitely looking for a Thinkpad

I was curious what the EPP was, and if there was a way for me to take advantage of it?

I'm on a bit of a budget, but trying to figure out the best time to buy for the best price. I'm considering between an R61 or a T61. Perhaps EPP might just pull a ThinkPad into my budget!


Thank you for your help,

Julie

 

There are some CPP logins that you can use, you should find it with searches.

Or you can go with the promotion code of USPDECSAVINGS on the normal site. Plus you can get 6% cash back when ordering through fatwallet.

 

EPP is Lenovo's Employee Pricing Plan. It is available to employee of Lenovo and IBM, and their friends or family. Basically they get a fairly substantial discount on ThinkPads.

In the last year or so, ThinkPads have really come down in price. With all the discounts and coupons floating around, they're pretty historically pretty cheap now.

I'd check the Lenovo Outlet store as well. Sometimes there's deals to be had there. The Dell D630 is another solid machine and may be worth a look. They start around $700 in Dell's outlet store.

 

Well it's 15% discount. However with the recent non-epp coupons it's really about the same.

 

Update: Well the decision has been taken away from me now, which is probably a good thing I got notified today that my laptop has shipped! Estimated shipping date was 12/14 - I wonder will it now arrive much sooner given that I also paid for UPS 2 day delivery. I'll keep you posted.