Replacement for T60

Hi folks,
My T60 is due for a replacement, unfortunately.
I absolutely love the screen (IPS), and have no need for widescreen. The keyboard has been great, and just love the overall build, and the red bellybutton. I like the keyboard so much that I ended up buying a fullsize IBM keyboard with the trackpoint.
Before I look at other manufacturers, would like your take on which currently Lenovo model would give me the same level of satisfaction as the T60.
I spend a lot of time doing research online, which is one reason I took your prior advice and went with the IPS, and am so glad I did. For the most part basic office, statistics tools, no gaming. more and more skype type activities.

As an aside, I bought my first mac (desktop) after 25+ years of computing, so now run windows and osx. I am tempted to switch OSs completely if I can't find a suitable replacement for the thinkpad...

Thanks for your help in advance.
Current Setup T5600CPU, 15"IPS, 100 GB 7200rpm HD, 3GB RAM, Win XP Home...

 

The only computers on the market right now with IPS displays are tablets.

I don't know if you want to drop down to a 12" notebook but depending on your usage pattern I think you might be satisfied with a low voltage CPU and integrated graphics.

Your best bet would probably be an x61 Tablet. If you look around hard enough you should be able to find one with a 1400x1050 dispay at a decent price. This will be on par with your T60P screen, and only a little smaller.

I have the x200 Tablet and love it, but it only comes in 1280x800 (a substantial drop from the 1600x1200 on your model) and is quite expensive.

The keyboard on both should be superb (slightly better on the x200 as it is a true full size keyboard), and they both have the TrackPoints.

If you require more performance, you could look at one of the W series models. The W500 is the successor to the T60P and offers a decent (and very high resolution) display. The W700 is substantially larger/heavier, but it is very powerful and has a very good (albeit not IPS) display.

 

Nothing here says to me you need an upgrade, unless you beg to differ. You're just not going to find any screen that comes anywhere close to the IPS. Why not a CPU upgrade, faster hard drive or more memory. The CPU isn't hard to upgrade at all. I've done it myself.

 

I say buy a $360 Intel X25-M solid state drive (just 80 GB but very well performing), throw it in there, and get a year or two more out of a machine that you clearly love. Check out the reviews on amazon for that model, as far as i recall there are a couple of people who report excellent results from putting them in T60-era thinkpads. I am very tempted to do this myself.

 

Thanks to all of you for your help.
I'm going to hold off on buying a new laptop.
Plan to, in the following order:

1. upgrade the harddrive- will need faster and more storage-suggestions would be appreciated.
2. I think that going from 3gb ram to 4 isn't cost effective because more ram would not be recognized. Am I correct in this?
3. should I look at upgrading from XP home to professional-or vista?
4. finally look at the CPU upgrade after all of the above is done. Thinking I can find instructions to do this here.

Your comments would be appreciated.

 

Upgrade your HDD, CPU and install 4GB of RAM along with Vista 64-bit and you have got yourself a new and improved laptop!

Get this for your HDD: Seagate Momentus 7200.4
If you can afford a SSD then go for it!

 

On your point 1, I would again suggest that 80GB SSD for your primary drive which will be way faster than any traditional HDD. Then what you could do is get the ultrabay HDD adapter and put your existing 7200 prm drive in the ultrabay for additional storage for media files and so on. So you've spent about $450 I think and have a SSD-fast machine but you still have a fairly large total storage capacity (80 + 100 = 180GB, not too shabby) without a ton of expense. I realize that $450 is not trivial but it is personally what I would do.

On your point 2, yeah it's my understanding that only 20% of the fourth GB of ram would be recognized so personally I wouldn't bother.

On point 4, IMO I would not bother upgrading the CPU, I just don't think you'll get as much bang for the buck.

 

Btw I don't want to come off as a know it all; I am the first to admit that I've never done such an upgrade myself and am no hardware expert. But I've been considering something similar (how to get more out of my own T60) and the above is what I've come up with as a second choice for myself (the first being a new X301).

 

If you actually research a little further, people who have used X25-M with a T60 have encountered stuttering issues, reduced speeds (to around 100MB/ sec for read speed), so this is a bad idea.
Don't worry, you don't come off a know-it-all at all

 

Yes, ThinkPads of that era are limited to 150MBs throughput on the SATA connector. To get something more would be a waste.

 

People have said it already , but I will restate : Get 4gb of ram and a 7200.3/7200.4 Seagate drive and it will make your machine fly for another good year at least.