Snap, hows your T60p w/ Flexview

I remember you said it had shipped and heard nothing since. I am thinking of returning this abomination of a screen for a t60p w/ Flexview, how is Flexview, any ghosting/sparkle? In general, how is your t60p build quality?

Thanks man, looking forward to hearing from you!

 

I've read all the sparkle stories, ordered one anyways. Then again I neither watch movies nor play games. Few years old, but here's some more "ghost" stories for you!

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=1233

I think they've improved markedly since then. Then again... maybe why they're not offering them anymore!

 

Hello eskimochaos. Well if it isn’t the fellow who informed us of the T61p release.

When you say abomination, I assume you must be speaking of the T61. Ya, lots of complaint threads floating around for that model lately. From the common BSOD to the cracks and gaps in the build. Eeek! Does your right palm rest of your T60p widescreen get warm? Let us know if you go with a Flexview.

The customized T60p arrived on time from Lenovo, HK, just 4 business days after I ordered and I’m very pleased and impressed with the build. The quality is flawless. No glitches, BSODs, scratches, creaks, etc. A rather perfect assemble as they come for a T60 as I would imagine. Originally I only had 512 MB of RAM and so Vista ran slow as Christmas so I refrained from using the machine machine until the memory arrived. I just got my 4 GB Kingston and now the system runs miraculously better (Vista really needs you to feed it lots of resources to run smoothly). There is still a ton of bloat ware installed so I need to invest the time for a proper reformat before it will truly fly. I’m thinking about going with Vista 64-bit since I have the Ultimate edition and 4 GB of RAM.

The Flexview screen really does live up to the hype. They weren’t making this up, this screen is crisp, doesn’t exhibit light leakage like some the cheapy LGs do, has very impressive extra wide viewing angles, and beautiful colors. I didn’t have to make any adjustments to the screen either, the color/contrast both look superb right out of the box. The resolution of SXGA+ is plenty, but not too much. If any higher then I think the fonts and icons would be too small. Flexview really does take wide angle viewing to the next level. With previous laptops I would just live with the faded screen as I viewed, but now I can open the laptop and not have to bother with adjustments to be perfectly aligned with my eyes, and now everything on the screen is instantly crystal clear. I can honestly say that this is the best display I've ever used for both desktop and laptop.

For desktop I use the NEC MultiSync 1990FXp , which is a quality 19” LCD with the world’s thinnest bezel (around $600), and yet surpassingly, the Flexview on my T60p provides better viewing quality in colors, and viewing angles. The NEC probably excels in refresh rate, response time, and obviously in size.

About ghosting, if I pay close attention I can detect slight delay when playing a DVD anime, but I only tested one. Not enough to ruin the movie, but it’s probably a 20 to 30 second response time. Just a guess, and it may not have been ghosting, just some sort of slight distortion during movement, something that I don't notice on a plasma display. It still looked great, especially when the picture was still. The real test would be fast action gaming, but I’m not going to be gaming on this laptop or watching movies, so the Flexview fits my needs the best for a laptop. Even LEDs are supposedly using the TN (Twisted nematic) and so the viewing angles probably won’t improve. So, there isn’t any next best display for a laptop on the horizon, until SED or Laser perhaps. I'm not a fan of radiation, so I'll probably skip SED and Laser and keep my Flexview for a very long time.

I never noticed any “sparkle”. Not a single dead pixel either. If either issue occurs in the future I’ll be sure to post my complaint though!

The right palm rest of the T60p does get warm after just a few minutes of use and after 15 minutes it’s uncomfortably warm for my taste. I find myself thinking about the heat as I type. So keep this in mind if going with a Flexview as you may be better off with a T60 without even the X1300 or X1400. However, I have a T60 with 14.1” 4:3 with the ATI x1400 GPU and it doesn’t get uncomfortably hot. Btw, my definition of uncomfortable is “noticeable”. If I feel it, then I think about it, and therefore it becomes distracting & ultimately uncomfortable. If your mouse produced heat, wouldn’t it throw you off guard if you were to grasp it? Same principle with the T60p, for me at least. Still, not enough to give it up, I knew of this before ordering since I read owner opinions thoroughly before making my decision.

Noise wise this is a pretty quiet machine! I've heard complaints about the fan always being on or coming on every minute or so but I haven't experienced this issue. In a dead quiet room I'm hard pressed to hear the T60p and the noise I do hear is probably from the 7200rpm HDD.

I do like the physical design of the smaller 14.1” 4:3 T60 slightly better than the 15.0” T60. The front of the 15.0” has sharper angles on the front (the underneath, front edge). The Flexview does produce a thicker ThinkPad as well, but it’s only like .2” thicker than the 14.1” T60. That’s my personal preferences. With that said, the dream laptop would be T60p 14.1” 4:3 Flexview, which DNE. Of course when you compare design of the T60p Flexview to the T61, the T60p wins hands down. T61 is fugly to me, I don’t like off center screen, BSODs, widescreen, creaky sounds, and the risk of missing the IBM classic logo.

 

If you're going to dedicate a post just to elliciting a response from one person, pm them instead of making a thread.

 

I don't mind. Besides, I wouldn't have provided such a comprehensive response if it was for a PM. This way I can share my opinion with more viewers to potentially help with their decisions and not just benefit Mr. Chaos.

 

Hey, Snap, thank you VERY MUCH for such a detailed review.

I'm in total agreement with you on this one. Sigh....

Well, your harddrive sits under the right palm rest.
It is the source of heat in that location, not the video card (I think).
BTW, which HD did you get in your machine? (Hitachi or Seagate?)

 

unhooked, you're right. The HDD is located in the same area as the right palm rest. Maybe this is the source of the heat I'm feeling, which would totally make sense. At least I now know that I have some control over the palm rest heat level (assuming the GPU isn't located in this area as well), as I could always downgrade to a slower rpm HDD, but I'd still rather not.

My T60p came with:
Seagate Momentus 7200.1 100GB HDD
Lenovo P/N: 39T2793
Model: ST910021AS
Date code: 05042007 (so very new!)

 

Thanks Snap! Really appreciate your through review. Look forward to changing my T60p w/ Samsung to the T60p Flexview b4 its gone forever!.

Thanks again!

 

you could upgrade to ssd, when they'll become cheaper

 

thanks for the info snap!! I just ordered a T60 w/ flexview last friday... I wanted to go w/ something lighter, but figured the weight trade off was worth the screen.

 

Glad to hear you're happy with your T60 flexview. Warm palm rest is a relative concept, as I trust you've never used an X60 or X61.

Yes your 7200rpm and FireGL graphics card will be contributing to the heat. It's mainly the FireGL tho, i suspect, as I have 7200rpm even on my small thinkpad and it's cool. The X1400 and X1300 were a bit warm for some ppl too with coreduo in 14", but I haven't heard complaints with the core2duo refresh, especially in the 15" form factor which being larger can dissipate the heat better. As for no dedicated graphics, actually with your flexview screen you must have the extra power of dedicated graphics.

The downside of the FlexView screen is that you won't be able to tolerate regular TN screens with your next purchase. Hopefully something better will be available then however.

Your T60 was made in the good thinkpad plant near HK, whereas the T61 is made up in the same plant as Dell Inspirons.

 

This thread has got me really concerned. I recently ordered a T60 15 inch with flexview. Will I have trouble watching movies on it that are stored on my hard drive? That will be one of the main purposes of my lap top.

 

Its all a personal preference, personally, I find that ghosting images makes me sick to my stomach and it just looks really weird. Flexview's definitely are known to ghost but its up to you to make the decision.

Dont forget about the Sparkle issue as well.

Finally, S-IPS displays or Static IPS displays found in thinkpads are meant for Static images like photo editing, not gaming / multimedia (movies)

 

So my computer will have ghost images when I watch a movie? That sucks. I am upset. There is no way to get rid of it?

 

Nope. Most likely there will be ghosting.

 

How can you say that when you haven't seen one?

I've never noticed ghosting. Even Zaz wasn't bothered by ghosting on his older T42 flexview. The response time improved since then. Yes it's not as fast as TN lcd, but TN lcd are poor & cheap by design. I've never been bothered by ghosting on a Flexview (tho I dont do high-speed games).

If you want to see an LCD with quality issues, order a T61 TN widescreen display, especially in 15.4".

You should put a 15.4" TN beside an IPS... it's like putting HDTV beside standard def TV in terms of the quality difference

 

Bunny-san, have you seen a T61 15.4" display?