T61 1st Impressions

I've been hammering away on this thing for about 5 hours at this point. I have the 14.2" WXGA+ w/camera 1GB, T7300, 80gb, finger reader, Vista Premium, Office 2007 Basic.

This T61 is virtually silent. Very impressive indeed.

Very solid, classic, Thinkpad keyboard feel.

Display is off center but not a bother at all. I guess I never had my desktop keyboard perfectly aligned with my monitor over the years either.

802.11N download averaged around 100 - 120Kbps/sec using a Netgear 802.11n router and Comcast.

Camera is a mystery but I found out its a 1.3 megapixel and not VGA. Drivers? Haven't found any yet.

Display is bright but in black mode you see a lot of leakage from the bottom of the panel. Almost too much - not sure how I'm going to handle this issue just yet. (Supposedly my display IBM# is 42X1671 w/camera) I don't know how much trust I can place in that given all their problems getting these things out the door.

Spoke with customer service about 3 times and the hold times and personal courtesy was superb. Very impressive indeed.

There's a warm spot just left of the finger reader and where you rest your righthand. Warmer than the leftside but not hot. I believe it's the HDD area.

The HDD is a Hitachi and I was really hoping that Lenovo would have used Seagate in their thinkpad line. A disappointment. ( You can find this out by pressing the blue "Thinkvantage button" on boot-up and running the PC system hardware option (or something to that affect).

The AC block is small in size and gets very warm to almost hot. Does not bode well for a longterm existence. made by "Jet"?

The DVDRW is a Matshista (?)

LCD frame is relatively easy to flex and not as rigid as the appearance portrays but no change in the display characteristics.

Heat off of the CPU is hot at times but silent. I like quiet from my equipment.

I like the dual ram horn locks for the panel to the main chassis. Nice to see that has remained.

Vista is a clunky, early OS. Updates failed on several occasions with the typical cryptic message explaining why. Try it again and then it'll work or try again and then it'll work. Clunky.

The Office install loads you up with every Office app offered and provides a 30 day trial on them. Tried to delete thru control panel/programs but no posting. You're kind of stuck with them whether you like it or not for 30 days I DO NOT like that form of ramming something onto your computer w/o the option to uninstall.

I ran AVG, Spybot and Adaware in safe mode and they were virtually 100% clean. I figured that's would/should be the case but nowadays you just never know.

The extended warranty is not included on any documentation nor the packing list. Therefore, you have no hardcopy document nor information on the warranty coverage included in the package. I need something more definitive than a promise.

I like the T61 but the display is an issue. Do others see the same issue when running the monitors tests provided thru the blue Thinkvantage button on post. All other tests looked really good but the light leakage is more than I \'ve experienced in the past.

 

A couple more points:

You might want to run spyware scanner in safe mode. AVG picked up 20 files and Adaware fund 8 after a complete run thru. Not a big deal but I prefer to start clean if possible.

Funny thing about the Display chassis. The lefthand hinge is twice the size of the righthand hinge. Looks like a design "oops we don't have room for a full size hinge over here". Can't think of another explanation for 1 hinge being so much small than the other. Time will tell.

Also, the camera doesn't work because no drivers for the thing exist in Vista. Ha! No mention of it by Lenovo either. Ha! That's pretty bad. I certainly hope at some time in the future this occurs.

 

It's funny that this computer recognizes the DVD-RW drive as externally attached hardware. Because the "safely remove hardware" icon is in my taskbar and it recognizes the DVD drive as external hardware. Is it possible to take that icon off my taskbar?

 

It is externally attachable. It's an ultrabay drive. You can remove it and put other things in your ultrabay. Is it possible to take the icon off? Not sure, I'd like to know that as well. I just hide mine.

 

Can you explain what you mean by leakage on the bottom LCD panel?

 

Some comments on your observations from my observations of my T61.

I agree with the silence, the T61 is amazing in this department and I can barely if at all hear it. I have used plenty of laptops over the years and this is by far the quietest.

The heat control is also very good, never gets overally hot. The one area on the right palmrest does get a bit warm and it is from the HDD. If you are doing HDD intensive tasks it will get warm. Lay off intensive loading and such and it cools down and stays nice and cool.

My HDD is also a Hitatchi. Actually not too bad as the Seagates are not always the best in mobiles (alot run fairly hot) and Hitatchi makes good laptop drives (talking LAPTOP, not desktop. I much prefer Seagate desktop drives).

My DVD-RW drive is a H/L (Hitatchi/LG).

Warranty is tied to your serial number and should be on your order status page. My Warranty is still not updated when you go through the warranty status checker and it has been a few weeks but I have heard it takes awhile to update in their database.


and in regards to the safely remove hardware for the optical drive, this is because you can hotswap the Ultrabay devices. Something that cannot be done in pretty much any other laptop. An awesome feature if you have multiple ultrabay devices so you do not need to shutdown everytime to change devices in the ultrabay.

 

Yeah fierce arc of light at the bottom of mine (samsung) on a black screen. Sucks hard.

Hinges have been like that for a while on the T's.

 

whenever you call up IBM directly they will confirm what type of warranty you own by default without you even asking.

I second the opinion that hitachi makes superior laptop drives.

My t61 didnt come with a free trial of office 2k7, but i got a legit copy for free. The full version does have an uninstall option, i'm surprised yours doesnt.

have you had any BSOD problems?

 

Completely untrue. Many Fujitsu laptops have removable drive bays. There might be other brands too.

 

Fujitsu might have laptpos with removable drive bays. However, can you hotswap them? i.e. do you have to power down before you swap the bay drive? I really don't know and would like to know.

 

you'll have a sh*tty experience with that mat****a... it's a panasonic.... famous for making the worst optical drives ever

 

In a "black mode" screen you will see an arc of light coming from the bottom of the panel. Shouldn't be there. Screen should be failry uniform in appearance.

Mine is soo bad that even on the desktop I can see the outline of the arc for about two inches up from the bottom.

I hope you guys are right. Seagate's have the best reputation (professional experience) for reliability but only middle of the pack performance.

NO BSOD's but Vista has a habit of going to a blue or black screen for up to 30 seconds while it clunks away at some task. Disconcerting, but it always pops back with a new or different screen while it chugs away.

Also get quite a few application "not responding" only to have it bounce back once Vista finishes background activity.

1GB of ram is not going to work with Vista. I can't believe that Lenovo is offering the Thinkpad with only 512mb. That's a joke.