T61 as desktop replacement?

Hi,

I am curious to find out if anyone is using their T61 as a desktop
replacement?

Right now I have my new T61 plus two towers (one XP one Linux). I am
thinking of possibly getting rid of the XP box and using the T61
instead "full time". In that case I'd attach my 20" Dell monitor and
my MS ergo keyboard. (Too bad the T61 doesn't have DVI output)

Thoughts/comments/caveat and/or warnings?
Primary uses are programming (e.g., Eclipse), writing, surfing the
net. Not a gamer.


The XP box: P4 2.8Ghz 1.5G RAM / probably 5400 RPM hard drive
My new T61 (also XP): Dual Core 2.2Ghz T7500 / 3G RAM / 7200 RPM hard drive

Thanks,

Esmail

 

Get the dock which has DVI.

 

Mine is definitely what was advertised.....mobile workstation.

Other "desktop" is now getting cobwebs.

And, I do gaming over and above the normal desktop stuff....on the mobile workstation.

 

I have a t61 and I use it as my everyday pc. I dn't play games on it but I do every thing else with it

 

When I got my T61 my Desktop (won't go into stats, too depressing) went downstairs as a Server, I do have a monitor but its an old CRT and after using the Flat screen on the T61 any CRT screen almost make me dizzy and nauseated. But it works great considering the poor stats of my Desktop.

 

I used my T60 as a desktop replacement with mini-dock and it worked fine. Wouldn't hesitate to use my T61 the same way.

 

Thanks everyone for the messages, I have been reading them with great interest.

Is the mini-dock the same as the dock replicator? Does it cost around $200 (??) Replicator sounds different than mini-dock, so perhaps the mini-doc ads addtional ports? A serial port would be great since I use a (serial) KVM switch to share a MS ergo keyboard with my linux box.

There seem to be a number of different docks available for the Thinkpad, a mini-dock, dock and dock II? And a port replicator? Some require (separate?) power supplies?

I am searching the forum for messages on docks to see what I can learn in terms of features and what people are thinking about them.

As soon as I can find my VGA cable I think I will use the T61 for a few days as my main work station and see how it goes. If I'm happy with it I'll probably go for one of the docks if I can figure out the different types.

 

I have a the t61p and I definitely did away with my desktop. I love the power and screen resolution 1920x1200 is excellent.

I have alway been a fan of the T series and have had a t20, t23, t40, t42 and now a t61p

Way better than Dell, Toshiba, HP and Sony!

 

I have been using my T61 as my desktop for 5 months now.

I use Eclipse, Firefox, Torrents, Games, Perl, Dreamweaver, OpenOffice, SSH, Thunderbird +/- a few others. There are times when I will actually have most of those applications above open at once. A typical setup for me is Thunderbird/Firefox/Eclipse/Perl/SSH going then on occasion Torrents and Games.

I use Windows XP Pro w/2GB RAM, and T7300.

The system holds up quite well, I wish I had a dock, but I sitll use my 22" LCD connected through VGA as the primary display - occasionally I use the laptop screen, I also have a full size keybord and wireless mouse setup through USB.

Really I can't tell a difference, if I had a modern desktop to reference against it may seem slow, but lets be honest - once Eclipse boots typing code onto a page doesn't really get any faster or slower - neither does web browsing or email.

The games can get slow at times, but if I had a desktop system I would just turn the FXs up even higher and make it slow too.

I actually enjoy the ThinkPad keyboard, and I like the fact that when I need to take my work with me it is not much of a hassle ( Unplug LCD, Keyboard, Mouse, external HD, external Speakers ). A dock would really make that simple.

Did I mention a dock would be convenient? Because I really think a dock would make my life easier. dock dock dock dock........

So really no cons so far, performance for productivity stuff is fine, I would invest in a good dock, look at the peripherals you use, and the monitor connections you use or plan to use, and buy a dock that meets those, it really is worth $200.

 

Surprisingly enough, I use my X61 tablet and run Eclipse, Visual Studio 2008, etc all the time. Granted, when I want to do more than some maintenance programming, I try to drag my T61p along, but even a small box like that when properly configured, can do a surprising amount of heavy lifting.

I have the mini dock for my T61p, and I generally just use it for power/ethernet (@work). However I did just bring it home and plan to hook it up to my Dell UltraSharp 24inch LCD.

FWIW, my desktop PC is a P4 3.4 w/2GB RAM and the T61p smokes it with Vista big time. I have a lower level PCI Express card in the desktop and the newer cards like the 570M really fly in comparison.

Net = Hands down, a very capable desktop replacement.

 

My T61P betters my desktop in every way. An external monitor helps with graphics, though.