T61 stolen. How similar is the t500?

Hi everyone,

My beloved T61 has been stolen. I wasn't planning on buying a new laptop, but now I'm forced to on short notice.

A few questions regarding the t500 compared to the t61

1) Is the t500's keyboard noticeably different to use?
2) Is the LED Backlight a big change? All the t500 LCDs are still matte finished I hope?
3) Where does the w500 fit in compared to the t500?

I just hope I can replace my t61 with something similar.

Thank you for your advice.

BTW, does anybody know if Lenovo Canada is any better at customer service/getting your laptop to you than it used to be? The only bad thing about my T61 was how poor Lenovo's order fulfillment was.

 

1) The keyboards should be identical, as Lenovo is using the T61 keyboards in the T500.
2) The LED backlight is very bright, but is only available on the lower resolution WXGA display. If you want WSXGA+ resolution, then CCFL is the only option. All the choices are matte regardless of backlight technology.
3) They are identical, except the W500 has a graphics card with FireGL workstation drivers, as compared to the T500's mainstream graphics card. The W500's card is identical in all respects except for 1. drivers, 2. 512MB instead of 256MB memory. But, #2 will make very very little difference, as both cards have 128MB bandwidth.

 

Agreed with above. However, the w500 also offers a 1920x1200 display oprion.