T61 vs Dell 1420

PC Magazine gave Dell 1420 a pretty good review. Plus you Said even the keyboard was very close. Dell may finally be giving Lenovo a run for its money.

 

From its Inspiron line? No matter how much magnesium they toss in that lid, it's not going to happen

Dell has always given the Thinkpads stiff competition with its Latitude business laptops however. Those are quite similar.

The Inspiron is still a budget decent performance-for-value laptop, no more, no less. It's not a Thinkpad.

 

I agree with you. But seem like Dell and HP are catching up. Plus the Dell has a 160 7200 HD. And the are all using the same processor & intel wireless. I guess looks and aesthetics is what make T61 seem better.

 

The T61 also gives the option of a 160GB 7200rpm HDD.

The carbon fiber chassis, magnesium roll cage, TPM, fingerprint reader, WWAN, anti-shock HDD suspension system, the best spill-resistant business-class laptop keyboard in the world, thinness and light weight, cooling design, durability are what make the T61 actually better than the Inspiron.

Those features are shared by most business laptops, including the Dell Latitude and HP business lineup, but the Inspiron doesn't even come close, and nor is it supposed to.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad they're making the Inspirons better. It's about time. But they won't ever be a Latitude.

 

thinkpad wins hands down. I personally am not a huge fan of the thinkpad's appearance, but functionality wise its a winner.

the thinkvantage suite of tools alone makes the laptop IMO, in addition to the durable build of course.

 

Have you seen the benchmark comparison between the 1420 and the T61 on Cnet?
http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/dell-inspiron-1420/4505-3121_7-32486109.html#more

 

taelrak,

The T61 160 gig HD is 5400. 100 gig is the maximum for the 7200 hard drive that you can configure for the T61 now.

 

Sorry, you're right. For some reason I thought it offered the 160GB 7200rpm option as well.

In any case, Lenovo's upgrades for RAM and HDD are outrageously expensive. It's probably better to buy the cheapest and toss in a 200GB 7200rpm drive yourself.

 

That's what I'm gonna do

 

Have you seen or used a 1420?

 

Really? That's great competitors are catching up in this regard. Primary reason I stay loyal to thinkpad is b/c I have yet to find a keyboard that I like as much.

 

We, or at least I, was talking about competition between the 1420 and the Thinkpads. I haven't used a 1420 of course, but I've used previous Inspiron lines, as well as Latitudes and Thinkpads.

The point being, it's takes more than just having a Mg chassis to make a laptop resilient enough to be classified as "business class", and those are the laptops that are in direct competition with the Thinkpads. Sure there may be overlap into consumer lines, but such competition is negligible in comparison.
There are countless design/build innovations and features that the latitudes and Thinkpads have beyond the Inspiron - none of which bear repeating again since they were covered earlier in this thread.

Also, if the Inspiron did manage to close the gap to a business class laptop that much, Dell would simply rename it an XPS and be able to put a much higher price margin on it - or even label it a Latitude. However, the Inspiron line is there for one purpose, and that is to fill the niche of budget, cheap, low-quality laptops for the non-enthusiast consumer.

If you wanted to compare Dell vs Lenovo, the Inspiron line would be a better comparison to the Lenovo non-Thinkpad consumer machines.

 

It's just funny how you can make conclusion on something you haven't seen. Especially the 1420 is a new completely new design. My guess is that the T61 is a better machine but the OP said "Dell may finally be giving Lenovo a run for its money." And this claim maybe true as Dell is deseperate to win back the market share it lost to HP and Lenovo, and the early positive reviews from CNet and PCMag.

From what I seen from Lenovo V100 and C100, it is nothing compare to the Insprion line, the V100 looks inferior compare to XPS1220 and my sister's x60. The C100 is also inferiror to my other half's 640m which soon to be replaced by a 1420. The build quality of 640m is more inline with R60 minues the business look and features.

 

1. There's nothing wrong with making an educated guess or conclusion based on known and proven information on the previous Inspiron systems and a reasonable expectation that such trend would continue in this newest line. Yes, of course there's no way to be certain, but seeing as how Dell already has a business lineup and an enthusiast line-up, it also wouldn't make sense for them to deliberately leave their remaining niche market and compete with their own products.

2. The quality of CNET reviews and their worth has been discussed by far more knowledgeable people than I. Suffice to say that my own experiences with how "accurate" those reviews are allow me to share those doubts 100%.

3. It is probably quite true that the Inspirons are better than Lenovo's consumer lines. I honestly don't know, since I never cared enough about any of Lenovo's non-Thinkpad products. Dell probably dominates over Lenovo in every single area in the consumer line-up. However, to say that "Dell is giving Lenovo a run for its money" based on this comparison of an Inspiron vs the T61 is just untrue. If the post had said 'Latitude" instead of "Inspiron", or "Lenovo consumer laptops" instead of "Thinkpad", then I would agree wholeheartedly.

4. ..."Minus its business look and features"... Those "business features" are what make a business laptop different from a consumer laptop, with a corresponding increase in price. It's also what sets them in different markets. Those "business features" are quite important to the market that Thinkpads and Latitudes target.

 

There is nothing wrong to make a guess but never a "conclusion", Mazda 3 is a drastic change from previous "3" line and at the end Honda is forced to make similar "drastic" change to compete.

I think I had made my point, there is no point to carry this conversation any further. As long as others know your comment is just a guess, they can value your comment accordingly.

 

I wouldn't trust anything PCMAG says... did you notice how many dell ads they have ?


On another note it could be a good laptop .. point is pcmag will not say anything bad.

 

I agree that PC Mag isn't a reliable source of info, a site that gives Norton a 4 1/2 doesn't have much credibility.

But its good that they are building the new Insprions better, but I doubt it'll ever be business quality. If there is ever a consumer laptop that would get close to business quality then it would be in the high end gaming laptops.

 

Hopefully Notebookreview will get their 1420 soon, but I have a feeling I may get it first Let's see how it compare to 640m, x60, and T60 at work.

 

I would like an honest review from Notebookreview of the 1420 myself. Using most of the same parts as the T61. Santa Rosa platform. Cannot be that bad. I know the XPS 1330 got a good review.

 

I'm still not sure where everyone's getting the idea that they'll have the "same parts."

As mentioned earlier, the T61 has a ton of features that the Dell does not have, while the Dell will have a GPU that the T61 doesn't have.

These aren't really two great comparisons - either you need the security and build, or you need the consumer GPU and the price-savings. Can't have them both on these two systems.

 

taelrak, they will have the same CPU by user choice, chipset, and perhap even the DIMM, HDD, WIFI, and LCD panel.

Note that the OP just want to hear the opinons on "Dell may finally be giving Lenovo a run for its money". No mention of business vs consumer notebook.

Dell 1420 has a ton of features that the IBM T61 lack too. You are right that they are target for different market segmenst but both can meet the needs for most notebook users. Ironically, TPM is not that widely used in business world. At least not in the few companys that I deal with (two have 5000+ users). NAP, bitlock are more interesting securing options that all IT departments currently busy testing on.

As for build quality, consumer and business notebook can have same build quality. We know T61 has good build quality and is definitely better than 640m but we are comparing a 1420 to T61. My guess is the build quality will be somewhere between the R61 and T61 but it is only a guess. At the end, it may be a complete lemon with Yellow as the color, or it maybe every bit as good as T61 (honestly I doubt it). I should able to tell in a few weeks.

 

What makes you think the R61 and T61 have different build qualities?

 

There are important spec and feature (and consequently price) differences between the two that make them quite incompatible with most people's needs though. I mean, either you need a business laptop, in which case the choice is obviously the T61, or you want something the Inspiron offers but the T61 doesn't, in which case you go with the Inspiron. Or you want the best of both worlds, in which case you pick up an Asus business laptop.

Yes, they share many specs--however if those are the only specs that are important to you (the OP), then go with the cheaper one--the Inspiron, since the other differences aren't worth it to you.

Well, 2 of the 3 modes in Bitlocker requires a TPM...

In any event, TPM was just an arbitrarily-cited example of difference between the two machines. It wasn't really important what those differences are--just that they do exist and are included in the price. If you don't need them, why pay for them?

Basically what I"m saying is, it's not that either one is better than the other--I'm sure they'll both be amazing in their respective markets. But it's because of that that there's no value in any comparison.

For the consumer, he'll either want the extra features of the T61, or he won't, in which case the Inspiron is better. If he wants a mix of what each has, there are laptops out there that have those too - and he should be looking at those instead of narrowing it down to this comparison.

 

Just bumping for 008.

 

Well, for the 15.4" model, the R61 doesn't have a top cover roll cage while the T61 does. Doesn't really apply to the 14" model though.

Building material are stated as the same.

The R series is thicker however (thicker optical), and weighs a bit more.

 

dferrey,

sorry, first of all I like to correct myself. I really mean T60/5x and R60/5x, I haven't see any T61 and R61 yet, so I can't comment on the 61.

The R uses plastic case for the most part except critical area like the HDD ("I think", can't remember exactly), similar to Dell Inspiron 640m's strike zone. The T is also thinner and "feel" more solid. Although the T and R seem to use similar steel hinge, I saw at least one broken steel hinge on the R. The metal alloy simply cracked into two pieces!!!

Large company usually have contract with the reseller has standard waranty as per the agreeement but I believe R has standard 1 year warranty and T has 3 years warranty.


Added: taelrak, good point, maybe now we have a reason to get a TPM enabled notebook for the Bitlock.

 

From the Tabook on a 14" R61:

Top: Super-Elastic PolyCarconate (SEPC); Bottom: Carbon-Fiber Reinforced Plastic


That's the same as a T61. And they both share the rollcage.

 

Wait, I'm confused. Why are you stating materials used in the R61 when 008 clearly rephrased his statement comparing the T60 and R60 instead? I'm interested to know what materials were used in those models.