T61P 14.1 inch Semi Sorta Review in Progress

Well I decided with the current deals from lenovo to upgrade my old T60 14.1 inch model. I struggled with the purchase because the T60 has treated me so well. Great battery life, great size, amazing power.

However, I wanted something with a little more power. So I went with the 14.1 inch T61P.

Here is what I got

T61P 14.1 inch model
Quadro FX570m 128MB (Will be doing some Game testing here shortly)
2 Gigs DDR2
Win Xp Pro
160 Gig 7200rpm (Checked out the drive and its a Hitachi 7200repm and 16megs of cache drive)
8300 Core 2 2.4 Ghz CPU

Everything else was just standard.
I took the 9 cell and DVD burner from my T60 and put it in my T61P.

First Impressions,

Well to be honest I really am not sure how I like the screen shifted over. However, the screen feels sturdier, and the rest looks the same.

For some reason I though I was getting a memory card reader, but soon realized I had to upgrade that option.

I also did a fresh install with one of the guides here and have this thing squeaky clean.

So I have had this for less than a day now and battery life actually seems comparable. With a 6 cell and media bay battery I get around 5 hours (Screen dimmed and only internet browsing). My older T60 got a little over 5 hours but not by much.

Also the screen seems brighter. Although Thinkpad screens are not super bright to begin with the newer T61P has exceeded my expectations.

As far as temperatures I get 53 C CPU idle, 38c HD idle. AC plugged in and Power managment of maximum performance.

Basically the same as my old T60.

So at this point the only thing I have really noticed, besides the speedy fresh install, is the larger hard drive.

I will be doing some gaming tests in the next couple days.
So far I plan on doing
3dmark 2006
Call of Duty 4 Demo
Crysis Demo
Company of Heroes
Battlefield 2

Any other games that you guys may want to see let me know.

I will also get temperatures, and will be using the standard drivers.

Anything else you want me to test let me know. I will be also adding pictures.

 

So the 4:3 screen is good?

That's good news. I'm also really looking forward to those game tests; always been very curious about the 128MB card.

Good to hear you're enjoying the Thinkpad thus far.

 

i think with all high in source the stress test
with overclocked 650/1000
i get over 120 fps

 

I like the 4:3 personally, but I'm also used to it on my Thinkpad T60.

Yea overall the screen seems to have better viewing angles, and is much brighter than my T60.

My only real complaint is the screen is shifted to the right. Ill get used to it though.

Does anybody know how to check and see what brand your screen is?

Yea I will probably Start testing on Wednesday night and hopefully have the benchmarks up by Thursday.

Its a clean install with all the latest drivers and hotfixes, so well see what type of performance Ill be able to get.

As it stands my T60 plays Battlefield 2 on medium with FPS around 50.


OH by the way thanks for the great Clean install guide.

 

When you do game tests, try them at normal resolution and at lower resolutions (800x600 or even 640x480) and make some sort of comparison table please, thank you.

To check screen brand and other info about my laptop I use Everest (Ultimate trial).

 

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/s...=/partslookup/partsLookup.vm&sitestyle=lenovo

enter your system data then Google for your screen FRU

 

I will do a comparison chart but for now this is what I got

Battlefield 2 with 1.4 patch

High Settings no AA 1024x768
Average 76 FPS

High Settings no AA 1280x1024
Average 49 FPS

I'm guessing it take a large hit due to the lack of memory.
However, 49 FPS is very reasonable, also it would reach up to 80 FPS, but never fall below 40 FPS on 1280x1024.

I ran 3dmark 2006 and got 2,670

Much lower than I expected, but well see how the other games stack up.
I'm downloading the crysis Demo and Call of duty 4 demo.

 

Thanks, this is the closest to a 14" T61p review I've ever seen. Have you tried contacting Andrew to do a formal review for the site?

 

Yea Ill try to get something together here shortly. I have been really busy this week, and will try and get a complete review with video game charts.

 

This is slow going, but Ill have time to compile everything this weekend.

Until then the Call of Duty 4 Demo plays well at 1024x768 with everything on except AA I get 35-60 fps.

At 1280x1024 everything on except AA I get 23 - 39 FPS

Both are playable, and feel smooth with no jitter, but I prefer around 40 FPS over 25 ish FPS.

 

Can you try lower resolutions, like 800x600? I want to see if the 14" FX570 reaches 15" FX570 performance at low resolutions, because in theory it should.

 

Just tried 800x600 I get around 55 - 70 FPS on High

 

Ok with the right settings at 1024x760 on Call of duty 4 I can get about 65-100FPS.

Not too bad.

Also with Battlefield 2 all on High with 1280x1024 I get about 52-70 FPS

Overall this is a huge improvement over the ATI x1400.

This card can handle every game I throw at it however, it has difficulties with resolutions past 1280x1024. I believe this has to do with the 64 bit memory. Really too bad they couldn't have the same card as the 15.4 inch model.

I will be playing crysis and using fraps to check out how it will perform.

Also I am throwing all my data into excel so Ill have a spreadsheet.

With Call of duty 4 I was able to get a huge performance increase by turning off shadows, and turning lights to low.

 

Just tested Crysis
At 1024x760 with medium settings average FPS 19
At 800x600 with medium the average FPS is 23

At 1024x760 with low settings the average FPS is 40
At 800x600 with low settings the average FPS is 44

For this game low setting are really the only way to play. Although it still looks amazing even at low.

Also I have just finished playing empire at war at high setting 1280x1024 with no lag.

Company of heroes also plays great.

Although this card is not nearly a full fledged 8600GTM it is not bad at all. Especially in a 14.1 inch notebook.

 

Great benchmarks snowbob230.

Thanks a lot.

 

Decent numbers,think I´ll go for the 14 then,thanks !!

 

Hey I'm starting to setup up my chart but does anybody have benchmarks for the NVS 140, x3100, and the 256 meg Quadro?

 

I personally don't, but look around here and http://forum.thinkpads.com/ there should be some floating around.

 

Is the 570M in the 14" T61p DX10 capable or did that get crippled too?

 

I run windows XP so I have no idea, however, I don't believe this card or even an 8600GT would perform well with directx 10.