T61p WSXGA Review (Yet Another)

The following is opinion only.

I ordered:
15" WSXGA T61P
1GB RAM
2.2 GHz Dual Core 2
100GB 7200 RPM Drive

I've had the T61P for 3 months, now.

OUT OF BOX:
The unit arrived in a timely fashion, undamaged in a small compact box.

BUILD:
The T61p construction seems quite good, there are a few soft spots on the T61P plastic, but we all know that the plastic is just a cover over a magnesium frame. This computer is as it feels, a metal computer wrapped in plastic. The right handrest doesn't squeak if you rest your hand on it while the left handrest doesn't squeak if you rest your elbow on it. I see no reason why Lenovo could not round the corners a little bit, still keeping the overall Thinkpad look. After a few months of use, I managed to wear the rubber from the laptop lid corners. This would be reduced if the radii were larger.

The keyboard is a little nosier than my ancient 300E, but feels really good. I suspect they made the keycaps a little thinner, and they resonate a little more than the old, meaning especially old keyboards. It may be the best laptop keyboard, baring the Kyocera-produced Tandy model 100s of long past, which has never been equaled. The keys have some travel. The layout is good, but I don't care for the extra media button styling, or the plasticwork they are on. They Thinklight keyboard light does help, as I type this. I may tape a red filter on it for astronomy. Found under the computer there are drainage holes to drain fluids spilled into the keyboard; I hope not to test these.

I prefer the touchpad because it's possible to use with very little pressure. Still, there are times, when it's just in the right place, such as when doing word processing. The pointer, as a device, is a good idea--especially in damp weather, but the pressure required to operate it is too great for my fingers to be comfortable. I can set the sensitivity lower, but that makes the pointer unstable to use. For me, it doesn't deflect easy enough.

DISPLAY:
I ordered the matte screen. The screen is WXGA and not the UXGA 1920x1200 affair. The screen is 1680x1050, which seems good enough for even graphics and games. I bumped up the icons and fonts a little. The brightness seems reasonable for shady outdoors, and more than bright enough for indoors. It would be nice if Lenovo provided a .icc color profile, as stock the colors were way-cool/blue. The onscreen display for brightness and volume works good, fights a little with games, but they are good utilities.

The display open a bit more than 180 degrees, and the hinges are made of metal. The outer lid is coated with the rubbery substance used on the old Thinkpads. Being a graphics-oriented person, I find the Thinkpad logo a little noticeable for my tastes. The Lenovo logo under the display does not vex me so.

Lenovo chose to use a VGA port, perhaps thinking that people would be running external projectors, but I opt for a DVI port, which is available on the base station. I think they should ship with a DVI and an VGA adapter, running the VGA through the pins provided on the DVI connector. DVI, is available on the mini-dock, but why should I have to buy one? The poeple who prefer a VGA port over a DVI with analogue just aren't looking ahead.

AUDIO:
The speakers are decent for a laptop, but could be louder. Many people think they sound good, for what they are. I have had major problems with the audio drivers for T61P. Even with updates, the drivers have to be reinstalled about once a week. There are additional helper applications loaded at startup from the registry. Lenovo: Drop this audio chip; it's crap. There are also rumors that audio mixing is prohibited--dismissing the T61P from being used a multimedia workstation. I will not buy a Thinkpad if I think I will have to suffer this audio problem.

WIRELESS:
The Wifi reception is good. I really like the hardware WiFi switch. I feel safer, because it lets me pop on and off networks easily. It is an excellent feature. I've tried the Bluetooth with both a mouse and file transfer.

SPEED:
The upgraded from stock 2.2 dual-core processor is deceivingly fast. 7-Zip's benchmark, which allows dual core,s runs at 3,717. My old single-core Athalon 3000+ runs the benchmark at less that 1,700.

COOLING:
The fan does run, but it's quiet given computer hardware, dedicated GPU, and dual core. Can I sometimes notice the fan is running, yes. Is it annoying, not yet. The fan's quietness might be attributed to the metal around it not vibrating. The air leaving the computer does get warm at times-especially during gaming, a time I would not want the fan to turn any slower than it does. I've been temped to redo the fan table, for a cooler machine, but I don't want to do anything to void my warranty.

GRAPHICS:
The GPU has 256MB of dedicated video memory, but Windows counts system memory toward total graphic memory. I played Doom 3 for a while, with 8XAA and 4XANO.

I am using Nvidia Gforce drivers installed with a modified .INF. An even more special .INF allows the use of the function keys to control the display brighness. The framerates seems to be playable. I will never overclock this computer.

SOFTWARE:
Lenovo needs to ship real Windows install disks, and that's final. Recovery media<>Install disks.

[From what I've heard about Vista, it doesn't really need installation in the first place. I find the idea that Windows not needing installation, that every program, every driver, will remove every entry it places in the registry, and delete every file it places--dubious. A fresh Windows installation is like a newborn baby--that never gets changed.]

I do not like the eject utility, because I mainly want it to quickly eject the CD/DVD, but if I use it, I need to click somewhere as well. I think a better solution would be to use the Fn-F9 key to do your default eject action, and a shift or control to conjure the choice menu.

I've removed enough Thinkpad utilities and things to let the computer boot using less than 256MB. I've left some utilities such as the hard-drive protection application. It's fun anyway. It stops the hard-drive read/write while the laptop is in motion. The real-time tilting representation on the ap is almost as good a conversation piece as the monolith was to the apes.

Lenovo did include some trials, but some where not installed, fortunately. All the Lenovo drivers and utilities are available for seperate download, but I think that they should have had an installer which could install or uninstall multiple drivers at one fell swoop, such as Asus has for their motherboards.

I installed a 7K200 hard drive. The recovery system takes much longer to reinstall than installing from Windows install disks. I ran the automatic updater, and it did update my system, including BIOS, but it left 400mb of files behind.

I have witnessed tpsched.exe, take 30% of a T7500; stop it!

If you download the drivers and utilities from Lenovo's site, I'd recommend prefixing the filenames with what the drive does, such as Keyboard_7hs8hsjd.exe so you would know what actually they do. I recommend the same to Lenovo, and also add, that many of the drivers could be installed with a single program, such as many motherboard makers do.

BATTERY:
I bought the large battery because I want to use the computer outside for using Stellarium, which is a 3D application. I questioned my battery choice until I used the computer for over an hour, and still had a few left. on the lowest power settings the power manager claims over 4 hours of power. The laptop fitted with the extended battery may not fit well into some 15.5" cases.

I made special power manager settings for word-processing, DVD viewing, and general use. My friend, an Alienware owner, says that he like my battery manager better than his. Somewhere between the battery manager, and the video driver, and the F7 key manager, I would like to be able to: sleep if no external video and lid closed, or: don't sleep if external video and lid closed. Macs can do this, and Lenovo could make this happen too; nudge.

EXPANSION:
I popped the Ultrabay CD/DVD out. The whole system is trick. Removing the device is done by sliding a little button, which pops out a tab, which you can pull the drive out with. Cheers!

SERVICE:
After 3 months of use, I managed to whack the power cord, loosening the power jack. In fairness, any non magsafe laptop would suffer this vulnerability.

Having the Depot warranty, Lenovo had a prepaid box at my house within 24 hours. The carrier picked it up that day. I had the laptop back within 5 days, including the weekend.

One note: Upon return, I did notice the lightest of benchmarks on the lid of my laptop. They did wear in, but as someone who works on computers, I will say, that no benchmarks/toolmarks are acceptable. I upgraded the HDD, and RAM at that time, and managed to not place the faintest of marks on the lid, and I don't even work for Lenovo.

More to come....

 

My old HP NC4200 also didn't come with a recovery CD and I had to create it by myself (the NC4200 doesn't have an optical drive, so it was not a nice experience).
Well, the video card is definitely a problem. I just ordered the 14" T61p 2 days ago. I have quite a few old 3D games that I would like to play on the T61p. Using the Geforce driver but losing the ability to dim the screen will be annoying.

 

No kidding, I couldn't agree with you more. I want to reboot as there are 90+ processes running on initial boot which is just a few too many.

 

I GPU say it has 512mb of ram because it can use some system ram.

 

What settings are you using and which Rating are you looking at? My 14" T7700 (2.4 GHz) Total Rating is 3,202 w/ 2MB dictionary size and multithreading checked. Interesting..

Was that before or after you removed the extraneous utilities?

 

90 process. wow. is this vista or xp.

 

I agree that it's a paid that lenovo doesn't have a separate win xp cd included with the purchase.

 

Vista. Man it takes so long after it boots up to finish starting things, lol.

 

I got my Thinkpad 15.4 WSXGA and noticed that it has a lot of back light bleeding at the bottom of the screen. Does anyone else have this?

Here a picture

 

That's not good, but not as bad as with the 14.1" lcd. Will post a picture later so you can feel better about your screen. =)

 

LOL thanks!

 

At least you don't have an annoying red stuck pixel on the right side of your screen! I've tried just about every darn thing I can think of to get that pixel unstuck... massage, tapping, rubbing, jscreenfix, everything... :-/

But in terms of light leakage, if you're seeing that in normal light conditions... that's pretty bad.

 

Mine was even worse than that and Lenovo says it was within spec but I could send it in for inspection. Which I did. Then they claimed it was damaged in transit and I had to pay to get it repaired.

When I reported this behavior here I was attacked by many who blindly love Lenovo.

Best of luck getting Lenovo to correct their defects.
Any other manufacturer with severe defects like that would correct them, but not Lenovo.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=10145&d=1188928170
http://forum.notebookreview.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=10144&d=1188928170

 

So what did you end up doing?

 

MaxGeek, who is the manufacturer of your LCD panel, Samsung or LG-Philips?

 

Nope. That is FAR from the truth. The reason people got upset with you is because you were hijacking thread after thread and ranting about your issues with all things Lenovo. After discovery that you've been on this rant since June, it does appear you are a bit obsessive. That's ok in my opinion, but make your points one or two times, not one hundred times. It gets old bro.

 

My screen is the samsung. LTN154P2-L05

 

Wait, I thought he was banned?

 

Apparently probation is over.

 

Thanks. Do you know what the FRU number is for that screen? I was hoping everyone was getting the LG-Philips panel.

 

Edit: Found it.

The FRU is 42T0329

I ordered 2 T61p's and both had the same monitor. First order was 9/4 second was 9/7.