The T43 arrives! (Not 1/5/06 after all)

Three days from Hong Kong and it is here! This is my first notebook, though I have used daughter's and son's Dells.

First, this thing (on first use) blows away anything I have used before. I will post more once I have become more familiar and used the T43 (Build 2668A1U). A couple of first impressions now:

1. Upon removing things from the packing I am impressed with the feel of quality, the size, and the light weight.

The remainder of my initial comments are based on using the machine during setup; i.e., configuring and updating XP, setting up the fingerprint reader, and updating the included Norton AV.

2. On boot up it automatically changes to NTFS. I watched the screen carefully for any sign of dead pixels. None have been noted so far.

3. By far the most impressive feature is that little stick with the red top. (They even included two different extra caps for the point stick.) It is everything I have read. I haven't tried the scrolling feature yet.

4. The screen is quite pleasing at whatever resolution and brightness was set. I have no complaints, though I haven't set it beside a high brightness glare type screen. Even so, this will still do what I bought it for.

That's enough for now. Got to get my Zone Alarm Pro installed and get on with playing with the new addition.

For those concerned as to your own ship dates, I ordered by phone the afternoon of 11/10/05. First it was backordered with a ship date of 1/5/05. Now it has been delivered the morning of 11/22/05. It turns out that the salesman's initial "two weeks or less" was accurate. Now I know why so many have raved about theThinkpad family.

Larry

 

Congrat. The screen is SXGA if you are interested.

 

Yes, I know that's what I was getting. Just hadn't checked, but assumed it would be at the highest res. 1400 X 1050 if I recall correctly.

One concern was whether I would have to change to 1024 X 768 to see well, but I'm having no trouble at all.

 

Congratulations! Glad you've received a problem-free unit and that you like the SXGA screen. Good luck with it.

 

SXGA on the 14" is probably too small for me. You can always bump up the DPI if things are too small.

 

awesome, another happy thinkpad convert

the feel of the laptop and quality of the keyboard never cease to amaze me (and make it impossible for me to convert to anything else as a permanent machine). tech specs are easy to quantify and compare, usability is much tougher to quantify but the thinkpad just sets the benchmark for that as far as i'm concerned.

 

Oh, why does everyone get good ThinkPads but me? I hated the T42 I sent back, and I hate the T43 I'm typing on right now. Horrible keyboards, both of them.

Congrats on getting a good one - I'm jealous. Maybe throwing mine out the window will make me feel better.

How is the fan noise on your T43?

 

Haven't used mine enough yet to make too many judgments, but the fan noise is definitely noticeable; however, it has only been on for a few seconds at a time.

Don't have a problem with the keyboard. Have you tried T42's or T43's that you liked, or maybe you just aren't a TP kind of guy?

Larry

 

Which keyboard do you have: the Thai, Chinese or Alps? Generally the Thai is considered the best. My old T41 had the Thai and my new T42 has the Alps. I can't really tell the difference, but I am not much of a typist. If you called Leveno and told how bad it is they could send you the Thai one although I think they are cracking down on this. In the past all you had to do was ask. Good Luck.

 

zazonz, you have to tell me more about this. How do you determine what keyboard you have? will they send you one if you ask? how do you install it? more details, please!

 

There's a couple ways to tell what keyboard you have. The best way is to head onto the ThinkPad website and do a parts lookup there. Another way is to shine a flashlight under the keyboard and look at the bumpers (I think that's what they're called). If they're black, it should be Alps (Chinese) or maybe a Chicony* (possibly Chinese or Thai), and if they're blue, it should be an NMB (Thai).

The keyboard on my T42 was an NMB, which was really solid and felt great, but wasn't sensitive enough for me to type quickly, which was incredibly frustrating. I don't know if they're all like that, or if my keyboard was just defective. That was one of the reasons I sent my T42 back, along with some build quality issues. Like zazonz said, apparently you used to be able to call and ask for a new keyboard and they'd ship one out, but that might be changing. I think replacement involves just a few screws on the bottom.

My T43's keyboard is an Alps, and although it's much more sensitive than the NMB, it feels really cheap, clattery and imprecise. It also flexes, especially on the right side (over the optical drive). Touchpad flexes too.

Aside from that and the constant fan noise, I'd love this laptop. The rest of it is really nice, I agree.

EDIT: *Did some browsing, and the Chicony may have grey bumpers.