Used T60/T61?

Hello! I have been pondering buying a used T60 or T61. Just wondering are they still useful in todays world. I will just be using it for general web browsing,youtube,itunes/wm player and some light office work. Just looking for some cheap, reliable and something I can tinker with[upgrades and the like].If anyone has some experiences with this notebook or something similar,let me know what you think.
Thanks in advance!

 

I also like to get older machines and mess with them. Even like to get parts and repair machines and try to get them working.

 

Both T60 and T61 are solid machines though I think you can stretch a bit more out of a T61 than the T60. I have a 3 year old second hand T61 in my possession and it hasn’t skipped a beat. It’s easy to maintain (check out my thermal paste guide), one of the last of its kind to have the legendary solid backplated keyboard before Lenovo used the flexy perforated designs on the newer models and there are modifications available that allows you to use certain Penryn Core 2 Duo’s, achieve 8GB RAM (despite 4GB being the official limit) and utilise full SATA II speeds for SSD’s in particular (see this thread for more info).

There’s plenty of potential for the T61 and they’re going cheap second hand making them great value. Be cautious of the NVIDIA Quadro models as they have the defective GPU’s which is why some of them are going so low. It would be a safer bet to buy the Intel integrated graphics model (X3100) as they don’t have this particular defect and run much cooler.

 

i think it is better that you get a used T61 and here is why:

1) With Middleton's bios mod you can enable SATA II mode, which allows you to take full advantage of the latest SSD's increased data transfer speed.

2) You can upgrade the T61's CPU to the T9xxx 800 mhz FSB version, which makes them comparable to the T400 (a later generation Thinkpad). If you are indeed considering future CPU upgrade, then i would suggest that you get the T8xxx CPU range, as it runs lot cooler than the T7xxx Merom CPU and is more energy efficient, it also has all the new features of the Penryn CPU. They are also a bit cheaper and easier to obtain than the T9xxx CPU with 800 mhz FSB. A Penryn CPU (T8xxx and T9xxx) would also make your FHD movie viewing experience slightly better than the T7xxx Merom CPU.

3) You can run 8 gigs of ram in T61, while the T60 can only utilise 3 gigs due to intel chipset limitation.

4) Price difference between an A1 condition T60 and T61 is only around 100 to 150 USD, for the price you get a much more upgradeable machine that should at least last you quite a few years to come.

P.S. Don't get the T61 with Nvidia GPU.

 

Thanks for the replies! I like the T61 idea a lot. The upgrade possibilities seem endless.Plus I travel a lot and they seem very durable as well. Whats the best OS to run on them? 7,XP or Linux?

 

Win XP, Vista, 7 and Linux can all be run on them, it depends on what softwares you are using.

 

Thanks lead_org! You have been a great help.

 

Are there any others I should take a look at?

 

Maybe the R series laptops is a worth a look as they're generally in the shadows of its T series sibling so it doesn't hold its value well meaning second hand prices are very reasonable. You can check around for some R61 or R400 models to see if the prices are good, I was able to acquire a 3 month old R400 with 3 yr warranty (to 2013) cheaper than my second hand T61!

 

Thanks Hearst! I will look into that as well.

 

R61 14.1 inch widescreen and R400 is also a viable alternatives.

You can also pick up a R400 or T400 or T500 from outlet.lenovo.com for very reasonable prices.

 

Thanks! You guys have been a great help.

 

I don't know what you're looking to spend, but there's a bunch of R500 sitting in the Outlet with WSXGA+ screens for $550 and it'll have warranty. If you're looking for a fixer upper, this seems like a pretty good deal. Still has two years of warranty.

Between the T60 and T61, I'd vote for the T60 unless you need more than 3GB of memory. The 15" SXGA+ and UXGA are much better screens. If you're going 14", I'd prefer the SXGA+. You can get SXGA+ on a 14" T61, though it is more rare/expensive.

 

Thanks ZaZ! I kinda like that R500 on the link you sent. It has a celeron processor. Can you upgrade that to a core 2 duo or core duo?

 

Yes, you can. It is socketed.

 

Ah good deal.Cheap price,upgradeable..sounds pretty good!

 

Update!
I ended up buying an R400 with 1 year warranty left.
P8400 Core2Duo 2.26, 2gb PC8500 ddr3, Intel gma 4500hd[I'm not a gamer].
14.1 Inch WXGA antiglare display[according to the description].
$350 shipped. I hope its a decent machine. I kept going back and forth between this and the T61. Any feedback good or bad welcomed.
Thanks for all the help!

 

Congrats on the purchase, the R400 is a respectable machine and is very well built for the money. Should you wish to tweak your machine in the future such as upgrading the RAMs, changing the keyboards and such then the R400/T400 Hardware Maintenance Manual for your system will provide invaluable information.

 

Thanks Hearst! I do plan on some future tweaking for sure.

 

It comes with a 160gb hard drive, but I have a 320gb laying around thats going into that bad boy when i get it!

 

R400 is the cheaper alternative to the T400, they say many parts... it is a great machine... i wouldn't hesitate to get another one (now that my R400 is given to a relative thanks to my dad).

 

Thanks! It was hard. I was back and forth between the T61,T400 and the R400. My macbook was nice,but since I sold it I had to go back to the Thinkpad line as I'm typing this post on an old T23 that is still alive and kicking after I dusted it off.

 

The T61 is a great machine. I've had mine since Oct 2007. It got my through college, especially those lovely all-nighters LOL. I don't do much resource-intensive things like gaming and HD movies, but it works great for web-browsing (HD Youtube video come in great), Word processing (other office utilities), JAVA programming, and listening to mp3's on iTunes. And doing the aforementioned list of things all at once is fine, too, given you have the RAM. I just bumped it up from 1GB to 4GB and it's probably ready to go for another 2-3 years.

I did just buy (still waiting to come by FedEx) a Thinkpad Edge 14 because I wanted a little more power from a CPU and this comes with the i3 370m by Intel.

 

@kBURU... don't forget your T61 can take 8 gigs of ram, T9xxx 800 mhz FSB CPU and a SDD at SATAII speed.... so if did these upgrades it would give most T400 a run for its money.

 

Well hopefully the R400 will be a viable machine, especially if I bump the ram up to 4gigs. It comes with 2gigs installed. I will have to pop it open and see if that is 2 gigs in one slot or 1 gig in two slots.

 

The edge 14 was on my radar for a short while, could have gotten one off fleabay for $400,but it had the amd P2 and I wanted at least Core Duo or Core2.

 

Congrats on your new R400 You will LOVE it ! Much better than the newer L/SL line that is currently available from Lenovo IMO.

I've had my T61 since Feb. 2008, I've been using it every single day since than and it's never skipped a beat so far (except one time, I had to "rescue and recover" my hard drive due to Mal-Ware).
The T61 is an excellent machine, and I think just using it alone for web browsing, watching movies, etc. is MORE than adequate for a T61. The T61, as Lead Org already stated, is capable of doing MUCH more than just common ordinary tasks.

 

Thanks! I just my R400 in today and so far I must say that I'm very pleased with my purchase. It seems like a very solid machine. Thanks everyone for all the input. It is very much appreciated.

 

i got one a month ago..so i've got some reading to do here at the forums.

IBM T61 Intel Core 2 Duo T8300 (6464)
(2.4GHz / 4 MB L2 cache, 800 MHz front-side bus)
2 GB PC2-5300 DDR2 RAM
15.4” WideScreen TFT, with Intel GMA X3100 Graphics 1280x800
HDD Seagate 500gb 7200rpm
2nd HDD Hitachi 100GB Hard Disk Drive 7200rpm
Dual Boot XP Pro 2002 sp3 32 bit (tweaked for DAW)

Worldwide warranty remaining to July 2011, covering all parts & labour (except battery).

 

Nice ! You've got almost the exact same T61 that I've got

 

hey, good to know! thanks! prepare for questions Pin

 

t61p, one of the best laptop I've ever used. Keyboard is solid, 15.4 WUXGA screen is beautiful (I think I got the LG one), 2.5ghz penryn, 8gb ram, Middleton sata 2 bios, 500gb Momentus xT hybrid. Has not crashed on me in 6 months.

I run win7 host machines (4-5 vms in vmware, server 2k8x64 twice, win7x64, vista32, and ubuntu 32 bit). I got mine fixed 6 months ago, use tpfancontrol to keep the fan constantly running. It keeps cool at 45* c