What I think of my T61p (+ how to buy a cheap Thinkpad in Europe)

I'm writing this in the interest it might be of use to people debating whether or not to buy the T61p, placing attention on the issue of supposedly bad T61p displays and Europeans wanting a sane buying price for a high-end Thinkpad.

Unfortunately it's turned into a bit of a review. Anyway..

The price

After much speculation, umm-ing and ahh-ing over other laptops, I finally splashed out and bought a T61p 14.1", non-widescreen, dual 2.4Ghz, 4G RAM, Quado 570M 128M machine.

I bought it in online using a credit card from an America site taking full advantage of the struggling US dollar. My Euros went a long way..

The full cost for this brand-new T61p, including 3 years international warranty, express delivery (4 days from America!), EUR80 customs tax and shipping insurance came to EUR1630.00.

High-end Thinkpads are stupidly expensive here in the EU. EUR1630 for the second-most spec'd T61p on the Lenovo site at the time of buying is EUR1300 less than I would've paid had I bought it in either Spain, Britain or Germany. Even then the 14.1" models are hard to find here in Europe it seems. More so, I didn't have to give PayPal any money: I bought it using a European Visa card..

After looking around for many hours the only store I could find that could offer me the convenience of buying online with a Euro Visa card - and at anything near that price - was ThinkpadUSA. After reading many positive customer reviews I went ahead and did it.

It arrived just 4 days after the money left my account.

Why I bought it.

My areas of primary use for this machine are as a 3D and graphics workstation: I do a fair bit of graphics programming, work alot with video and frequently produce 3D models. I'm a Linux user and travel internationally once or twice a month on work.

I looked at many laptops trying to find a good balance of portability, raw graphics power, solid battery life, robust build while being reasonably Linux friendly. I've owned a few laptops in the past and was quite clear as to what did and didn't like about them.

The only machine I could find with a high-end graphics card (8600M GT or better) graphics card in a 14.1" format (widescreen or otherwise) was this 8889-CTO T61p. Looking closely at benchmarks and GPU specifications it was clear that the Quadro FX 570M had an edge even over the 8600M GT. This page gives a reasonably good breakdown.

Now that I have the laptop in front of me (I'm writing from it now), here are a few thoughts.

Build

The build quality on this thing is incredible. I don't know how it could be better. It has no flex in the panel in front of the keyboard and the lid feels like it's made of metal. It's even a little cold to the touch.

Typing on this machine is very enjoyable. IBM (and now Lenovo) take input very seriously. When you press a key very hard you can feel the robust magnesium alloy chassis underneath. It has no give at all. It feels very sane to have bought a laptop this solid. My Asus portables, while good in many ways, appear generally fragile after typing on this and carrying it around.

When you pick the machine up from one side/corner it does not flex at all. It doesn't creak or yield in any discernable way.

Having played with a MacBook Pro recently, I can say this machine feels far more solid - yet doesn't have a casing made of metal. Metal bends when struck or dropped and (I read) reduces wireless capacity.

The robustness of the T61p build reminds me why there's still such a market for refurbished Thinkpads.

The Display

The screen was a bit of a disappointment at first. There is a small amount of light-bleed at the base of the screen, something neither Asus I own or the previous Dell suffered by. Nonetheless it is only barely noticeable, even against a full screen black background.

It also appeared to be both too bright and have too much contrast (strangely I read complaints about the opposite in these forums). Not the case here..

Thankfully using NVIDIA's (proprietary) Linux application, nvidia-settings, I was able to get it just right, and even tweak the colour balance and gamma to get suit my eyes. Now my display looks very good. Colours are strong and rich. Linux users might also want to look at the excellent high-end monitor calibration tool lprof.

This display does have one advantage over my previous laptops: at 1400x1050, elements displayed look very 'crisp'. It has great definition for a SXGAI think.

In the spirit of uncompromising pragmatics synonymous with Thinkpads, the display is off-set in the lid frame to accommodate the wireless antennae. I'd read about this and was worried it'd drive me bonkers but frankly I don't notice it at all now. And anyway, wireless performance is fantastic, so I now value the designers' engineering sense in this case.


Outputs


All outputs, from USB to the AC input, look and feel really robust: clearly they are attached to the chassis itself. The input components themselves appear to be made of good quality materials and are well fitted.

This Thinkpad lacks one primary output - and it's my own fault for not researching this earlier - SVideo. Only shipping with VGA-out may limit the use of this machine for some, especially those wanting to view content on their TV etc.

Performance

This T61p 8889-CTO seems absurdly fast. I'm quite surprised by the 'upgrade' from my Asus M6Ne. With 4G of RAM and the dual 2.4Ghz CPU I can encode/decode video very fast. The Quadro FX 570M has incredible performance with my own OpenGL applications and various Linux compatible games. The already snappy Blender flies on this machine. This is an ideal portable 3D modeling workstation, at least on Linux.

Applications from the (somewhat) bloated Firefox, Openoffice and Gimp pop open very quickly.

Temperature

This laptop doesn't get even remotely hot. The laptop is only slightly warm to the right of the touch pad, but even then it's barely noticeable. Underneath it's ever so slightly warm under the CPU, but it's unnoticeable when on your lap. The current running temperature is 36C. I'm really pleased about this.

Battery life
I bought the 9 cell - the one that sticks out the back a bit - as I need to be able to work on the machine on longer flights. I haven't tested it yet, but when I unplug the AC it says I have 4hours 10minutes on wireless and just over 5hours when the wireless interface is down and the display is at maximum brightness.

Linux on the Thinkpads isn't reknowned for it's stellar battery life, so I didn't expect much better than this. No complaints. I'm sure better power-management will be available to Linux-on-Thinkpad users soon.

Operating System

Debian GNU/Linux is still my favourite operating system after 8-9 years of daily use. For this reason there was no hesitation in installing Debian over the Vista Premium blah that came with it. Sadly I couldn't buy the machine without Vista installed and get the appropriate discount. Debian installs on it fairly well, though I need to have a look at why sound doesn't yet work.

Ubuntu would perhaps be a better choice for those that want Linux on their T61p within an hour and don't want to fiddle (according to what I read on ThinkWiki).

That's it. Any questions, I'll be happy to answer here.

 

Q: How does the warranty part work for you? Did you get a certificate or something like that? Is it worldwide warranty?

 

I dout it is worl warrenty but you might be able to transfer the warrenty over

 

Worldwide is what he needs.

 

Yes it's a 3 year 'International' warranty. My understanding is that I am covered anywhere there is a registered IBM/Lenovo repairer for 3 years.

 

Hi all

Thanks delire for your small review. I will have similar notebook as you. I have one question abou warranty. I have bought 8891 CTO T61p on americans lenovo site. How did you get 8889CTO? Because my thinkpad has shorter international warranty list than 8889 (international warranty only in Asia and ..., but not eligible in Europe).

Thanks a lot

 

toni2 answered...

 

I have the same problem.
Didn't notice there were USA sellers selling Thinkpads with EU support...

 

Hi everyone,

I'm in Us and considering buying T61. But because problems sometimes rising with laptoips (screen, sound, etc.) I wonder is Lenovo has a return policy and where I can find it: I searched their site but couldn't find any.
Can anyone advise me on this?
Tnks

 

Did you follow the Shopping Help link in the Resources section on Lenovo's home page? There's a link there called Returns Policy:

Lenovo will accept the return or exchange of a product in its original, sealed package for a full refund in cases of Lenovo error. Returns allowed for any other reason will be subject to a restocking fee equal to 15% of the purchase amount. All returns must be initiated within 21 days of the invoice date. Lenovo does not provide refunds or credits for portions of a packaged offering provided at a single price or for preloaded programs installed by Lenovo. For service and warranty issues, contact warranty support at 1 800 426 7378. For inquiries relating to third party (non Lenovo) products, contact the third party directly.

To initiate a return, contact 1-866-428-4465 to obtain an RMA (Return Merchandise Authorization). Any authorized return must include the product and all accessories in the unopened original packaging, along with all documentation (including invoice, RMA and original shipping label), and must be received at the Lenovo National Return Center within 10 days of obtaining the RMA. Incomplete returns will not be accepted for any reason. Returns that do not follow these steps may be refused by Lenovo, and customer assumes risk of loss and damage for packages returned without an RMA. Please allow 8-10 business days after the item is returned for the processing of your credit.

 

Thanks Nonny this is very helpful. Though "a full refund in cases of Lenovo error" may turn out to be diffcult to prove (I assume), if the screen is not bright enough or has problems of viewing angles that Lenovo technicians might find quite acceptable.

 

I expect that you'll be less likely to be disappointed if you translate that to something like "able to return because an R61 was shipped instead of the T61 I ordered".

 

Thanks for your review and the link to ThinkpadUSA. I am really surprised that they are selling a 8889CTO with international warrenty in europe. How come that you only payed EUR80 customs tax and shipping insurance? Where are you from?

 

Hi,

I was redirected here from the other forum:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=221027&page=2

Have you found the solution? Which is the shop to import Thinkpads from into Europe?

Cheers

 

So - where did you buy whis 8889CTO?
I have same problem. If I won't solve it I will have to buy R61 or Dell XPS M1530, but I would preffer t61p