What did you order and why?

After extensive research I decided to go with a Thinkpad T60 - primarily due to the build quality. My system was purchased from the Lenovo site on Feb. 9 and the ship date is scheduled for Feb. 23, which is making me crazy because I'm an instant gratification kind of guy (I purchased my Z60t at Office Depot).

Here's the specs of my T60 and cost was, taking advantage of the pre-Valentine's Day offer, $1892US:

2613CTO LENOVO THINKPAD T60 2613 - NO CPU
42R9190 VBB NO INT.WIFI WL 3RD ANTENNA
62P6054 VBB INTEGR.BLUETOOTH PAN
42R9315 SBB INTEL CORE 2DUO PROC T7200
42V8010 VBB MS WIN VISTA BUSINESS
42T7210 SBB MS WINVISTA BUSS US ENG
42R9420 SBB 14.1/SXGA+ TFT
42R9322 SBB ATIRADEON X1400 128MB
41W2060 VBB 1GB PC2-5300 667MHZ 1DIMM
39T6476 SBB KEYBOARD US ENGLISH
27R0300 VBB INTEGR. FINGERPRINT SENSOR
41W1612 SBB ULTRANAV (TRACKP&TOUCHPAD)
41W5780 SBB 100GB HDD 7200RPM
42T7312 SBB DVD REC8XMAX DUAL UBAYSLIM
41W1501 SBB INTELPRO/WL3945ABGUSCNLAAP
39T6651 SBB 9 CELL LI-ION BATTERY

I have to say I think the LCD's offered on the Sony's and Dell's are better and brighter (at least compared to my Z60t WS) but I think the Thinkpads are better engineered than either. I went with the 14in screen because a) it was cheaper than the 15in. b)it made the system lighter and easier to carry, and c) I have a wide screen and am constantly having to scroll down to see most web page content than having to scroll to the right (I do a lot of work on the web).

Oh, I ended up buying a stick of 1gig Kingston ram to upgrade the memory myself. Cost about $125 with shipping from Ebay.

 

I don't know when you ordered this and if you had to pay tax, but I found some of the prebuilt systems were really better deals say:
http://www.buy.com/prod/Lenovo_Thin...re_Duo_T2400_1_83GHz/q/loc/101/202314415.html
Is close to what you ordered. 1380, but 20 GB less, a 2MB cache processor 200 Mhz Slower. X1300 not X1400, 512 MB less ram and you have to install Vista yourself and wait for it. Is that worth 500 dollars? To me... it probably would be.

But anyway I'm just saying this cause I got charged 100 dollars in tax and the now out of stock:
http://www.buy.com/prod/Lenovo_Thin...obile_T7200_1GB_DDR2/q/loc/101/203482823.html
Was better in every spec and only cost 65 more dollars... If it weren't for tax I would have kept my order with Lenovo I guess because really I'd rather have GMA for battery life, but I'm crossing my fingers that it will be ok.

 

Well, that's the point, isn't it. I could have configured the system to have a slower cpu, smaller, slower h/d, etc. and come out close to the price of the system you pointed out. Except the most of the T60's on buy.com are also Core Duo's and not Core Duo 2's. What you see there is last years hardware (mostly) and I already own last years (or at least last years minus one) h/w.

I think you'd have been better off making this point if you had found an exact (or close) system specs for less. Then I could have had that "head slapping" moment I think you were looking for.

I am pretty happy to get a system with some pretty high-end specs for under $2k which was my cut-off point. I could have compromised and got less but I'm worth it.

 

Except for the fact its the WS version and it has a 6 cell/XP with free Vista. My system preconfigured is better in all categories than your's. It cost 350 dollars less. I'm not going to spend a long time looking for you, I just was recommending that you might want to look as there are some pretty good deals out there. I happened to find one that was slightly under spec of your's. Your system doesn't seem a good deal to me, but if you are happy with it then that is all that matters. My benchmark for goodness of deals was the Dec holiday sale.

You are correct I didn't notice it was a core duo and not core 2 duo, but my general point stands. Plus the preconfigured ones seem to typically have 3 year warranty... anyway

 

Ah, okay. Thanks.

 

i ordered a Z61m in euclidcomputers last year for 2thousand... now i regret having an early machine with T2500 and only 1GB RAM.

look in here this one is a T60 WS with T7200, 2GB ram, 9-cell, 3years warranty, XP pro, 100GB 7.2k rpm

 

I just ordered the same one that drwho9437 suggested ( 2623D6U) because it seemed to be the best deal out there on a thinkpad that met my requirements (discrete graphics, 14" sxga screen, bluetooth and 512mb RAM (I already have a 1GB stick lying around for upgrading)) and it neatly fit inside my budget (I returned my nc8430 in my sig and bought the t60 and am building a desktop for the same price).

Pre-configured is the way to go if you want to save money, no question about that.