Whats dif between T60p and T60

What is the main difference between the T60p and the T60. I noticed that the T60 is 15.4" and the T60p is a 15" and the T60p has a stronger video card, but what else is the difference. The T60p seems to be considerably more expensive and all it has is a better vid card. And why can't the T60 also have a 256mb vid card. What about battery life.

Please answer. These are the 2 computers I've been considering in purchasing.

 

The P T60s are just higher end T60s with better graphics cards, cpus, more memory etc. The case, screens, optical drives, etc. remain the same.

 

The "p" in T60p stands for professional.

And all it boils down to is the video card difference, but, that is a HUGE difference.

Whereas the regular T60 comes with upto a Mobility Radeon X1400 with 128MB dedicated memory (a 4-pixel pipeline card), the T60p comes with a Mobility FireGL V5250 with 256MB dedicated memory, which is the professional version of the Mobility Radeon X1700. It has 12-pixel pipelines and certified for professional OpenGL applications (it also runs your games and whatnot very well).

Under a synthetic benchmark or comparing FPS in games, the V5250 will/should be anywhere from 2 to 3 times faster/better than the X1400 (since its got 3x the amount of pixel pipelines, more memory and greater bandwidth).

As for battey life, because of the more powerful professional card in the T60p, it will lose around 1/2 to 1 hour of battery life compared with the T60 (but you still get just under 3 hours worth on the standard 6-cell, and around 4 hours with the extended 9-cell).

Otherwise, the T60 comes in 14.1", 15" standard or 15.4" widescreen models, while the T60p in 14.1" or 15" standard (no widescreen versions yet).

Seeing that you normally couldn't upgrade the graphics card in a notebook (stuck until you buy a new one), if you really like the T60 series, and if your budget allows, I strongly recommend you to get the T60p with the much faster FireGL V5250 card.

 

hmm so mainly a balance between better vid card and battery life. If i rarely game, should i just go with the T60? I say I might be gaming only like couple hours a week.

 

It really depends on how picky a person you are with your game's image quality setting and what sort of games you play, even if you only play for a couple hours each week.

I have a GF Go 7400 (Dell XPS M1210) while my friend has a MR X1400 (Dell Inspiron 6400). We run Guild Wars, Source engined games (Half Life 2, CounterStrike: Source) and occationally Doom 3. On recommended settings (medium to medium-high) in those games at 1280x800, things run very smooth and certainly we don't have any complaints with the speed.

However if you want all the eye-candy (high to highest image quality details) and higher resolution (say, on a 15.4" 1680x1050 screen), or, the latest and greatest like F.E.A.R. or Battlefield 2142 at those settings, then obviously you'll be much better off with the mainstream-performance classed graphics card (such as the GF Go 7600/7700, or MR X1600/X1700).


Otherwise, any dedicated cards on the market today (even as "lowly" as the GF Go 7200 or MR X1300) will run Vista with Aero on smoothly (if you are thinking about Vista compatibility).

 

well basically my gaming is like your first list where its just half-life source, warcraft, guild wars. I'm not picky about the graphics at all, just as long as it doesn't lag and it doesn't look extremely bad. Just as long as I'm not at a disadvantage when I'm playing multiplayer.