Which T60 For Me?

Hi I am looking into getting a T60P in the very near future and was just wondering which one (14.1 or 15.4) has the best build quality, screen options and battery life. Honestly the size does not bother me bt build quality is very important as I want it to last through at least 3 and hopefully 4 years of college.

Also I noticed that there seem to be several qualitys of keyboards that are coming with the 15.4 model, just wondering what I should look for. And am I hearing correctly that the 14.1 model does not seem to come with that great of a screen? Which screen options are best? I do not really care to much about having a high res screen (though that would be nice) as long as it has decent viewing angles - one person on either side of me should be able to see the pics clearly - and decent collar accuracy.
any thoughts would be appreciated.

 

The T61.
Homer Jay Thompson

 

Well I kinda need the higher end GPU for graphical work and I like the reports of better build quality and lighter construction with the t60 line... Oh wait I just noticed you said T61 I thought you said Z61... any thoughts on when the T61 might be out?

 

I heard May, but I am basing this on rumors.

 

Hmm that is to long, I need to get the comp soon as in next few weeks. basically I am just looking for some user opinions on which screen options are best and which has best build quality between the 14.1 and 15.4 models though.

 

The 14.1" will obviously be more portable--this would be my biggest concern. The small notebook will also get better battery life. I have a 14.1" regular t60 and find that it has good viewing angles, at least as far as I'm concerned.

 

Well from what I hear the 14.1 SXGA+ screens are not that great. You can still get the 15 inch Flex Screens, but you need to call them to order that model. The new 15.4 inch widescreens are good, and it has the Fire GL 5250 which is like an X1700. Just hope you get the LG panel vs the samsung.

 

If you're going to get a 15" model, I highly recommend the flexview if you can get it. It's the finest matte screen out there, essential if you'll be doing any kind of photo or color-correction work.

 

Ok thanks for the sugestions. As far as the screen is concerned I just need decent viewing angles- and to be honest am trying to keep the price under $1800 so the flexview is a little more than I can dish out right now.

Just out of curiosity have there been any benchmarks of the FGL 5250 posted? I do a little gaming but the little gaming I do is with Oblivion... just wondering how the FGL 5250 performs.

 

The 14" is a standard aspect display. The 15.4" is widescreen. They should both be great build quality, but I'd recommend the 15.4" T60, just because doing graphical work requires as many pixels as possible.

 

I will admit I am kinda leaning towards the widescreen just because I have heard some not so good reports about the 14.1 sxga screen. Not to mention that for some reason the 15.4 model is almost $100 less... odd. I was just wondering about the build quality because I have heard the 15 standard T60 had some flex issues on the palm rest. Any of you heard about that with the 15.4 T60?

 

The FireGL is based off the x1700, but it's a workstation card, not meant for gaming. That's not to say that you can't play on it; simply that the driver support is not the same-you may have a little more trouble with some games b/c it's optimized for CAD.

 

Yes you can. Its the same hardware just slight tweaks mainly to the different drivers. The 5250 should work just fine.

 

I was thinking I might get a performance hit, but are you saying their might be some actuall compatibility problems?

 

The flex on the wrist rest is because there exists a tiny (~1.5mm) cavity between the plastic body panel and the top of chassis. Yes, you can see it if you watch it and press with your finger. It moves -- a tiny bit. It's natural with plastic body pieces and should not lend itself towards any doubts about build quality. Plastic itself is quirky -- especially the thin enough plastic used to keep the weight down. When you use the laptop, your wrist rests on it and you never notice it.
The whole wrist rest is a removable panel for servicing the innards. It's not 3mm thick, so that's why it flexes that tiny little bit. It's really a nonissue.

Plastic flexes, unless you have it glued to metal.

In this case, I'm just glad it's on the wrist rest, a totally benign location, rather than somewhere like the hinge joints or on the screen itself to a greater extent (Asus V1Jp, Compal HEL80, for example).

 

so what do you guys think? since I plan on gaming a little would I get a better experience overall if I got the x1400 instead of the workstation graphics card?