Which older models have good LCD display (IPS)?

I am looking to spend ~$200-300 for an old thinkpad on ebay. I think some of the older models have IPS display (that should the best display 4-5 years ago right?), may I ask on which of the older models would I expect to find 15'' IPS screens?

 

I am pretty sure you could get one on a T60, and several of the T4x series, but I don't think they ever always had one. You'll have to find out what display it uses by something other than the model number by itself.

 

Look here and scroll to the Flexview section

ThinkPad screens

For the most part if the ThinkPad has a 15" display then it may work with a Flexview screen. There are exceptions however- R50e, R51e will not function with a Flexview screen.

I'd go to thinkpads.com for some answers to your questions. Many of the forum members there are veterans when it comes to tinkering with ThinkPads.

IOW they know pretty much everything there is to know about TPs!

 

hmm, some of the flexview screens have up to 60ms response time, ouch! I won't be playing any games on it because I will use it in my office, but isn't 50-60ms kinda high? lol

 

I've never seen one personally but they do rate highly among people who have used ThinkPads past and present.

Personally I would prefer a wide angle viewing experience rather than the TFT that comes standard on many laptops. My X200 has a PVA screen so when I look at a TFT screen it is obvious why I would like a wide viewing angle over TFT. Deeper blacks and no need to find a sweet spot. Not too many corporate executives gaming on company laptops is probably why there was no push to make fast response time a priority

 

It's really an interesting experience to use a T60p 15" Flexview IPS screen for a day or two, then switch to one of the newer screens on say a T420s. You get a chance to buy one, jump on it.

 

Yes, not only should you head to ThinkPads.com, but I think you should buy one there too. eBay is a bit dicey. The nice thing about ThinkPads.com is they tend to be much more honest about what they're selling, more so than eBay or CL. That has a lot of value on a used notebook.

I think the T60 is a good option. It's a great ThinkPad. It's a dual core and gets you access to SATA, which means bigger/faster drives. I also think you get something good within your budget. The R5x and T4x units, which have the IPS, have issues. The A series, which also had the IPS, are too old to be useful for anything above basic usage.

The problem with a T60 is the backlight is now five years old. Since these are CFFL LCDs, it may have dimmed and/or yellowed in past five years. This is why buying on TPF is attractive. Another option would be to buy a basic T60 or even R60, and get a new IPS, then do the replacement yourself. That would at least ensure you get a good screen.

 

That sounds good. I have been lurking in this forum for quite a while and read some issues with the latest thinkpad models such as the w520 and x220, so there is no major issue for T60/T61 right?

If I decide to buy, I will definitely upgrade the HD, does T60/T61 support the newer HD like Hitachi 7k750 or the Momentus XT? What about SSD like the Crucial M4? I want the SSD option to remain open in the near future when price drops even more. =) I may consider upgrading the CPU too, what's the fastest one available for that? Overall this machine is fast enough for my office work.

As for screen upgrades, where do I need to look?

 

There's no IPS on the T61. If you buy a T60, I can't tell you there will be no problems with it. It's five years old and five year old laptops can break, but there's no major issues with it like the T4x or T61 machines.

SATA is backwards compatible. Any SATA drive will work, but the T60 is a SATA I machine. You'll be limited to SATA I speed, but that will have little practical impact.

The UXGA LCD part number is 13N7076 and the SXGA+ is 13N7078. You might want to post over on TPF to see if anyone has one.

 

i see, it looks like the 13N7196 has the lowest response time (at 40ms), so I will go with that one, thanks!

and sorry for another stupid question, is the flexview quality comparable to the IPS on x220?

 

You could also consider Installing a QXGA display in a R/T60 or 61 - ThinkWiki like I did to my T42p. (note: almost a direct swap, but not quite)

 

I think the pixel density would be too high for most users and the QXGA is significantly dimmer than the UXGA LCDs.

13N7196 and 13N7194 are Hydis LCDs that are extremely rare. If you see anyone selling one, it's probably not a genuine ThinkPad part, which means it's not IPS. I wouldn't get too plus about the response time. I've used all of them and they're fine. If you want the UXGA LCD, I'd suggest the Hydis LCD 13N7076.

 

I recently bought a T60p with a 15 inch IPS display, based on the recommendations from everyone on this and on the Thinkpads.com forum. I never meant for it to be my main work computer (I've got a few more recent Thinkpads that I use, currently a T410), but more to see for myself how amazing this screen really was. The rather low price of these old Thinkpads didn't hurt either

For those of you folks who can understand Chinese, I bought mine from this site on the Chinese version of eBay:

ÁªÏëthinkpad ibm t60p Ë«ºË 256M¶ÀÏÔ ¶þÊֱʼDZ¾µçÄÔ ÃëɱipsÆÁ-ÌÔ±¦Íø

Total including shipping came to about 2100 RMB, which is about US$330 at today's exchange rate. I went for the T7200 CPU, and got an upgrade to 4GB RAM. I opted for the smallest HDD available (100GB), as I already had an old Intel SSD I planned to slot in. The screen is the BOE-Hydis 15-inch 1600x1200. Under 'Display Properties', the monitor shows up as 'Wide-Viewing Angle High-Density Flexview Display'.

I received the laptop about 10 days ago, and have installed Win7 32-bit on it. There were absolutely no issues with drivers - between Windows Update and Thinkvantage System Update, it was all taken care of within 30 minutes (the display driver was from Windows Update, interestingly). With an SSD in it, it is more than adequate for daily tasks such as web surfing and regular Office activities, as well as video watching (CPU usage on the T7200 goes up to about 30-40% watching 720p .MKV's, never more). It's got the same snappiness I'm used to, with my T410. I have NOT tried playing 1080p movies, or playing games on the V5200 FireGL, however.

The screen is (at the risk of sounding like a parrot) pretty phenomenal. I had read warnings from other forumers about the backlight dimming on these screens (they're 5 years old after all), and maybe I got lucky, but the brightness on this baby is higher than the W500 I have (bought in 2008). It's dimmer than my T410, but is definitely adequate. I use it at a brightness setting of 5, out of 7 maximum.

Given my usage patterns (I need my main work PC on 24 hours a day, but nothing intensive CPU-wise), the only thing stopping me from using the T60p as my main computer (love the screen!) is the 3GB RAM limit. I run small virtual machines and have programs that sometimes take up to 1-1.2GB Ram on their own, and sometimes hit the 8GB on my main workhorse. If I could somehow fit 8GB into this laptop, I'd move my stuff over, and spend all my working hours on it The screen really is such a joy, I can stand up and still see the stuff on my screen, and not have to constantly adjust my screen (as I used to have to do on my W500) or my head just to see something I typed 2 minutes ago. Viewing angles on the Samsung WUXGA on the W500 were PARTICULARLY bad, and it was extra-dim too.

If there's interest, I will be more than glad to take pictures of this laptop, which might exhibit how amazing the viewing angles and color reproduction are.

As of now, it is my companion in my bedroom, that I use to check the news, etc just before bed. Too bad about that RAM limit!

Apologies for the lengthy post!

 

I couldn't agree more. As long as you don't need top CPU performance, the T60 or R60 works well as everyday machine. In terms of snappiness level, my R60e with the Kingston S100 SSD and SATA I controller running Linux, feels like my most responsive machine. There's some pretty good pics of the UXGA LCD here in the NBR review from five years ago if anyone is interested.

 

What's the difference between T60 and R60 in terms of upgradability?

To mochaultimate: Thanks buddy, that's nice to hear. I have a few questions: Is 4GB the max ram that can be installed on T60? Can T60 support 64bit W7? Also that site in Chinese, do they ship to US?

 

Do they still sell the QXGA display anymore? I really can't find anyone selling either the screen or a T42p with QXGA these days... it's so rare, even on ebay.

 

Hi!

I installed 4GB, but that's pretty much a waste as far as I know. The motherboard on the T60(p) models is limited to 3GB, and that's the max that the OS can use (whether it's 32 or 64-bit).

64-bit compatibility should be down to the processor, and I believe the T7200 can run 64-bit Windows. Due to the RAM limit, however, I decided to install 32-bit Win 7 instead.

The sellers here in China are not familiar with shipping with international courier services like Fedex (most transnational purchases on this Chinese auction site are shipped via Chinese couriers that do not ship overseas) - you will also need to setup payment with a Chinese bank account linked to AliPay (sort of like the Chinese version of Paypal in a sense). If you decide to go the whole works, you can get great bargains on many tech-related items, but I've never tried shipping internationally out of China before.

Hope the above is at least somewhat helpful!

 

I looked at the website and got kinda interested! Do you know if they ship to Hong Kong or not? Do you think they accept paypal or credit card, and is the seller reputable?

 

Oh, that's so unfortunate, such a great display with ram limitation and sata 2.0 limitation.

By the way, I have seen some old T61/T61p selling at a lower price than T60, is it because of the nvidia issue? (graphics can die at anytime)

 

The W500 WUXGA screens are particularly sucky. Anything is going to look bright compared to them, even when they were new. My T60p screen still looks great.

$330 for a 15" T60p Flexview is a really good deal. I certainly wouldn't sell mine for that.

 

Also the color saturation of the QXGA display (at least mine) seems to be rather mediocre. Contrast is great, but color saturation is noticeably lacking.

 

If T60 can only use up to 3GB of ram, then it wouldn't make much sense to go for 64-bit OS over 32-bit OS right? Am I missing any benefits for using the 64-bit?
I am planning to run several OS on the T60 (win, linux and mac ox), would you guys recommend running Win7 in Ubuntu or Ubuntu in Win7?

 

Hi! Long post alert -->

I am almost certain they ship to Hong Kong. There are many sellers on this site that have their goods actually physically located in Hong Kong, and ship them over once payment is made. They would be familiar with shipping to/from HK I believe.

I do not believe they take Paypal. As for credit card, they may only accept China-issued credit cards (I tried paying for a hotel with my international credit card, but was told they only take locally-issued cards. May not be the case with bigger sellers, or larger hotels, maybe?). It is a fairly closed system they have in China, they do business, as far as I know, almost exclusively with mainland China bidders and clients.

To digress a little, it is a pretty huge market they have here. I bought an unlocked iPhone4 from a seller in Shenzhen (where I am residing currently, company posted me here), and according to the records on the Taobao.com site, he had sold 4000+ of the same item within the last 30 days at the time I bought it.

As for the seller, I ordered my item and received it in 4 days. They typically take 1-2 days to do a final check on the laptop (according to them), and shipping itself takes about a day. All the sellers with a 'Diamond' rating have to sign up with a compulsory 'Seller Accredition' (loose translation) system, where they have to offer a 7-day refund, and 30-day exchange policy. The refund policy is no-questions asked.

In addition, the payment method I used (AliPay) is sort of an escrow system, where the buyer has to verify receipt online, before the funds are released to the seller. Just like in Paypal, it is (from what I hear) very customer-biased, though I've had the luck of not having to use the dispute resolution process yet.

The laptop itself is great, smells nice (haha!) no problems whatsoever. I swapped in my SSD and was up and running within the hour. I'm confident that, even if I had issues, I could return it and get a replacement, as well.

There are literally tons of sellers offering these refurbished laptops, and there is certainly no issue with supply. They state in their descriptions that they buy these old laptops in bulk from corporations who phase them out, and refurbish them for resale. I was looking for a T43p with IPS as well, and was quoted something like 1700RMB, and decided to go for the T60p instead. Both times I was able to find a seller offering it, and have it in stock, in less than 10 minutes.

Hope the above is of help!

 

^^^ Thanks, mochaultimate. I picked up lots of information with interest. Quite a vibrant market.

Enjoy your time over there.

 

T60 processors don't support 64bit anyways. T61 and newer do.

EDIT: Also I run Win7 as my host OS. I run Backtrack 5, 3 instances of Windows Server 2008 R2 (2 core, 1 full) and a Windows 7 image too. Though not all at once, BT5 is solo run for my network work, the servers run together for my development platform and the extra 7 is for testing unknown sites and applications prior to using them on the host.

 

Sure they do if you've got a Core 2 Duo, but there's not much of point as the T60 era machines are all limited to 3GB due the chipset.

 

Obviously you haven't seen my T60p Flexview run Windows XP, Windows 7 or SUSE. There is nothing wrong with the T60p. It's a classic, especially the 15" IPS model.

 

Why would I want to?

 

I think what Zaz means is that there's no point in running 64-bit Windows, even if the processor does support it (which it will in the case of a Core 2 Duo processor), I think the T7200 in mine does, but why would I do it anyway, if the memory limit is 3GB?

 

If you keep using the T60 era mainboard this somewhat holds true, although a T60 with a T7200 CPU (64bit capable, doesn't help using for more RAM, though) is still a very good choice, especially the 15" models with IPS screens.

I have replaced the mainboard in my T60 with one from a T61, and now i am running a T9300 CPU with 8GB RAM in combination with a wonderful new BOE Hydis UXGA Flexview display. Impossible to buy such a great feature set from Lenovo, lest anyone else.

 

I was considering the T61 too, but is it possible to find one these days that has not been affected by the nvidia issue?

 

Yes, if you simply limit your search to one which has Intel graphics instead, or any T61 produced after July 2008, starting 08/08 (August 2008).

Disclamer: I would never bother about any discrete GPU as i much prefer a cool running and energy efficient system over graphics performance. I am not doing any games or any video stuff, just mainly writing and the usual web browsing (with flash mostly turned off), and 99,9% of the time only running Linux.

 

Well, I'd rather take the IPS on the T60 over the 8GB RAM on the T61.

 

Is it possible to install two hard drives in T60p?

 

Yes. with the Ultrabay hard drive adapter.

 

After much research and deliberation, I ordered a T60p and it has arrived today!
Build is of course, very solid, typical thinkpad construction. The one I ordered did not come with a hard drive so I cannot do anything but boot to BIOS. The view angle of the IPS is of course very good but I noticed a dark area near the center of the screen, back lighting is not uniform (light wearing out?). And at the max setting brightness is acceptable, not very bright. I don't mind swapping the screen with a brand new one, do IPS screens come with the CCFL lightbulb?
Overall I am happy, just can't wait to pop in the Crucial M4 I ordered, then the machine will fly =) (I know the sata limit on this one but I thought I could use it in my next laptop after I am done with this one after 3-4 years)

 

all the T60 and T61 screens come with CCFL backlight, and what you describe is an indication that the CCFL backlight is wearing out.

 

I found one place that sells the 13N7196. ( http://www.thinkpad-parts.com/13N7196-ThinkPad.html), I sent them an email asking for the manufacturer and screen resolution, this is their reply: they have ibm as mfg in the system, they are ibm orginal so the res will match what ibm lists"

So how would I interpret this? Can I safely assume they are the BOE-Hydis?

 

Ask them if they have it stock. My guess would be no. 7196 is an extremely rare bird.

 

Okay, they replied another email that I sent, It is a refurbished genuine IBM part. So I am guess it's hard to find a brand new LCD these days. I am afraid most (if not all) refurbished ones have dead pixels (because 1 or 2 means okay)

 

In order to enjoy the benefit of 8GB RAM and a faster CPU, i preferred to install a T61 mainboard into a 15" T60 chassis equipped with a brand new BOE Hydis UXGA Flexview screen. Best of both worlds elegantly combined.

 

Actually I changed the display setting in BIOS from normal to high and for some reason I don't notice the dark region anymore, it was my fault, sorry.

While I am waiting for my new HD to arrive next week, I inserted a Win7 USB and boot to the Win7 installation. Image was very pretty. It is amazing considering this machine was built in June of 2006!

My T60p now offically rocks!

 

You can get 13N7076 new here.

 

I will put all my T60p related question here, since I don't want to create a new thread just for that.

Should I enable AHCI when doing a fresh Win7 or Ubuntu Install, or does it depend on which HD I use?

And is putting PC2-6400 memory in T60p a waste?

Thanks, but that looks like the UXGA, not SXGA.

 

Windows Vista and 7 supports ACHI natively, so just enable it during install.

800 mhz ddr2 ram will only run at 667 mhz speed.

 

Thanks.

I saw some RAMs on newegg advertised as "5-5-5-15" timing, and some have "4-4-4-12" timing, do they make any difference in the T60p? Also is there certain brand of RAM that's more "friendly" to Thinkpad than others, or I can just buy any brand that has good reviews on Newegg?

 

no these timing won't really matter. Don't get Corsair or Kingston value 800 mhz version, as they are temperamental in a Thinkpad.

 

On thinkwiki the LG IPS screen is listed for having 3 different part numbers: 92P6761, 13N7078 and LP150E05-A2K1, when I do a search on ebay it seems some of the screens are not cross-listed, so either of the 3 should work right?

 

Regarding AHCI, does it depend on the machine or HD on whether I can install Win 7 with AHCI enabled?

 

it is a bios thing, ACHI is basically your SATA running in its native mode, while the compatibility is where the bios emulates the sata drive as the PATA drive for OS that don't support SATA natively.