help to choose T43

I've two choices from EPP:
1）2687D4U. 15 sxga+, 1.86G, 512M,40G, DVD+CDRW, ATI X300, no finger reader, no bluetooth, 6 cell, 3 year warr. $1236.
2)2687DUU. 15 sxga+, 1.86G, 512M,60G, DVDRW, ATI X300, finger reader, bluetooth, 9 cell, 3 year warr. $1424.

My budget is limited. Compared 2) to 1), do the additional 20G, DVDRW, finger reader and bluetooth worth 200 bucks?
I heard that Bluetooth and finger reader are useless.

 

It is only worth it if you plan to use it.

 

Formatted, the 40gb is less than 40gb, prolly like 38 or so. Then take out another 8gb for IBM's hidden partition for recovery, you'll only get about 30gb, then subtract the space required for WinXP, is that enough space for you?
If you've got bluetooth devices, then its worth it. If you intend to burn dvd's, then its worth it, if security and ease is an issue, the fingerprint reader is worth it. It also has a 6 cell instead of a 9 cell battery, so if additional battery life is important, its worth it. (or if you're worried about form factor, the 9 cell isn't for you).

 

for what more you are getting for the $200 it is a reasonable deal, not great but reasonable. But if you don't need any of this extra stuff then why pay for it!

note, if you decide you later want to get the 9-cell battery for example, it will cost you alone, around $150 (but you will have 2 batteries) ... so it is more of speculating about your needs.

 

The recovery partition is not 8GB, more like 2-3. At least that is the way they were on mine. I have bluetooth and fingerprint reader on mine. It is nice not have to type in my password, but I don't think I'd pay extra for it. I also have a bluetooth mouse which I like. Since ThinkPad T series only have two usb ports, it is nice that I don't have to use one for the mouse.

 

it has 9 cell battery, i think the latter is cheaper.

 

well i'm suposed to have a 80gb hard drive, and the total space is only 70.5GB. And I think I remember when reformatting a T42 it was ~6GB

 

an 80GB drive is actually 80,000,000,000 Bytes
divided by 1024^3 = 74.5 GB

So you are only losing 4GB since your reported capacity is 70.5GB

As a rule of conversion: you aprox lose 7% of the reported capacity when doing the correct conversion, ie 1GB = 1024^3 Bytes. Since HDD manufacturer use 1GB=10^9 Bytes which is incorrect.