love my new T61 ... this sucker smokes!

I've been a .NET developer ever since 1.0 was out in beta .. (2001 I believe) .. asp and VB before that .. I have been using laptops for the better part of 5 years now both in home use and development use.

I had an old thinkpad T series at a job for a year or so in 2004 / 2005.. and really liked the build quality of it .. but after leaving that job my current job lets me develop on my own machine (they're too skimpy to buy descent equipment).

So anyways, over the last 3 years at this job I've had the following:

HP dv8000 (anthalon x64, 2gb ram, xp pro) .. pretty cheap machine, screen broke .. still use it as a desktop now for my daughter at home.

Gateway MP8708 (2.0 ghz centrino duo, 2gb ram) .. descent machine, bad graphics (integrated intel) .. very plasticky .. still works but wanted something more.

So, after doing research, looking at dell, gateway, lenovo .. I decided on a T61 refurb from ebay.

This thing screams ...
I got the following in it:
T9300 (2.5 ghz)
4gb ram
160gb 7200 rpm drive.
with everything else standard ...

all I can say is wow ..

like I said I'm a .NET 2.0 developer usually with about 3 or 4 various projects open in visual studio at a time, SQL 2005 open, dozen or so web sites open .. photoshop sometimes along with it ..

I formatted the drive and put a clean install of vista 64 ultimate to utilize the 4gb ..

my main project I've been working on for almost 2 years used to take about a minute to build on my old gateway 1 website (100+ forms), 1 c#.net app (100+ forms).. setup projects, class libraries, the works .. 15 seconds on this thinkpad (if that)..

i havn't had a single bluescreen yet (knock on wood) ..

with all the crap i usuallly have open, memory monitors show 2900MB used or so with 4029MB available .. so I have room to spare.

<< happy owner here!

 

Congrats! I have a T61p(see sig) and absolutely love it. I think you made a great move going for a Thinkpad, especially being a developer. What kind did you get 15.4" or the 14"? Did you get the widescreen version? I know that some people don't like the widescreen, but I am not one of them. The widescreen works perfectly with .NET development, especially with having the project explorer, toolbox and work area all open

BTW - Since you need to use Vista, nice choice with going Vista x64. I am running Vista business x64.

 

i got pretty much the same model as you, but mine's not the p .. so I have the standard 15.4" wxga screen.. it works for me .. I ordered 2 docks for it, one at home and one for work .. which both run dual 19" widescreens running 1440 x 900 .. so I won't be using the laptop display much ..

but I got everything identical to yours aside from that .. oh, and a 6 cell instead of 9 cell battery but I'm plugged in 99% of the time anyways.

and yes, the widescreen really works well with visual studio with all of the toolbars on the right, and the vista sidebar on the right ...

 

I love my T61 too... I wouldn't trade it for a T400 although it's newer... I got a 14.1" SXGA+ 1400 x 1050 screen on my T61 and I would hate to get T400 with widescreen... I had the same 14.1" screen on my T60... Just sold it...

 

i agree man.... duel 24 inch. I have SQL Server management Studio on my Left and Visual Studio/Eclipse on my right. It's programmer heaven.

You should get some gaming keyboards... they're so amazing in typing for programming.... i dunno if it's in my head but i can type faster with them lol.

 

hehe i got basically the same thing as u

Intel Core 2 Duo processor T9300 (2.5GHz 800MHz 6MBL2)1
Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium12
15.4 WSXGA+ TFT
NVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M 128MB
4 GB PC2-5300 DDR2 (2 DIMM)8
160GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm4
DVD Recordable, Ultrabay Slim5
6 cell Li-Ion Battery60
1 Year Depot/Express Warranty7

right now i'm loving it, its quiet, fast and the graphics is nice, much, much, much better than the acer 1640 i bought 3 years ago...


the only problem im running into right now is that i only have 20GB free on 142GB on my C drive... I never did a partition... so y do i not have 160GB ?

also... i am sure all the programs i installed and my files only take up a maximum of 40GB of space... what is using the other 80GB on my harddrive?

 

IAmTheDood, which LCD panel did you get WSXGA+ or WUXGA.

I'm also a proud owner of a T61 with X3100 and love it. Certainly is not a classic Thinkpad (made from IBM), but so far no problems.
Newer 45nm processor are really a joy to have (Penryn). T61 are soo cool.
Only complaint I have is flexing on the bezel where the power button is and also the left keyboard bezel, it feels like is no glued to the chassis.

 

Perhaps someone should try to get the T400 guts inside a T61 4:3

 

lol..

I have the WXGA 15.4" screen (1280x800 max res) .. but no real issue with dual external monitors ..

I just had a scare with mine this morning .. I generally always put my laptop in hibernate when I leave work .. then leave it in the bag, take it home, bring it in ..

it wouldn't power up this morning? I had to unplug it, take out the battery and put the battery back in to start it up.

Hmm.. interesting.

 

This is normal. A 160GB drive will format to be about ~148GB due to the fact that manufacturers use 1000MB to represent 1GB where as in reality 1Gb is 1024MBs, leading to a smaller actual drive size. The other 6GB or so is your recovery partition possibly.

No sure. Go to your my computer and find your harddrive. Right click on it and see what it says as far as your free and used space.

 

I also love the 4:3 form factor. It seems now to me the 14.1 WS T400 looks cuter as it's more vertically smaller than the 4:3 version.

 

Mwah. I've said it before and will say it again:

The T61 14" W is only marginal less deeper then the 4:3
The T61 14" W is as around as wide as the 15" 4:3 T60
The 6 cell battery in the T61 14" W sticks out making it deeper then the T61 14" 4:3

Result:
T61 14" W + 6 cell has a 14" W screen and the footprint of a 15" 4:3



EDIT:
From the reviews here on NBR:
15" T60:
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2767
14" W T61:
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3708&review=ThinkPad+T61
14" 4:3 T61:
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4028

Footprint:
T60 15" 4:3 : 13" x 10.6" x 1.2-1.4"
T61 14" Wide: 13.2" x 9.3" x 1.09 - 1.26" Add the 6 cell (+ 0.94") and you get 13.2" x 10.26" x 1.09 - 1.26"
T61 14" 4:3 : 12.3" x 10.0" x 1.2-1.4"

So the 14" wide with 6 cell is .2" wider and 0.34" less deep, not a big difference at all, but the screensize differs a lot!