trying to decide between the R60 and T60

Everything on these seems perfect for the most part. Ultimately I am looking for an 80+ gig hardrive, a solid processor, 2 gigs of ram, and a video card capable of playing RTS games (new command and conquer etc). The computer will be used mainly for school purposes (office, and related activities), as well as playing music and such. However when looking at these laptops I have run into a few questions
1. What is the expected battery life?
2. What media bay battery can I buy for these? Since the one that shows up on each of their pages says it is made for the Z series, so I am just a little worried.
3. When the computer comes with XP it does not give me the option to upgrade to vista, I have to find one that comes with vista is that normal? Also along these lines is it possible to upgrade the HDD that comes stock or do I have to buy a seperate one, or go to a higher base model? Again is it possible to just up the 6 cell battery that comes stock up to a 9 cell battery?
Finally from my brief description of what I want out of the laptop do the thinkpads sound like a good choice? I will be bringing on the road probably 5 times a day for extended purposes (to use in class and such) Also any suggested builds would be great, I am looking to spend about $2,000 CND. Thank you for all the help.

 

My R60 goes a little over three hours with the screen on 4/7 with WiFi on. I have the six cell. I would suspect the same on the T60. A lot will depend on what you are doing. If you are gaming, you'll see a lot less.

They both can accept modular batteries. I believe they use the same one, though you may want to double check with Lenovo to be sure. I have it for my R60. With both batteries it goes about four and a half hours.

I don't think ThinkPads are quite as configurable in Canada as they are in the US. You may have to buy the nine cell if you want it, but again you should ask Lenovo, they'll know for sure.

The hard drive on the T60 or R60 is removeable. There is just one screw to remove. I upgraded my R60 to a 100GB 7200RPM drive. It took about five minutes to replace the drive. Re-installing the OS will take longer.

The free Vista upgrade is over. If get it with XP and wish to upgrade to Vista later, you'll have to buy it. I have Vista Business on my R60. It's not a huge upgrade over XP in the way XP was over Windows ME. It is a little prettier, but has some annoying things about it as well.

Both the R60 and T60 are well built notebooks. I personally opted for the R60 because it was quite a bit cheaper than the T60 when I bought and my notebook leaves the house only occasionally. If you plan to tote this around quite a bit, the T60 is a bit lighter and slimmer. Plus its mag-alloy lid does offer better screen protection, but I'd have no problem taking the R60 around daily.

 

Thanks, when I am running off of battery it will be very simple stuff (mainly MS word, and internet when I get bored). Just curious any idea were leveno go the 10+ hours of battery life from since that seems like a big overstatement lol. Also any idea how much the 128MB ATI card can actually handle? Sorry one last question, after looking at the american site they really do offer a lot more customization, I am guessing as a Canadian I cant order it off that site and have it shipped to Canada huh.

 

Nope you can't. The x1400 should be able to handle games from today though not as the highest settings. Yes they tend to be optimistic when estimating battery life.

 

So just hypothetical which one would you go with? Since the gaming is not going to be any of the intense 3d games just real time strategies (from my understanding these are not too demanding). Then the importance is on just having a battery that will last doing basic things. Thank you again for the help.

 

When I bought it was a no-brainer since I don't need a lot of mobility and the T60 was so much more expensive. Sounds like you need more mobility than I do which makes durability more important for you. I guess if they are close in price I would opt for the T60. I don't where the line is exactly. I don't think the gaming is a big issue since they are both offered with the x1400 at least here. I don't think either is a bad choice. It depends on your budget and priorities.

 

I have an R60 that I purchased recently and I also live in Canada. They had a sale on them recently on the Lenovo Canada site and was able to pick up a fairly loaded (1.66Ghz T2300e, 1400 x 1050 15 inch screen, 100gb hd, finger print reader, 512 ram, win xp pro, ati x1400, dvd writer, etc) unit for $849 during their 'trunkload' sale. I've recently upgraded the memory to 2gb and the machine is very fast and responsive.

I mostly use it in the house so I opted for the cheaper option. If I were on the road alot, I would probably have gone for the T60 instead since it is a bit smaller and lighter.

Check out the visaperks.ca web site for any Lenovo deals. It will link you back to the Lenovo Canada site and makes you eligible for discounts. You can get a loaded T60 for $1599 (87445BU).

 

i would go for the T60 due to its great build quality,security features,shock mounted hdd and so on and not to forget legendary keyboard
and great opinions from users
im sure the investment on the extra $ u spend on this machine would be well worth it

 

Alright thank you so much for all the help, you would not believe how much I have been beating myself up. I figure I will go with the T60, the three year warranty is a real selling point. And if it should be able to handle the gaming I want it to do that is great. It is also probably a safe assumption that between the 6 cell, and a media bay battery that I will be able to get at least 5 hours of battery life (just using word)

 

using the screen on low brightness and wireless off and very less CPU strain there should be easy getting 4.5-5 hours at least
also note that the lenovo support is one of the best out there
cheers
all the best

 

As far as gaming is concerned, the x1400, while on the lower-mid end of notebook graphics, is about as fast as a Radeon 9800 Pro desktop card (a top of the line card a couple years ago) if not a bit faster. It's a very capable card and as long as you're not expecting 8800 GTX speed from it, you should be fine.

Also, I'm not sure on this, but CnC 3 is more than likely in the vein of how Generals is, ie full 3D graphics, not the most demanding, but EA being EA it probably isn't the most efficient game engine either.

 

Awesome I think I am just about sold on the T60. Battery is my only real concern right now.

 

Alright one last thing, the T60 has won, I am just playing around with configurations now. Just curious is it worth it to pull the trigger now or should I wait it out a bit? I would say I need the laptop in my possession by August (to take my time getting it prepped for school). Anything earlier is really a bonus, and will help entertain me lol.

 

I personally wouldn't wait because the Santa Rosa laptops are coming out probably this month. If anything Lenovo is probably just going to phase out the T60 line of laptops. It's basically "last call" before the new line of laptops roll out. Also if your waiting for the new line of products they will probably be more expensive with NO discounts and will be in short supply.

*There's another thread where you can get some really good deals on T60 laptops plus another 5% discount.

 

Thanks, I saw that discount thread, I am just not sure if it applies to Canadians, if not I will use the Visa discount site. And I lied I have one last question, what is the benefit of upgrading the wireless card? Since the upgrades seem to be just as fast.
EDIT: While I am at it how big of a performance increase would it be from going from 1.66 to 1.83 with the processor?

 

Here is the one I am thinking of
ThinkPad T60 (H3U)
Installed Operating System: Genuine Windows Vista Business
Processor Type: Intel® Core 2 Duo T5500 1660MHz
Memory: 1024MB
Disc Capacity: 120GB
Graphic subsystem: ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 HyperMemory 128 MB
DVD Recordable (Dual Layer) 24X Max (also works with non dvds correct?)
Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG
9 Cell Li-Ion Battery
For $1500 CND. Does that seem like a good price?

 

That's about 1,353.91 USD. I paid $1345.55 for a T60 with XP Pro, 15.4 WSXGA+, Core 2 Duo T7200 @ 2.0ghz 4mb L2 Cache, 160 hdd, I gig of ram, DVD Dual Layer, ATi X1400, 6 cell battery and the Intel Wireless.

I'd say you scored a pretty good deal.

 

Typically laptop models take a bit longer to make it up to our friends to the north. I'd say 4.5-5 hours with the six cell and modular batteries. That's what I get. The R60 does offer hard drive protection as well.

 

Just curious since I have no idea how to read the specs on these new processors I know higher mhz is better, but the Txxxx what do those numbers represent? And does the processor I have selected hold its own (hoping for a 3+ year life)

 

They are just Intel model numbers. The T7200 is a 4mb L2 cache processor whereas the processor you have is 2 mb. So what's the real difference?. not much really unless you plan on running CPU intensive programs or playing PC games that deman lots of CPU power like Microsoft Flight Simulator X.

I'd say your CPU will be fine for 3+ years. My Dell 5100 Inspirion laptop is going on 4 years with a P4 2.4ghz proc, 512 megs of ram. Will it run Vista, no but it will run XP just fine.

 

Pretty much as long as the CPU is a Core/Core 2 Duo you can't really go wrong. They're all awesome processors, some are just that much more awesome.

I think the T7200 is the current sweet spot for the price/performance ratio as the T7400 and up get pretty expensive quickly with diminishing returns for the value for money ratio. If you're not going to be doing anything terribly intensive, you should be fine with the T5500 (and even if you are doing intensive stuff, you'll still be fine); if it were me it would really be up to what my budget was. If I could fork over the extra for the T7200 (or even T5600) then I would just to have that extra headroom, but that's just my thinking. ^^

The config you listed also looks like a pretty good deal.

Rodknee it looks like we ordered just about identical T60's.
Only differences are the battery and the wireless (I got the Atheros card), prices were about the same too. Only thing I'm missing that I wanted in getting the T60 is a FireWire port, but hey, I can just get a PC Card/Expresscard for that!
Couldn't really wait for the T61 anyway and those headphone ports on the front of it make me gag. Not sure what Lenovo thought they were doing with that...

 

You know what they say, brilliant minds think alike.

 

Ya I would opt for the better processor but for some reason IBM does not want to allow Canadians to customize their laptops. So I am pretty much stuck picking from a series of pre mades and trying to get the best combo.

 

If there's a phone sales line for the Lenovo division you're looking at models from, it might be worth taking a minute to give them a call to see if there's anything they can do for you configuration wise. I know sometimes sales people may be inclined to work with you if it's in their power and if they are the one placing the order for you. Just a suggestion.

 

Alright I think I have it narrowed down to these two models
http://caipsgws001.can.ibm.com/store/addoptions?sku=8744J2U&tool=search&aud=EA1VISA

or

http://caipsgws001.can.ibm.com/store/addoptions?sku=8744H3F&tool=search&aud=EA1VISA

I will have 2 gigs of ram so that will add to the second option. I would not mind having the extra power in the processor, I am just not sure how big of an increase it is between the video cards.