T1 Express: More questions...

Hello,

I'm looking into buying an LG T1, but I have some questions, and LG support aren't giving me any answers at all. I would love it if those of you who own a T1 could try to help me.

1) Harddrive
I've read it comes with a 1,8" 4200RPM HDD. Would I be able to upgrade it if I wanted to? I don't know if there are any faster 1,8" drives than that, but if there would be, is it at least possible to upgrade it without disassembling the entire machine?
How poor is the performance of a 4200RPM drive? Does it take really long to for example boot the computer or start applications? I've never used anything below 7200RPM, and I'm a little hesitant getting such a slow HDD. Does it cripple the entire machine? I mean, there's no point in having a dual core system with 1GB RAM, if the HDD is a bottle neck.

2) TPM
The T1 express comes with a TPM chip, Trusted Computing Module, or rather Treacherous Computing Module. Is it possible to disable this chip, in BIOS or other? I don't want that chip screwing me once the software industry/MPAA/RIAA decide to start taking advantage of them.
I've read about some TPM enabled systems having trouble booting multiple OS's, trouble as in it being regarded as 'insecure' and as such forbidden. Would I have any problems dual-booting WinXP and Linux on the T1?
Has anybody tried running any flavour of Linux on these machines? What's your experience?

3) Screen resolution
In some places it says 1280x800, in others it says 1440x900. I've read in other threads on this forum that 1440x900 is probably the most common.
But then I ask, what's it like using 1440x900 on a 14,1" screen? Is the text really small? My eyesight is very good, and I generally like high resolutions, but it can certainly be too much sometimes. What's your opinion?


I'm grateful for any help I can get, since this machine seems really nice otherwise.

/D

 

1) The harddrive is obviously a bottleneck - you don't need me to tell you that. You need to decide on what your needs and priorities are... i wanted a good looking light, cool and quiet notebook, yet powerfull enough for music production form time to time. With my lacie 7200 rpm external hdd,this baby kicks ass

2) I dont know what the exact pupose of the chip is, and I have the accompanying software disabled. I purchase 95 % of my music, so it doesn't really bother me...

3) Mine is 1440x900. My eyes arent the best, and I've had problems before, but the screen is so crystal clear, that the resolution doesn't bother me at all. I truly enjoy the extra space provided Should the screen-res be a problem at some times, the T1 has a zoom-function. By pressing FN+2 it quickly (~1 sec) downgrades the screen to a virtual 1200*800. Press again and you're at 1024*768 (i think). Press again and you're back at 1440x900. Of course the text get a little blurred when leaving the native resolution, but it's no issue...

 

Excellent, thanks again abay84

That thing about the screen sounds really sweet! It's a pity LG don't provide more info right on their site.

Yeah, the thing about the harddrive is still bothering me... If I only knew how it performed. It ain't easy finding one of these machines in the stores.. I'd like to mess with it a bit first. On the other hand I won't be working that much with HDD-intensive stuff.

Oh and you forgot one question.. Is it possible to disable the TPM chip in BIOS? I'm just curious, it'd feel better to have that sucker disabled. Have a look the next time you reboot, please?

Does it scratch really easy? Attract tonnes of fingerprints?

Thanks

Edit:
Oh and two more:
Have you had a chance to test how long the battery last under normal operation?
Does it come with a proper XP disc, or just some recovery kit...?

 

No scratches yet - fingerprints, yes... it comes with a cloth to keep it nice, though

 

btw... unless you're into musicproduction or similar that requires a lots of streaming and messing around with large files, 4200 is fine. True, you WILL be able open and install programs a bit faster with 5400 or 7200 rpm, but this one offers better batterytime and less heat...

 

Ooh a cloth. Classy. The whole thing seems just that; classy. Like a real quality build. I was considering a Macbook Pro for a while, what with boot camp and all, but I changed my mind when reading about how much trouble people had with them, and how hot and noisy they get. It feels like LG's got it right, good design AND good engineering.
I'm pretty much sold on the T1 by now. You make a good point about the 4200 running cooler, quieter and longer.. I had almost forgotten about that. It's a laptop ffs
I do make some music using Reason and so on, but I've got a desktop for that.. If I would engage in that kind of stuff on the lappy, I'd probably use my external HDD, just like you. I'll mostly use it for all the normal stuff, and programming, scientific calculations etc.. CPU-tasks.

Got any goodies you wanna share, like more info on what's included, or some live pics? Or are you saving it for the review?

Just that one Q about the TPM in BIOS left, and I'll be off your back, I promise

Thanks again /D

PS
Nice T1 ad. Oh man.

 

nice ad, life is good indeed

 

Well... one of the greatest features is the Fan Control switch - it rocks!. Press FN+10 and you can choose from silent mode, normal mode and cool mode (even with the fan on max in "cool mode" it's still quieter than 75% of any other notebook out there). This feature kicks ass! Featurewise, LG has really done their homework in improving existing and inventing new usefull (and they are) ones...

 

Daerda: The TPM function can be disablet is BIOS and actually is disabled by default...

 

Yay, good news! They're not as evil as one might think then. I'll sleep better at night now

Thanks abay!
(I've tried increasing your rep power, but it seems it didn't work.. I don't know how that system really works..)

 

Screw the rep... i probably wont be around much more after finally having purchased one. Of course, I'll check in and answer questions about the T1 the best I can. A review is coming during next week or so.

 

Not sure if I can wait for the review to order mine

 

heads up! for all you canucks, ncix has it on sale for 1,789.99

http://www.ncix.com/products/index....316A9&manufacture=LG Electronics&promoid=1068

 

It's in $! Great price for the great notebook!

 

This looks like a sweet machine and thanks to all the posters for convincing me to get one.

One question - can anyone tell me if the T1 has got the lock slot in its chasis - you know, like for a kennsington type laptop cable lock?

 

NCIX has it on sale for 1699!!!! thinking of picking up one.. before i was into the asus w3j, but i dont need the gpu power.. so i think this would fit my needs for school and research.

 

Where do you see 1699$


*edit*

I had to click on the special sales link to get the 1699$

 

hmm...every other store that sells this includes 3 yr warranty from LG, this one shows 1 yr, is that a typo ? -_-

 

About T1 performance...
I own a T1 for about 2 month and run heavy applications like Visual Studio 2005 , Google Desktop ...
The performance got much better when I upgraded ram to 1.5G.
HD IS a problem, but you can compensate it a bit with more RAM.

 

thanks mikybz for the info. i am thinking of picking up a T1, but that was my biggest problem with it. the HD.

when you say the Hd is a problem. can you Elaborate on the issue for us a little more please. how do you find the grafix card. and also since you upgraded your ram to 1.5G, did you have to discard a stick of 512 and put in a 1G stick? is it hard to add more ram to the laptop?

thanks..

 

Well, the thing is when you have only 512mb RAM minus the graphic card memory, lots of temporary data stored on HD insteadof RAM and it is slow compared to 5400 or 7200 HD.

Since I upgraded to 1.5G, I am able to load all the data to RAM and almost not to use the HD. So now I can use Visual Studio, Photoshop, Google desktop, Outlook altogether.

Now about installing more RAM...
The problem is that a 512mb module SCREWED directly to motherboard. And you have one more spare slot. So I installed 1G.
Installing it is very easy, its right under the keyboard. Just 3 screws on the bottom, and you release the keyboard, and then you will find a metal plate with 4 more screws...
5 minutes and you are done!
Just try not to lose the tiny screws

 

I suppose mikybz has the older revision of the T1... I haven't found any info on this anywhere, but it seems there are two revisions.
From what I've gathered:

Rev "A"
512 MB RAM
1.5 GHz Core Duo
1280x800 resolution

Rev "B"
1024 MB RAM
1.66 GHz Core Duo
1440x900 resolution

If you buy one, make sure it's the rev B. 1 GB RAM should be enough, even with some of it reserved for graphics. At least I hope so

 

Well, not exaclty
I do have L2400 1.66 GHz Core Duo and 1440x900 screen though it came with 512 RAM.
This is the only T1 model we have in Israel.

Just go for it... Great laptop! You won't regret!

 

Oh damn, I suppose there are even more revs then. Well, well! The plot thickens...

 

oh okay, well i ordered my T1 yesterday, and its suppose to come with 1g of ram. i will let you know how it is. i have 1g in my desktop and i think it should be fine with the same in the lappy. if i did want to add more ram. what brand of ram did you use mikybz?

 

I used TwinMos because it was really cheap, but I guess any brand RAM(Kingston, Corsair, Samsung etc.) will fit just fine.

 

Hi, I had a quick question about the warrenty. I was looking at buying the T1 from NCIX and have them ship it to me in the States. Will the warrenty still apply in the States, even if LG does not officially sell the notebook there? Also, if the warrenty does apply, how would I send redeem that warrenty?

Thanks in advance!

 

The 1st year of the 3 year warrantee is North American, while the remaining 2 is Canada only.

 

Just thought I'd say (since nobody could answer this question) that I've got Ubuntu 6.06 (Linux-686) running on the T1, and it works great. I'm dual-booting it with XP.

Thanks to X.org 7, the intel vga works great. The native resolution (1440x900) is no problem, and I've even got AIGLX+Compiz running, and the performance is impressive. It's all completely smooth, and doesn't consume a lot of CPU. (Some Demos, not mine: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5825834665738117125&q=xgl
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7760419333122428718&q=xgl http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2601182046840169115&q=xgl)

Sound worked out of the box.

The wireless connection worked out of the box. Configuring WPA was a bit of a hassle, but that's Ubuntu's fault for not supporting it.

One thing that doesn't work instantly, is the wired network card.. It's not recognized automatically. It's likely that it can be fixed, I just haven't delved into that, since I'm not using it.

As is customary, I get slightly worse battery time in Linux. I've read that this is probably due to a lack of proper config, but it looks like a lot of trouble, and I'm not that desperate yet. I estimate 3-4 hours, but this is with the 3D-desktop and all that jazz.

If you have any questions about this, I'll try to answer them..

 

Tried to run ubuntu 6.06 cd on the t1 express but it failed @ display problems, how did you get it to work?

please give me some easy n00b instructions

 

Yeah, you have to force it to use a generic VESA driver for the graphics, at first... I don't remember if you can choose this when installing. But if you end up in the terminal after xorg crashes, do this:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

My memory fails me, but I think you have to choose the VESA driver. The configuration process is a little complicated, but you can pretty much just go through it without changing much. I choose to allocate about 128MB for the graphics. Reboot.
Once you've got X and Gnome working in VESA, you should install EasyUbuntu, a script that does a lot of good stuff for ya. Right here: http://easyubuntu.freecontrib.org/

Make sure you check and install the repository list. This will enable you to upgrade Xorg (I installed Ubuntu a few days before it's official release, so I'm not 100% sure about this step, but I think you must do it.) It will be handled automatically by Ubuntu's built-in update app. Once Xorg is updated, you will need to repeat the reconfiguration, using the same command as above. Only this time, choose the i810 driver. I believe this should be enough... If it's not, you might need to install 915resolution, a package that enables higher widescreen resolutions for the intel 950. If you need it, search for help at www.ubuntuforums.org . You can by the way find all kinds of info there just by searching, and if that doesn't help, just create a thread of your own, there are a lot of friendly experts willing to help. They sure know a whole lot more than I do! I'm a pretty practical person, I don't learn more than I absolutely have to to get it to work

Good luck...

 

wohooo \o/

lgt1 express dual + ubuntu 6.06 = <3

thanks!!

 

I take it you got it working

If you're ready for the desktop of the future: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=145068

 

will try it soon.
did you ever tried to get the wired network card working?
Can't find any solution for that...

 

No sorry, I haven't even tried... Please tell if you get it working

 

How did you get your Agere eth-card to work under linux?

http://dadams1969.googlepages.com/et131xkernelmodule

http://forge.novell.com/modules/xfc...unt/et131x-KMP unsupported by SUSE or Novell/

Thats the only thing that ive found that has some info on the problem with the ethernet card...

 

Wow, ME posting in the LG section.

I got to play with a few T1's at my work (computer store) and wow I want one sooooooooooooo bad.

I've sold about 10 of them myself and all to ladies.

I just wanted to come in here and say hello and holy moly I want a T1.

 

What about media control buttons, like "Stop", "Play" etc, at least as the "second function" of F9-F12 keys?

 

@Everyone: My wired ethernet card is NOT working in Ubuntu, and I haven't even tried configuring it, because I don't need it.

As for the special button functionality... My T1 doesn't have any Stop or Play buttons, so I don't know about those... What I know is that some of the buttons work. Volume up and down, eject tray, and so forth.
Most of the buttons do not work, simply because they control software that just isn't there in Ubuntu. I would think it's possible to configure all of the buttons, all you need to know is their control codes. Finding the software and doing the actual configuring... Well, I guess that's as easy as everything else in the Linux world

For the record: I'm no longer using Ubuntu on my T1. I got tired of the poor battery life, the lack of configuration options for the trackpad, and the total suckiness of network-manager-gnome, which prompts you for a password everytime it connects.

 

Daedra: thanks for the information. And, speaking about control codes -- any ideas where this codes can be found? Many thanks in advance.
I really do not understand why so simple and convenient feature is absent on such a nice and well-designed notebook.

 

Nope, I'd image you'd have to use some program that listens to the keyboard input and echoes the control codes... If you wanna muck with these buttons and linux that is. In Windows I find the buttons to be quite satisfactory, see the list in the other thread

 

To find out control codes, use 'xev' (short from X EVent). Launch it from terminal and press the buttons. For more information, use google with keywords "multimedia keyboard ubuntu" etc.

I also have a question of my own. Are the T1 keyboard keys individually mounted i.e. can I change the order of keys? I ask, because I'm about to buy T1 from Germany and the biggest difference between Finnish and German layout is that 'z' and 'y' keys have swapped places.

 

I know this is an old thread, but does anyone know what memory configurations the T1 Express Dual supports? I want to put 2gb in it for Vista, but I've heard conflicting stories about what it's compatible with. LG support told me it supports 1GB max (total). One of the posts here talks about having 1.5GB in their T1. I can get a 2GB so-dimm for a reasonable amount - would it handle that + the 512mb that's already there?

 

You CAN pop keys off and reattach them but I'm not sure of the method. I've seen Korean sites do this in their reviews (with other major disassembly pics shown... Google XNOTE T1 and you should find something).

As for the max memory, I've already put 2gb in one and it was fine... upgrade at will. It MAY do 4gb but I haven't tried it and even then it could only see 3 (thanks to 32 bit limitations.)

Oh yeah... I see it's your first post. Welcome to NBR!

 

Hey, do you guys know if LG is upgrading the T1 to Santa Rosa Platform anytime soon? Or perhaps with the Turion X2? Not that I need huge speed gain, but I really want an LG Xnote, but it feels like I am getting ripped off paying premium price for laptop with outdated platform and if they are coming out with a new model thin and light as T1 express soon, I REALLY would be getting ripped off.

 

The T1 was reportedly expensive to produce. LG don't appear to have any plans at present to replace the T1. It was the thinnest, lightest 14.1" on the market by a long shot. Unfortunately they're totally unavailable now. I tried many different markets around the world. None have 'em in stock. I got lucky and found some factory refurbished units but that was it. There's been no corresponding model announced with a Santa Rosa chipset so I can only presume there's no plans to do a refresh at all.

 

hi guys, I would like to upgrade my rams to 2gb currently. However I am facing difficulty in locating the ram slot. I have unscrewed the 3 screws at the back, but am unable to remove the keyboard. Are there any ways to do so?
Thanks in advance.

 

i also would like to know how to upgrade my t1's hard drive and ram. =)