Lenovo ThinkPad R61 User Review

by Nam Pham

Like many NotebookReview.com readers, I bought my notebook with college in mind. I needed something that will last me four years or more, and I also wanted something moderately powerful. Having experienced a 15.4” Toshiba Satellite with glossy screen in the family, I was deterred from getting anything 15.4” or larger. And while the glossy LCD was really nice for movies and pictures, it was too reflective for my taste.

Once I had my criteria set up, choosing the notebook was easy, since my preference of non-glossy LCDs left me with only Thinkpads and business models from HP/Compaq and Dell. After researching extensively on many of these notebooks, I was leaning more and more toward the Thinkpad R61 because of the price, build quality, and legendary keyboard. After I tried out one at a local computer store, I was sold.

I bought my R61 straight from Lenovo.com with a 10% off coupon for a total of $923 after tax. I even received $34 back from fatwallet.com.

Specs:

• Screen: 14.1 inch wide screen WXGA(1280 x 800)
• Processor: 2.0GHz 4MBL2 Intel Core 2 Duo T7300
• Hard drive: 80GB 5400rpm; in this review however, I have switched to a Seagate 120GB 7200rpm hard drive.
• Memory: 1GB RAM 677MHz DDR2 (1x1GB), expandable to 4GB
• Optical Drive: DVD Recordable 8x Max Dual Layer
• Interface: Three USB, mini-Firewire, PC Card& Express Card slots, LAN and phone jack, headphone and mic jacks, VGA, and fingerprint reader
• Wireless: ThinkPad 11a/b/g Wi-Fi wireless LAN
• Graphics: Intel GMA X3100 GM965
• Battery: 4-cell (sits flush in the battery bay)
• OS: Window Vista home premium
• Weight: 5lb
• Dimensions: 13.14 x 9.25 x 1.18-1.33 inches (W-D-H)

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Design

The overall design of all Thinkpads never goes far from a black, squarish box. You can still see many similarities from the very first Thinkpad model made by IBM in 1992 in this R61. It's black inside and out, though the outside is a bit more like dark gray. There are absolutely no shiny bells and whistles on this notebook: It's pure business. Depending on your taste, you might call it dull or extremely sexy. I'm with the latter.

The only thing on the outside lid is the IBM Thinkpad logo. Yes, although many received their Thinkpads with the new Lenovo logo, I got mine with the old IBM logo. I would have preferred either one.

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On the inside, there is the classic Thinkpad keyboard, the touchpad and the red trackpoint. Then there is the fingerprint reader that did not exist when I got the notebook. How it got there, you will find out later on. Under the screen, there are the green status lights, showing you the status of wireless, numlock, caplock, accessing hard drive, power, battery indicator, external power, and sleep/hibernate. An interesting feature is that some of the lights shine through to the other side, so even when you close the lid, you can still tell if your notebook is on, sleeping, charging, etc.

Left and right of the keyboard are the speakers. In some photos, they might look big (at least that’s what I thought), but in reality, they are still tiny, so don’t expect much from them.

On the inside, there is the much touted rollcage and top-cover rollcage, and shock-mounted hard drive. Basically these are strong structures that protect the notebook’s LCD screen, and all internal components. As for the hard drive, besides the protective rollcage shell, there is also an accelerometer that detects a fall and freezes the hard drive to protect your data.

All in all, the design seems good, if not great. Although the T61 is thinner and lighter, I find the extra weight and thickness very reasonable.

Build

After reading so many reviews of the Thinkpad series, I was quite a bit disappointed with my notebook. Whether it was a budget R model or a ultralight X model, they all received great praise for their "tankishness." Not so with my R61.

After only minutes of playing with the notebook out of the box, I discovered the first fault, and it wasn’t small. The screen is off to the right, but that is not the problem. The problem is the left side of the screen when held with just a bit of force makes a loud click, almost a crack, sound. I froze dead for half a minute before I dared to examine it closely. It seems that the two halves of the frame that hold the LCD wasn’t assembled properly, or that they weren’t made properly and therefore didn't fit in place.

On the second day, I found yet another part that was incorrectly manufactured. This time it was the palm rest. Every time my wrists applied pressure, the palm rest hit the frame underneath and made a soft click. Knowing that it was removable, I removed it to see if reinstalling the part solved the problem, but it did not help.

I called Lenovo immediately. After a bit of talking, they decided to ship me a replacement palm rest. Though the great support is much appreciated, the problems are still there. The new palm rest that they sent overnight did not solve the problem. It seems the defect lies in the framework beneath.

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Also, the screen doesn’t close tight all the way. The lid has two latches that hook onto the base, but you only need to operate one switch on the right to open. That, unfortunately, leaves the left side a bit loose. It’s not a big deal for me though.

I never thought I would say this about a Thinkpad, but the lid on this notebook is very easily scratched. It wasn’t the hard plastic I expected, but rather a soft rubber-matte material. Even the lightest of scratches show up. The lid and palm rest also attract lots of finger and palm prints. You can rub them off easily, but they are still a nuisance.

All that said, the notebook still has a solid feel. I imagine that it can last the next few years without further complications. The LCD top rollcage works well enough. I have accidentally put a stack of really heavy books on top and didn’t see any marks on the screen, which would have been left by the trackpoint or the keyboard.

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The metal hinges are great. There is no wobble, and when you push the screen into position it stays there.

Performance & Benchmarks:

This notebook isn’t blazing fast or powerful like most workstations or gaming laptops, but it handles all normal applications really well. It does not lag at all with the 80GB 5400rpm stock hard drive. Once I put the Seagate 7200rpm hard drive in, it just got faster.

I don’t do much gaming. My typical use usually revolves around web surfing, music listening, audio editing, a bit of Photoshop, instant messaging, and of course watching movies. This R61 accomplishs all tasks with ease. I also tried out Counterstrike Source at maximum settings (I'm a caveman when it comes to gaming), and it ran without a hitch.

Here are some numbers:

PCMark05: 3810

3DMark05: 719

With the integrated graphic, the 3DMark result isn’t surprising.

Hd tune:

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Super PI:

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Keyboard & Touchpad

I love this keyboard. Although it turns out my keyboard is made by Chicony, which is said by many to be the worst of the three Thinkpad keyboard suppliers, I still enjoy this keyboard so much. I have less typos here than on any desktop keyboard. I also love the useful page forward/backward buttons on top of the arrow keys.

Thinkpads aren’t made for media playing, so you will only get dedicated volume up/down buttons and a mute button. However, you can still control basic play functions with a combination of the Fn key and one of the four arrow keys.

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The keyboard is spill resistant. I accidentally tested this once and was impressed. All the water from my cup drained away quickly leaving me with a wet pair of pants but a dry keyboard.

The touchpad works well, although it's a bit small. There is also the trackpoint. It is absolutely great for typing because you do not have to move away from the keyboard and then reposition your hands. However, every now and then, the trackpoint drifts. Thankfully, Thinkpad’s trackpoint has a automatic recalibration mechanism built in so when it detects a drift, it fixes the problem immediately. That said, the occasional drifting can still drive me nuts.

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Also, I have been experiencing some squeakiness from the trackpoint mouse button. Not a whole lot, but worth mentioning for those who regularly use the trackpoint.

Screen

The non-glossy screen doesn’t reflect like its glossy cousin. However, not being glossy means picture quality is not as good as those that are glossy. Viewing angles are narrow vertically and better horizontally. Brightness levels are acceptable. You cannot get full brightness without plugging in though. The screen is much brighter once you plug in to an AC outlet. Overall, the screen is okay: not the best for viewing pictures or watching movies but fairs fine for everything else.

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Wireless

When I tested its wireless capability in a public library, the signal was perfect. Where I am however, I can't get anything above 70 percent. I would not blame the R61 though, since I live in a building built in the war time with thick reinforced steel and concrete walls designed to take on a bomb or two.

Battery Life

The R61 lasted for 3 hours and 5 minutes using the the "battery stretch" feature before it went to sleep and I had to plug it in.

Heat and Noise

This thing is very quiet, that is unless you are running on battery at high performance. Once you run high performance on battery, a high pitch sound will emit from around the upper left corner. If you run "balanced" or "power saver" mode though, the noise will drop to an almost inaudible level. I have not examined this problem so I am not sure what is causing this noise. That said, I do not often wander far from a wall plug so the noise has not bugged me that much.

Another noise maker is the optical drive. Every time I push in a CD or DVD, I almost have to cover my ears. It sounds like a jet engine winding up. Once it gets up to speed the noise is not so bad. You might want to think about getting an external optical drive if you use discs a lot or if you just can't stand noisy drives.

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Heat is acceptable. The palm rests do get warm ... especially on the right side, under which lies the hard drive. I have sweaty hands so it is a bit uncomfortable for me, but that goes for all the notebooks I have tried.

Ports

All the USB ports are vertical and are not very well spaced. I usually have trouble pulling out a cable or any USB device if both ports on the left are occupied. Another issue is that the ports are incredible tight. I only needed to plug in my iPod cable twice to make four grooves on the connector (see picture).

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The PC card and ExpressCard slots have a built-in, spring-loaded flap to prevent dust, not the cheap dummy cards that are easy to lose.

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There is a firewire port in the front. I have no firewire device but it should be handy for the occasional camcorder sync or external hard drive back up.

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Fingerprint reader: When I got my new palm rest, there was a fingerprint reader built in. Great!! After I installed the proper driver, the reader was operational.

Thinklight is an LED white light on top of the LCD that illuminates the keyboard in dark situations. I’m using it right now, typing at 3:00 AM under a blanket. It works well, but only if you set your screen’s brightness level to minimum to match your dim keyboard.

The wireless switch in the front is quite a pain to use, literally. It is too hard to get a hold of the sliding switch and it also has too much resistance. I have many times shredded my finger on the grooves of the switch (maybe not that dramatic ... but it hurts, nonetheless). Now I just leave it at the on position and turn wireless on or off via software.

Upgrading is a piece of cake. A few screws and you are done. Lenovo has provided easy access to the hard drive, optical drive, RAM slots, and keyboard. All this is doable by the user, so you do not have to worry about voiding warranty.

Software

The R61 did not come with any recovery discs. You are supposed to burn your own. Bloatware wasn't nonexistent, but less than that of other manufacturers.

Thinkvantage has lots of features such as backing up, power management, advanced security and recover features. They are great for business users, but I rarely use them.

However, password manager is a complete mess. It is supposed to let me sign into websites with the fingerprint reader, but every time I swipe, the computer freezes. I can still login to Windows though.

I’m not sure how beneficial the active protection system actually is, but I find it quite annoying, shutting down the hard drive whenever I move the notebook slightly, and in turn freezing my movie or music. That said, you can reset the sensitivity so it doesn't do this as often. I have it at 50% now.

I tried once to do a clean install of Vista, but afterward, I could not install all of the R61's drivers. Namely, the driver that lets you use the volume and mute buttons didn't work. I then had to do the factory recovery to get my Thinkpad back to its previous state.

Customer support

Here's a bit more about my "talk" with Lenovo's customer support. When I called for help, they were very helpful and offered to take the R61 back and have a look. However, I told them I had to leave in a couple of days so they offered to ship a brand new palm rest to me to replace myself. Next morning, the palm rest was already at my doorstep. After a few days, they even sent me an email to check to see if the problem is solved (I was lazy and didn't reply).

As for the screen bezel problem, since I was actually going to be in another country for a long time, they sent a notice to the service center there to take care of me. I’m at my destination now, but have neither the time nor the language skills to call their support center, so I can’t say how things will turn out.

Overall, I am satisfied with the support Lenovo offered.

Conclusion

Well, there isn't much to say that hasn't already been said. I know it's hard to tell, but I've had a good user experience with the machine. I can ignore many of the problems of this R61. Here is an overview with the pros and cons:

Pros:

• Good design

• Great keyboard

• Trackpoint very useful

• Relatively fast system

• Quiet and cool

• Easy maintenance and upgrade

• Low price

• Good customer service

Cons:

• Poor build quality: parts don't fit properly

• Lid and palm rest attract fingerprints

• High pitch noise occurs when using battery

• Tight USB ports

• Ports are placed too close together

• Battery could be better

• Thinkvantage software can be buggy

• Might be considered unattractive or just plain ugly by some

 

Thank you tkkg

 

i think 3+ hours on a 4 cell battery is pretty damn impressive. I have a 6 cell in my T60 and I can barely get 3+ hours.

Scott

 

Nice review, I own a t61p, and also have the creaks in the palm rest, in fact everyone does. I don't think it is a defect but rather the way the plastic fits over the roll cage, and it leaves space in between. I'm not sure about the noises coming from the side of the screen though.

 

Thanks for the review.

I assume you have not used a ThinkPad before, considering that you expected hard plastic coating on the lid? The soft rubber matte coating is one of the ThinkPad trademarks.

I don't agree with you in certain areas. For example when it comes to the finger and palm prints. Compared to many other notebooks you definitely will not get as noticeable prints. Just try and grab some of those mainstream glossy or smooth surface notebooks often found today and compare that to your R61.

A comment regarding the brightness. You can indeed have full brightness when on battery. However not by default. You need to make a simple change in the BIOS settings.

 

Thanks for the review. By the way, what takes you so long?
Hoho thang Nam kia bo la Linh day lol
But you didn't say anything else about the screen. Is it still cracking?

 

I wouldnt say the IBM or Lenovos I have owned show poor build quality and parts dont fit properly? Have you tried an Acer? Creaks like an old wooden house.

 

Hi all.

Thanks for the acknowledgments.

@scoot1212: I must admit, while you can achieve 3h+ on this, its quite a pain in the but. All I did was type in the dark, so everything was tuned to minimum, including the screen. Even then opening a document showed considerable lagging. Under more normal circumstances, 2h15 maybe more reasonable.

@JabbaJabba:True. I've never owned a Thinkpad before so I didn't know every details of its aesthetic, but I never expected for fingerprints to show up so much. However, you're right, it's still better than other mainstreams.

@others: I've checked out thinkpads in person before, and none of them showed creaking on the screen bezel. I think I just got a defective unit. Anyway, I still got warranty on my side. Now what the hell is "my screen is creaking" in spanish

@crappyGPU: dcm co chut tien chi vao cai grado roi ha ha.

 

Or Toshibas for that matter, at least their low end best buy deal ones.

I personally think that thinkpads have gotten progressively better. My school had a laptop program with thinkpads. The first one was an R31 with a celeron 700 (just insanely slow). Two years later I got an r40, which would have been great, except that it had a mobile P4 (furnace on my lap).

This one I bought myself; an R61 with a pentium dual core (core2 based), and it's been the best of them. Not real high end, but great for $700.

I haven't really been noticing a lot of the same problems. Ironically enough, pushing on the palm rest makes no sound, and the frame on my monitor is pretty solid. There's a spot on the left side where if I push it just such, it will make a click, but that might have gotten seated more in the process of doing that. It seems to be harder (almost impossible) to replicate now though.

My complaints have been that it drops my wireless connection intermittently (with my R40 sitting right next to it doing just fine) and I'm missing a screw out of the bottom. What's up with that!? Also, I notice the same thing with the left latch being a little more loose now that it was pointed out.

Sadly, I think for tkkg it might have been a really unlucky build.

 

Poor build quality !!! wow, never heard that from any reviews of Thinkpads.

 

Heh, on the left side of my R61i the bezel also creaks but i dont really care since i never touch it there...

 

After not having experienced the R61 for about a month, I went to a local retailer today and played around with the R61 once again. This time I checked for some of the things mentioned in the review. The build quality was excellent and after putting quite some pressure on the bezel on the left side, there was no creaking at all. So it seems there are differences in build quality - unfortunately.

On a sidenote: I looked at the finish of the rubber matter coating of the lid. It felt slightly different than that of my ThinkPad X61. Slightly more hard and there were no sparkling particles in the finish (maybe they had been worn off). Don't know if that makes a difference, but maybe Lenovo uses slightly different materials (or less of it) on the R-series which is supposed to be their cost efficient lineup.

 

just to add another perspective on battery life, I get about 5 hours and 15 minutes on mine, but thats because of the 9 cell batt. its a trade off though because it sticks out

t61 t7300
9 cell battery
14.1 sxga+
2 gig ram
100gb 7200rpm

 

The 4-cell battery must be half space filler.

 

I'd say for 4 cell battery with core 2 duo it's exceptional

 

This is not true. Not everyone has a creaky palm rest; I am applying about 10 lbs of pressure on my palm rest and squeezing the screen bezel and no creak or crack noise can be heard. The reviewer just had a little build deficiency is all.

 

My R61 was a total piece of junk! I just bought it two months ago and I only had problems since. The 80GB hard-disk was bad - it showed 85-90% full with only vista and office installed!! It was freezing, booting very slow and running way below performance. They sent me a new hard-disk in two days - that's the only positive experience so far. I replaced it myself and reinstalled all programs myself according to their instructions. Now I ran into some other problems: blue screen and restarts and then blue screen again. It still freezes. Not IBM quality at all. I asked for a new one but they told me I have to send it to their service at least 3 times before they would do that. Now I'm awaiting the box (hopefully they will burry this junk) to send it in for repairs. This has been a nerve wracking experience!

 

Hello Every one

I recently purchased a Lenovo Thinkpad R61 8932-A19 model
which is a 15.4" Lcd Version, so the build might be a little different
to the 14.1". But i also chose the lenovo thinkpad because of IBMs
great reputation on quality. When i picked up my laptop, the first thing
that i noticed was the palm rest clicking noise, it was disappointing since i
was expecting a rock solid build performance even though it was a R series.

Any how i did buy 2 of them, one for me, and one for some one else, and it seems the other one had a much better build quality, and didn't have any problems, so unlucky since the serial no are locked with each others invoice i
couldn't switch.

Since i didn't have the other one for long, i thoroughly went over my own R61 for any other disappointing things. I didn't come across the lcd clicking sound, but the lcd Build isn't superb, but strangely still rugid and stiff.

THe two peices of plastic that make up the LCD don't fit perfectly together and you get lcd and led light signals, spilling out of the lcd casing, noticeable on the side at night, but normally no.

and also the actual lcd and plastic case don't sit flush like other laptops, the
foamy tape and the plastics of the case are meant to sit quite tight and flush
for dust reasons and build qual, but for some reason there is a rather large gap between the lcd and the plastic case holding it. So that sucks as well but no biggy to me.

Any how the main reason for my post is the palm rest click, i have found a way to over come the sound, it's very easy and all you need is a normal roll of clear tape, and come scissors and a flat head to remove your palmrest
"Lenovo Thinkpad R61 Palm rest / Palmrest Clicking noise fix"
my apologies for the dodgy paint job but i think it's all you need to know

when you press against the bubbled up palmrest plastic besides the touchpad, you should notice it hitting the internal case, and in some cases it produces a clicking noise, the clicking noise comes from the forces escaping the flexing palmrest mainly from the front hinge/connection of the palmrest and case.

I fixed this by removing the palm rest first and applying small thin/long strips of sticky tape just slightly over the small rectangular holes and then pushing the tape into the holes using the flat head driver. Don't do this to the touch pad hinges, i don't think it's needed to fix the problem but if you want you can. I have a small illustration bellow, i hope this helps. And then put your palm rest on trying not to move the stick tape. Neat little trick i learnt at Apple, They are so full of tape (higher quality stuff obviously)

good luck guys
i can post more pics if you really need them


some final remarks
IBM should improve there quality control since i did notice between the 2 R61s i purchased a large enough difference in build quality. (thats not cool LENOVO, don't ruin IBM)

and to the users that hate IBM now, give them a second chance, may be try another model, i think they have a good idea on how to make a good laptop. Alot of people have bad first experiences, but you should really give ibm another shot, definitely worth it.

 

Okay, I've read this post and it just seems to be kind of ridiculous that the impression that I am, and maybe even a few other people are, getting is we have to hope and wish that we get a laptop that's built well. Usually, it seems like you have to be really unlucky to get a dud. In this case, it seems like you have to be really lucky to get a computer built the way its supposed to. What ever happened to a company consistently putting out a good product? It's funny that the more I think about it, the more I realize that I didn't start hearing a lot of these complaints until Lenovo bought the company. It seems that IBM really stood behind a good product, and Lenovo seems to be capitalizing on IBM's good name more than anything else. If I'm wrong, then somebody please tell me why I should be confident in investing my money in Lenovo, no matter what the model number. I was sure that a Thinkpad would be mine a few weeks ago, but I'm not as sure anymore. I'm really being put off by some of the reports I've been reading.

 

You're posting in a forum dedicated to laptop enthusiasts so it's only natural that you get the most demanding consumers around.

Like most things in life, you're only going to hear from the people that have an issue, since most people won't complain if they get a good product. If it's worrying you that badly, there's nothing wrong with choosing another manufacturer.

 

Thanks. I know and agree with the point that most of the things I'm going to hear are probably going to be bad since people are demanding a great product, but its still a bit disconcerting. Also, the shipping and customer service horror stories are not so much an enthusiast issue. Casual users can also find plenty of fault with the two, and I think that some of the reports have got to be from them as well.This is not the only forum that I've found complaints on either.

After months of research, I guess I've just been looking for some peace-of-mind that's hard to come by in the online community.

 

Queensland(Brisbane)

Build and Design
I purchased 2 of these, one from milton(umart) and one from 8 miles planes(umart) since milton only had one for me. The design is traditional, rough black plastic with silver metal hinges. May sound boring but feels great. The keyboard, track point, and touch pad have a great feel, capable of taking some punishment. The speakers are up firing on both sides of the keyboard, nothing special.

The quality was rock solid on 1 of the laptops but disappointing on the other. The quality control of IBM isn't as good as I expected it to be. A couple of things, the palm rest makes a small irritating click noise every time your palm comes on and off, the 2 piece's of plastic shell that hold the LCD together don't sit flush and have LCD and led light spill when looking on the side in the dark. and just recently I have noticed the left hand side of the lcd shell is not really joined together, whether it's clicked together or glued together you can run your nail along it separate the 2 pieces of shell quite easily. The lcd shell the lcd screen have a larger than normal gap between them, there is a high chance when wiping or cleaning you are actually pushing more dust into the system than removing dust from the lcd. Lastly the back of the screen has more flex than other manufacturer lcds, the out side of the screen is very strong since it's reinforced by the hard plastic shell but any section away from the edges is not as good. I did expect a bit more design thought here, but from every day handling i don't mind it.

to compensate for the lcd gap I usually use a make up brush to remove as much lcd dust as possible and trying not to push it into the lcd. And to fix the palm rest click I have posted it on a previous thread in this discussion. So there are allot of issues with my particular R61 but I’m not unhappy, I can over look the lcd shell and don't mind the light spill and gaps of the lcd since you don't really look at it all the time, how ever i was only happy after I had fixed the palm rest clicking noise.

Benchmark
PCmark05 3300 ish, I forgot the exact figure, for model number 8932A19 no changes in hard ware

My conclusion is I love my IBM r61 and do recommend it, only if you are reviewing you would notice these things.

Favorite things about the IBM
Side and rear exhaust so you can use it on your lap safely for short times

Dislikes
the Fn and Ctrl key are around the wrong way
the arrow keys could be larger

 

Unfortunately, this is on par with all of the others who have complained about the same thing. This is sorta the point I was trying to make when I posted that too many people seem to be complaining about the Lenovo laptops. Its a bit frustrating to someone who is trying to make an informed decision and, more importantly, a decision that he is hoping will be a good decision that lasts him a while.

 

All, I tried this method with the tape. I used some Scotch(3M) Photo & Document Tape, model 2002 I think. This worked like a charm! I just put the double sided tape like the diagram above. I used about 2" worth, but you really only need about an inch or so. Just place the tape on the inside of the palmrest area to cover the right palm rest, or left if needed, and have it cover that one little notch where the palmrest connects just to the right of the trackpad base. If anyone needs pics, I can post them up, but believe me, this worked.

 

Please post some photos of how-to fix the touchpad clicking issue.
Anyone figured out the high pitch noise?? Ubuntu are more succeptible than windows in this issue...Other than that 2, Great laptop for 550 euros.
T8100, 250g disk, 2g ram, 15,4", Nvidia quatro