[ltp] Buying a T41p

[Vincent Touquet]

On Sat, Mar 27, 2004 at 04:16:07PM +1100, Cameron McCormack wrote:
>Hi everyone.
>I'm contemplating buying a notebook and at the top of my list is the
>Thinkpad T41p.  From following this list for a short while it seems
>like the Linux support for this model is quite reasonable.  I've got a
>couple of questions before I commit myself, though.  (Sorry if some of
>these aren't Linux specific.)

I just bought one some weeks ago, installed Knoppix in a hurry before
going on a business trip to LA and it works like a charm. Still need
to fully configure it and set standby etc up properly, but so far
everything is entirely to my satisfaction.

>  1. How would the 1.7GHz Pentium M compare to, say, my desktop 2.4 GHz
>     Pentium 4 machine?  At the moment I'm doing a lot of Java 2D
>     graphics development work, and I don't want it to be much slower
>     than my desktop.  I have read articles saying that the performance
>     of Centrino machines with a given processor speed are comparable to
>     P4s with a higher speed.  Is this correct?

Yes. Actually the Pentium M is a better processor design than plain P4.

>  2. What is the VGA out and S-Video out quality like?  The notebook
>     that was previously at the top of my list when I was investigating
>     these things a few months ago was an Acer Travelmate 803, and there
>     were reports of it having blurry VGA output.  I will probably be
>     using the Thinkpad with an external monitor when at home, so I'd
>     like to make sure that the image quality is good.

Didn't test those yet. The only problem I noticed in the archives is
that the VGA out doesn't support the highest resolutions the Radeon
chipset supports which is kind of odd. Can anyone confirm this ?

>  3. Does anyone know (approximately) when the next model in this T
>     series will be released?  I don't want to buy it and find out a few
>     weeks later that the next model is available at the same price as
>     the current top of the range model.

I had to wait quite a while till I could get my T41p. I don't think
that the T line will get disrupted by an entire new model soon.
The next big upgrade wil be the Dothan processor (2Mb cache instead
of 1 in the current models), but that is getting posponed by Intel
because of manufacturing issues.

>  4. For those of you running Linux on this model Thinkpad, could you
>     give me a brief list of the things that don't work properly (if
>     any)?

All works perfect for me, I don't use 3D acceleration and suspend/resume
yet though, but I don't expect huge problems in that regard.

>  5. Do IBM actually have any stores where I can have a play around with
>     one of these notebooks before I actually buy it?  I haven't seen
>     any Thinkpads in any stores that sell other notebooks.  (I'm in
>     Melbourne, Australia.)

Yep, they are called thinkpad centres. Call IBM Australia and see if
they have a centre you can get at.

best regards,

Vincent