[ltp] Upgrading from IBM to Lenovo?

[Hendrik-Jan Heins]

I used to have a i240 (from before the x series).
Really good and rugged for such a small machine.

I bought a X61 as my second IBM (This one still says IBM, but I know
there are also Lenovo versions).
To be honest: I'm dissapointed:
The housing is flimsy. I already have cracks in the right and left
lower corners.
I already lost one of the closing hooks over the screen (broke off).
The battery was crap: The stock one already crapped out on me after
barely a year of use.
The extended batteries are a bit better.

The screen is not entirely rigid, and I have seen (and heard) a LOT of
issues with the fan breaking down.

All in all: I am not happy with this.
The problem is that I can not find anything "better". HP and Dell
don't always have a trackpoint, and are usually hugely expensive on
their sub notebooks, but quality wise, they don't seem any better.

The Samsung series with the ULV cpu's in there are the only ones I
have seen that are half decent.

Hendrik-Jan Heins



2011/1/7 William W. Viergever <william@viergever.net>:
> i'm long-time lurker/very infrequent poster .... i've gone from a 750c in early 90's, to a 600x, then a t42p, and now ...
>
> i've the same t61p and pretty much have the *exact* experience/observations as marius (in particular the slightly lose hinge & the eject thingie popping out)
>
> FWIW - i still don't see anything else out there better
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> William W. Viergever
> Viergever & Associates
> Health Data Analysis / Systems Design & Development
> 2920 Arden Way Suite N
> Sacramento, CA 95825
> william@viergever.net
> www.viergever.net
>  (916) 483-8398
> --------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: linux-thinkpad-admin@linux-thinkpad.org [mailto:linux-thinkpad-admin@linux-thinkpad.org] On Behalf Of Marius Gedminas
> Sent: Friday, January 07, 2011 1:35 AM
> To: linux-thinkpad@linux-thinkpad.org
> Subject: Re: [ltp] Upgrading from IBM to Lenovo?
>
> On Thu, Jan 06, 2011 at 02:19:56PM -0500, Steven J. Owens wrote:
>>      What do people think of the lenovo quality?
>  ...
>>      Durability and portability are probably my highest priorities.
>
> I've been using a Lenovo T61 for three years.  It is durable and has survived a few falls to the floor (one of which physically bent a USB connector of a wireless mouse dongle that was plugged in at the time), and 6 kg cats lying on top of it.
>
> The screen hinges are very stiff while at the same time allowing free motion of a few degrees -- this is a bit irritating, but livable, and it's been that way since day one.
>
> The ExpressCard eject pip sometimes pops out and doesn't want to be pushed back in -- the latch inside doesn't catch or something.  A few minutes of persistent pushing gets it back.
>
> A tiny piece of plastic broke off above the left USB port [1] a while ago.  It used to form a little groove and was a weak spot in the plastic.  The similar groove on the other side is solid. [2]
>
>  [1] http://www.flickr.com/photos/mgedmin/5332089953/
>  [2] http://www.flickr.com/photos/mgedmin/5332091671/
>
> The 6-cell battery was good for about 3 hours initially, now it's down to 2 .5 hours.  Here's what /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info says:
>
>    design capacity:         56160 mWh
>    last full capacity:      42720 mWh
>
> so it still has 76% of the design capacity.  Frankly, I'm surprised.  I wasn't doing anything special to increase battery life.
>
> Portability-wise, my widescreen T61 is a bit on the big and heavy side, but I don't complain.  Backpacks rule.  Also, it's not too heavy -- I can easily pick it up one-handed (which is a Bad Idea, as it flexes the motherboard and may cause laptop death).
>
> Aesthetically I was disappointed when I first saw it.  The LCD panel is not centered -- the bevel is 3x wider on the left side as on the right.
> This bugged me until I got used to it.
>
> Overall I'm very happy with my laptop, and I would buy Lenovo again.
> A T or X series ThinkPad; the rest of Lenovo range doesn't look appealing to me.
>
> Marius Gedminas
> --
> I once asked an older coworker and Solaris guru what happened with the Unix-haters list. He told me that it stopped being quite so funny once Windows NT came along.
>                -- the gnat at slashdot
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