[ltp] Purchasing New Laptop
Valient Gough
linux-thinkpad@linux-thinkpad.org
03 Jul 2003 09:55:06 -0700
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The reason the T40p has "only" a 40GB drive is because that is the
largest high-speed (5400 rpm) 2.5" drive IBM has. As you mentioned, it
also has the ATI FireGL card. Just like every performance system ever
made, you pay a premium for the extra performance.
As this is my primary development system, I was willing to pay for the
extra 3D graphics performance (I no longer miss my old SGI system). As
for drive space - that is one of the easiest things to upgrade in a
laptop, and I'm willing to give up some drive space for extra
performance. By the time I fill up a 40GB drive on my laptop, I expect
there will be drives much larger then a measly 80GB available. :-)
Also for large amounts of mass storage, I'd prefer to have a RAID array
externally, so that I'm not so concerned about the last time I made a
backup of my laptop drive. You *do* backup your 80GB laptop drive
regularly, right?
The parts that are easiest to upgrade are not going to be major issues
in the lifetime of your laptop. You can add more memory when your
favorite program can't run in 512MB anymore (the T40's support 2GB,
which was actually a selling point for me over the Dell I looked at),
and you can upgrade to a larger drive when you can't fit your favorite
subset of your MP3 collection on it anymore. But, you're probably stuck
with the screen, the processor, and the graphics. Although perhaps the
graphics card can be upgraded separately, like the internal WiFi card?
regards,
Valient
On Thu, 2003-07-03 at 06:23, Joel Ebel wrote:
> The only thing that makes a T40p a *p* is the fact that it has the
> FireGL graphics and can thus be considered a mobile workstation. All
> other differences are model differences only. Mine (2373-92U), as well
> as some other people's mentioned on this list, is almost identical to
> the T40p (2373-G1U), with one trade-off. Mine has an 80GB HD and a
> Radeon 9000 32 MB, where the G1U has only 40GB and has the FireGL 9000
> 64 MB. To me double the hard drive was much more worth it than having
> the FireGL that may be more difficult to set up. I have a bluetooth
> light and all the other features originally mentioned in this thread.
>
> Given that, the options currently available may vary greatly from time
> to time. I'm glad I got mine when I did because it went off the website
> shortly afterwards and I haven't seen one similar since. Unfortunately
> now it does nothing since my hard drive is read-only! Reminds me of
> having Dell again.
>
> The bluetooth "Combo" card is the modem and bluetooth combined on one
> card. it is unrelated to the wireless card.
>
> Joel
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The reason the T40p has "only" a 40GB drive is because that is the largest high-speed (5400 rpm) 2.5" drive IBM has. As you mentioned, it also has the ATI FireGL card. Just like every performance system ever made, you pay a premium for the extra performance. <BR>
<BR>
As this is my primary development system, I was willing to pay for the extra 3D graphics performance (I no longer miss my old SGI system). As for drive space - that is one of the easiest things to upgrade in a laptop, and I'm willing to give up some drive space for extra performance. By the time I fill up a 40GB drive on my laptop, I expect there will be drives much larger then a measly 80GB available. :-) Also for large amounts of mass storage, I'd prefer to have a RAID array externally, so that I'm not so concerned about the last time I made a backup of my laptop drive. You *do* backup your 80GB laptop drive regularly, right?<BR>
<BR>
The parts that are easiest to upgrade are not going to be major issues in the lifetime of your laptop. You can add more memory when your favorite program can't run in 512MB anymore (the T40's support 2GB, which was actually a selling point for me over the Dell I looked at), and you can upgrade to a larger drive when you can't fit your favorite subset of your MP3 collection on it anymore. But, you're probably stuck with the screen, the processor, and the graphics. Although perhaps the graphics card can be upgraded separately, like the internal WiFi card?<BR>
<BR>
regards,<BR>
Valient<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
On Thu, 2003-07-03 at 06:23, Joel Ebel wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE>
<PRE><FONT COLOR="#68151e"><I>The only thing that makes a T40p a *p* is the fact that it has the
FireGL graphics and can thus be considered a mobile workstation. All
other differences are model differences only. Mine (2373-92U), as well
as some other people's mentioned on this list, is almost identical to
the T40p (2373-G1U), with one trade-off. Mine has an 80GB HD and a
Radeon 9000 32 MB, where the G1U has only 40GB and has the FireGL 9000
64 MB. To me double the hard drive was much more worth it than having
the FireGL that may be more difficult to set up. I have a bluetooth
light and all the other features originally mentioned in this thread.
Given that, the options currently available may vary greatly from time
to time. I'm glad I got mine when I did because it went off the website
shortly afterwards and I haven't seen one similar since. Unfortunately
now it does nothing since my hard drive is read-only! Reminds me of
having Dell again.
The bluetooth "Combo" card is the modem and bluetooth combined on one
card. it is unrelated to the wireless card.
Joel</I></FONT></PRE>
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