[ltp] Z61p/Z61m experiences needed

[Paul Michael Reilly]

George Ruinelli wrote:
> Hello all
> 
> I want to buy a new thinkpad and doesn't know which one is the best.
> In the selection are the Z61p (UA1J6SG) and the Z61m (UA19JS{G,F,E})
> 
> The Z61m's seem to be well supported on linux, while I can't find many 
> informations about the Z61p in the www.
> 
> Because the battery longevity  and the RAM, I would prefer the Z61p.
> 
> I need dualhead support and would like to use Xgl, if possible.
> Whats with the Cam, fingerprintreader, Suspend2{Disk,RAM}, WLAN, Bluetooth and 
> else?
> Is there someone, who has experiences  with one of this thinkpads?
> Any reports would be cool.
> 
> PTW: Does someone known the differences between a "Core Duo T2500" and a "Core 
> 2 Duo T2700" processor? Wikipedia didn't help me.

I had some recent experience with Lenovo that I will share but first 
I'll answer a few of your questions:

A T2700 is a tad bit faster, something like 0.16Ghz.  I've inferred this 
from the difference between a T5500 and a T5600.  But now I've noticed 
that you actually wrote "Core Duo" and "Core 2 Duo" which are vastly 
different chips.  Core 2 being the successor and a 64 bit chip vs its 
Core predecessor which is a 32 bit chip.

I suspect you will need a proprietary driver to handle dual head, if 
that matters.  This and the other issues are distro related.  My 
experience is with Fedora (FC6 most recently on an A31p).  Suspend 
worked fine, don't know about WLAN or Bluetooth.  Fedora laptop support 
is getting better every day but is still not perfect by any stretch.

The other relevant info is that I ordered a pretty much stock Z61p on 
12/7 expecting to see it a few days later based on advice from the 
salesman.  A few days later I learned from Lenovo that it would be 
shipped 12/29.  On 12/27 I saw that the estimated ship date changed to 
12/28.  On 12/28 I saw the ship date change to 1/15.  That kind of 
jerking around was enough for me and I will not do any business with 
Lenovo ever again.  I originally wanted 4G of RAM but got talked out of 
it because it would delay shipment.

Since then I've hunted high and low and finally settled on a HP nw9440 
fwiw.  It's a 17" vs 15.4" so is more pricey but otherwise very similar. 
  And I don't have to pay the Windows tax, which is more a principle 
thing than a financial one.

Good luck with your order.

-pmr