[ltp] T61, Lenovo quality, Linux pre-installed, alternatives

[Ben Pearre]

I'm torn.  I need a new laptop.  Thinkpads have served me well, but is
it time to move on?  To what?

I loved my R40, and I love the T41 I'm borrowing since my R40 died of
a cracked motherboard.

I love the Trackpoint, I love the keyboard (far better on the T41 than
on the R40), the screen is good, and everything works under Linux.

But it's time for a new laptop.  I've been lurking here for a while,
and reading countless horror stories of Thinkpads dying, being too hot
to touch, sucking power as if it were beer, buttons randomly not
working, of Lenovo failing to be at all useful and even being
downright hostile, of general incompetence throughout the company.  So
I wonder what many of you are wondering: is it worth it?

Does anyone know of real failure rates for recent Thinkpads?  This
list will of course provide a gloom-and-doom perspective as people
rush here for help, but the community is as strong as ever, you guys
are awesome, and the computers are still, on paper, just what I want.
I can't for the life of me decide what to do.

Also---does anyone have experience with Lenovo's Linux-preloaded
systems?  I'm not a SuSE fan so I'd probably wipe the machine and
install Debian anyway (no flamewar intended---I know Debian's quirks
and I don't know SuSE's) but buying a box with Linux preloaded means
they can't claim "we don't support Linux", and it means I'm voting
with my wallet.  Assuming they have the machine I want (do they?  It
would be the T61 with the 15.4" widescreen WSXGA+, I think).  A bad
choice?  I don't need a gaming machine.  The most demanding software I
care about is Matlab, which anything with lots of RAM can do.

What alternatives to Lenovo are there?  I've heard a couple of
isolated reports of Toshiba and Fujitsu being worthwhile, but I can't
quantify that, and they are far less popular than Lenovo.  People
complain constantly about Dell, but people constantly buy Dell, so
perhaps the complaints are only a side-effect of that popularity?  At
least Dell actually seems responsive to Linux...

If you have compared Lenovo to another brand, please share: why did
you make the decision you made?  I realise that people on this list by
and large ended up deciding to go Lenovo... please tell us why!

Many thanks for further discussion.

Cheers,
-Ben

--
Ben Pearre     http://ml.cs.colorado.edu/~ben      PGP: CFDA6CDA
Don't let Bush read your email!             http://www.gnupg.org