[ltp] Buying a New Thinkpad

[Steven J. Owens]

On Tue, May 03, 2011 at 06:50:23PM -0400, Robert Tomsick wrote:
> On Wed, 2011-05-04 at 03:35 +0000, Steven J. Owens wrote:
> >   The only 17" screens are on the monster "portable workstation" W
> > series.  Besides those, the next biggest screens are the 15.6" 16x9
> > screens on the t520s.  These seem to be only available in 1920x1080,
> > not 1920x1200 for some reason.  They also seem to be only available in
> > LED.
> 
> That makes sense.  1920x1080 is a 16:10 aspect resolution.  1920x1080 is
> 16:9.  All current-generation T series machines use 16:9 screens.
> 
> As far as the backlighting is concerned: all of the ThinkPads use LED
> backlit-screens.  All except the X200 use TN panels.

     So, this is pretty much a non-issue then?

> >      So now we've narrowed it down to the t520.  I tend to hang onto
> > my hardware for a long time - I bought my t43p new in 2005 and am just
> > now retiring it in 2011.  Based on this, it makes sense to spend a
> > little extra up front on buffing up the CPU and memory.  It ends up
> > adding up to several hundred dollars, but amortized over how long I
> > expect to keep and use the machine, should be worth it.
> 
> I'd recommend that you upgrade the memory yourself.  It won't affect
> your warranty (unless you damage something) and it's quite easy to do.
> RAM is RAM, and doing the upgrade yourself is usually an easy way to
> save a few bucks.

     Yeah, I did it that way last time and it worked pretty well.

     One thing I forgot to mention; it's not clear to me that the t520
has space for an SSD drive.  I've seen forum postings, etc, mention
that it's possible to use the stock hard drive but add an SSD for a
swap drive, without having to jettison other hardware (e.g. we're not
talking about swapping the multiburner out for the SSD).  How do I
check on that?

-- 
Steven J. Owens
puff@darksleep.com / (412) 401-8060 cell 
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