i had dell. had too many problems too count, however i can't seem to resist their bang for the buck features. on the other hand i read nothing but best about thinkpads.

im basically torn between these two systems::

IBM thinkpad t60

14.1" 1400x1050 sxga+
Intel® Core Duo processor T2400 1.83GHz
64MB ATI Mobility Radeon X1300
512 mb ram (single stick)
60 gb 7200 rpm
cd-rw/ dvd rom
6- cell battery (4 hr life standard as oppose to dell's 9 cell)
fingerprint reader
xp pro
3 year warranty

OR

Dell Inspiron E1505

15.4" SXGA+ Display with TrueLife™
Intel® Core Duo processor T2400 1.83GHz
1 gig ram
cd-rw/dvd-rw
100 gb 7200 rpm
256MB ATI MOBILITY™ RADEON® X1400
9-cell battery (upgrade)
xp home
3 year warranty


roughly the same price on both systems, possibly $100 or so more for IBM

dell adv: 40 more gigs, 512 more ram, longer lasting battery, stronger video card, dvd-rw
ibm adv: quality, security features, xp pro

screen advantage not sure...


chip in

[Edited on April 3, 2006 at 9:57 PM. Reason : adf]

4/3/2006 9:53:40 PM

I have the IBM T40p with the 14.1" sxga+ screen, 1400x1050. If this is going to be a notebook that you carry around on a daily basis rather than just leaving it sitting on a desk plugged in, I would go for the Thinkpad over the dell. The smaller screen and smaller battery means a smaller profile and it will be much lighter than most of the huge widescreen dell notebooks. And the durability of the Thinkpad is much better. You can throw it around a lot more without messing it up. You can add another 512 mb stick for relatively cheap if you need it, and upgrade the battery.

If it is going to be a desktop replacement, you may want to go for the system with more RAM, better video, and dvd-rw...but if it is going to be a computer that you carry with you, I would go with the smaller, more durable Thinkpad. just my two cents.

4/3/2006 10:09:52 PM

^ Yeah, if u want laptop to work around with in your home, go with Dell. But if you plan to bring your laptop to a lot of places, get the IBM.

I have the IBM Thinkpad X41 Tablet, never been more satisfied.

4/3/2006 10:12:32 PM

Go for the IBM.

15.4" screen is too big if you care about portability.

4/3/2006 10:13:47 PM

Quote :

"I have the IBM Thinkpad X41 Tablet, never been more satisfied."

Had the same model for a few months now and i am really happy with the performance and the overall build quality.

4/3/2006 10:23:01 PM

I just bought an X41 tablet!!! I was debating whether to wait for the X60 tablet though.

4/3/2006 10:25:54 PM

ok IBM is looking closer by the minute

4/3/2006 10:35:37 PM

IBM for sure.

i want an X series.

god damn you people

4/3/2006 10:45:14 PM

12.1" is too tiny

4/3/2006 10:55:13 PM

To be honest, I've been less than impressed with IBM notebooks lately. I realize this is totally circumstantial, but in our studio there are 3 dells and 3 ibms. All three of the IBM's have been returned for new machines at least once, one of them is on their 3rd machine.

They stall out constantly when opening documents, are loaded with ungodly amounts of junk (way more than the Dell's, amazingly) and have had far more problems.

Could just be bad mojo in here or something, but they are all pretty pissed about having paid 30-40% more money than the equivalent dell's, and gotten crappy machines

4/3/2006 11:01:36 PM

yeah thats the same story with me and dell. i had all the possible problems with my inspiron, my friends none whatsoever.

4/3/2006 11:11:09 PM

^^
What Thinkpad model are you using?

4/3/2006 11:19:16 PM

on my desk right now is a IBM T41, and a Dell D610.

I prefer the IBM hardware. Its more rugged and the keyboard is much much easier on the hands.

The dell gets hot right where you lay your wrists to type. After working for a couple hours on it, your hands are all sweaty.

The software though hands down goes to the dell. The IBM is loaded full of so much shit that you're really not sure if you should remove or not. Like the fucking Intel Wireless Manager. My god what shitty fucking software.

4/4/2006 10:51:17 AM

they are all t42's i believe, either that or t41's

4/4/2006 10:57:46 AM

They are not IBM thinkpads anymore...they are Lenovo Thinkpads, unless you bought your thinkpad before Lenovo took over production

4/4/2006 12:21:34 PM

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore?family=MacBookPro

Just get one of those. Run Windows (or whatever OS you want) in virtualization in a few weeks: http://www.macnn.com/articles/06/04/04/virtualization.software/

4/4/2006 12:33:19 PM

Thinkpads are definitely more durable than a Dell will ever be! But, like a couple people stated before ThinkPad's come with A LOT of software. It's not uncommon to have 60+ processes starting on boot with ThinkPads.

We just got in the T60, which will be our high-end model that we offer for students next year, and it had 74 processes on boot. We'll change the image around and un-install what we don't want and install some additional software so hopefully by the time we make our image it will be closer to 60 processes. 60 is still a lot (for an average user) but the T60 can handle it (2.0 GHz duo core Centrino, 1 GB of DDR2 RAM (1 stick), 128 x1400 ATI card, 100 GB HDD - it is smoking!).

4/4/2006 1:12:44 PM

Quote :

"They are not IBM thinkpads anymore...they are Lenovo Thinkpads, unless you bought your thinkpad before Lenovo took over production"

Lenovo has been producing thinkpads for ibm for several years... The manufacturer has not actually changed.

4/4/2006 2:25:36 PM

my Dell Latitude D620 is on its way.

4/4/2006 2:44:47 PM

Just bought a Dell Inspiron 6400. I upgraded the screen, it looks awesome. It's been good so far. Looks a bit flimsy though.

4/4/2006 4:00:03 PM

The thinkpads are some of the toughest laptops around, and all that annoying extra software can be removed without consequence. Some of it's actually useful even if you don't know what it does (like the shock detection stuff.)

4/4/2006 4:01:12 PM

IBM, as long as you are going with the T or X series, which uses US/japan engineering and architecture. Anything that comes out after the t60 series will have been done by Lenovo using chinese QC which you want no part of, so stay away from those (which aren't released yet anyway)

4/4/2006 7:02:57 PM

i think ill wait for the x61t

4/4/2006 7:10:42 PM

^The specs just leaked out about the x60s tablet.....but man that laptop is expensive

4/4/2006 7:33:02 PM

yeah, but i havent bought the x41t yet like i wanted

and i wont be satisfied if there is something better out when i get it

so ill just have to wait

4/4/2006 7:36:56 PM

Quote :

"IBM, as long as you are going with the T or X series, which uses US/japan engineering and architecture. Anything that comes out after the t60 series will have been done by Lenovo using chinese QC which you want no part of, so stay away from those (which aren't released yet anyway)"

Pretty sure they still have a large us engineering presence. And as I said earlier, thinkpads have been made in the same chinese factories for years already. No need to flee from the product, just read consumer reports or cnet reviews a bit more carefully than you may have before.

4/4/2006 10:01:23 PM

i'm going off info from my friend who works at IBM here, and is from China

4/4/2006 10:42:28 PM

http://www.slickdeals.net/#p7312

Apply coupon XCP90L$CZB7L4L for $664 off

Dell wins the price war.

4/5/2006 1:56:32 PM

they always do, but my dell laptop died on me within 3 years of getting it, and I had multiple problems with it over those years.

4/5/2006 5:04:47 PM

Quote :

"i'm going off info from my friend who works at IBM here, and is from China "

And I'm going off info from the campus IBM and Lenovo rep, and the IBM liason to redhat, and my dad who works at Lenovo? So what?

4/5/2006 6:37:06 PM

the thinkpads are still a solid product - the lenovo change did not effect that in any way - if it did then part of the sale wouldn't have required that the thinkpads keep the same name for a few years

oh and i work for ibm and friends with people at lenovo and ibm blah blah blah- but that's a fucking stupid reason to believe me....

[Edited on April 5, 2006 at 6:42 PM. Reason : .]

4/5/2006 6:40:29 PM

Quote :

"Dell wins the price war."

IBM/Lenovo is not in that war anyway. Not with the current offerings at least.

[Edited on April 5, 2006 at 6:52 PM. Reason : -]

4/5/2006 6:51:48 PM

T series (including T60) has been and always will be engineered in Japan. X Series is offshore. End of story.

5/2/2006 12:40:50 AM

Quote :

"Lenovo has been producing thinkpads for ibm for several years... The manufacturer has not actually changed"

false, lenovo has never been producing thinkpads before the sale

5/2/2006 12:44:44 AM

along the same lines...

http://www.thewolfweb.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=396504

oh, and the SXGA+ on my E1505 sucks ass. Everything is all blocky in internet explorer...resolution isn't as low as advertised. i'm assuming i didn't get a bad one, and its just a mediocre screen but idk.

[Edited on May 2, 2006 at 12:57 AM. Reason : ]

5/2/2006 12:56:06 AM

I love Dell

5/2/2006 1:01:37 AM

Quote :

"I just bought an X41 tablet!!! I was debating whether to wait for the X60 tablet though."

That thing owns man, I got the extended 8-cell batt with mine -- only 4 pounds. Lasts 4-5 hours with wifi on, pretty much carry it to a lot of places.

5/2/2006 2:34:45 AM

bump

I'm between a similarly equipped T60 and E1705, both right arount $1600...it's been months and I still can't fucking decide.

6/23/2006 11:52:07 AM

Quote :

"yeah, but i havent bought the x41t yet like i wanted and i wont be satisfied if there is something better out when i get it so ill just have to wait"

i went ahead a bought the x41t

now the problem is removing some of the programs that ibm loads that windows can handle

6/23/2006 12:11:33 PM

I can testify to the durability of the Thinkpad. I dropped one accidentally, about a five foot drop landing on a ceramic tile floor in an airport restroom. Corner was slightly impacted and it won't close completely right anymore, but the thing still functions with no problems whatsoever. No damage to the hard drive or any of the other sensitive internals.

6/23/2006 12:13:13 PM

bought a dell yesterday with the $750 off coupon. we shall see how it holds up. I got the 3 year do whatever the fuck you want warranty.

6/23/2006 12:28:16 PM

^^^ SOME of the programs they package are actually fairly useful. The newer lenovo versions are also less intrusive and more streamlined. I like the driver+program update utility, but other than that and the fingerprint software most of it is worthy of deletion.

If you care about customer support, check this out (it's a blog but the data comes from consumer reports):

http://jeffmatthewsisnotmakingthisup.blogspot.com/2006/05/consumer-reports-saysdell-to-miss.html

and

http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,123409,pg,7,00.asp
http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,123409,pg,9,00.asp

So as far as laptops go...

Dell reliability= roughly average
Dell service=average

Lenovo reliability=top for pc manufacturers
Lenovo service= top for pc manufacturers

If you have a consumer reports subscription you can check all that info out yourself, and if someone can find me a direct link to the data on a 3rd party site that'd be cool.

Either way though I'd recomend you wait for the sales tax holiday and save yourself about 100 bucks. The bookstore can preorder you a thinkpad and automatically charge you on the holiday if that's convenient for you. For dell you'll have to order it on that weekend to take advantage of the holiday, and unless they've improved their system this year you'll have to call customer service to get sales tax refunded. Also, I think if you buy from a kiosk you didn't have to worry about that last year.

[Edited on June 23, 2006 at 6:50 PM. Reason : ]

6/23/2006 6:30:26 PM

Quote :

"IBM thinkpad t60 14.1" 1400x1050 sxga+ Intel® Core Duo processor T2400 1.83GHz 64MB ATI Mobility Radeon X1300 512 mb ram (single stick) 60 gb 7200 rpm cd-rw/ dvd rom 6- cell battery (4 hr life standard as oppose to dell's 9 cell) fingerprint reader xp pro 3 year warranty"

LOL... that's funny, I just bought this exact system. Just upgraded from my T42p like last week. It's nice. Compared to the old Pentium M technology, Duo core makes a world of difference. My 1.83 Duo is faster than my 2.2 Pentium M. Need to upgrade memory though, 512MB is a little low for my purposes (photoshop, dreamweaver, etc...).



[Edited on June 23, 2006 at 9:38 PM. Reason : Duo Core FTW!]

6/23/2006 9:36:26 PM