Lenovo ThinkPad T60p PC Notebook

When I make a purchase, epinions is one of my most valuable resources for non-biased experiences and information. When I come here to research a product I read all of the reviews and the product specifications and details on other sites as well. You will find that my reviews try to focus on my personal experiences and research discoveries that I think are not easy to discover through pre-purchase research. I will also highlight any differences between actual product features and performance and what the vendor's marketing states or implies. This means that my review will not spend a lot of time on basic specifications, procedures or stock commentary that you can read in other places.

Vendor and Product Info Links
Excellent Review: http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=2663&p=16
Good Review: http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2767
Lenovo T60 Information: http://www.pc.ibm.com/us/thinkpad/3dtours/t60/demo.html

My Relevant Product Background
I am a small business owner in computer training. My laptop serves as my main business machine both on the road while training and for all business processes such as preparing courseware. My laptop needs to be reliable and able to be warrantied for business use - such as a 3 or 4 year "no fault" warranty. It must be a full desktop replacement and more - due to the software I use, it must be fast and be able to have two hard drives installed. The most intensive software I use is Photoshop and VMWare (for loading and running other operating systems on a computer). I am coming from a Toshiba Tecra 9100 (3.5 years old). In addition, since I am a trainer I use dual displays during teaching as well as at my desk for course development - so anything that helps in this area is a real plus.

My Purchase
To prepare for this purchase I also spec'ed and priced the Dell Precision M65 and the Toshiba Tecra M5. I also considered the warranties available. I have a good local provider who does both Toshiba and IBM - which eases this part of the decision for me. My priorities for this purchase were: Enhanced VMWare and Photoshop performance through Core Duo and more than 1 GB of RAM (VMWare and Photoshop are dual-processor aware), 14" screen with high resolution graphics to keep the unit small, but graphics capabilities high, Video memory / adapter capable of supporting Windows Vista (in beta), Gigabit ethernet and USB 2.0 for fast external hard drive access.

I was able to use the IBM Employee Purchase program through a referral from a friend who works there. It is quite easy to get if you know someone who works there and the odd thing is that once you are referred, it appears that you can refer someone else! HOWEVER, read the fine print - there are NO returns. I am sure that depending on your state laws you could still return the unit with some hassles, but it wouldn't be the Walmart return experience offered with the full pricing. This way I saved about $600 and this brought this price in line (or beat) the other two vendors. IBM's memory upgrade to 1.5 GBytes was a STEAL compared to the other vendors. I actually was planning on buying memory separate when working with the other vendors, but IBM made it worth my while to buy it bundled. Getting 2GB, on the other hand, was very expensive. In addition, the actual order that came to me in email outlined a 30 day return policy and made no mention of the employee purchase program (aka EPP).

With the laptop I also purchased the four year, no fault, next business day onsite warranty - very wise idea if you are spending this kind of money on a laptop and depend on it in any serious way - I have always done this on my previous Toshiba laptops and always had to use it - maybe these IBMs are so good I won't have to use it! :)

I also purchased the "Advanced Mini-Dock" (250410U) which greatly, greatly simplifies cable management if you have a primary desk location you work at with many attachments. And I purchased a Hard drive adapter for the Ultra-Bay (40Y8725) as well as an extra 9 cell battery (40Y6797).

Since I could not purchase it as a system option I also immediately purchased a 7200 RPM Seagate 2.5" SATA hard drive. One of the bummers of the newest crop of laptops is they all use SATA hard drives. I had two 7200 RPM ATA drives (aka Parallel ATA or PATA) that I could not use on this laptop. If you purchase a hard drive upgrade for this laptop, please becareful to order the right technology or you will be disappointed. After reading a this review => (http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2006q1/mobile-hdds/index.x?pg=1) I decided on the 2.5IN Seagate 100 GB 7200 RPM SATA hard drive and bought it at buy.com for $186 (http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=201658132). I benchmarked before and after the 7200 RPM hard drive and the benchmark reported a 50% gain in write performance and close to that in read - I also notice a big difference in system operation. See below for general guidance on how to accomplish this upgrade. It doesn't make any sense to me to have a dual processor, lots of ram and then hamstring it with a 5400 RPM drive.

I see now that on the Lenovo site you can order the laptop with a 7200 RPM 100 GB drive (not the employee program site) - it's worth it!

The laptop shipped 1 week before it's estimated 4 week shipment date.

I know there are many possible configurations of the T60, so here is my configuration details:
Processor: Intel Core Duo processor T2500 (2GHz, 2MB L2, 667MHz FSB) (Standard)
Display type: 14.1 inch SXGA+ (1400x1050) TFT (Standard)
Memory: 512MB PC2-5300 CL5 NP DDR2 SDRAM SODIMM
Memory: 1GBMB PC2-5300 CL5 NP DDR2 SDRAM SODIMM
Graphics: 128MB ATI Radeon X1400 (Standard)
Hard drive: 100 GB 5400 rpm SATA Hard Drive
Optical device: ThinkPad 4x Max DVD Recordable Dual Layer Ultrabay Slim Drive
Integrated data/fax modem: 56K V.92 Designed Modem (Standard)
Integrated Ethernet: Integrated Gigabit Ethernet (Standard)
Integrated WiFi wireless LAN: Wi-Fi wireless upgradable and Bluetooth (Standard)
Integrated WiFi wireless LAN adapters: Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Mini-PCI Express Adapter
Integrated wireless WAN: Verizon Sierra CDMA2000 (Standard)
Battery: ThinkPad 9 Cell Li-Ion Battery 40Y6798
USB ports: 3 USB 2.0 (back) (Standard)
Security: Embedded Security Subsystem 2.0 and Integrated fingerprint reader (Standard)

Hidden Gems and Extras
I discovered some cool things about the laptop AFTER buying it that I could not reasonably determine before purchasing. For instance, I had wondered if the DVI (digital video for LCD monitors) port on the docking station could be used along with the laptop LCD for dual-screen mode. It turns out you can do this and you can also do the external VGA port and DVI together for dual screen! You cannot do tripple monitors with the laptop LCD and both external video ports. I also wondered if Intels new chip extensions for virtualization would be available on Core Duo machines that were available this early - good news it's on this laptop! Right now the only commercial virtualization product that has support for them (experimental support) is VMWare's free VMServer product (http://www.vmware.com/products/server/), but I am pretty sure this support will eventually work it's way into VMWare Workstation.

UPDATE: Even though the graphics card has 128 MB of RAM, many utilities report 512 MB. This is because the laptop has a PCIe bus which allows the video card to share some of the system memory - another good reason to get a good memory upgrade when you purchase this laptop.

Lenovo's built in hardware management agents are also surprisingly useful and feature rich. I generally ignore these type of add-ons unless the system forces me to use them. Their display management software (Presentation Manager) allows many profiles to be setup for presenting, dual-screens at your desk as well as setting different resolutions for each display for each profile and controlling whether the secondary display mirrors your desktop or extends it. Most of these options are available in the Display applet in the control panel of Windows XP, but the software allows quick access to a set of profiles that configure everything with one selection. It also automatically switches to a specific profile upon dock / undock. I also run "UltraMon" (http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/) for some other features it has - but the Lenovo software is surprisingly functional. Also the ATI Hydravision software provides many functions similar to Ultramon (remembering which monitor an application appears on, configuring an application to come up automatically on a specific display, etc.). Hydravision also has one VERY handy feature for training - forcing an applications pop-up dialog boxes to appear on the monitor where the application is currently displaying - it can be a real pain to constantly drag these over to the secondary monitor.

Lenovo's built in connection management software is similiarly useful allowing profiles to be set for both built-in wireless technologies (Wireless G and Verizon cellular data network). It also allows specific profiles to be setup for dock / undock. You can even tell it to find the "best connection" and give it a list of wired and wireless options and it will figure out which one to choose based on your ordered priority list.

Lenovo's docking / hot swapping utility is good as well. Also, it seems like using the Windows applet to hot swap peripherals does not work well - I'm not sure, but I suspect this is because the Lenovo one is installed and is the preferred method to stop hot swappable peripherals.

Lenovo's built in updating programs work well too - the software installer installed over ten updates with no reboots and no hitches.

I didn't really give much weight to the special Lenovo reliability and security features when making my decision, but they have grown on me. The Active Protection System shuts down the hard drive when excessive movement is detected. I wondered how I would really know if it worked - but there is a realtime monitor that shows whether the machine is being jolted or moved. It even detects when I rap the table the laptop is sitting on. It is also setup to ignore repeated movements typical of train travel or car transportation so that your hard drive isn't shutdown all the time in these situations - this can be turned off if desired.

The liquid resistant keyboard is growing on me - although thankfully not by actual experience. I am always closing the lid of my laptop when stewardesses hand a drink to other passengers in my isle because I know one slip and my laptop is toast - I will still do this, but I do breathe easier knowing it can sustain a reasonable spill.

The internal roll cage is also growing on me since my laptop position in my travelling bag puts a lot of weight on it when stowed in the overhead bin on airplanes.

The finger print scanner is cool and it works well - but I can't bring myself to make it the only way to login (no more passwords) in case the scanner malfunctions. The scanner does seem a little slow to respond during startup as well - which makes keying the password a quicker way to get in.

I have been relatively impressed with the 9 cell battery life - getting 2.75-3.25 hours while using WiFi. Lenovo also has battery life management software that can be set to maximize battery life by not constantly recharging to 100% when the battery has only been moderately depleated.

Tips and Advice
I found the Advanced Mini Dock to be the same as Toshiba's regular dock - unless you need peripherals at the desk that you don't take on the road (e.g. extra optical or hard drive), don't bother with the regular advanced dock. On the advanced mini you get a DVI port, serial port, parallel port, 4 USB ports, (plus the T60's other 3 are still accessible), one PS/2 port as well as Ethernet, Phone, VGA video, speaker and microphone ports.

Coming from the Toshiba Tecra 9100 I lost a firewire port as well as the parallel port (no biggie) and the serial port - which I did use for GPS plug-in for on the road navigation. I purchased a USB to serial adapter cable at buy.com and my GPS works fine with it. The loss of firewire is somewhat offset by USB 2.0 - however for sustained performance on hard drive access firewire is still a better performer than USB 2.0 (like when using virtual machines installed on external drives). I already had a firewire PC Card - so I can use that if I get in a pinch.

Dislikes
The display seems to have blocky artifacts in color gradients (gradual shift from one color to another) in 16 bit color mode and even in 32 bit color mode they can seen on certain colors at a below normal viewing angle (looking up toward the display), but not at above normal viewing angles. I never had this on my Tecra 9100 lcd panel which has the same resolution and much, much lower end video hardware. I am keeping an eye on this.

UPDATE: I have found one slight horizontal ghosting artifact. When i am editing in powerpoint and I am click the main slide area to enter content, the content area is highlighted with a square hashed border (made of tiny characters like the forward slash "/////"). For the horizontal lines only, this hashed border extends from edge to edge on the LCD - it is extremely difficult to see unless you get right up to the panel. I have not adjusted any of the seemly 100's of ATI graphics card settings to try to fix this because I wouldn't know where to start and it's not that bothersome.

UPDATE COLOR CALIBRATION: I have color calibrated the LCD panel and my external monitor with the Spyder2 device and software and I like the results! Here are a couple tips: *) I believe the ATI Radeon X1400 has dual LUTs (color look up tables) required to support different color profiles for each monitor - I currently have a support incident in with them to confirm. *) You can calibrate and support both monitors without buying Colovisions SpyderPro (can use Express or Suite instead). Colorvision advertises that you can only do this with their PRO product and further claims Windows cannot support separate color profiles for multiple monitors in any case. Here's how you do it. Profile each display individually (while sending the laptop video output to just the LCD panel and then just the external monitor). Use Colorvision's "Profile Chooser" to setup the profiles. This utility is confusing because it does not SHOW you the currently applied profile. It always pops up on both monitors with the first profile select, no matter what is currently applied. However, by misapplying the two color profiles on the opposite monitor you can see that it is individually applying and retaining the color profile selected on each monitor. It seems like they took the ability to Profile two monitors in the same profiling session out of the non-pro software, but once you successfully build two profiles the chooser will allow you to apply them independently. Also Microsoft's new XP Color Control Panel Applet appears to work fine to apply separate profiles to two displays. You can download it at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/colorcontrol.mspx

A couple minor annoyances with the external VGA port - when the laptop is in dual display mode and I close the lid, it switches the external monitor to mirror the laptop panel, rather than be a desktop extension. I have no idea why. I have the power management setting for closing the lid set to "None" (rather than the default of "standby"). Also the Presentation Manager software has been having trouble switching the refresh rate on the external video port when switching to a dual-monitor, extended desktop configuration - it fails and falls back to monitor mirroring again. It can then be changed using the Windows Display applet with no problem. Occasionally it will unexpectedly make the external monitor the primary monitor and the laptop LCD the secondary (a feature I have always wanted - but it does not seem to be occurring according to any Presentation Manager profile)

The 9 cell battery sticks 1 inch along all but 3" inches of the length of the back of the laptop. I think this will mean I will put it in the bag face down so it does not sit crooked and possibly impact a corner more if dropped. I don't know what the 6 cell looks like since I have two 9's.

The wireless antenna for verizon sticks out about 1/4 inch along the right side of the monitor. It is fairly sturdy, but like any protrusion it has to be kept in mind when stowing the laptop. This can be seen in the Anandtech review above.

The hard drive bay adapter has no cover - you can see the top of the drive. The drive seems secure, but if you travel with it out of the laptop you should definitely look for a case to carry it in. Samsonite makes a line of CD holders called AXS that make a perfect case for laptop swappable internal drives.

The DVD seems to have occasional issues. So far - taking a long time to open after pressing the eject button and remaining in internet explorer after being ejected with the Lenovo utility. I am keeping an eye on it - but I'm not too concerned. I haven't burned anything with the drive yet, but I don't have a lot of need to do that normally.

My KVM switch setup started malfunctioning with the T60. Since there is only one PS/2 port on the docking station it was necessary to use a PS/2 Y cable to merge the mouse and keyboard PS/2 connectors coming from the KVM. I noticed the latest BIOS upgrade fixed this and I downloaded and applied it and it helped, however, the mouse sync is still off. When the mouse is left alone for about 1/4 second is stops responding. About 1-2 seconds of moving it brings it back again - but that gets old very quick. The same PS/2 mouse and keyboard and Y cable work fine when directly connected to the docking station PS/2 port - so it seems to be the KVM itself or the combination of connections (this mouse also has a USB to PS/2 converter on the way INTO the KVM switch. To attempt to resolve this I have ordered a PS/2 Y cable which goes into a USB cable to connect to the docking station. I will post an update if this fixes the issue. I am hoping the translation to USB will resolve the issue.

Support Experiences
Compared to Toshiba's support I found Lenovo's website easy to navigate, their built-in updates software comprehensive and it updated 10 programs with no reboots and no problems. I have done one technical support call and found the phone to be answered within 5 minutes and all my questions were answered.

Hard Drive Upgrade Procedure (VERY TECHNICAL)
At the time I purchased, only 5400 RPM laptop drives were available. (Toshiba allows you to configure 7200 RPM by the way). I found the performance of this drive very worth it. If you decide to do this, either buy the drive new with the system or also purchase a Serial ATA Hard Drive Bay Adapter to make upgrading a used system easier. FYI - the Lenovo Parallel Serial Drive Bay Adapter adds a parallel and serial port to the laptop IT IS NOT for a Parallel ATA hard drive (current laptop hard drive technology).

Hard drive upgrade procedure:
The Lenovo does not come with recovery CDs (most laptops do not), but does allow you to create them. BEFORE you remove the old drive you must create the recovery CDs. Click "Start / All Programs / ThinkVantage / Create Recovery Media" On the first screen under "Recovery Discs" click "Create a set of Product Recovery discs now" I made all CDs, but a note next to this menu option implies you can use a CD for the first disc and DVDs for the remaining content (if you have a DVD burner on your unit). There are seven CDs (numbered "Startup" through Disk 6) so the DVD option might be nice to prevent too much disk swapping.

The disks that this generates will install the base build and associated software (cd burning, Lenovo agents, etc.) If you purchased bundled software I was told by support that your laptop should come with CDs and license codes for the additional software (obviously I didn't buy any bundled software).

Once these disks are made you can remove the old hard drive (and optionally place it in the hard drive adapter if you received one) and install the new one. I do not have space here to describe this process but the manual that comes with the drive bay adapter describes it with pictures! I could not locate a respectable 2.5" SATA to USB hard drive enclosure - so the IBM option is the easiest option at this point. The IBM adapter does not require any additional hardware to mount.

If you have a docking station, take your laptop out of the docking station for the rebuild as this is how the original build would have been done. The Lenovo restore CDs are NOT an image, which means that the restore process has many steps and many reboots - but it was fully automatic when I did it.

If you need to retrieve data off the old drive, you can swap out the optical drive for the hard drive and copy any needed files.

Recommended:
Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 2133
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Other
Processor speed: over 1000
Screen Size: 14 inches
RAM: More than 256
Internal Storage: CD-RW and DVD
Hard Drive (GB): Over 50