IBM Thinkpad Notebooks

[mipra]

I'm planning to buy either a T40 or T41...anybody has any experience (bad or good) about this notebook? I'm open to any suggestion that can compete with IBM notebooks. :rolleyes:

Thanks

[lardiop Veteran]

lol.. im using an IBM A30 and A31 at the same time right now, one for work and one for Neowin :D

I work with and support IBM laptops all day at work, I think I support around 100 right now. We have had a lot of problems with little things like power inverters for the screens and dead "Deathstar" hard drives, along with a bunch of dead power bricks. I find them to be really tough things that can take almost anything you throw at them, when they dont have those things goin wrong with them

Honestly, I'd take a Toshiba any day over an IBM. I just got a 6100 Pro and a set of Tecra M10's to deploy at work and have been using one of the M10's and am absolutely loving it. I have never had to call for warrenty on anything major on a Toshiba notebook. They, imo, would be your best bet

[mipra]

  lardiop said:

lol.. im using an IBM A30 and A31 at the same time right now, one for work and one for Neowin :D

I work with and support IBM laptops all day at work, I think I support around 100 right now. We have had a lot of problems with little things like power inverters for the screens and dead "Deathstar" hard drives, along with a bunch of dead power bricks. I find them to be really tough things that can take almost anything you throw at them, when they dont have those things goin wrong with them

Honestly, I'd take a Toshiba any day over an IBM. I just got a 6100 Pro and a set of Tecra M10's to deploy at work and have been using one of the M10's and am absolutely loving it. I have never had to call for warrenty on anything major on a Toshiba notebook. They, imo, would be your best bet

Man...thanks a lot for ur honest opinion :) , I really appriciate it. I am also using a Toshiba 5205-S503 at this time....so far so good. I'm just looking for something lighter..that's it. However, I also believe ur opinion on the inverter...I used to have a lot of broken displays because of the inverter. However, my Toshiba's is so far so good though :cool: .

[mipra]

  lardiop said:

We have had a lot of problems with little things like power inverters for the screens and dead "Deathstar" hard drives, along with a bunch of dead power bricks. I find them to be

I'm just wondering.....when you said problems with the inverter.....what kind of model are u referring to?

And, the Deathstar is for the HD..right?

[BxBoy]

the IBM laptops are about the best you can get.. they can withstand almost anything you can draw at it.. it has a nice balance of power and it's not too heavy.. like the other brands..

[MegaManXcalibur]

Well I've had an experience with an IBM notebook (T series). This was simply put the worst computer I ever owned. The main problem was the computer would run for about an hour then give me the good old blue screen and when I went to restart the machine it wouldn't turn back on for at least a couple hours, and when it did turn back on it couldn't get back into Windows until I did a fully system reformat. I called IBM and they said to send it in, I did and they returned it a month later and said it didn't act up for them. When I got it back it did the exact same thing again, so I called again and they refused to look at it further since they claimed there was nothing wrong with it. It took a lot of fighting (through the Better Business Burea) but I finally got a refund for it. My advice is to avoid IBM notebooks like mideval Europeans tried to avoid the plauge. As for alternatives I really can't say to much, the only other laptop I've had is my Sony VAIO which works great, I'd suggest taking a look at a few VAIOs and see if they have anything you like. I've also heard Toshibas are suppose to be good but I've never used one so I can't really comment.

[Cowpie]

My grandpa had one, all and all very good laptop, but for the money why not just get a dell or a toshiba?

Not the best out there, but not the worst ;)

[mipra]

  MegaManXcalibur said:

Well I've had an experience with an IBM notebook (T series). This was simply put the worst computer I ever owned. The main problem was the computer would run for about an hour then give me the good old blue screen and when I went to restart the machine it wouldn't turn back on for at least a couple hours, and when it did turn back on it couldn't get back into Windows until I did a fully system reformat. I called IBM and they said to send it in, I did and they returned it a month later and said it didn't act up for them. When I got it back it did the exact same thing again, so I called again and they refused to look at it further since they claimed there was nothing wrong with it. It took a lot of fighting (through the Better Business Burea) but I finally got a refund for it. My advice is to avoid IBM notebooks like mideval Europeans tried to avoid the plauge. As for alternatives I really can't say to much, the only other laptop I've had is my Sony VAIO which works great, I'd suggest taking a look at a few VAIOs and see if they have anything you like. I've also heard Toshibas are suppose to be good but I've never used one so I can't really comment.

hell..that's one heck of a scary story...so..their support aint that really good

[cheekymonkey]

I've had a 600 series, a T20, a T23 and now a T40. The T2X machines had numerous faults... screens that kept breaking, a knackered hard drive, faults in the casing due to poor design and stress points, but so far with the T40 I've no hassles at all.

It runs bloody well, is light, but very well built: everything I want from a laptop. I've also found the Access IBM software that is built-in very useful as well.

Go get that laptop fella :D

[DataForceCMS]

Buy IBM, its the best laptop I have ever used! :D love it very much!! very stable!!

[mipra]

  DataForceCMS said:

Buy IBM, its the best laptop I have ever used! :D love it very much!! very stable!!

Stable in what term? the OS? or the machine (temperature, reliability)? :cool:

[aaron901]

  DataForceCMS said:

Buy IBM, its the best laptop I have ever used! :D love it very much!! very stable!!

the laptop is very stable? :blink:

i've never used an IBM but i think their laptop design is like the worst out there, but that's just me. i'd get something else, like Sony or Toshiba.

[BxBoy]

I'll tell you one thing about the thinkpads, the BIOS password is impossible to crack.

[mzkhadir]

I do desktop support for IBM, the company that we service uses IBM desktops and laptops, right now the company uses T30 and T40, we had some problems with T30 and the T40's. But not to the extent while I was working for IBM@Lucent. They were using T23 and the hard drives were crap, they died all the time, we never could figure out what it was, but then we figured out that IBM Rapid restore was the problem back then, because I have moved away from that account I can't say how the hardware is still doing.

[mipra]

  BxBoy said:

I'll tell you one thing about the thinkpads, the BIOS password is impossible to crack.

so as in Toshiba. Once you forget the password, u need to take the notebook the one of the authorized service center..they need to send the MB to the factory... :p

[mipra]

  mzkhadir said:

I do desktop support for IBM, the company that we service uses IBM desktops and laptops, right now the company uses T30 and T40, we had some problems with T30 and the T40's. But not to the extent while I was working for IBM@Lucent. They were using T23 and the hard drives were crap, they died all the time, we never could figure out what it was, but then we figured out that IBM Rapid restore was the problem back then, because I have moved away from that account I can't say how the hardware is still doing.

One quick question...can you tell me which part of T40 that's often died on it? :rolleyes:

[mipra]

BUMP!

[MegaManXcalibur]

  mipra said:

hell..that's one heck of a scary story...so..their support aint that really good

Neither is their hardware (maybe it was just mine that sucked, but that was enough to steer me away from IBM for the rest of my life).

[mipra]

Hi Guys..Just want to give u guys update. I finally got my T40 with Centrino 1.5. 768MB, 40gb. Well...I should say this is the best notebook I have ever had. I spent $1450 for this baby and I am just really happy with the weight and size

[BroChaos Veteran]

sports illustrated uses t40 and t41 for all the photography uploads...

[Azadre]

Say no to Gateway!

[mipra]

  BroChaos said:

sports illustrated uses t40 and t41 for all the photography uploads...

Wow...really? :rolleyes: Do u work for them or something?

[BroChaos Veteran]

no, but there was a recent article that described in detail all their setups for shooting, downloading, transferring, and editing pictures and stuff for major events (super bowl in this case).