New Laptop – Lenovo T61

I just got my new laptop yesterday, thought I’d post some quick news about it. It’s a new Lenovo T61, 14.1" WXGA+, 2GHz Core 2 Duo, Nvidia Quadro NVS 140M, 1GB RAM, and 120GB HDD.

• Lenovo T61
• 14.1" WXGA+ (1440×900)
• 2GHz T7300 Core 2 Duo
• 1GB PC2-5300 DDR2
• nVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M
• 120GB 5400RPM HDD
• DVD±RW
• Intel 4965ABGN Wireless + Bluetooth
• PC Card + Express Card
• 6 Cell Battery
• Windows Vista Business (For now, Ubuntu 7.04 soon)

I got it from PC Connection. 4 blue screens (Yay Vista!) so far, but other than that I’m liking it. I don’t have any issues with the battery sticking out of the back, and prefer that over the Dell’s with the battery in the front.

The LCD is great, plenty bright for me, I even turned the brightness down a little. I don’t even notice the offset LCD, not sure why everyone has been making a big deal out of it. There is a little light leakage at the bottom, but I could only tell when it was completely dark in the room and an all black screen.

The keyboard is great, like always. Love having the trackpoint, much better than a touchpad.

Speakers are good for a business oriented laptop, just watching YouTube and Joost, it sounds good enough. I’ll be using headphones most of the time anyway, plugged in my Sennheiser HD595s and everything sounded great as expected. My Razer M100 Pro|Tone earbuds sounded great as well.

Power is good for me, much better than my last laptop (4 year old Sager 5670), watched Joost while browsing the web and installing new programs for about 1.5 hours, then the low battery came on at 10% remaining, this was on the Default power config. Should be able to watch a DVD with wireless turned off and a more battery friendly power plan.

Haven’t tried Linux on it yet, going to pop in a LiveCD sometime just to see how well that works, I’ll probably wait until Intel releases the 4965 drivers. I need a Windows machine anyways for a router sim program.

I haven’t tried any gaming yet, I’ll probably put CS on it to see how well it plays, I’ve got a dedicated gaming rig already, so I’ll probably put a good RTS on this to pass the time while traveliing.

I’ll try to sit down and do a more indepth review, but so far it was a great choice. If you are looking for a nice lightweight laptop that you won’t need for gaming, be sure to check it out.

Tags: laptop, lenovo, review, thinkpad