Many people find laptop shopping to be a bit of a chore. In previous years, the selections available would always leave one wanting more. This has changed in 2003 with Apple, Compaq, Dell, Toshiba, and IBM all producing svelte yet powerful laptops, making the past dreams of a true desktop replacement a reality.
Excellent battery life usually is near the top of any list of must-have laptop features, with a good warranty a close second. My previous laptop had been a Gateway Solo 2500 which gave me about 3 hours of battery life when I first purchased it. The Solo 2500 also had a great warranty (which came in handy one more than one occasion). So with these requirements in mind, it was time to score a new portable. When the dust settled there was one laptop still standing: The IBM ThinkPad T40 Series. After reading about the prowess of its Pentium M CPU and excellent battery life, we were excited about buying ours and digging in.
The laptop
We decided ultimately on the T40 2373-91u. The full specs on the machine are as follows:
- Pentium M 1.6 Ghz
- 512 MB PC2100 DDR
- Hitachi Deskstar 80GB, 4200rpm
- 14.1" SXGA (1400x1050)
- ATI Radeon Mobility 9000 / 32 Meg
- Intel Pro1000 gigabit Ethernet chipset
- 56k V.92 modem
- DVD/CD-RW
Usually the first remark you hear about the T40 is that it is built like a tank. Indeed, the rumors are true. While it is not completely indestructible, I have no fears about my T40 getting damaged in any minor calamity. While the lid gives a little when twisted, its magnesium alloy construction makes it nowhere near as malleable as the plastic on most laptops. The lid is attached to the base with two large metal hinges, and it would take a lot to break them off. The lid is also designed so its edges come around the base a little when it is closed. This provides a little more assurance against injury when you throw it in your bag.
All T40 models have dual USB 2.0 ports, S-video out, dual PCMCIA ports, and a parallel port. I would have loved to have seen FireWire standard on this notebook, but I don't think the omission is anywhere near being a deal breaker. The other drawback to the T40 is that only one of the memory slots is user-accessible. So you might want to max out the base RAM when ordering.
As far as software goes, the T40 is light in that department. The laptop comes preinstalled with Windows XP SP1, Norton A/V (Trialware), IBM recordnow (a.k.a., Stomp Recordnow), and Acrobat Reader. Most of the other applications IBM included basically duplicate the functionality of other programs. One example is the IBM Update Connector, which updates drivers and IBM software. We could not think of a reason to use this instead of Windows Update. Another odd inclusion is IBM Access Support. This software includes a handful of diagnostics and troubleshooters for the computer, which do about the same thing as the troubleshooters in Windows Help. In general, Windows comes with better software to do the same things all of the IBM software does. Fortunately, you are in no way forced to use any of these utilities. At least IBM does not load the system with apps that just waste away in the system tray.
There was no media packaged with the laptop, so in the case of total hard drive disaster, you are required to call IBM. What you get instead is a restore partition on the hard drive. This makes it easier for a large company to deploy their own images for easy restoring, but to the average user it means you pay for 6GB of disk space you can't use without reformatting. It also means that if you have a hard drive failure, you will be SOL. Fortunately, IBM will speedily send you a restore CD if you request one from tech support, or will send you a new hard drive if it is completely unusable. It would be nice if you could request to have it shipped with the computer.
One of the things to keep in mind about the ibm thinkpad t40 series t40 series is that it is designed in many ways for being deployed in droves across a large business. Features like Access IBM are more useful to large IT departments than to individuals who just want a laptop.
The ThinkPad comes with a standard three-year limited warranty, with a one-year warranty on the battery; pretty much standard issue. If you so desire, a more comprehensive warranty is available, which provides for next-day on-site repair. Past experience with the IBM warranty department has been pretty good, they are very hands-off, no off-base questions asked.
