I
have always liked the IBM/Lenovo Think Pad line of laptops. They are
not flashy, but they are build solidly and it is easy to obtain the
manuals for them to replace or upgrade parts should the need arise.
The T61p I have has the convenience of a Think-Light that allows you
to see the keyboard in low light situations, and a fingerprint reader
for added security and convenience. The unit I have has the 1920x1200
resolution panel in 15.6' size, and the Core2Duo processor at 2.2Ghz.
This technology comes at a price though, so to save considerable
money, I went to the off-lease segment to obtain one.
I
got this unit off a seller on Ebay for $500. It was less than 2 years
old at the time of purchase, and it was still under the Lenovo
warranty. The seller had plenty of pictures of the actual product, so
I was confident in buying this unit. Other than some slight keyboard
wear from use, there are no visible scratches or other imperfections
anywhere on the unit. The screen has no blemishes or dead pixels, and
everything works fine. But not being one to settle for good enough, I
set out to make the machine into exactly what I wanted.
The
first thing I upgraded was the hard drive. I purchased a 640GB
7200RPM unit for $65 on a special promotion. At the same time I
upgraded the installed RAM from 2 to 4GB for an additional $54. Since
the unit was under warranty, I was able to obtain the factory
recovery disks for Windows Vista Ultimate from Lenovo at no cost. I
partitioned the drive 120GB for Windows, 100GB for Linux, and the
remainder I formated as storage for both operating systems to access.
I installed Windows first, then Ubuntu 10.10, and I have a dual-boot
machine that allows me to choose either Windows or Linux at startup.
My
Linux install works very well. I had to do some modifications to get
the volume up/down buttons on the Lenovo to echo on the screen, but
that was very simple to do via the command line. The other functions
invoked by “FN” worked just fine. Also my computer hibernates
properly when the lid is shut on the Linux side. I use Samba to
access my Windows shares on my other computers. I was able to install
and use a wireless Epson printer/scanner in Linux with a simple
driver download. Windows of course works as it did from the factory,
as I used the Lenovo image to install it. Both operating systems have
no problem accessing the storage partition I created. I am very
pleased with this machine, and I use it more than any other laptop I
have.
So
for $619, I have a Think Pad with 4GB RAM and 640GB of storage and
1920x1200 resolution. That price is significantly less than the cost
of a new one, and I have a dual-boot machine for the price. It was
very easy to upgrade parts in this machine, and it has been working
just fine for over a year now.
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