£300 bargain laptop.... Tell me about the IBM T60!

mattyprice4004 · 18 May 2009 at 22:48

Looking at one of these at the moment, has anyone had any experience with them?

Seem a good, solid machine for peanuts. Has SATA and can take 2GB RAM, it's only for XP.

Thanks!

Aod · 19 May 2009 at 01:43

T60's are awesome. totally bulletproof construction.

philjohn · 19 May 2009 at 07:31

Go for it, I love my Thinkpad - just so many nice little touches (ultrabay, thinklight, liquid drain system, rollcage and the best laptop keyboard bar none).

Ev0 · 19 May 2009 at 18:32

Use these at work for our 'big' machines, nice kit.

philjohn · 19 May 2009 at 20:31

One thing, if doing a clean wipe and fresh install have a look on the Lenovo site for the recommended driver install order - some need to go on before others. Also, decide which ThinkVantage apps you really need, I only have Active Protection System (to park HDD head if jolt detected) and Power Manager (mostly for the battery charge threshold feature) running on mine.

As for driver downloads, here's the driver matrix for the T60:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-62928

Stolly · 20 May 2009 at 19:35

rover416i said:
Looking at one of these at the moment, has anyone had any experience with them?

Seem a good, solid machine for peanuts. Has SATA and can take 2GB RAM, it's only for XP.

Thanks!

£300 ? I can only see them for £600-£700 new ?

philjohn · 20 May 2009 at 22:09

Stolly said:
£300 ? I can only see them for £600-£700 new ?

T60 is a discontinued model so will be 2nd hand. The replacement is the T500/400 range which is around £1000 and up for most decent configs.

If you're looking at a new TP don't discount the R series (but definitely don't go for an SL which is an IdeaPad/3000 series in a thinkpad-esque body). The R series is slightly fatter and heavier but most of the goodies are the same (body rollcage to stop flexing, same keyboard etc.). In the states there's no point as you can normally get a similar specced T for not much more, but in europe the price differential is much larger.

cokecan · 20 May 2009 at 22:25

As above, T60's are pretty awesome. we got aload in at my last job for an IT Suite in a school, the idea was to have them in a trolley charging when not in use and a student could come and pick one up to use etc. it failed miserably with lappys not being charged etc but the laptops them selves were rock solid. out of the 30 we had, only 1 had a fault with a stick of RAM.

I'd love one if i could find one for that price

Breeny · 27 May 2009 at 22:15

Apologies for bumping this...

We use the T60/T61's and X60/X61's for work, they're pretty bomb proof! Although we do get a fair few mobo failures, overheating issues and hdd's failing. That's pretty normal stuff considering how much they're used and abused though.

You can still buy the T61 and X61...

whitecrook · 27 May 2009 at 22:47

X61 - awesome. If you can find one with a 4:3 1600x1200 screen - grab it!!

philjohn · 27 May 2009 at 22:47

Breeny said:
Apologies for bumping this...

We use the T60/T61's and X60/X61's for work, they're pretty bomb proof! Although we do get a fair few mobo failures, overheating issues and hdd's failing. That's pretty normal stuff considering how much they're used and abused though.

You can still buy the T61 and X61...

And boy are those parts costly, the chap out to replace the system board on mine took another call for an out-of-warranty mobo replacement and the part alone cost £700!

When you see these things taken apart (and put back together) you get a feeling for just why they are so very bullet-proof though.