Thoughts on the T60 wide-screen
I've had my new Lenovo T60 wide-screen (87445BU) for about a month now and I'd have to say that overall I'm very pleased. Here are some specific thoughts on my experience so far.
Performance: Great
The main reason for getting a new machine was performance. Deploying the codebase for FeedBurner locally was just starting to take too long. The new box is a 2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo with 2GB of memory and it feels nice and fast. Compiles are much quicker, Eclipse is speedy. One pleasant surprise so far has been drive performance -- I ended up getting a 5400 RPM drive so I thought I/O was going to be sluggish, but I have no complaints.
Screen: Not so great
I'm not sure what to think about the display ... it seems, well, just kind of dingy compared to the T42 display I had. Also, it's sitting right next to a 20" Dell display (giving me a 3360x1050 workspace) at work which puts the T60 display to shame. Color just seem muted and a bit washed out. I've messed around with the settings a little bit, but nothing so far has really helped all that much. I do like how much real estate you have on the 15.4" wide-screen, though, so I'm happy with that.
Upgrading from T42: Annoying
One thing that I hadn't counted on was having to update all the accessories. I had a T42, but for the T60 you need a different AC adapter and a different docking station. Also, since it's a 90W power supply, my iGo juice70 power adapter. Not really anyone's fault, just annoying.
Even with the bigger screen, it doesn't real feel any heavier or more bulky than the T42.
Niceties
There are some really cool features that I wasn't necessarily expecting. The one that surprised me most is the fingerprint scanner. I thought it was going to be worthless and stupid ... instead, I love it! I love being able to just swipe my finger to log-on whenever the machine turns on or comes out of stand-by. I totally didn't expect that.
I also like how the machine supports the Bluetooth 2.0 stack, so my bargain Bluetooth headphones work without having to use the silly adapter.
The battery life has been great, much better than it was on the T42. DVD-writer is convenient. The Access Connections app is still flaky.
That's it. I'm still a happy ThinkPad consumer. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to jump onto Vista when I cash in the little upgrade coupon. That will be the subject of a future post.