Exit Review: IBM T60p

Keeping in line with the exit review series, I’ve written an exit review of my IBM T60p laptop, which was recently retired.

The T60p was purchased back in March 2006, right when the first dual-core mobile chips started shipping.Sony vgp-bps8 battery The IBM model number was 2623-DDU, and it featured an Intel T2500 (2GHz), 2GB RAM, 100GB 7200rpm HD, 15″ 1600×1200 LCD, 512MB ATI FireGL V5200, CDRW/DVDRW, Intel 802.11abg wireless, WWAN, Bluetooth/Modem, 1Gb Ethernet, UltraNav, Secure chip, Fingerprint reader, 9 cell Li-Ion dell xps m1330 battery, and WinXP Pro. Like most of my key gadgets, the T60p followed me everywhere around the world; I spend probably 16 hours a day with it, so it got plenty of wear and tear.

I retired my T60p because Microsoft is retiring Windows XP, and I really don’t want to downgrade to Vista (”congratulations, your new faster hardware now runs slower than ever thanks to Vista!”), so I decided to get the latest, greatest Windows XP laptop available today, and hunker down and hope it lasts me until Microsoft figures out how to get Vista right (or they realize what a terrible mistake they’ve made and bring back XP…sort of like how Intel brought out the Pentium 4 but now all the new designs are Pentium III derivatives). Or maybe before that, Linux support for all of my key apps will get so good, I can finally depart from the Windows ecosystem.vgp-bps9a/b

So the reason for getting rid of the T60p 40Y6797 isn’t because it had any functional flaw; it’s actually in fair working order, and its performance is still decent.

Here were some of my favorite features about the T60p:

Integrated Verizon EVDO. This was a life-changer; the availability of broadband wireless anywhere in the US in an integrated fashion has literally changed the way I work and live, and it has greatly increased my productivity, especially when traveling. No more searching for free hotspots! Less worry about people sniffing my wireless signal!bps10

1600 x 1200 screen. Can’t live without the pixels!

Good horsepower. Plays WoW well, although it struggled a bit with TBC expansion pack. Runs all my design software adequately.vgp-bps9

Decent battery life. On a 9-cell vgp-bps9/b battery, I get about 3.5 hours a charge. The 6-cell battery gave me about 2 hours, which is long enough for general use; typically I go around with the 6-cell battery as it’s lighter and easier to carry.

Nice keyboard. I’ve always liked the Thinkpad keyboards.

Fingerprint sensor. There’s something sexy about stroking your laptop laptop battery to log into it, even if it is a security gimmick.

TrackPoint mouse. The TrackPoint is essential for precision CAD work, and one of the reasons I can’t use a whole class of laptops that lack this feature, including Apple laptops.

Nice looking. I like the austere black slab look of the Thinkpads — the Dell and HP laptops look so cheesy and plasticky, I feel like I’m carrying around a Fisher-Price toy when I have one of those. I hate to say it, but the dell laptop battery notebooks are also getting a bit trite, and from what I’ve seen metal tends to dent, deform and scratch, whereas plastic is more resilient.

Good accessories. The AC/DC adapter was the best — compatible with every voltage in the world, auto DC adapters and those funky EmPower adapters found on some airplanes. Also there was a pretty good parallel/serial adapter provided by batteries (as well as one integrated into the minidock), which is key for embedded hardware development.

Great thermal management system. The laptop’s fan is whisper quiet, but it pumps out a lot of heat. It’s great to be able to hold your hand about five inches away and feel the heat being quietly pumped out of the laptop — a true sign of good thermal design.

Great customer support. Every one of my interactions with warranty service was positive, with the exception of talking to the guy to renew my warranty service. He was pretty clueless, but it was a moot point since I got a new laptop anyways.hp laptop battery

Solid construction. With the exception of a service-induced crack (more on that later), the T60p is in good condition. The clutch on the screen is still solid, and the hard drive is still in good condition (although it does operate noticeably slower, probably due to the bearings being degraded by years of operation in tough conditions, such as airplanes in turbulence and bumpy car rides in China).

Good uptime. My average uptime for my laptop was about two weeks without a reboot — this is through multiple sleep cycles and reconfigurations to my external dual-monitor rig, etc. The chief cause for reboots was actually windows running out of GDI resources due to application leaks.dell inspiron 1525 battery

Reasonably light and thin. I wish it were like the ultra-thin laptops, but hey, for the amount of performance I demand and the pixels I require on the LCD, this is probably the best compromise. I do keep a spare ultra-light laptop around for the times when I go on vacations to far-flung regions of the world and I can’t afford the weight of my primary laptop.However, I also had many, many problems with the T60p as well.acer laptopbattery Here are some of the more significant ones:

About a year into using the laptop, the ThinkVantage access software blew up on me, rendering my internal WiFi card useless. This was triggered when I once installed an external Wifi card for testing purposes, and the installed drivers broke some internal configuration. I tried just about everything short of wiping the OS to get my WiFi card working again, but alas, I never got it back. It’s tragic, as it’s like I had a hardware failure due to a software error. Fortunately, I have copious quantities of USB Wifi dongles laying around thanks to my work, so I just carried one of those around all the time.

The Verizon Access software is flaky. I had a little ritual for getting it to work — turn off the radio, start the app, let the app crash once, turn the radio on, start the app again, and then it works. If you started the app with the radio on it’d never figure out that there was signal. What a weird wart.batteries

The case near the trackpad cracked. This was due actually to a flawed repair job by a technician that replaced my LCD. The technician didn’t mate one of the friction-lock connectors on the keyboard bezel exactly, which created a stress point and eventually caused the panel to crack.