A Reminder of Why I Bought a T43

I was on a road trip 600 miles from home and I was at a Hosses and I plugged my laptop in the wall outlet, I left the laptop at the edge of the table and one of the waiters tripped over the wire. Not only did the laptop fall to the ground due to gravity, the wire was still tangled on the waiter's foot and he pulled it downwards while he tripped.

It hit the ground with a loud bang and half the resturaunt turned around. The laptop had landed on the right corner attaching the screen. I thought i might have chipped on edge or something and I go examine it. Not a scratch, dent, or chip on the laptop. T43 may be made out of plastic but it is a tank. However, the DVD drive was broken because the drive was open at the time of the accident. The keyboard and a the down button popped out but I just pushed it back in and everything works fine. I got another DVD drive on ebay and everything is back to before.

I must say it was $2000 well spent. My friend always proclaims that his MacBook is better but i'd like to see that white piece of plastic handle what my T43 can handle. Satisfied IBM customer.

 

I have a T43 sitting next to a MacBook as I type here. If I were a betting man and pushed them both off the table right now, my money would be on the T43.

Great story and anecdotal evidence!

 

what did u do to the waiter? what did the waiter do afterwards?

 

yeah, what did you do to the waiter afterwards?

 

He prolly charged him arm and leg for the labor to pop the buttons back and of coarse bought the most fancy DVDRW+-*/ QL drive there is

 

Well one thing the Macbook has over the Thinkpads... the magnetic power plug. What happened to your T43 wouldn't have happened to the Macbook.. the plug would have pulled out easily and the Macbook would still be on the table..

 

Hahaha, I was about to say the same thing.

Reminds me of when I drove off with my fiance's iBook on the roof. It finally fell off when I turned a corner. The poor thing flew off the top of the car hit the ground on one corner and cart-wheel at about 20 MPH. I felt my heart drop to my stomach as I watched the iBook do the death march in the rear view mirror. The hinge is bent but other than that it still works fine. She was a bit miffed at me the other day when I brought home the MB. I just tell her that her iBook is one of a kind.

 

plus, you could use the macbook to keep your coffee warm

 

If you like lukewarm coffee. Mine usually runs around 50C. Of course I don't sit the machine on a pillow, bed, or my lap without a passive cooler. You might have a better chance of keeping the coffee hot with a T60P.

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=25304

 

After the last bios update, they tuned everything down.. the heat near the hinge is all but gone.

 

Now now boys, relax with the pissing contest. The magnetic plug is a pretty cool idea, I know someone tripping on the cord is a concern I have sometimes. Not to go too far off topic, but does anyone have screenshots or objective measurements of a mac's temperatures before and after the bios update? While I hope it is true, the claim seems a bit dubious.

Back on topic, I'm glad I haven't had a test of my t43's strength yet, but I do love how solid it feels. Yay for thinkpads.

 

Stating what I know, doesn't make it a urination contest. I'm not a zealot about one notebook or the other. I don't own either. I *did* own the macbook pro 15 until it's harddrive went south and I returned it to them.

I *am* waiting for a T60 (June 1 til it's in-stock)...

 

yeah, why is that everytime there is a discussion about macs and pcs it always becomes a fist fight. I am not saying it has in this specific forum but I just read Abaxter's recent review on Macbook and it is pissing bullets over there.

Macs or PCs they are just tools. I don't see people getting emotional arquing whether his 2HB pencil is better than her 3HB pencil, or my Taft screw driver is a better performer than your K-Mart screw driver.

Anyways before I switch to my sexy black Thinkpad T43p I had an egually sexy black Powerbook G3. And that PB was incredibly tough.

Cheers.

 

I fail to find anything very inflammatory in this thread.

 

The waiter paid for my dinner which was about $22 and the drive cost me about 45 on ebay to buy a dvdcdrw drive. The only reason why I stress the goodness of the T43 is that it's about 1" thin and i don't think any 1" laptop is built to handle that fall. I don't think the dvd drive would have been broken if it was closed and I haven't discovered any issues that have arisen since that incident. The moral of the story is that IBM may be expensive but if ur an idiot like me and put your laptop at risk, IBM can handle bumps and bruises where other laptops would get broken bones.
I have dropped my friend's Dell Inspiron 6000 off a table of similar height and one of the LCD hinges broke off and the heatsink area was broken and exposed. He paid like $500 or some ridicules amount of 3 year complete care and they replaced it after talking to support for a few hours.

 

he he... No way a R series can handle this or can it??

 

Also dont forget about their excellent service. Whether it was something small like getting a screw kit to replace worn out screws or bigger problem like fixing a defective screen (old T30) IBM has always taken care of my problem within 3 days. Only other company Ive seen do it that quick is Apple.. but after fixing a defective hard drive somehow the iBook came back with a defective optical drive. Anyways its great not to have to treat your laptop like a fragile toy and just use it, build and service gives me peace of mind and totally worth the price. My only complaint would prob be weak GPU.

Nice story, I wouldve been pissed but I guess its hard to say anything if the thinkpad powers up.

 

Yes, they can. (I dropped my ThinkPad once or twice and it still worked).

 

The magnetic plug is indeed cool, putting asside the allegations of spontaneous combustion i've heard.

 

Actually, if it was a Macbook that fell, the DVD-RW drive wouldn't have broken either because it is a slot-fed drive. There's nothing that could be open.

 

I guess this is a good place to post this...
I decided to be nice and make my girlfriend's bed the other day. At one point, I was standing up by the head of the bed when I stepped onto some flat object, and thinking nothing of it, proceeded to put all my weight on that foot as I messed with the top of the bed, probably bouncing a bit as well.

A couple seconds into it, the thought came into my head 'hey, why don't you see what you're standing on,' and as I looked down I remembered that was where I had set my t43 the night before. I had been standing on the direct center of the screen. When I opened it up though (it was on), there was absolutely no sign of any kind of damage, no marks on the screen, just as good as new. That certainly wouldn't have been the case with my old dell.

Lessons: don't make the bed, look at what you're standing on

 

Lesson learned indeed. Next lesson, kick that girlfriend to the curb and never make another woman's bed again.

 

ROFL - I don't think she'll let em go.. he's a keeper. He's making her bed.. nuff said.