A few pre laptop questions.

So my Lenovo ThinkPad T61p arrives on Monday and I just had a couple of quandaries.

I just bought some speakers (Logitech X-240) and was wondering if there are any programs or something that would increase the quality of sound that they will produce from my laptop.

I saw this express card sound card http://www.soundblaster.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=208&product=16642 but don't know if it's worth getting. Does anyone use one and find it better than the onbord sound?

Also the thinkvantage stuff that comes pre installed on the Lenovo's. What have you guys found useful? What have you kept or gotten rid of?

Thank for the help,

Jooooeee

 

you really only need a different soundcard if you produce music. all soundcards put out quality sound, the onboard one will be sufficient

 

Hi, if you just want nice sound coming from your laptop those speakers on their own will be fine. Unless you will be using your laptop for a hope entertainment system with surrround sound etc I don't think you will need the express sound card or anything like that. I'm sure just finding a utility that can tune base etc will be fine.

EDIT: Sorry for posting a similar sounding post by the way, we both posted at the same time.

 

Bump******

 

Based on the reviews of expansion soundcards such as the one you posted above I would highly advise against purchasing them.

They are of far lower quality than if you were to buy for example a X-Fi for your desktop computer. If you dig up real reviews rather than customer reviews you should be able to get a clear picture.

Also, don't believe the advertising when it comes to laptop expansion soundcards. They only have a minimal subset of features compared to their PCI/PCI-E counterparts seen on desktops. I believe the X-Fi one you linked has about 20% of the features that its desktop counterpart has...

 

As for the Thinkvantage software, most people only keep the power manager and the active protection system.