How to buy a Thinkpad without a hard drive or RAM?

I've been looking at getting a thinkpad for a while now, and have decided on either an R52 or R51 I think. I'd like a T-series, but the price is prohibitive at this time and I don't think the added weight will be that big of a deal.

Anyway, last Friday I was looking at Lenovo's website and I found R-series notebooks selling with no hard drive or RAM for low prices. I think there was an R52 with 1.73GHz processor for $649. Personally, I would rather do this as I can go buy 1 GB of RAM for $100, and an 80gig Toshiba 5400RPM hard drive w/ 16MB cache for around $100 as well. Since last Friday I've been unable to find the links to those notebooks on IBM's website. I searched around this forum and others as well. I suppose it could have been an error on IBM's site. I e-mailed them about it earlier this week, and have yet to hear a reply. I was just curious if anyone else has seen this in the past?

 

Suppose you could call and ask.

 

Yes, Lenovo is notorius for having a confusing and out-of-date website, so calling may be your best option.

 

Yep, I figured as much. I got home too late last night from work to call them. I'll give it a shot on Monday.

 

I called Lenovo today, and sure enough the notebooks I saw were on that page in error.

So, I'm now undecided between an R52 and a T42. As I understand it, the R52 is a newer model with a newer chipset, etc. Performance-wise though, which is better? I'm not concerned about weight too much since I will be carrying it around in a bag with my school books. Primarily, I'll be using the notebook on campus. I'm a computer engineernig major, so I'll be doing some programming on it as well as your basic word processing, internet, etc. I might do a little gaming on the go, but I've got a beast of a desktop at home for that. One thing that I am concerned about is screen resolution. As I understand it, the T42 has a 1440x1000(or whatever) display, while the R52 is only 1024x768?

I have another strange question. Does anyone know if the fingerprint reader has any Linux support at all? I doubt it, but I was just curious. I really like the idea of using it in place of passwords.

 

I think the T series is a better fit if you can swing it. They are lighter and more mobile.

 

The R-series are truly horribly thick. I mean they are so thick, it looks as though it is the 80's all over again. Lenovo/IBM NEED to make them a bit like the Tecra M-series which use the same height modular drive as well.

Plus in the good old days the T's were made by IBM themselves and the R's were outsourced so the company always regardes the latter as a lesser quaity option. Now they might have the same production process though.

Go for the T-series.

 

Are you sure you aren't confusing the R-series with the G-series? Because if the R-series is horribly thick, then how would you describe the G-series? The T-series is a little more durable, though, as it uses less plastic.

 

I've found this page:

https://www-03.ibm.com/lenovo/shop/...category_code_id=24&subcategory=Y3X&instock=y

what the hell is this?
Is it possible to buy such barebone (without adding any extra stuff)? 500usd for T43 sounds nice... has anyone tried it?
I can get ram/hdd by myself...

 

Wow, I never knew these deals existed. Another reason why Lenovo should make their website more navigable. I mean, purchasing the hard drive and ram separately can save you some serious money.