IBM T42 or R51

I have been lurking on this forum and searched the web for reviews on both notebooks, and I am still confused as to why I would purchase one over the other. PC World ranks the R51 above the T42, but it seems that a lot of forum members like the T42. I am buying this for my daughter for high school work. I would like to get her at least 1.5 GHz with 60 MB. We have never owned a notebook before--had an IBM desktop and now a Dell Desktop 8250. My daughter is taking some college level courses--heavy word processing, some Powerpoint and will be accessing our cable connection via a wireless connection. I was leaning towards the T42 (2379-DXU); a bit pricey since it was approaching what I paid for my Dell last year.

1) I have read that the T-42's wireless connection isn't that good. Is it the same as the R51? Should I order IBM's wireless card for the PC or get another one once I have the computer?

2)Are the 15" screens comparable between the 2 models? What is the controversy over the flexview or standard screens?

3)Daughter still uses diskettes for school--should I get a diskette drive or a Zip drive? She could copy to a cd on her notebook and then copy to a diskette on our Dell Desktop 8250.

Any help would be greatly appreciated as this is a new road for us!

 

I recently purchased the t42 (2379dxu). It had the best features for my needs with the best price. I bought the t42 online and got a good deal. As for notebooks, I prefer IBM over Dell, Gateway, and Toshiba (Have had all three). Reason? Durability. The Gateway screen fizzled on me and the Dell case began to crack after 2 years of babying. I like the T42 over the R51 because of the reviews it received from pcmag and cnet.

Regarding your question on diskettes or zip, I would say neither. Get a 256 mb usb memory pen for $36. It is small and extremely light. It should plug in to your usb (notebook and desktop) without having to install any drivers.

 

The R51 is heavier than the T42, by about a 1lb I believe. The R51 does not by default have a seperate video card, you have to pay for it and you can only get a 32MB vid card max (means graphics performance is not as good as what the T42 can do). T42 allows you to configure faster Pentium M chips than the R51. T42 allows for more memory (RAM) if you so wish to configure it. The T42 is, at the end of the day, more able to grow and be updated. But if you configure a high-end R51 it could perform just as well as a low-end T42.

The wireless card is by default an Intel built-one on both T42 and R51 unless you choose otherwise, so it's the same as 100% of the "Centrino" notebooks out there, wireless problems are usually related to specific router + card issues and not an entire line of notebooks.

Floppy disks or zip disks? yuck. If the school is still using these, I'm amazed, what can you possibly fit on those things and why not just use a USB flash drive, CD-R, or one of a million other storage options that are better than a floppy! Still, if the school is stuck using these you might want to get an external USB floppy drive -- don't buy an internal floppy drive, what a waste of space that'd be.

 

How would you compare the t42 to the Fujitsu S6210? I was told they're good, but I don't know a thing about them.

 

If you have the money, then the T42 is the way to go, but for the same price you can get a fujitsu with better specs. I would say the top two laptop brands are IBM and fujitsu, but thats just my opinion. Either way, I dont think you can go wrong.

Find fujitsu at:
www.portableone.com
www.fujitsu.com
www.newegg.com

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Fujitsu S6210: 1.6Ghz PM ~ 768MB RAM ~ 60GB 7200RPM Hard Drive
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Hi LImom, The T42 is a better notebook hands own.The reviews made at PC world, PC magazine and others are made by people who spend very little time with each machine and along with doing notebooks they review everything under the sun. Also their weighting system that they use to come up with what is best is no good at all because what may be important to one person may not be important at all to another.
The wireless is the same with all thinkpads, they use a few different wireless cards in the T42 and those same few are alos used in various models of the R51 and all other thinkpads. I personally don't see that much difference between the screens other than the flexview has a little wider viewing angle. Dump the thought of a floppy drive, just get a USB thumb drive they are more conveinent and much smaller with no moving parts.

Jack

"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security" (Ben Franklin)
http://pbase.com/joneill

 

Thanks for all the great replies; they have been very helpful. I really appreciate the info about the usb storage. Didn't know anything about it, but now I have done some research (even explained what it was to my husband after we saw one in Collateral tonight). It is a much simpler solution. I will probably order the T42 tomorrow so it will be up and running when school starts. Thanks again![ ]

 

What's the difference between the 1.7ghz 735 Pentium M, and regular one? What's this Dothan thing on the T42? Is it worth it?

 

Dothan means that it is the faster version of the pentium m processor that has a 2mb L2 cache as opposed to the banias version that has a 1mb L2 cache.

1.7 banias = 2.72 pentium 4
1.7 dothan = 2.99 pentium 4

Typically there is a high cost to get the dothan, and it is not worth it. You would do better to upgrade your RAM or harddrive.

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Fujitsu S6210: 1.6Ghz PM ~ 768MB RAM ~ 60GB 7200RPM Hard Drive
*******************************************************

 

Trying to interpret the poster's intentions, I don't see the need to buy the expensive T42 notebook for high-school work when the regular R51 would do nicely. Also, regarding the need for floppy disks, perhaps the school requires them as standards to be exchanged and used. If that is so, then the USB key will not do. Just my two cents.

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by Val

 

I agree that is more than what is needed, but I have a son 2 years behind her. My thoughts were to have daughter use the T42 for 3 years and buy her a new one for college at that time. Then give the T42 to my son for 2 years. Do you think the R51 would last 4-5 years instead of the T42? Or should I go for the less expensive R51 for 3 years and replace it at that time?

 

That's one privaleged teenager to receive
a 2379DXU. She'll get all her homework
done and be able to play the hottest games
to boot. There's some speculation that
Longhorn will require high video standards
that the R51 may not meet. The T42 also has
a stronger case (the bottom is metal) which
may contribute to its longevity. Then there's
the infamous "howling fan" issue that
plagues the R51 and "short fan" equipped T42s.
The DXU has the long, supposedly quieter fan.
Then there's the buzzing/clicking Hitachi
disk drive to contend with, which applies
to both. Bottom line is the DXU is the safest
choice but you'll pay a premium. Just to
complicate matters IBM just release the
1836H8U R51 with a 1.5ghz dothan chip and
15" Flexview for $800 less than the DXU.

 

Someone remarked ....

> totally agree an R40 or R50/51 is more than enough computer for high
> school or even any non-engineering college students. The T42 is total
> overkill in this case.

Actually I'm a profesional engineer and I've been considering both the R50/R51 series as well as the T42s for the past few weeks. In reality either of these laptops meet/exceed typical requirements for engineers. The folks who drive PCs requirements the hardest are Gamers and Video editors. Yes there are bits of modelling software which will drive any PC hard, but one can swamp even a supercomputer with these.

I really dislike silly comments like this one ...

> 1.7 banias = 2.72 pentium 4
> 1.7 dothan = 2.99 pentium 4

The Banias and Dolthan are fast, but linear comparisons are very wrong. There is no fixed factor; the ratio will vary WILDLY from benchmark to benchmark.

The architectural advantage of the Banias & Dolthan is that it brings more parallelism to a *SINGLE* threaded benchmark (which is most benchmarks). Also each has more cache which partly makes up for the VERY SLOW memory bus (currently DDR333/PC2100 is the fastest memory for Dolthan). The cache benefits all applications but moreso single threaded application (typical benchmarks).

If you have a very memory intensive application like video editting the slow memory speed of the Dolthan will make it much much slower than a P4. If you have a typical user desktop environment with a download and a browser and a game and a document reader all running at once then the P4 hyperthreading will become a big advantage and the huge cache will be less effective as the separate processes interfere and compete for cache space.

Don't get me wrong ... the Banias and Dolthan are sweet little processors for laptops, PRIMARILY because these use 21-24 watts rather than the 90-100watt power levels of a top P4 ... cooler, less space required and longer battery life. They also perform very well but are not really competitive with the P4 except in certain benchmarks.

To the question ..
I think 3 years is about the useful lifespan for a notebook. Yes they may still be functional, but too old for any but low intensity service. Please consider that 3 years ago laptops had 600-800Mhz PIII processors, 128-256MB sdram, 15-20GB disks and were running WindowsME. You can find such systems on eBay for a few hundred dollars today. Also the processor technology is again in flux and in 6 -12 months the leading processors will again be quite different than today. The improved display resolution are just starting make their way back into mainstream laptops and I doubt anyone will consider XGA resolution except in cheap laptops in three years. Also in 3 years some other interface technology will take off ... USB 3 or XYZ cards or some new killer wireless technology and the old laptop will not be able to participate.

You can't realistically upgrade the display, processor or interface technology in a laptop so laptops have a very steep rate of decline in value. They drop by something like 80% in value in 3 years ! Yes, unlike many, the IBM notebook will likely still be functional and the keycaps won't be broken off, but it will still be an old laptop worthy of retiring to low intensity use.


I'd advise you (anyone really) to avoid paying high prices for bleeding edge technology in laptops unless you really need it immediately. Never overinvest in an asset (tool) with a rapidly declining value. Yes a 2Ghz dolthan is a sweet processor, but it will be outmoded before the year is out and you'll be living with an overpriced bit of yesterdays technology for several years to come.

IMO most warrantee covered problems will occur in the first year anyway but non-covered problems of wear and abuse occur at any time. If you can't swing the replacement cost in the unlikely event of a covered problem then get the warrantee. A 5yr warrantee won't prevent your daughter from dropping the notebook or spilling a drink into it ... forcing an expensive uncovered repair or replacement.

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by LImom

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by jschunke

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by stevea

 

OK, I stand corrected. According to
the Tabook the T42 has a Magnesium
alloy top cover and carbon fiber
reinforced plastic bottom cover. It's
the T41 that has the titanium-reinforced
CFRP bottom. Nonetheless any Txx is
stronger than the ABS plastic in the
R51. We'll see about how noisy the DXU is,
since I just ordered one today (thanks
to the tax free day in MA) . Noise is
a most subjective topic. What is intolerable
to some is fine to others. I beleive some
of you are underestimating the potential
longevity of these laptops. For 90 percent
of the casual users they can be usefull for
many years. I'm just replacing my 10 year old
desktop and many software engineers at work
have 4 year old Dell inpirons that are still
capable machines.

 

The following is a recent quote from
the Windows 2004 trade show concerning
Longhorn with a DirectX 9 baseline. For
those that can afford to dump their
Thinkpads every three years please ignore
this message. Others may want to take note.

"The default Aero user experience is built
on the low-level Longhorn graphics API called
Avalon and will require a DirectX 9-compliant
3-D graphics processor with at least 32MB of
RAM and an Intel AGP 4x bus. Aero will require
a minimum resolution of 1024 x 768 (XGA),
compared with 640 x 480 (VGA) for today's Windows
versions. Last year, Microsoft announced
DirectX 7 compliance as a baseline for Longhorn,
but Hammil defended the change. "By 2006, DirectX
9 will be baseline functionality," she noted, adding
that finding DirectX 7 cards in 2 years will be
impossible, anyway. "Machines with graphics
hardware that doesn't meet this Aero bar won't
qualify for the [Designed for] Longhorn logo.""