Lenovo ThinkPad T43 2687 user reviews (Pentium M 750 1.86 GHz, 512 MB RAM, 60 GB HDD)

4.5 stars

"good for business, programmer , but screen not as good as HP widescreen" on July 19, 2005 by sixbillions

Pros: solid, good performance

Cons: multimedia function

Summary: I work for software company, and have owned more than 10 laptops so far, from old IBM Rx, Compaq Presario, Toshiba tecra M2, ASUS, Acer....honestly, I was always seduced by Compaq fancy stuff : such as widescreen, JBL audios....but Compaq always have some problems. Think about it , I have purchased more than 5 IBM before, honestly, I am bored with its "traditional" black cover for more than 12 years....My previous one is a Presario 800 ( a 3 years old machine...) Its fan keeps kicking in, and you simply see your machine going slower and slower..... I also purchased a Toshiba M2 for my customer Q1 this year, it is around 2500 dollars, but not any faster than the 1400 dollars T43 I just got this afternoon.....And I already accidentally scratched on M2 surface ( silver painted...). Forgive me, I am not a rude person, all my 2 other old IBM still do not have any scratch on their black ABS cover.....
wireless connection is also far better than M2, although both have Centrino... maybe because IBM's antenna is better...
I have been play with T43 for over 2 hours, and I did not hear any fan kicking in yet.and seems not warm at all. my previous 3 year old IBM is much warmer, but never hang because of overheat. forget about my presario 800 as described above, hangs all the time due to overheat, and fan keeps going on... M2 is good in this area, but its fan does sometimes still kick in very loudly, but it only goes for probably less than 10 seconds....
there is indeed one thing I need to complaint a bit. the multimedia function is much weaker than Compaq such as DV1000 or V2000. They both have bright view widescreen, very good if you watch DVD. I actually almost purchased Dv1000 this afternoon in a computer store... But after playing with browsers, I gave up. The widescreen (16:10) is only able to see about 2/3 of the entire width. the right 1/3 is blank.... I tried to adjust the resolution, but still no luck.... I guessed I might have more problems if I want to do powerpoint, word, or some coding on it....
so how about HP nc6000 or nc4200? I did not try too much on these HP "business" laptops, but their keyboard and case give me a very cheap feeling, and the user rating seems to be quite low although many editors give ncxxxx high ratings??

Anyway, I purchase this one mainly for business and programming, so I did not want to take a risk. I still chose T43, and although I only played it for a few hours, I can already feel its performance if fast , stable, and not hot at all....I would still choose T43 even if M2 price goes down to 1400....