Seeking feedback from IBM T40/T41 notebook owners...

[Keyz316]

I'm strongly considering buying an IBM T41 series notebook (type 2379DJU). From the feedback I've gathered on the web in the past few weeks, I've found the most/highest recommendations for Toshiba and IBM, "decent" reviews usually for Dell (minus their apparently abysmal tech support lately and less-sturdy design), and that most people frown on notebooks from companies such as Compaq, HP, etc (which from my past experience with those companies, I'd have to agree). I was also considering the Acer TravelMate 803 LCi (excellent specs), though its too-hot left palmrest and apparently terrible support/service made me reconsider. Also, I ruled out Toshiba only because I don't like their XGA-only screens.

Anyhow though... I have a few questions I'm hoping I can get feedback on from current IBM T40/T41 owners, since I've never actually "seen" an IBM notebook up close myself (no stores in my area seem to carry them).

1) The quality of the screen is very important to me. The notebook will be used for graphic design work (as well as audio recording) while I'm away from my home office. I've selected IBM's "14.1 inch SXGA+ (1400x1050) TFT Display" which appears to be the best they offer... if possible, can I get some feedback on the quality of this screen? Perhaps a comparison to a more-common-in-stores notebook would be best if possible (i.e. I like the SXGA screens on: the Fujitsu LifeBooks, Sony GRT 16" series, Acer TravelMate 800 series, etc).
I've also heard rumors of more people than average getting a number of dead pixels on their screens from IBM... is that rumor accurate and/or still applicable?

2) Noise level. Since I can't check for myself... is the IBM T41 quiet? I know it ought to be pretty quiet due to the Pentium-M processor, though you never know hehe (could be a bad fan choice, loud drive, etc).

3) Heat. Any bad hot-spots I should know about (i.e. hot palmrest, too hot to place on lap, etc)?

4) How's the support/service? My brother just had a nightmare of a time with his Fujitsu LifeBook (purchased at Frys Electronics - they said 6-8 weeks to fix a faulty LCD) and I'm really feeling an urge for top of the line service for my own purchase at this point haha
If I needed to send it to the service depot, about how long would it usually take?

The specs for the IBM T41 system I customized include:
Windows XP Pro, 14.1" SXGA+ (1400x1050), Pentium M 1.6GHz, 256MB RAM (plan to buy additional 512MB more cheaply through Crucial), 40GB 5400rpm, CD-RW/DVD-ROM Combo Drive, Warranty Upgrade (3 year onsite)
Price -- $2058 + tax

Anyhow, thanks in advance for your help and suggestions. Oh and of course, if you happen to know of any other excellent notebooks that closely match the specs I need, feel free to mention them.

Peace.

[hickory]

I have 2 Thinkpads currently and have owned a total of 5. They are very dependable and when there was a problem their warranty work and support staff were excellent. I will probably replace my T22 with a T40/41 eventually. My first Thinkpad I ever owned I bought in 1995 is still working it is a 385XD and my 13 year old just installed Mandrake 9.2 on it last weekend.

[Keyz316]

Thanks for the response
I decided to place my order on Saturday. I went with the IBM T41 (2379DJU) with a custom 768MB of RAM. Price after tax was $2166. I was extremely pleased with the sales/tech guy to whom I addressed my questions and then placed my order with. He really knew what he was talking about, and spoke clearly in English I have a good feeling overall that my future service/support dealings with IBM, when necessary, will all go positively. I was also pleased to learn that for repair issues, IBM will send a courier to my house to pick the notebook up (so I don't have to worry about shipping charges) - or I can drop it off myself at one of the many authorized repair places near my city.

It should arrive within a week. I'll try to remember to drop by this thread in a few weeks to post an update on how things are going.

Peace.

[PresterJohn]

the thinkpad T4X line is an excellent laptop.

i don't like ibm's desktops but their laptops are one of the most dependable brands on the market and their warranty service is impeccable. i never heard of them sending a courier to pick up repairs...i do know if you place a service call they will mail you a box if you need it.

just make sure that once you get the machine to call IBM for your recovery CD's. they stopped distributing recovery CDs w/their thinkpads around the time the T21 was released and if you wait too long, they will wind up charging you for them.

[Keyz316]

Regarding the courier pickup -- that's what the sales guy told me... though I guess who knows hehe I had asked him a number of questions regarding turnaround time on repairs and the distance of local repair depots from my home, and he mentioned the courier pickup in the process of answering my questions.
If it did end up just being a box/postage or whatever then I'd be happy enough either way, as that's above and beyond what any other company (to my knowledge) will do.

Yikes I can hardly wait to get my notebook!! lol

[PresterJohn]

oh, regarding some of your other questions:

no problems w/excessive heat or fan noise...the centrino processor runs quite cool most of the time and when the fan is running, is not loud at all. the screen is very good although i think the hp lappie screens that i saw last weekend at bestbuy looked to be a tad nicer (brighter).

imo, hp/compaq makes good quality desktops & laptops (no better or worse than dell, ibm, etc)...the trick is to buy their business line, and not their presario or pavillion brands which is really for the home or soho user. the business line also comes w/a longer warranty period.

[hickory]

Originally posted by Keyz316
Regarding the courier pickup -- that's what the sales guy told me... though I guess who knows

I can tell you for sure that they will send a courier and in my case they sent Fedex and the guy was willing to wait for me to package the laptop so he could take it with him. As long as the work was done within the warranty period I never paid a fee for shipping. I have sent laptops out on Monday and had them back by Friday of the same week.

Keep us posted on how you like it.

[mousetex]

I have a T40 model, recently I heard some sound from my laptop, but before that it doesn't make any sound at all.... iziit ok that this happen??

[hickory]

mousetex, what kind of sound was it? Was it a constant noise or did it quit and start again? How long have you had it?

let me know.....

[Keyz316]

Update::::

Well all did not go as perfectly as I had hoped, though in the end I've still come to love my ThinkPad quite a bit.
Soon after it arrived, I noticed there was 1) an odd buzzing noise coming out of the area of the USB ports, 2) an unusual ticking sound coming from the harddrive, 3) garbled noise emitted from the speakers if they are turned to 100% volume, they are fine if stepped back one notch though.

After careful troubleshooting I sent it back to IBM for repair or replacement.... they did not give any hint of knowing anything about these problems ever occurring. They replaced the motherboard and installed a BIOS update, and sent it back to me (fortunately within about 1 week).

The problems came back as soon as I received it. I dug in a bit harder in researching online, and discovered that the USB buzzing was (generally agreed to be) the result of a problem with some computers using the Intel 855 chipset - I was able to resolve it by disabling the USB Root Hub power management in Device Manager, and making a custom Power Management profile for the system (this evidently will shorten the battery charge slightly, though I haven't noticed more than a few minutes difference, if that). It's odd that IBM would allow a problem like this in their systems... hopefully they will correct if it possible with a future firmware/drive update - for the time being, the solution I found works well enough.

The harddrive clicking sound was evidently a "feature" of the Hitachi portable drives IBM now uses in many of their systems. The drive head is automatically lifted off the platter every few moments to save power and enable features such as IBM's hard drive active protection system... the head lifting creates a soft but annoying clicking/whirring sound about every 5 seconds. Evidently the "BIOS update" installed by IBM Repair was a firmware update for the drive provided by Hitachi which reduces the volume and frequency of the noise, but doesn't completely alleviate it (I've noticed it is definitely quieter and less frequent now than before I sent it in, so as long as it's not in fact a sign of drive failure as I initially suspected, I can live with it... it's evidently common on quite a few other laptops for other manufacturers like Dell and HP as well). The annoying thing though, is that IBM is totally aware of this issue (I eventually found reference to it on their support site), and yet no one I spoke to on their technical staff had the slightest knowledge of it, and allowed me to send the laptop in instead of referring me to their own user-installable patch. Hitachi needs to seriously rethink their drive technology though.... they state the purpose to be for power conservation - however, the nonstop head-lifting continues to go on even when on AC power. The noise it makes is also the type that knaws at the back of your mind, slowly driving you nuts.... they should at least design a way to better muffle the sound. At least after the firmware upgrade it is more tolerable - I only notice it really when in a quiet room while concentrating.

The hard drive was making a much "more" concerning rapid/not-typical-accessing clicking noise for a while the other day as well.... but I reseated the drive and for now it has gone away - hopefully it was just caused by vibration and will not return.

Also, I've found the active hard drive protection to be a tad half-baked so far.... there is no way to adjust the sensativity, and no quick button or function key to disable/enable it at will..... it tends to be much too sensative (very slight bump kicks it in), and while I'm on the train that I take daily, it goes nuts and crashes Windows if there are several larger bumps in a row. I'm hopeful that IBM will come out with a software update to correct these issues in the future.

The speaker noise I have not yet been able to resolve (might be a new driver somewhere), though since I have no reason to really turn the volume to 100%, I don't really care that much. Since I plan to do professional audio work on it, I'm getting a high-end external audio interface anyhow.

One last thing to mention is IBM loads a literal TON of stuff into the system, which takes up quite a few GB (not to mention the hidden recovery partition, which I may delete since I ordered the free 6-disk recovery set), and also a slew of programs are loaded when Windows starts, immediately filling over 250MB of RAM -- not tooo big a deal, though I've not had the easiest time identifying what each running service's purpose is so as to decide if it can be removed or not, and many of IBM's programs do not have "do not start this with Windows" options, so have to be disabled in more messy ways hehe.

Overall I love the ThinkPad though... although not yet perfect, it's certainly the best laptop I've seen.

Peace.