Initial impression of Lenovo T60 widescreen laptop

This one came in much faster than the X61 tablet, which I will be using in the office or travel. The T60 should be a good one for home office use for its large 15.4" LCD. Of course, both needs to be connected to an external monitor for serious use.



The T60 is much bigger and heavier than I expected, just like with the X61. Most likely due to the impression I got from a co-worker's 14" T60 and my old X31. Well, since now I have two to use in office and at home, there is no need to move back and forth. Guess my back won't hurt too much for the extra weight.

Due to the larger and wider 15.4" screen, there are significant extra space on the side of the keyboard, which is a full size one just like the X61. May be Lenovo/IBM should think of a better way to use the real estate than just left it there with nothing on it.

Vista started up more or less okay. A bit slower due to the 1GB RAM (need get more next week). However, I probably spent more than three hours trying to set up the wireless next work. Initially I thought it's my fault playing with the security settings of the router. In the end, it turned out it's the driver came with the Thinkpad 11a/b/g/n. Eventually had to download a newer version of the ThinkVantage Access Connection driver as well as the a/b/g/n card driver to fix it. Didn't have a problem with the X61, which came with the Intel a/b/g/n card. Now I understand why it's $11 more on the web site. Guess Lenovo/IBM intentionally did this to remind me why I shouldn't be a cheap bastard next time.

Both machine came with pre-installed trial version of MS Office 2007 Pro. The user may be able to purchase a license key online to use it beyond the 25 or so times. Theoretically, one can leave all office applications, i.e. Word/Excel/PowerPoint/etc on for ever to get around it, but Windows will crush from time to time so take care of the loophole. My problem is that my own legit license won't work on the version in the computer. So I ended up uninstalling the Office and installing my own from scratch all over again.

There's a lot of other programs to install anyway, so will take a while for everything back on track. In the end, I felt a bit disappointed on the two computers, partially due to my high expectations of today's technology. May be I should stretch my old boxes one more year.