Lenovo ThinkPad T61 review

JEM_staff · #1 05-06-2008, 12:13 PM

The tradition of excellence in notebook computer manufacturing that Lenovo inherited from IBM continues with the excellently designed, Linux-compatible ThinkPad T61. This time the big difference between the latest T series iteration and its predecessor is not performance, but price. All T series ThinkPads now start under U.S. $1000 -- in some cases, as low as $700, which is a markdown of more than 300% under the previous T60 models. I'm not sure where that cost savings was, because as far as I can tell, this is still a top-quality, top-performing laptop computer.

Lenovo ThinkPad T61 review

JoeLinux · #2 05-12-2008, 09:35 AM

How do you order one of these with SuSE preinstalled? I went to the website, but only saw the monopoly O$.

Valour · #3 05-12-2008, 10:18 AM

You have to call Lenovo's sales department.

rsmits · #4 06-15-2008, 11:22 AM

I just purchased the Lenovo T61, and installed OpenSuSe 11.0 on it. I don't know yet how long the standard six cell battery will last, but so far I've gotten 3 hours +.

My laptop came with MS Vista, which I promptly nuked and installed XP from the restore disks that came with the computer. Then I added Open Suse 11.0 to create a dual boot. XP took about two hours to install, without any programs except the OS, but with the updates done. Open Suse took about 20 minutes for the base install, with another 20 minutes for all the updates.

I had the Intel video chip, and there were no problems with OpenSuse finding nics or sound cards, etc.

The only reservation I have about the T61 so far is the lack of a numeric keypad, and the presence of a weird mouse pointer between the g,h,and b keys. They then add three keys for the mouse click functions just below the space bar, and I'm always brushing the damn things as I type. Does anyone know how to disable them?

Bob

Valour · #5 06-16-2008, 10:49 PM

Perhaps you can disable the trackbutton with the ksynaptics package. Your options on any operating system are limited with this... it's more or less a feature that you're supposed to want, not dislike. I really like having both a trackbutton and a touchpad for mousing. I use both on my work laptop (Dell Latitude D830) quite frequently, though it took a lot of tuning to get them just right.

I suggest changing your computing habits rather than trying to disable parts of the machine.