Dell Inspiron e1405 and Inspiron 640m

The Dell Inspiron e1405, a recently released portable notebook that includes the relatively new Intel Core Duo CPU, seems designed for those who value a combination of significant processing power and portability but don't want to spend a lot of money to get it.

This model, also named the Inspiron 640m on Dell's Small Business website, replaces the non-business XPS M140 (which, by the way, was named the Inspiron 630m when sold as a business model), and its primary advantage over its predecessor is the dual core option. Like the Inspiron e1705, a large desktop replacement notebook that I recently purchased and reviewed, and the Inspiron e1505, a mid-size entertainment notebook, the e1405 can be configured with a glossy screen and comes with Windows XP Media Center Edition, which includes a host of entertainment and multimedia features that appear to target those who desire a computer that will readily and capably handle the ever-increasing entertainment possibilities of our world. One significant difference between the e1405 and its older and larger siblings is the absence of a dedicated graphics option that would allow for intensive gaming. But you can't have everything, including portability, for a mere seven or eight hundred dollars, which is about what a well-configured e1405 will cost you if you're careful about your purchase and do a little preliminary research.

Dell Inspiron e1405 (view large image)

Dell Inspiron e1405 Specs:

• Processor: Intel Yonah Core Duo T2300 (1.66 GHz/2MB L2 Cache)
• OS: Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition
• Hard Drive: 80 GB SATA @ 5400RPM (manufactured by Hitachi)
• Screen: 14.1" WXGA+ UltaSharp Widescreen with TrueLife (1440 x 900)
• Graphics: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950
• RAM: 1.0GB DDR2 SDRAM @533 MHz (2 x 512MB)
• Optical Drive: 24x CD-RW/DVD-ROM
• Battery: 6-cell lithium ion
• Wireless: Dell 1390 Mini Card 802.11 b/g (54 Mbps)
• Weight: 5.3 lbs
• Dimensions: 1.5" (H) x 13 " (W) x 9.6" (D)
• Ports/Slots: 1 IEEE 1394 (FireWire), 4 Universal Serial Bus (USB 2.0), 5-in-1 removable memory card reader, VGA monitor out port, S-video out, RJ-45 Ethernet LAN, RJ-11 modem, ExpressCard 54mm, headphone/speaker jack, microphone connector

Reasons for Buying (if you're buying)

Actually, I didn't buy this laptop; it is a review model. But as noted, I did recently buy an e1705, and will therefore be viewing this e1405 within that context, paying particular attention to portability, an area in which the e1705 is decidedly lacking, and performance, where the e1705 really shines. And although I have no plans to buy an e1405, I often recommend notebooks to friends and family. As I use the e1405 I find myself wondering whether it would be a good option for them. I would definitely recommend this notebook if someone were to say the following:

"I want a notebook that's pretty easy to carry around and can even be used on a plane. I'm on a tight budget and don't want to pay more than eight hundred dollars or so, but I really don't want to sacrifice performance. I have no plans to play the latest games, but I want good multimedia capabilities and a pretty high resolution. I'd also like it to be sturdy."

The key here is the price; which is, admittedly, what often enhances the appeal of Dell notebooks. In the case of the above-stated requirements, I consider the e1405 to be an excellent choice now that I've tested it fairly thoroughly with particular emphasis on word processing, audiovisual performance and the Internet.

Initial Impressions

Several things struck me when I first looked at the e1405 and picked it up:

1. It was very tiny when compared to the e1705 but otherwise looked very much like it, playing Mini-Me to the e1705;
2. It felt solid;
3. Although fairly small and light, it wasn't exactly thin; and
4. The silver with white trim looked pretty good in a smaller package.

To elucidate, I found, and still find, the e1705 to be somewhat bold and garish in appearance, and though this is of no particular concern, the e1405, being so much smaller, simply looks more tasteful to me. Now for the thickness: I was reacting to the difference between the e1405 and an IBM ThinkPad T40 I had previously used as my primary computer. In the end, however, the e1405 is not all that thick, and its weight is comparable to that of the T40. There is something visually appealing about a very thin notebook, but in practical terms, a half inch or so doesn't make that much difference when the overall dimensions and weight are taken into account. On a long plane ride, the real issues are depth and width, not height.

Design and Build

Above view of Inspiron e1405 (view large image)

While my favorite notebook design is solid black, the e1405 seems attractive enough, for what that's worth: it doesn't look or feel cheap and it's not screaming for attention, despite making some effort to be visually appealing. More importantly, at least for me, the e1405 is solid, has good hinges, and the plastic of the palm rests and LCD cover feels quite strong. One very minor complaint is that there's a little play in the latches when the notebook is closed: not much, and not enough to affect my overall view of this notebook, but the latches of the e1705 offer no play and provide a very snug fit, which is certainly preferable. Overall, however, fit and finish are good, particularly given the price.

Dell Inspiron e1405 front side (view large image)

Left side view of Dell e1405 (view large image)

Right side view of Dell e1405 (view large image)

Back side view of Dell e1405 (view large image)

The Screen

Dell Inspiron e1405 screen (view large image)

The TrueLife glossy screen is well beyond adequate: bright, sharp, and easy to work with at the native resolution of 1440x900. I definitely wouldn't want to go any higher than this resolution on a 14-inch screen, but I'm surprised that I don't find myself wanting to go lower.

e1405 Screen (view large image)

Yes, the screen is a tad shiny, and if you set your Windows desktop to black, you can use the LCD to help you comb your hair, floss, brush your teeth or put on makeup, But more and more notebook sellers are limiting the availability of matte screens in their non-business lines, and whether it's called BrightView, XBRITE, TruBrite or, in this particular case, TrueLife, the glossy option does make for very nice video. Moreover, everything on the screen appears sharp and well defined. I chose the matte display for the e1705, but now see that the TrueLife LCD would have been fine too, had it been available at a lower resolution than 1920x1200. As it stands, watching a movie on the e1405 is a real pleasure, nicer, really, than watching one on the e1705, despite the bigger screen of the latter, provided the lighting doesn't cause excessive glare and reflection.

Small amount of light leakage displayed on the e1405 (view large image)

Because a number of purchasers of the e1405 have complained in this sites forums of excessive light leakage, I thought I should address this issue and therefore devoted some time to unearthing the problem in this particular machine, both with the naked eye and the digital camera. Waiting patiently for nightfall to come, I turned off all the lights, got rid of the Windows Taskbar, and looked as closely as I could at the screen, then took scads of digital pictures. At the risk of appearing to be a sensory dullard, I must say that at first I could really see no problem when using eyesight alone, though the camera did reveal light leakage at the base of the LCD. Subsequently there were occasions when I noticed some leakage, but only when the background was dark or when I used Dead Pixel Buddy to set the screen to black. Having said all that, I should add that during my actual use of this notebook, I never once noticed a problem. Of course, others may well be more sensitive to light leakage than I am, and certain screen configurations might be more affected.

Dell e1405 Screen on the left compared to e1705 on the right (view large image)

Graphics

The Intel GMA 950 graphics have performed without a hitch and will apparently run the more graphics-intensive features of Windows Vista when it finally becomes available. Having now used GMA 950 for the first time, the only caveat I can think of is this: Don't expect the e1405 to run the latest high-powered games. Which really isn't much of a caveat at all, given the adequacy of the GMA 950 for watching movies, surfing the Internet, general office work, etc.

Sound

Despite a somewhat tinny quality and limited bass, which is to be expected from notebook speakers, the audio is decent: loud and clear enough to watch a movie or listen to music without headphones, as long as there isn't a lot of background noise. As I've found to be the case with every notebook I've ever used, even inexpensive headphones improve the sound considerably.

Processor and Performance

For anyone who has ever tried to run several demanding programs at once, the Intel Core Duo is a real treat, and this T2300, which at 1.66 GHz is the slowest of the T2XXX Yonah series, performs exceedingly well and seems to offer very little trade-off when compared to the 2.0 GHz CPU in my e1705. I continue to be amazed by what two cores will get you, though it makes perfect sense that they will handle multiple applications much better than a single-core CPU. As with the T2500, I tested this T2300 by running several programs at once, including a virus scan and Super PI to 32 million digits. With these fairly demanding applications running, I still managed to watch a DVD and open several Internet Explorer windows, together with OpenOffice.org Writer, and everything ran quite smoothly. Because purchasing a Dell computer invariably involves a very careful selection of components, if price is any concern at all, I would now find it easy to suggest the selection of the Yonah T2300, rather than one of the higher priced Core Duo CPUs; it performs exceptionally well and the premium paid to get a T2400 or higher may be better spent elsewhere, on an upgraded warranty, for instance. Or simply save the money.

Benchmarks

I have now gotten fantastic Super PI results (running pi out to the standard 2 million digits) from two separate Dells using Yonah CPUs:

Super Pi Results:

Below are the Super Pi result calculations for crunching the numbers on 2-million digits of accuracy for Pi:

Notebook	Time
Dell Inspiron e1405 (1.66 GHz Intel T2300)	1m 22s
Dell Inspiron e1705 (2.0GHz Intel T2500)	1m 12s
Sony VAIO FS680 (1.86 GHz Pentium M)	1m 53s
IBM ThinkPad T43 (1.86 GHz Pentium M)	1m 45s
IBM ThinkPad Z60m (2.0 GHz Pentium M)	1m 36s
Fujitsu LifeBook N3510 (1.73 GHz Pentium M)	1m 48s
Dell Inspiron 6000D (1.6 GHz Pentium M)	1m 52s
Dell Inspiron 600M (1.6 GHz Pentium M)	2m 10s
HP Pavilion dv4000 (1.86 GHz Pentium M)	1m 39s
Asus V6Va (Pentium M 1.86 GHz)	1m 46s
Lenovo ThinkPad T60 (2.0GHz Core Duo)	1m 18s

While the 3DMark05 results are indicative of this notebook's gaming limitations, the integrated GMA 950 should be fine for most uses:

3DMark05:

Notebook	3DMark 05 Results
Dell Inspiron e1405 (1.66 GHz Intel T2300, Intel GMA 950)	569 3DMarks
Apple MacBook Pro (2.0GHz Core Duo, ATI X1600 128MB	2866 3D Marks
Dell Inspiron e1705 (2.0GHz Intel T2500, ATI X1400)	1,791 3D Marks
ThinkPad T43 (1.86GHz, ATI X300 64MB graphics)	727 3DMarks
Asus V6Va (2.13 GHz Pentium M, ATI Radeon Mobility x700 128 MB)	2,530 3D Marks
Fujitsu n6410 (1.66 GHz Core Duo, ATI X1400 128MB)	2,273 3DMarks
HP dv4000 (1.86GHz Pentium M, ATI X700 128MB)	2,536 3D Marks
Acer TravelMate 8204WLMi (2.0GHz Core Duo, ATI X1600 256MB)	4,157 3DMarks

PCMark04 yielded 4370 PCMarks overall, with the T2300 performing very well, and not too far off the T2500, in all but the graphics-based tests, where the x1400 of the e1705 was bound to do considerably better than the integrated GMA 950. Compared to a single-core Pentium M running at a comparable speed, the multithreaded results were roughly double, attesting to the efficiency and performance of the Core Duo:

PCMark04

PCMark05: .

Below is the overall PCMark05 score and comparison to other notebooks:

Notebook	PCMark05 Score
Dell Inspiron e1405 (1.66 GHz Intel T2300)	2,879 PCMarks
Fujitsu N6410 (1.66GHz Core Duo)	3,487 PCMarks
Alienware M7700 (AMD Athlon FX-60)	5,597 PCMarks
Sony Vaio SZ-110B in Speed Mode (Using Nvidia GeForce Go 7400)	3,637 PCMarks
Panasonic ToughBook T4 (Intel 1.20GHz LV)	1,390 PCMarks
Asus V6J (1.86GHz Core Duo T2400)	3,646 PCMarks
Toshiba Satellite M70 (Pentium M 1.86GHz)	1,877 PCMarks

Below are detailed results for PCMark05

The HD Tune performance results of this 80 GB Hitachi drive are slightly better than the 100 GB Toshiba drive in the e1705, and overall performance seems to fit well with the e1405 taken as a whole:

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Keyboard and Touchpad

Keyboard and touchpad view of e1405 (view large image)

Although I prefer the keyboard of the e1705, which seems almost as good as that of the ThinkPad T40, the e1405's keyboard is fine, if a little noisier than the other two. I can't possibly count the number of different keyboards I've used over the years, but each one takes a little getting used to, and the keyboard of the e1405 is no exception. Nonetheless, the feel is good and the noise really is minimal. If pressed to compare this keyboard to the countless others I've used, I'd say it ranks in the 90th percentile in terms of comfort and usability. The touchpad is also responsive and easy to work with, though I doubt I'll ever prefer a touchpad in place of the pointing stick of the T40. But just like matte screens, pointing sticks are becoming increasingly difficult to find in consumer-oriented notebooks.

Battery Life

I consistently got just over 3 hours out of the 6-cell battery. This rate of discharge seemed a little disappointing, but during these 3-hour periods I was frequently accessing the hard drive and always running the LCD at maximum brightness, with the wireless card enabled as well. With lighter use, the battery lasted for a little more than 4 hours, though the wireless card was still turned on. I find that power savings features are largely a matter of personal preference and tolerance, as well as usage, so some people will undoubtedly be able to squeeze a little more time out of the battery, while others will get less.

Heat and Noise

The e1405 ran quite cool, much cooler than the bigger and bolder e1705. When I did use this notebook on my lap, I could feel the warmth, but only a little, and never to the point of discomfort. The palm rests stayed relatively cool too. This computer is also very quiet. The fan kicked in a number of times, and I noticed it when it did, but it never seemed to stay on for very long, and even when it was running, it was not loud enough to be a bother, though a noisy computer is one of my pet peeves.

Wireless

The Dell Wireless 1390 WLAN Mini Card performed well, though, interestingly, before letting the built-in Dell utility take over management of wireless from Windows, the wireless connection was dropped several times. This has never happened since switching to the Dell utility and I have no idea why the change of wireless management utilities made such a difference. This seems to be a non-issue, really, but is something to keep in mind. I also don't know why the Dell utility was not set to manage the wireless in the first place.

Service and Support

Fortunately there has been no reason to contact Dell tech support about this notebook. During the build stage of the notebook there was a needed change to the shipping address, this was done via Dell.com online chat support and things went smoothly and quickly with that process.

Software

As with the e1705, the first thing I did upon receiving this notebook was to remove all the unwanted, unnecessary software that ships with Inspiron notebooks. And just as before, I simply used "Add or Remove Programs" in the Windows Control Panel, which in my opinion is generally an adequate cleanup. What really matters to me is good, smooth performance and error-free startup and shutdown, which has been the case since I removed all the undesired software, and might also have been the case prior to its removal, though I didn't wait to find out. Also important is ease of use, and I find that between Windows XP Media Center Edition and a few of the included Dell utilities, the e1405 does everything I want it to do without any particular difficulties. For the purpose of writing this review, I installed OpenOffice.org Writer, which, together with the pre-installed software, allowed for a reasonably full business, Internet and audiovisual experience.

Portability

Dell Inspiron e1705 on the left and Dell Inspiron e1405 on the Right (view large image)

As indicated, the e1405 seems like a good choice for those who desire genuine portability without paying a steep premium for that ease of movement. One of the first things that struck me when I received the e1705 was the reality that I would never be able to comfortably use it on a plane, should I someday decide to actually go somewhere when I have vacation. Conversely, as soon as I saw the e1405 under review here, I was struck by the thought that it would do just fine on a plane, in a coffee shop or on smaller desks and tables. While heavier than some notebooks, there is no feeling of heft or awkwardness when moving the e1405 from one place to another, and I know from actual experience that a five-pound notebook travels fairly easily. Going to a smaller screen and a lower weight would improve portability, true, but there would be some real sacrifice in terms of resolution and viewing pleasure, and the cost would either be very high or the components would likely be cheap and outdated.

Conclusion

The main charm of the Inspiron e1405 is that it manages to provide good portability, pleasurable viewing and high performance at a low cost. With this particular model, there were very few flaws, and none of these was sufficient to warn against this notebook. What impressed me most was the display, though I had recently made a decision to go with a lower resolution matte screen when actually purchasing a notebook for myself. I really enjoyed watching a DVD on the e1405 and found the display surprisingly easy to work with during normal usage, too. What strikes me about the e1405 is that it accomplishes so much in a small package and does so at such a low cost. There's no way I would purchase a non-dual-core machine, now that I've used a couple of dual cores, and though some people might think it's worth waiting for 64-bit dual core, for my own purposes I consider two years to be a reasonable life for a computer, and figure 32-bit is good enough for this period, provided multiple applications can be run with speed and efficiency, which the Yonah accomplishes. When looking to purchase a notebook computer, it can be useful to think in two-hundred-dollar increments, I find. While there are notebooks available for five or six hundred dollars, these generally have severe limitations and I wouldn't consider any of them, whereas the e1405, at the next step up on the price ladder, has very few limitations, especially when its portability is factored into the mix.

Pros:

• Excellent performance
• Nicely portable
• Decent build quality
• High but comfortable default resolution
• Bright, sharp display for video and text
• Good price
• Cool and quiet

Cons:

• No dedicated graphics option
• Latches have a little too much play when the screen is closed
• Minor light leakage at the bottom of the LCD
• Not as thin as some of its more expensive competitors
• Some glare and reflection when ambient lighting is strong

Source: notebookreview

Dell XPS M1210 with Core 2 Duo

The Dell XPS M1210 is the smallest notebook in Dell’s high-performance XPS line. With the discontinuation of the 710M, the M1210 is also the only 12.1” consumer notebook that Dell offers. The M1210 is a compact multimedia machine with remarkable power for its small size. Of course, the price reflects this above-average performance.

Specs and Cost of Reviewed System Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 (2.00GHz, 4MB L2 Cache, 667 MHz FSB) 2GB Dual Shared Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz (2 Dimms) 80 GB 7200 RPM SATA HD 256 MB Nvidia GeForce Go 7400 Intel Pro/Wireless 3945a/g 12.1” WXGA Display with TrueLife (1280x800) 8x CD/DVD Burner 85 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery A/V Communication Package Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 Audigy Software Upgrade (I did not request this or pay for it, but my computer arrived with it installed) 1 Year Next Business Day/Phone Support/XPS Technical Support Warranty Dell XPS M1210 (view large image) The final cost for this system as configured was $1,956.76 (including tax and free overnight shipping). This is an expensive notebook, but I believe the cost is justified by the performance capabilities. I placed the order originally on Dell’s website, but due to a last name change my order was sent to fraud investigations. After a relatively painless phone call, the order was finalized and I was given a free shipping upgrade for my trouble. I placed the order on December 23rd and received my system on December 29th. I was impressed with the speed of the delivery, especially during the holiday season. Reasons for Buying I had been using a Dell 700M for a couple of years and while I thoroughly enjoyed it, it was starting to show signs of wear. I had also recently lost access to the desktop I had been using for gaming, so I was looking for a notebook that would incorporate the convenience of my 700M and the gaming capabilities of the older desktop. I looked at Dell’s E1505 and glanced at a few models HP offers, but in the end the M1210 was the only computer that offered the graphics capabilities I wanted in the size I wanted. However, it was also the most expensive option I considered. Dell XPS M1210 next to Dell Inspiron 15.4" e1505 (view large image) Build and Design The M1210 is attractive without being overdone like the M1710 or the M2010. The overall appearance is clean and elegant. Some people have expressed concern over the thickness of the M1210 in comparison to other notebooks in its class, but in my opinion the extra thickness (necessary to house the more powerful components of the M1210) is hardly noticeable. The M1210 is arguably more of a thin and light than an ultraportable due to the weight (it can reach nearly five pounds with the 9-cell battery), but at 11.70”x8.70”x1.20” it is still very compact. Unfortunately the 9-cell battery extends a bit from the computer, breaking up the neat silhouette of the notebook. Top view of Dell XPS M1210 resting on top of 15.4" screen Inspiron e1505 (view large image) The M1210 feels very solidly constructed. The magnesium-alloy case has no obvious weak points; even the digital camera feels secure in its surround at the top of the LCD. I am a fairly light typist, and the full-sized keyboard feels great to me. I can type easily with a gentle touch. The lid of the M1210 does not latch shut, but the hinges feel very secure and it stays shut when it is closed. Included with the A/V package is a 1.3 megapixel Logitech QuickCam with an integrated microphone. The sound and picture quality are very good for integrated components, although the camera does not perform as well in low light conditions. The camera rotates so you can capture video of yourself or what is in front of you. Left view of Dell XPS M1210 (view large image) Right view of Dell XPS M1210 (view large image) Back side view of Dell XPS M1210 (view large image) Screen The screen, a 1280x800 resolution widescreen, was another area of concern for me as I have read various reports of the quality of the LCD not being as good as with older models of a similar size, such as the 700M. I was, however, pleasantly surprised. The image is crisp and clear, and the contrast is good. Vertical viewing angles are nice, and light leakage is minimal. I find that this resolution is still very comfortable for long-term viewing, which is another area of concern for users new to the sub-15” laptop. The glossy screen can make viewing difficult in direct sunlight, and even in lower light conditions you may notice reflections. Speakers The sound is fairly typical for a laptop -- slightly tinny through the standard speakers, but decent through headphones or external speakers. I like the earbuds that were included with the A/V package. The location of the speakers, below the screen instead of in front of the palm rests like on an E1505, is convenient and provides for better sound because you are not blocking them with your wrists. One of the unique features of the M1210 is the inclusion of not one, but two headphone jacks so two people can plug in simultaneously. Dell offers an Audigy sound upgrade, but note that this is software, not hardware. You still get the same Sigmatel card. Processor and Performance Coming from a Pentium M, I can really appreciate the speed of the Core 2 Duo. I am a habitual multi-tasker, and this processor allows me to have several applications open at once. I can perform a virus scan, check my e-mail, play music, and load a web page all at the same time without noticing any sluggishness. XP loads smoothly and quickly. While not technically a gaming machine, the M1210 still boasts the best GPU currently available for a laptop of this size. I have not done any serious gaming yet, but I did load Neverwinter Nights 2 and was able to get decent performance by lowering some settings. Slightly older games run flawlessly on max settings. SuperPi SuperPi measures CPU performance by calculating Pi to a specific number of digits. Notebook Time to Calculate Pi to 2 Million Digits Dell XPS M1210 (Intel Core 2 Duo 2.00GHz) 1m 02s Dell XPS M1210 (Intel Core 2 Duo 2.00GHz) while running McAfee Virus 1m 06s Dell Latitude D620 (Intel Core Duo T2400 1.83 GHz) 1m 21s Dell Latitude D610 (Intel Pentium M 750 1.83GHz) 1m 41s Dell Inspiron e1505 (2.0GHz Core Duo) 1m 16s Fujitsu LifeBook N3510 (1.73 GHz Alviso Pentium M) 1m 48s Asus A8JP (Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz) 1m 02s Dell Inspiron 6000D (1.6 GHz Alviso Pentium M) 1m 52s Lenovo ThinkPad T60 (2.0GHz Core Duo) 1m 18s 3DMark05 Results and comparison: 3DMark05 tests a PC for graphics capabilities: Notebook 3DMark05 Score Dell XPS M1210 (Intel Core 2 Duo 2.00GHz, Nvidia Go 7400) 2,082 3DMarks Dell XPS M1210 (Intel Core 2 Duo 2.00GHz, Nvidia Go 7400) while running McAfee Virus 2,069 3DMarks Dell XPS M1710 (2.16 GHz Core Duo, nVidia 7900 GTX 512MB) 8,524 3DMarks Asus V6J (2.16GHz Core 2 Duo, nVidia GeForce Go 7400) 2,918 3DMarks Alienware M7700 (AMD Athlon FX-60 Nvidia GeForce Go7800 GTX) 7,078 3DMarks HP dv6000t (2.16 GHz Intel T7400, nVidia GeForce Go 7400) 2,013 3DMarks Heat and Noise The M1210 has a lot of powerful components in a small space, but it is extremely quiet and stays relatively cool. The vents on the left side can get quite warm when the graphics card is working hard (as when running the 3DMark05 test above), but the bottom of the computer still stays comfortable for laptop use, even over extended periods of time. However, as with most laptops, you do need to be sure you are holding it in such a way as to allow adequate airflow. The webcam runs very warm, but that does not seem to affect performance in any way. Keyboard and Touchpad Keyboard view of Dell XPS M1210 (view large image) The keyboard on the M1210 is full-sized and the keys have a good feel to them. The material seems to have a little more friction than that used on the Inspiron series, so I am able to type more accurately. I do find that the reduced size Delete key and arrow keys can be difficult to hit without looking. Some people have reported a little bit of play in the lower right-hand corner of the keyboard; I find that with decent pressure I can see this, but not with regular typing. In my opinion there is just not enough movement to affect the use of the keyboard at all. The touchpad is smaller, but it is large enough for easy use. The built-in scrollbars are convenient and functional. The buttons feel sturdier than those on Inspiron series notebooks. Wireless I chose the Intel Pro/Wireless 3945a/g card and have been satisfied with its performance. The Wi-Fi catcher is a neat feature of the M1210; it is extremely convenient to just switch it on and off while traveling, and you can scan for wireless networks while your notebook is on standby, hibernating, or even turned off. Battery I opted for the larger battery in this computer. Even though it is less aesthetically pleasing, it is much more practical. I find I can easily get 4 hours with normal settings and I can increase that time significantly by turning off my Wi-Fi and turning down my screen brightness. I have yet to run the battery down completely by normal use, even while traveling. Even when your laptop is turned off, you can check your battery life with the convenient gauge on the battery itself. Operating System and Software This notebook came with Windows Media Center 2005 with an option for express upgrade to Windows Vista. As with most Dells, it also boasted a plethora of preinstalled software. However, the XPS line does give you the options of “No Pre-installed Software” and “No ISP Requested” which can help cut down on Add/Remove Programs use after your purchase. All system discs were included, and just in case you misplace them, XPS owners can now request duplicate OS, drivers, and utilities CDs via a simple online form on Dell.com (limited to one duplicate set of CDs per XPS system purchased). (view large image) The M1210 has a MediaDirect button that allows you to boot directly into MediaDirect without actually turning on your computer. This can help save you battery life if you are mobile and just want to listen to some music or watch a movie. Customer Support The XPS line comes with the standard minimum one year warranty and phone support as well as XPS technical support. You can contact the XPS team by e-mail, phone, or live chat. As I have had no problems with the computer so far I have not really had an opportunity to test the quality of the support. Dell support is traditionally out-sourced so sometimes there can be issues with communicating with the technicians, but they do generally seem to try and please the customer. Conclusion This laptop is far and away the current best value for its size and power. It boasts the most powerful GPU and CPU available for the ultraportable family combined with great features like the integrated webcam and microphone, MediaDirect, dual headphone jacks, Wi-Fi Catcher, and more. I am extremely happy with my purchase. However, in the future I would like to see Dell improve the speaker quality and possibly change the material used on the lid so it does not attract quite so many fingerprints. Pros Fast Core 2 Duo processor Good GPU options Compact size Excellent battery life Solid build Cons Expensive Slightly heavier than other notebooks in this class Tinny speakers Lid collects fingerprints Source: Notebookreview

Scientist Review of Lenovo ThinkPad T60 Widescreen

Where, When and Why I choose this Laptop:

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For those who do not want a long explanation for why I chose the ThinkPad T60 wide screen (T60 WS), the terse answer is as follows: I wanted a reliable well built laptop that had a high resolution screen for productivity, so the ThinkPad was at the top of my list. I wanted to replace my laptop for the bulk of my work this semester as a grad student in Physics, so I wanted a laptop quickly. I purchased my laptop from Buy.com which was the best deal at the time ($1,478 USD).

I use my laptops for a few main tasks: simple office work, digital photography work/storage on the road, and technical computations (engineering/physics/math programs). The extra screen space of the T60 WS is particularly helpful in the last two tasks.

T60 Wide Screen Model 8744-5BU Specs as ordered:

• 15.4 Inch WSXGA+ LCD
• T7200 2.00 GHz Core 2 Duo
• 1 GB RAM
• ATI X1400 128 MB Graphics
• DVD Burner
• 120 GB HD (5400 RPM)
• ThinkPad a/b/g/n Wireless
• Bluetooth
• Fingerprint Scanner
• 6 Cell
• Windows XP Pro
• 3 Year Warranty
• Cost - $1,478.33 Shipped from Buy.com

Now for those of you who want more detail on my selection process:

My past laptops:

I started looking for a laptop in 2006. To understand why I went with the ThinkPad you have to understand my past experiences. My previous two laptops were both Dells. The first I got off eBay for a few hundred dollars, 4-5 years ago. It was a Latitude CPi, and had a 333 MHz Pentium II in it, as I recall. I just wanted something I could use for Internet and to type on at the time. It was a thick heavy beast, and started to develop cracks in the case near the hinges from the plastic flexing. While I was using it, the LCD lost a complete line of pixels horizontally 2/3 of the way up the screen. I changed the LCD myself for a new one which cost me nearly 100 dollars (it was only a few 100 dollars for the whole thing, remember).

Shortly after this, I sold it and got a Dell 300M ultra portable. I got this laptop from the Dell outlet, for a little over 1000 dollars. It is a 12.1 inch XGA laptop with first generation Centrino. With standard battery it weighed about 3 Lbs. It was also thinner than 1 inch. This laptop was a reaction to the heavy CPi. I had reliability issues almost immediately. Within a month the plug-in Ethernet port had died. I sent it into Dell for repair. They sent it back still broken. I returned it again to a very apologetic Dell, and they sent it back with a new motherboard in it (I guess they could not or would not desolder the jack from the motherboard). This repair was quite costly for Dell as the CPU, an Ultra Low Voltage (ULV) 1.2 GHz Pentium M was soldered directly to the motherboard as well. After this I had no problems with the laptop for at least a year. With its ULV CPU and a rather heavy 8 cell battery I could get at least 6 hours of work done on it.

However, it was not all rosy. The screen on the 300M was awful. My biggest complaint was the total lack of contrast. It was not a very bright screen either. In addition to this it had a horseshoe shaped light leak in the very center of the screen. A colleague of mine, at my undergraduate university, later told me that the light leak was common to all 300Ms and was one of the reasons he did not buy one.

Finally in 2006, the power adapter became flaky. At first I thought it was the AC adapter, but it later turned out to be the receptacle, on the laptop itself. It was long since out of warranty, so I did a repair on it myself (not recommended unless you are a pro at soldering. I also found out that people offer services to fix this plug problem, as it is apparently common.)

But it does not end there; while doing one of the many repairs on it, one of the LCD hinges sheared off, leaving the screen with very little support. This made the screen unstable, and prone to flopping.

To the 300M's credit, it did survive a drop from my unzipped backpack onto the sidewalk. This cracked open the 8 cell battery casing (heaviest part rotated down as it slid out), but everything on the laptop survived.

I use my laptop everyday for work. The XGA screen was small and cramped, and the whole machine was not very reliable. Sure, I always had been able to fix it, but what if a deadline was looming and it failed again, and all the work I had frantically been doing was on it? Not a pleasant thought, I started to look for a new machine.

The Search:

The search started in late 2006. I almost got a Flexview 15-inch T60 during the big Christmas sale, but at the time I did not really have the money, and I was not sure I wanted something so big and expensive, with battery life that was not as good as I was used to on my 300M. I kept thinking, "well the 300M does work, I don't have to get one right now, and computers only get better and better in time." So I waited.

I thought about getting a Lenovo Z61T, HP ncXXXX type computers, Dells of a few types, HP dv2000t, and so on. I didn't like the TouchPad on the HP laptops (consumer ones) or the mouse buttons. It felt like it would be another 300M. A lot of my colleges have ThinkPads and MacBooks. I looked at both. Most engineering and science tools are not made for OS X, and dual booting XP seemed rather pointless with extra hoops to jump though with mouse button workarounds. I kept coming back to the ThinkPads. I kept asking questions in the forums on this site about the different screens. Finally, I found some objective measurements of the wide screen version of the T60 on the ThinkPads.com forum, and they looked quite good. There was plenty of talk about the screen not being good in the forum, but that seems to happen with every product.

After exhaustive looking in the TA book, I decided the wide screen would give me the most screen work space and be lighter than the Flexview option, and it might even be OK with respect to color and contrast. The objective measurements I had seen showed it was clearly better than the 14 inch SXGA+, screen. At the time I did not realize there were two screen sources for Lenovo for the T60 WS: Samsung and LG/Phillips. A careful read of the colorimeter measurements thread actually shows this, and the fact the LCD measured was of unknown make. However, I did not notice this before placing my order.

Ordering:

I ordered my T60 WS initially from Lenovo's site, as it was on sale. It was 1396.45 after tax. I was upset that I had to wait 3-4 weeks and still pay tax on something sent from China. The tax was about 100 dollars. (See the table below for the specs of my initial order).

Thankfully, someone in the NotebookReview.com forums asked if a Buy.com laptop was a good deal. I felt it was a good deal, so I canceled my Lenovo order and ordered one. It took 3 days for Lenovo to actually get the cancellation through on their online system, but in the end my order was canceled, no questions asked. If I had a choice, I would have picked GMA graphics (for better battery life) and Vista so the recovery partition on the ThinkPad would have come with a Vista image. Without the tax the Lenovo order would have been an OK deal. However, I think most people will agree that the specs made the Buy.com version a much better deal (see table). The biggest improvement in my view is the warranty.

My initial custom to order laptop: Cost - $1,396.45 Shipped from Lenovo 15.4 Inch WSXGA+ LCD T5500 1.66 GHz Core 2 Duo 512 MB RAM GMA 950 Graphics CD-RW/DVD 60 GB HD ThinkPad a/b/g/n Wireless Bluetooth 6 Cell Windows Vista Business 1 Year Warranty

The laptop I ended up getting (under review): Cost - $1,478.33 Shipped from Buy.com 15.4 Inch WSXGA+ LCD T7200 2.00 GHz Core 2 Duo 1 GB RAM ATI X1400 128 MB Graphics DVD Burner 120 GB HD (5400 RPM) ThinkPad a/b/g/n Wireless Bluetooth 6 Cell Windows XP Pro 3 Year Warranty Fingerprint Scanner

I had planned to add 1 GB of RAM to my original custom myself for those who notice the sparse RAM. It was less from Newegg than to have Lenovo do it.

My laptop shipped from CA the day after my order and was at my door in New York 5-business days later, just as FedEx estimated.

Build and Design

After opening the box I pulled out my fairly weighty and large T60 WS. It was what I expected as far as build and bulk, based on other T60/Z60 notebooks I had seen around the office, except it was a 15.4 inch wide screen.

That is to say: It has nice hinges, nice simple looks that won't wear badly over time. It had a solid keyboard. It was well put together. It would be possible to make it even better, but it was far more solid than any HP or Dell I had touched in many years. For those of you who do not like any flex, there is some in various parts, most noticeably in the panels on either side of the keyboard and in the area near the fingerprint reader. It does not really bother me though.

Some people might find the ThinkPad look boring or conservative, but consumer laptops that look nice on day one often look bad in a year from wear. I don't expect that to be true of this ThinkPad.

The laptop closes nicely and the screen is supported firmly as noted. The keyboard light is useful, and the whole layout is well thought out.

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Size:

This isn't a small notebook. It is a 15.4 inch wide screen. For a laptop with such a big LCD, it is small, that is, it is small for its class. It weighs about 6 lbs (with the 6 cell battery/optical drive in) but that is as accurate as I can crudely measure at home. The spec in the TA book indicates up to 6.06 lbs. That is probably accurate. While it is a large, wide notebook, it doesn't waste space for the most part. The bezel around the LCD is a reasonable thickness, and the notebook itself is thin. Thiner than many other notebooks, even ones with smaller footprints. If you need something smaller, the 14 inch T60 might be better suited. I suggest drawing out how large the notebook is on a large paper so you really can visualize how large it will be. Its not that this one is so large, rather, such a drawing simply gives a more concrete sense of how large objects actually are, so that you will not be upset when it gets to your door.

Screen:

As it turns out, my T60 came with the LG screen (LP154W02-TL06, FRU #13N7020). It is not flawless, but it is very good. Far and away better than my 300M's screen, and better than most laptop screens I have used. It has no dead pixels and is evenly lit. It has minimal light leakage. Brightness is as bright as I really would want it to be. Contrast is acceptable. The color gamut is not bad, but its clearly not as good as my IPS based desktop LCD (also an LG panel).

It is very high resolution 1680x1050 for a screen that is only 15.4 inches. However, this is the resolution I am used to on my desktop's 21 inch display, and I don't have a very hard time with it, as my laptop typically is closer to my eyes than the desktop. Things do appear a bit small at times, but not hard to read, as I have good vision still. I got the laptop in large part for the high resolution screen, as it would let me do many things at once, particularly technical things, with lots of windows open. To date it has not disappointed in this regard.

A big part of screen choice today is glossy or non-glossy. I am fairly decidedly in the non-glossy camp. The reasons people like glossy screens are, in my view, the same as why people like glossy photographs. I have always liked luster finished prints best (I'm a photographer as a hobby). Glossy has its place; it can make lines look sharper and so on, but really semi-matte is more flattering for most subjects if you look in detail. Or at least that is how I feel, and I think this is carried over to the LCDs.

It is not to say I would not buy a glossy LCD notebook, but given the choice, I would pick non-glossy all other things being equal. As one would expect, the LCD doesn't have any annoying glare when I work in my office or at home.

Below you can see some pictures showing the backlight properties, both uniformity and leakage. The white balance is probably not correct in these photographs due to mixed lighting. This is really only an issue on the third shot, which is included to give some idea of the color gamut. It was taken with a Canon 400D using the neutral picture style and "daylight" white balance (~5200K), to ensure some sort of reproducible result. (The other two images have different WB). I advise taking the color image with a large grain of salt, as looks quite different than it does in real life. I considered not including it, but I feel it is better than nothing, and might give you some idea. Subjectively, the colors are fine, if somewhat undersaturated.

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Backlight uniformity	Light leakage	Colors

Heat and Noise:

As far as heat and noise go, this notebook gets hotter than my 300M did, which is understandable given the fact it does dissipate more power. However, it has not become uncomfortably hot to me. The fan does run a fair amount of the time, and is audible, if the room is quiet. It spins up and down as needed. I do not find it bothersome. One evening it also made a high pitched noise that was only audible when very close to the computer (<>

Speakers:

The speakers on the wide screen version of the T60 are placed differently from what I have seen in pictures from the T60 speakers on other models. I do not know if this also makes them different speakers, but they are fine for laptop speakers. Not very loud, of course, and lacking anything but high and mid-tones, but they are fine for a laptop. My 300M's speakers were probably a little better. These don't do well at the highest volume setting (some rattling).

It is also worth noting how good the sound is over the headphone jack. This is very acceptable. Objective measurements also bear this out. I used RMAA and recored output from the T60 via my desktop, which has a good ENVY based sound card (the T60 only has a MIC jack). Below is a summary table and the frequency response plot for those interested.

Frequency response (from 40 Hz to 15 kHz), dB:	+0.02, -0.19	Very good
Noise level, dB (A):	-84.3	Good
Dynamic range, dB (A):	84.5	Good
THD, %:	0.0100	Very good
IMD + Noise, %:	0.023	Good

Keyboard/Pointing Device

The keyboard is pretty good on the ThinkPad. There are three suppliers of keyboards for ThinkPads. My keyboard was produced by Chicony. The word on the various forums is that this is the worst of the suppliers. I would claim that many loyal ThinkPad users are keyboard aficionados, so they want the best (generally NMB is considered the 'best'). However, the keyboard is still very good. This one gives pretty good tactile feedback, but is still light to type on. Some people might find it a bit clicky though, as it does have a significant sound to it.

One thing I do not care for about the keyboard is the position of the FN key. It is in the bottom left corner. This is the place where the CTRL key normally sits. When I switch from my laptop to my desktop I hit the windows key (second from left), when I swich back to this laptop I hit the FN key. I will no doubt get used to this, but for now copy and paste is awkward. The DEL key is also positioned differently from my last laptop, but that is less of an issue, as that moves depending on if you are using a desktop or a laptop in general.

The dual pointing devices are quite nice. I'm still much more used to the TouchPad than the TouchPoint, but I have found myself using the TouchPoint some already. As many long time users will tell you, the TouchPoint lets you move the pointer without moving your hands off the keyboard. If you are mostly typing and need to point occasionally like editing a text document, you might find the TouchPoint faster, but I think for continuous pointing and clicking (like web browsing) the TouchPad might be better (tap clicking). Still, they are both there whatever your preference. Configuring one for coarse motion, and the other for fine control could even be useful depending on your needs.

Ports:

The T60 comes with a basic port selection: USB, VGA, Ethernet, Modem, and Headphone/Microphone jacks. It has CardBus, and ExpressCard slots. Things some people might find missing are IEEE 1394, and a card reader. I myself will miss having an SD reader, as I have one digital camera that uses SD. However, I already use an external card reader for my compact flash based cameras, so its only a matter of getting another 8 dollar USB reader for SD cards, and bringing it when needed.

Wireless:

Here is the only place I have a serious niggle. The wireless out of the box was buggy. Basically, it would lose the connection on a change of power state. I first noticed this when bring the laptop came out of hibernation. Sometimes the wireless card would not be able to find any wireless. Other times it would find all the networks but the one I had been attached to before hibernation. Other power state changes, such as just unplugging the AC, also seem to trigger the problem sporadically. The other thing I noticed was that upon removing the AC power, the wired Ethernet connection would disappear (unless it was physically connected to a CAT5 cable when the AC power was pulled).

It seems fairly clear that this is a software issue because it is intermittent, and rebooting always restores the ability to connect to wireless networks. Further, it seems highly likely that it is related to power management control, as it is highly correlated with changes in power states of the laptop.

After discovering this issue, I systematically attempted to locate the problem. The windows system error log indicated that a network device had been removed unexpectedly many times. The identifier string for this adapter was that of the Gigabit Ethernet. Setting "Deep Smart Power Down" mode to disabled in the driver appears to prevent the Ethernet from disappearing when the AC power is disconnected from the system. Since disabling "Deep Smart Power Down" I have not noticed any unusual wireless issues, and I am hopeful that this simple change is all that is needed to solve the problem. However, because I could not find a definitive test to reproduce the error, it is not possible to know for sure.

It should also be noted that I uninstalled the Access Connections software. However, this did not help alleviate the wireless problems. (Thus, if you need or like that software, you probably can leave it on). The turning point was disabling "Deep Smart Power Down" on the Intel Pro/1000 PL Network Connection.

(For those wondering, I have the latest BIOS and drivers that that were available on Feb 26th. I do not believe this issue is unique to my system as there are reports of similar issues in the ThinkPads.com forum. I expect this issue will be fixed at some point in the future via a driver update.)

I have not tested the Bluetooth, as I do not have any Bluetooth devices presently.

Battery:

Battery life isn't spectacular. With a screen this big, and dedicated graphics, it would be hard to have great battery life on a 6 cell. Browsing the Internet and listening to music, with the screen turned down 2 notches from full (I enabled full brightness while on battery power in the BIOS), the battery lasts about 2.5 hours. I think these tasks are very light usage. Under stressful use it would no doubt be dramatically shorter.

If you want longer life and find the T60 appealing, it would be best to get GMA graphics, and a 14 inch and/or a 9 cell battery which should just add 50% to whatever battery life you would get with a 6 cell. If you find GMA 950 lacking, you might wait for the soon to be released Intel refresh of GMA with Santa Rosa in April 2007. It will have better performance, probably with similar power dissipation. I considered doing this myself, however two things stopped me. I wanted a laptop for my work this semester, and Lenovo might change the T60 when they have to design the motherboards for a new chipset. This could be good or bad; it is just an unknown.

I did not purchase this laptop for high portability or long battery life. If those are primary goals of yours consider, something with an ULV processor. I certainly would prefer longer batter life, however, I think the amount of battery life it gets is average for its class, and is thus acceptable.

(The 6 cell on the T60 is 56WH; compare that to “just over 4 hours of life [with the LCD dimmed]” for the Dell e1505 (a nearly identical spec laptop) with an 85 WH battery and you immediately see the power consumption seems similar).

OS/Software:

This T60 comes with a fairly low amount of annoying software (relatively speaking of course).

One of the first things I did do, though, was remove all the Symantec software. I wanted access to my shared printer, via windows file sharing, and the firewall would not let me use it. The browser-based configuration script that allowed one to turn off certain blocked services would crash on opening (Error in script at line XX continue running scripts on page? type error.) Because of the error, it really wasn't configurable, and I didn't feel it was worth fighting, or looking in the registry. So I removed the firewall/virus scanner and installed my regular reliable anti-virus software.

The ThinkVantage software, on the other hand, looks quite useful. While I did remove the Access Connection software (as anything that controls network access when you have a network problem is suspect), most of it looks nice. The presenter stuff and rescue and recovery could be very useful. Most of it really isn't needed though, if you are already comfortable with configuring Windows XP, which I am. If you aren't, it might be a Godsend.

Windows XP is Windows XP Pro. It works like it always did. I would note that Lenovo had configured the appearance of XP in a non-standard way. Text was bigger on the icons, and icon spacing was larger; things of that nature. I reset it to normal Windows XP default settings, then turned off all the regular annoying sounds.

Vista will eventually come in the mail for me, but I'm not in a great hurry to move to it. It will run slower than XP, and for the moment nothing I do requires it.

Performance:

I ran through some fairly standard benchmarks for this site, namely SuperPi, HD Tune (results bellow). In the case of SuperPi, the time is within 1 second of a previous T60 wide screen review with nearly identical specs. I expect the benchmarks for this system to be identical to that one, so I refer you to that review for the "normal" notebook review benchmarks. In addition to the "normal" benchmarks I also ran the T60 WS through ScienceMark 2.0 (Build 170000ZNOV02), and SPECViewperf 9.0.3 the results of these tests are also below.

SPECViewperf is a test of engineering CAD performance (while my engineering tools aren't the 3D CAD type in general, I thought these numbers might be of interest to some out there). I think SPEC is a common enough test that you will be able to find plenty of numbers out there for comparison.

ScienceMark on the other hand isn't as common. It seems to no long be maintained, however, the tests remain relevant. Both simulations I did (Molecular Dynamics/Primordia) are similar to some work I have actually done. The first test is what it sounds like, a molecular dynamics simulation. The second is a Hartree-Fock Quantum Mechanics simulation. ScienceMark is small and does not require an install, so I ran it on my other two systems as well, to give a point of comparison, as it is not as common a benchmark these days. Finally, I would note on the ScienceMark results that it may underestimate well-optimized code today as it hasn't been updated in 3 years, and uses SSE type instructions, which have been extended since that time. Nevertheless, the T60 WS does very well outperforming my other two systems by a healthy margin.

SuperPi (2 million places):

Notebook	Time
This Lenovo ThinkPad T60 (2.00GHz Core 2 Duo)	1m 04s
Previous Lenovo ThinkPad T60 (2.00GHz Core 2 Duo)	1m 03s
Lenovo ThinkPad T60 (2.0GHz Core Duo)	1m 18s
Dell Inspiron e1705 (2.0GHz Core 2 Duo)	1m 02s
Lenovo ThinkPad T60 (2.0GHz Core Duo)	1m 18s
Toshiba A100 (2.0GHz Core Duo)	1m 18s
Samsung X60 (1.66GHz Core Duo)	1m 29s
Sony VAIO FS680 (1.86GHz Pentium M)	1m 53s
IBM ThinkPad T43 (1.86GHz Pentium M)	1m 45s
HP dv5000z (2.0GHz Sempron 3300+)	2m 02s

For your future and past comparison convenience, I have run the test for all amounts up to 4 million. I believe the 1 million test was the most common a few years ago; I expect 4 million will be the standard in a few years.

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HD Tune:

HD Tune measures basic hard disk performance; here are the results for the 120 GB 5400 RPM Toshiba drive in this laptop:

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SPECViewperf9.0.3:

My understanding is that this is mostly an OpenGL stress test. As you can see, the X1400 is not an OpenGL powerhouse. Regular desktop cards turn in numbers at least 3 times as high as this. However, 3D rendering isn't a huge priority for me, so this level of performance is OK. If you need more there is always the T60P, which has FireGL that should perform better. The LCD was set to 32-Bit color at 1680x1050 (I doubt this matters), and I ran the benchmark with its default settings.

3dsmax-04 Weighted Geometric Mean = 4.769

catia-02 Weighted Geometric Mean = 6.298

ensight-03 Weighted Geometric Mean = 3.829

light-08 Weighted Geometric Mean = 8.841

maya-02 Weighted Geometric Mean = 9.956

proe-04 Weighted Geometric Mean = 3.268

sw-01 Weighted Geometric Mean = 5.462

tcvis-01 Weighted Geometric Mean = 1.148

ugnx-01 Weighted Geometric Mean = 2.936

ScienceMark 2.0:

This is a scientific numerical simulation benchmark, very CPU intensive like SuperPi, but a little more broad in scope. I tested the following systems:

• Dell 300M - Pentium M 1.2 GHz (Banias)
• Desktop - Athlon 64 3000+ (1.8 GHz, Venice)
• T60 WS - Core 2 Duo T7200 (2.00 GHz Merom)

I think this benchmark is completely CPU limited, as ScienceMark never uses more than 20 MB of RAM. I have used the Desktop as the reference for the time-clock and percentage scores. The time-clock score is Time * (Clock/1800). This score might not be completely fair, as the T60 does have two cores, but it shows you perhaps how much that extra core helps.

Molecular Dynamics (Lower is better):

System:	Time: (s)	Percentage:	Time-Clock:	Percentage:
Dell 300M (Pentium M 1.2 GHz)	154	1.52	103	1.02
Desktop (Athlon 1.8 GHz)	101	1.00	101	1.00
T60 WS (Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz)	74	0.73	82	0.81

The T60 is 27% better than my current desktop in the raw score, not too bad. The extra core/architecture gives a 19-21% advantage here clock for clock

Primordia (Lower is better):

System:	Time: (s)	Percentage:	Time-Clock:	Percentage:
Dell 300M (Pentium M 1.2 GHz)	774	1.60	516	1.07
Desktop (Athlon 1.8 GHz)	483	1.00	483	1.00
T60 WS (Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz)	333	0.67	370

0.77

The T60 is 33% faster this time in the raw score, again quite good. The extra core/architecture gives a 23-30% advantage here clock for clock

System Parts:

Sometimes the Everest tool is run on systems, however, the verbose nature of that tool's output is probably not very useful to most people. So instead of attaching it, here is a short list of parts/makers that are non-obvious from the specs:

• LCD: LG 15.4" LP154W02-TL06 (FRU 13N7020)
• DVD/RW: LG GSA-4083N (FRU 39T2679)
• Hard Disk: TOSHIBA MK1234GSX (FRU 39T2791)
• Wireless: Atheros AR5008 (FRU 42T0825, says: AR5BXB72 on card)
• Keyboard: Chicony (FRU 39T7178)
• Sound: Analog Devices (I would guess AD1986A, but really not known)

So far the ThinkPad T60 15.4 inch wide screen has been exactly what was called for. It is bulky to carry when compared to my ultra-portable Dell 300M it replaces. However, it is not possible to have a nice big usable screen and perfect potability. For all the power and screen real estate the T60 WS is small. I can easily see this laptop lasting 5 years of heavy use and being retired for performance not reliability issues. The screen, keyboard, and build of this laptop are what make it a good laptop. One of these factors, the screen, is apparently more variable than the others. It should be noted that some people hate the Samsung screen that I do not have. Performance-wise it is exactly what you would expect from a laptop with this hardware: excellent.

Pros:

• Solid Build
• Pretty good screen (LG)
• Nice keyboard
• Good deal (in my case)
• Excellent performance

Could be betters:

• Battery life could be better
• Lack of ports some might need

Cons:

• Initial wireless issues (never should make it to the user's hands with such issues)
• Variable parts quality (you could be less “lucky” than me, at least according to forum users)

HP dv6000t Laptop Review

Overview and Reasons for Buying:

It was a hot summer’s day, so I waltzed into Best Buy to check out the latest gadgets and to cool off. The first thing I saw was the glimmer from HP’s shiny new notebook, the dv6000z. The design was what caught my eye, a perfect balance of art and performance. I was looking to replace my somewhat old AMD Turion 64 notebook with a dual core system anyways. I wasn’t really impressed with my previous AMD system so I went online to browse and see if HP planned on releasing an Intel based notebook in this series. I had read up about the new Intel Core 2 Duo Chip (Merom) and definitely wanted a notebook with that kind of power. After a couple weeks of pestering HP techs on the phone I finally got a release date and waited. September 30^th 2006 the dv6000t series was finally orderable from HPShopping.com I ordered mine on the first day and tracked its status until it was delivered. My first experience using the dv6000t was playing F.E.A.R. Multiplayer online. I had been using my older HP dv5130us notebook with an ATi Xpress 200m GPU and a Turion 2.0GHZ processor. The dv6000t blew it out of the water in terms of speed and FPS. I was quite impressed to say the least, especially seeing as I had to use a 900MHZ Celeron desktop until my notebook arrived from China. Weeks after that I joined the NotebookReview.com forums because I had found a thread titled: the dv6000t Current and Prospective Buyers Lounge. I wasn’t alone; many others were also very impressed with this notebooks stylish looks and power. Shortly thereafter the dv6000t became Notebookreview’s most popular laptop, a title which it still holds some three months later.

Availability:

The dv6000t is available from hpshopping.com as a CTO (Custom To Order) notebook, and many retailers as preconfigured models. The ability to customize a notebook is great because you don’t need to buy any extra hardware that you can’t afford or don’t need.

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This notebook is available with the shiny piano black glossy type HP custom finish, as well as the oldschool rough plastic type. The notebook price ranges from usually around $500USD to anywhere in the area of $2000USD being that it is a CTO.

Reviewed dv6000t CTO Notebook Specs:

• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 (2.0GHZ with 4MB L2 Cache) “Merom”
• Hard Drive: Fujitsu 120 GB SATA -5400RPM
• Screen: 15.4" LG Phillips “LPL” WXGA BrightView Widescreen (1280 x 800)
• Graphics: Nvidia GeForce Go 7400, 128 MB Dedicated + 128 MB Shared
• RAM: 2GB 667MHZ DDR2 SDRAM
• Addition: HP Imprint Finish + Microphone + Webcam
• Optical Drive: Super Multi 8X DVD+/-RW w/Double Layer with Lightscribe
• Battery: 6-Cell Lithium-Ion
• Wireless: Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 802.11 a/b/g + Bluetooth
• Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Professional w/ Upgrade to Vista Business
• Dimensions: 1.0” - 1.69” (H) x 14.05” (W) x 10.12” (D) (Weight: 6.09 lbs)
• Ports/Slots: 1 IEEE 1394 (FireWire 400); 3 USB (USB 2.0); 5-in-1 memory card reader; VGA monitor out port; S-Video out; RJ-45 Ethernet LAN; RJ-11 modem; Express Card; IR receiver; Expansion Port 3; (2) headphone/speaker jacks with SPDIF
• Accessories:HP Expresscard TV Tuner, and Mobile Remote Control.

Build and design:

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The build quality of this notebook is great, it’s solid and sturdy. The LCD hinges give little if any flex while opening and closing with ease. There is a little rippling on the LCD when the top bezel is pressed with some force, but I’ve seen much worse. The touchpad works amazingly well, however the buttons are somewhat flimsy and feel cheap, though this doesn’t matter if you use an external mouse most of the time. There are an abundance of input and output connections on this notebook. It’s somewhat strange however they are all on the sides, with the exception of the headphone jacks in front. Most notebooks tend to have some ports on the back, the headphone jacks in the front do get quite annoying when hooking a stereo or surround sound into them. Possibly one of my favorite features on this notebook happens to be the media card slot. Not many notebooks have integrated media card readers; this is definitely a plus for avid digital photographers.

HP dv6000t top view (view large image)

I believe this notebook would fall somewhere in between a desktop replacement and portable. I wouldn’t take this notebook mountain climbing or throw it out of a window like some have claimed to do with the IBM T40s, however for the everyday person, bringing this to school; work or whatnot is pretty easy. Weighing in at about 6 pounds this isn’t super light but at the same time, it’s not quite as heavy as the all around desktop replacements that I’ve seen. Though, keep in mind that with a 12-Cell Lithium-Ion battery and AC adapter this notebook would weigh somewhere around 8 pounds which isn’t fun to carry around all day.

HP dv6000t bottom view (view large image)

Audio:

This notebook comes equipped with Altec Lansing stereo speakers which are located in between the LCD bottom and the one touch buttons. I was quite impressed with the quality of sound that these can blast out. When using Cyberlink PowerDVD to boost the volume they get somewhat distorted however. With my older notebooks I found myself plugging in my surround sound speakers a lot more than I do with this model.

Screen:

HP dv6000t front view (view large image)

Probably the most important feature when buying a laptop is having a good screen. If you’re going to be staring at it for thousands of hours it might as well be comfortable to look at. I received this laptop with an LG Philips 1280x800 WXGA Hi-Definition Brightview Widescreen with no dead pixels. I can easily say this is the nicest LCD I have ever owned. The screen has a very crisp picture, and no light leakage whatsoever. Viewing angles from the left and right are perfect, and do not look washed out. Vertical viewing angles however sometimes can be washed out when viewing from too far away. Using the included software you can customize your LCD’s color to your liking with the Nvidia Settings Manager tool which I thought was a plus.

Graphics:

Windows Vista ran well on the dv6000t (view large image)

I chose the Nvidia Geforce Go 7400 Series GPU for this notebook. This is the best available graphics chip for this model notebook. It seems to perform very well for average use and can play most new games at medium settings. The 128MB of shared “turbocache” doesn’t slow this PC down at all and it runs Vista Aero very smoothly. Most people considering this notebook seem to be worried about having enough graphics power for Vista which I did as well. After running Windows Vista Enterprise Edition for about two weeks I can safely say that it was a very nice experience (visually) and there were no quirks with the graphics processor. I had to use modded .inf files as the official Nvidia drivers aren’t out yet, however it still ran better that I had thought it would. Windows Vista seemed to actually run faster than XP Professional even with all the Aero features enabled. Another good benchmark test for the Go 7400 is F.E.A.R. which I play quite a bit. F.E.A.R. seems to run best with Processor set to Maximum, Graphics set to low, and the display at 1280x800. It will play at medium graphics settings however personally I would rather have a higher resolution.

Playing F.E.A.R. (view large image)

Processor and Performance:

The Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 2GHZ Processor in this notebook is lightning fast. In fact, the only time that I’ve hit 50%-100% CPU usage was while running SuperPI and Seti@home. My main reason for buying this dual core notebook was to edit and convert audio and video with Adobe Audition and Premier Pro. This is really where the dual core systems seem to shine, with this one being no exception. I also chose 2 GB of RAM, which seems to help encoding chug along quite nicely. The Intel Speedstep Technology also clocks down the processor until it’s needed to save battery life and prevent avoidable battery loss and overheating. The Core 2 Duo is a good choice as programmers are starting to create multithreaded programs and with the 64-Bit computing age on the horizon.

Benchmarks:

Super Pi measures the overall performance of the processors ability to crunch numbers by calculating Pi out to 2 million digits of accuracy.

Super Pi

Notebook	Time
HP dv6000t (2.0GHz Core 2 Duo)	1m 03s
Fujitsu LifeBook A6010 (1.66GHz Core 2 Duo)	1m 22s
LG S1 (2.16 GHz Core Duo)	1m 11s
Dell Inspiron e1505 (2.0GHz Core Duo)	1m 16s
Lenovo ThinkPad T60 (2.0GHz Core Duo)	1m 18s
Toshiba Satellite M100 (2.00GHz Core Duo)	1m 18s
Samsung X60 (1.66GHz Core Duo)	1m 29s
Sony VAIO FS680 (1.86 GHz Pentium M)	1m 53s
IBM ThinkPad T43 (1.86 GHz Pentium M)	1m 45s

PCMark05 Comparison results:

PCMark05 measures the overall system performance of a PC, you can see the dv6000t performed well:

Notebook	PCMark05 Score
HP dv6000t (2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo, Nvidia Go 7400)	4,124 PCMarks
Fujitsu LifeBook A6010 (1.66GHz Core 2 Duo, Intel GMA 950)	2,994 PCMarks
Fujitsu N6410 (1.66GHz Core Duo, ATI X1400)	3,487 PCMarks
Alienware M7700 (AMD Athlon FX-60, Nvidia Go 7800GTX)	5,597 PCMarks
Sony Vaio SZ-110B in Speed Mode (Using Nvidia GeForce Go 7400)	3,637 PCMarks
Toshiba Tecra M6 (1.66GHz Intel T2300E, Intel GMA 950)	2,732 PCMarks
Asus V6J (1.86GHz Core Duo T2400, Nvidia Go 7400)	3,646 PCMarks
Sony VAIO FE590 (1.83GHz Core Duo, Nvidia Go 7400)	3,427 PCMarks

Futuremark’s 3DMark05 graphics benchmarking software gave results consistent with a mid-range dedicated GPU:

3DMark05 Comparison Results:

Notebook	3D Mark 05 Results
HP dv6000t (2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo, Nvidia Go 7400)	1,969 3D Marks
Dell Inspiron e1705 (2.0GHz Core Duo, ATI X1400)	1,791 3D Marks
Acer TravelMate 8204WLMi (2.0GHz Core Duo, ATI X1600 256MB)	4,236 3DMarks
Alienware Aurora M-7700(AMD Dual Core FX-60, ATI X1600 256MB)	7,078 3D Marks
Lenovo ThinkPad T60 (2.0GHz Core Duo, ATI X1400 128MB)	2,092 3D Marks
Asus V6Va (2.13 GHz Pentium M, ATI x700 128 MB)	2,530 3D Marks
Fujitsu n6410 (1.66 GHz Core Duo, ATI X1400 128MB)	2,273 3DMarks
HP Pavilion dv4000 (1.86 GHz Pentium M, ATI X700 128MB)	2,536 3D Marks
Dell XPS M1210 (2.16 GHz Core Duo, nVidia Go 7400 256MB)	2,090 3D Marks

HDTune

HDTune measures the performance of the system hard drive, in this case a 120GB 5400RPM Fujitsu drive.

(view large image)

Heat and Noise:

After owning a notebook with a desktop Pentium 4 HT chip, I have learned to appreciate noise, or lack thereof. This notebook is very quiet; it’s about as loud as my older HP AMD Sempron notebook with cool and quiet technology. I guess Speedstep is basically the same thing. The only time I hear the fans come on is when I’m playing graphically intense games or running my CPU to 100% (Seti@home.) In addition, this notebook also stays pretty cool; the right of the touchpad feels warm on occasion, but not hot. Nothing I can really complain about there.

Keyboard and Touchpad:

HP dv6000t keyboard and touchpad (view large image)

The keyboard is very well laid out for a 15.4” laptop. It feels...Solid! None of the typical loud clickity-clackity type sounds emit from it, which is nice. The touchpad, as I said before, is very good. It’s sensitive and responds very well. It has a built in scrolling feature which is a bonus, however doesn’t always work 100% of the time. The touchpad buttons are alright. They feel kind of cheap and seem like they would break easily if pressed too hard.

Input and Output Ports:

Included in this notebook are (3) USB 2.0 ports,1 IEEE 1394 (FireWire 400); a 5-in-1 memory card reader; VGA monitor out port; S-Video out; RJ-45 Ethernet LAN; RJ-11 modem, Express Card, IR receiver, Expansion Port 3, (2) headphone/speaker jacks with SPDIF, and a Line in port. This notebook unfortunately does not have an HDMI port or a PCMCIA card slot.

Front view of dv6000t (view large image)

Left side view of dv6000t (view large image)

Right view of dv6000t (view large image)

Back view of dv6000t (view large image)

Wireless:

This notebook has (3) types of built in wireless capabilities. The Intel 3945 802.11 A/B/G wireless card, Integrated Broadcom Bluetooth, and an integrated infrared RC6 receiver. I have had no problems with any of the wireless capabilities in this laptop thus far, in fact I use a Belkin wireless router and it stays connected always. My past notebooks had Broadcom cards and it seemed like I would always get dropped connections.

Battery:

I purchased a 6 and 12 Cell Lithium-Ion battery when I bought this notebook. The 6-Cell seems to last around 2.5 hours and when the screen is dimmed significantly it will almost make it to 3. I ended up selling the extra 12-Cell Lithium-Ion battery because I actually never used it. The 12-Cells’ should get around 6 hours or so as they are essentially two 6-Cell batteries conjoined.

Operating System and Software:

My dv6000t came with Windows XP Professional pre-installed along with 20 GB of bloatware and partitions. I also opted to purchase a set of recovery DVDs for...$20!!

I used them as soon as I received my notebook to do a clean install, however using the $20 recovery DVDs did not give me a clean install. HAH! I think that’s a joke, they installed all the original bloat -- everything back again. I would recommend purchasing a retail copy of XP just so you don’t have to go through the de-bloating trouble. I purchased XP Professional and did a clean install after going through all the de-bloating trouble and noticed that the system ran faster. The only downside of installing a retail copy of XP is hunting down the drivers for the laptop, so if you plan on doing this yourself be sure to copy or burn the C:\swsetup folder first. The swsetup folder contains all the system drivers and whatnot which need to be installed after installing a new OS. Be careful however, the bloatware is also in the swsetup folder, you will need to pick it out folder by folder, good luck. At the time I purchased the notebook came with a free upgrade to Vista, but now it is being sold pre-installed.

Customer Support:

HP as well as basically all other computer manufacturer companies have sent their customer service department over to India. This isn’t a bad thing as it keeps the prices of electronics down considerably and creates jobs for Indian people, however it is at times hard to understand the reps because of the language/culture barrier. Overall however the HP customer service is very good, as long as you don’t mind waiting awhile on the phone, and eventually speak to someone that knows what they are talking about.

Conclusion:

Buying Choices for the HP Pavilion dv6000t (Core 2 Duo) HP Home & Home Office Store | $679.99

75.7% of people recommend this product - view 74 opinions | rate product

The dv6000t is a great customizable notebook for all kinds of people. Whether you need just a basic laptop to surf the web and write documents, a medium range gaming machine, or something to just crunch lots of data this notebook can do it all when configured appropriately. It’s hard to find things wrong with such a beautiful and well built laptop, I can’t stop admiring its zen-type design even while I type this. Overall I think this is very balanced and priced very well comonentwise. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who needs a powerful machine, while still retaining stylish and futuristic looks.

Pros:

• Great multitasking
• Decent Battery Life
• Comfortable Keyboard
• Beautifully Designed
• Cool and Quiet
• Quality Audio
• Excellent LCD
• Media Card Reader

Cons:

• Max GPU is Go 7400
• Missing a HDMI Port
• No PCMCIA Port
• Fingerprint magnet
• Way too much Bloatware
• No Recovery DVDs
• Easily Scratched