quote:
Originally posted by Dazzy
Thinkpads ftw.
Yeah, perhaps if multimedia features are not an issue. I have a 14.1" Thinkpad T61 from June 2007. It's sturdy, handy, fast and all... But the crippled sound card is enough to make me steer clear of Lenovo in the future. Forget about being able to actually hear the audio of Youtube videos in a room with other people making quiet conversation. The problem is not the speakers, as they will play somewhat loudly if the source is loud enough. The f***ing driver simply won't let you turn up the volume sufficiently.
By comparison, my mom's Dell Inspiron with its front-mounted laptop speakers offers deafening voume with just about any sound source.
Also, music playback occasionally "skips", for instance if you drag a window on the desktop. Had the 7200rpm harddrive replaced on warranty to try and fix this issue, but the probled has not completely gone away.
Also, your only record input is options are the microphone and Line In. No WAV/MP3 or Stereo Mix option! This means no (practical) way of sending what you're currently listening to via Messenger - this happens to annoy me beyond belief. This can only be solved by getting an external sound card (trust me, I've turned every stone).
Also, the screen is pretty lousy - brightness wise. My mom's Dell screen is far superior. None of the two compared screens is glossy.
I knew the Thinkpad was a business-aimed laptop, but I thought this mostly meant extra sturdiness and not necessarily much less multimedia functionality. I would have got something without "Thinkpad" in its name knowing what I know today...
Sadly, I don't expect it to break anytime soon - it is, after all, a Thinkpad
Someone mentioned overheating. I don't find this to be a problem (only when using it in bed, cuttinf off the air intake), however, the power supply tends to get fairly hot.
Check out
http://www.notebookreview.com/