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-------------------------------------------------------------- This story was printed from ZDNet Australia. --------------------------------------------------------------
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Lenovo ThinkPad T60 By Asher Moses & Justin Jaffe, Special to ZDNet Australia August 11, 2006 URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/reviews/hardware/laptops/soa/Lenovo-ThinkPad-T60/0,2000065761,139247527,00.htm
The premium you pay is worth it: the ThinkPad T60 delivers a sturdy design, a complete range of network connectivity, top-shelf performance, long battery life, and just enough ports for the typical business user.
The first new iteration of the ThinkPad T series since Lenovo bought the ThinkPad business from IBM, the ThinkPad T60 retains its trademark design but adds in the latest components, including Intel's Core Duo chipset and a handful of new features. Unlike its more consumer-focused thin-and-light counterpart, the wide-screen ThinkPad Z60t, the ThinkPad T60 is built for large-enterprise business customers, incorporating a deep supply of connectivity features but few multimedia extras. With a starting price of AU$2,699, the ThinkPad T60 is considerably more expensive out of the gate than competing models, such as the Dell Latitude D620, but offers a sturdier design and superior configuration options, as well as excellent performance and a comprehensive array of features. As we did with the ThinkPad T-series model before it, we recommend the T60 to any serious business that can't afford to scrimp on its laptop fleet. Design Like the ThinkPad T43, the ThinkPad T60 can be configured with either a 14.1-inch or 15-inch standard-aspect display and a variety of native resolutions. Our test unit, featuring a 15-inch display with a fairly fine, 1,400x1,050 SXGA+ native resolution, looked crisp, clear, and reasonably bright; still, we prefer the wide-aspect display found on the ThinkPad Z60t. As with most business-focused systems, the ThinkPad T60's speakers sounded clear but, even when maxed out, soft and relatively flat. Features On the other hand, the ThinkPad T60 has basically all of the networking connections a businessperson could want: Gigabit Ethernet, 56Kbps modem, Bluetooth, 802.11a/b/g wireless, and EV-DO WWAN. A handy switch on the front edge turns all wireless radios on and off. The built-in WWAN chip -- the first of its kind in Australia -- is particularly impressive, as it enables users to access the Internet from anywhere they can get a mobile phone signal. The notebook currently only supports the Vodafone network, and just behind the battery is a slot for you to enter a Vodafone 3G SIM card. Using the pre-installed "Vodafone Mobile Connect" software, provided you've got a data service enabled on your SIM card, you're able to connect to the vendor's 3G network and send/receive email, MMS and SMS, as well as surf the Web through your regular browser. The functionality is very similar to that of a 3G data card, however, a major benefit of the T60's implementation is that you don't need to add an external card -- the WWAN chip is built into the notebook at the factory. Our performance observations regarding this Internet service can be found under "Performance". The ThinkPad T60 lacks a number of multimedia connections, such as FireWire, S-Video, and a media card reader -- features that aren't crucial to typical productivity work, but which are found on other business-class thin-and-lights. Security features abound, however, including a fingerprint reader and an Embedded Security Subsystem -- a hardware security feature that is similar to a Trusted Platform Module. Performance We found the Vodafone 3G Internet service to be fairly speedy for the tasks we needed to accomplish. Although it starts to slow down when you've got multiple browser tabs each trying to load pages and instant messaging conversations happening concurrently, it's certainly no slouch. Using the YourSpeed3 speed test, we recorded average download/upload speeds of 320/122kbps, which is in line with the 384kbps theoretical maximum bandwidth of 3G (non-EV-DO). A direct link to our results can be found here, should you want to take a more detailed look. Support Battery life
(Longer bars indicate longer battery life)
NOTE: Products in this test are for comparative purposes only and are not necessarily available in the Australian market. Find out more about how we test Windows notebooks. System configurations Dell Latitude D610 HP Compaq nc6140 Lenovo ThinkPad T43 Lenovo ThinkPad T60
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The ThinkPad T60 is extremely well designed and features thoughtful touches such as sturdy steel hinges, drain holes for accidental spills onto the keyboard, and -- new to the T series -- a shock-mounted hard drive and internal roll cage that holds components in place. The excellent keyboard offers a comfortable layout and features the traditional red eraser-head pointing stick, as well as a sufficient-size touch pad, each of which has a set of mouse buttons. Above the keyboard are three handy external volume controls -- the extent of the ThinkPad T60's dedicated multimedia controls -- and a blue ThinkVantage button, which summons Lenovo's excellent system support and help utility.
When it comes to ports and connections, the ThinkPad T60 keeps it basic. You get a VGA port, headphone and microphone jacks, slots for Type II PC Cards and ExpressCards, and three USB 2.0 ports -- one more than the ThinkPad T43 but still short of the Latitude D620's four -- and a DVD burner in its swappable bay.