IBM ThinkPad A20p
Editors' Choice
Price: AU$9,169.
Company: IBM Australia
Ph: 13 24 26; Fax: 02 9354 7776
www.ibm.com.au
There is no doubt that IBM makes great notebooks. The IBM ThinkPad A20p looks very bulky and with its display down it looks very square. The IBM tipped our scales at 3.45kg, which was a little heavier than most. The power adaptor weighs in at 470 grams so in total you will be carrying around just over 3.9kg. The IBM was the second heaviest notebook after the Gateway.
The IBM ThinkPad shipped with a Pentium III 700. It was a bit under-powered in comparison to some of the other notebooks. A nice addition was a 18GB IBM hard drive. All the other notebooks came with 12GB hard drives. The ThinkPad was also the first notebook we tested with 16MB of video memory.
As soon as we opened up and folded back the display we could just feel how robust and solid this notebook really is. The display is extremely well supported and is built to last. The design of the notebook is conservative, and the keypad is all black to match the rest of the notebookâ€"the ThinkPad does not use two different colours to separate the standard keys from the function keys. There are, however, three volume buttons that are grey (volume up, down and mute). The palmrest area is adequate and not as large as many of the other notebooks. There are speakers located on each left and right top corners of the notebook and a trackball located in the centre of the keyboard. The trackball uses three buttons. This is not very common. The third button is used together with the first to select a window. Once you have pressed down on the first button and the third button you should be able to move the window you have selected without holding down any buttons.
The IBM ThinkPad was also shipped to us with Windows 2000. After we had booted up we were surprised that the notebook was running at a native resolution of 1440 x 1050. We also realised that we couldn't compare the performance of the ThinkPad with any of the other notebooks because of this. We figured you would only be using the IBM Thinkpad at 1440 x 1050. If you drop the resolution down to 1024 x 768 the display appears very muddy and the text also appears fuzzy. At its native resolution the display was bright and vivid. It was the best display in the review and probably the best display the lab has seen on a notebook. All the blacks were true black and all the colours really leap out. As mentioned earlier, the TFT was well supported. When we applied some pressure to the back of the panel we were amazed not to see any rippling.
The IBM ThinkPad is also very easy to upgrade. Two SO-DIMM sockets are located underneath the notebook. IBM claims that the ThinkPad can take up to 512MB of RAM. This assumes you are using two 256MB RAM modules. The IBM hard drive also pulls out from underneath the notebook after removing one screw. The ThinkPad comes with a built-in modem and network adaptor. This leaves the two PC Card slots free.
The rear ports are not protected by any cover and are open to the elements. You will find all the standard ports you would find on any other notebook. A docking station was located underneath the notebook, which is not all that common. To the right of the notebook and next to the DVD drive is a video in and video out port.
The IBM battery lasted for 3 hours and 53 minutes. This was the second best time we recorded. Overall, you can expect a lot from this notebook. Despite it being the most expensive notebook in the review ($9169) it truly is an excellent notebook that is made to last. It is also worth considering in the price the three-year warranty that comes with the notebook.
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