First post-Lenovo buyout ThinkPad
Sitting here on my desk is a brand-new ThinkPad T42. I bought it for a new hire at the office. I have yet to play with a ThinkPad purchased after the Lenovo sale.
First Impressions
T-series ThinkPads are sick. The composite case is just ill. This new ThinkPad T42 (2378-R4U) is only about an inch thick, and makes my T30 (2366-85U) look completely old. I really like the look of T-series ThinkPads - they look very industrial, not slick-design stylee like many notebooks on the market. There’s something about the look that makes an IT geek know that it means business.
I have yet to power the machine on, but I have already encountered one issue. Upon opening the memory chip cover, the small washer that is meant to keep the screw inside the plastic was not correctly placed. So, unscrewing it did not make the cover lift up as it should, making me have to use a precision screwdriver to remove the cover. I was able to correctly seat the washer after installing the 1GB chip that I installed, and now the cover works correctly. Not a huge deal, but that was the very first thing I did to the machine, after ogling it that is. Makes me a little nervous.
I’ll let you know how the initial setup process goes, as well as some updates from down the road. I really want it to go well, because I don’t want to have to buy corporate notebooks that aren’t ThinkPads.
September 27th, 2005 at 3:38 pm
I’ve had good luck with HP’s corporate offerings. We could never afford IBM stuff here (as much as I wanted it), and didn’t want to slum it with Dell (I actually want to have parts that won’t break). I haven’t bought anything from them since Lenova took things over from IBM, though I’ve had two Thinkpads in my life, loved ‘em both.
September 27th, 2005 at 9:12 pm
I never have bought an HP (not compaq) system. I love the LaserJet line however; I still have reliable LJs all the way back to a LaserJet II.
My HP/Compaq Evo N115, which you may have read about here, is the only HP I have experience with. I loved that it was an Athlon, but I never was much of a fan of its look or feel.
I hear the Toshiba notebook offerings are quite nice, though as I said above, I really hope I can just keep buying ThinkPads. I also have had a couple VAIO notebooks in the office, as my boss really digs the flashy stuff. You have to pay quite a premium for that Sony badge, however.
I buy Dell desktops for the office, and so far, I’ve had incredibly good luck with them. They’re cheap, and so far, I haven’t had any bad experiences, even with the ones with embedded sound and video. I actually still have two active OptiPlex towers running 2K with Celeron 600s! They are still incredibly snappy with the day-to-day MS Office and ACT! tasks. I’ve never been a fan of the Dell notebook line though - the few I’ve had direct experience with are incredibly picky about RAM, and just don;t seem to hold up as I’d like them to.
September 28th, 2005 at 7:43 am
The biggest bitch I have with dell is the frequency with which the HD’s fail.
Take today for instance. A drive failed on our imaging system, again. This is the 2nd time this month. We actually hadn’t even sent back the old failed drive, before a new one failed.
The only nice thing is that we have 4 hour service support, so we call them and have a new drive delivered within 4 hours. Today it only took 2 hours in fact.
But it makes me uncomfortable considering the lunatics that run my company are giving up the AS/400 for a Dell Server…crazy bastards…
September 28th, 2005 at 8:47 am
Dell’s gone all weird on me all of a sudden. I was expecting to end up purchasing about 25 small form factor Dell desktops for public use PCs in my library. But expenditures that large require a process of obtaining a certain number of competitive quotes from state-authorized dealers here (the process if they don’t have a state contract is really hard, so I usually don’t bother trying to buy much from non-state contract vendors. Anyway, I digress). Imagine my surprise when HP quoted me not just lower prices, but substantially lower prices than Dell. Now, my inner pinko kinda resents Dell’s library market dominance, anyway, but still; it was weird.
September 28th, 2005 at 10:18 am
My T30 is jealous. Just today, it acts like it’s not going to boot with some missing or corrupted bullshit. I am not in the mood for troubleshooting today; I worked 12.5 hours yesterday. Recovery Console, here we come.