Lenovo ThinkPad z60t Review (PICs, Specs) (1. 5)

Who shoshould buy the ThinkPad X40 series:If you want to stay as light as possible, the X40 is still by a long stretch where it's. you'll absolutely want the larger 7-cell battery on the z60t if you're traveling and if you get the titanium lid you're looking at a notebook that's twice the weight the x41. I found the battery life on the x41 to be superior to the z60t 7-cell, I easily get 4 + hours with my x41 at full brightness and wireless on, but with the 7-cell z60t I cocould not get this type of life. you sacrifice screen size, a lot of power and having an optical drive with the x40. you gain the ultimate in portability with a weight of around 3lbs.

Who shoshould buy the ThinkPad T40 series:If you like to be portable with a thin-and-light but don't want to sacriice power, the T40 series is great. the T40 does not have a widescreen and lacks somewhat in ports though. it only has 2 USB 2.0 ports, no Firewire, no media card reader, no extra buttons such as Wi-Fi on/off or a Windows key. if you prefer standard screen to widescreen the T40 is it. also, I got better battery life with my T40 (about 4 hours when it was new) compared to the 3 hours I was getting with the z60t brand new so you cocould say the T40 is slightly more travel friendly in regards to battery life. usability is great with the T40 series, and portability very good (weight about 5.2lbs ). you can get a dedicated graphics card and memory and higher than XGA resolution screen for the T43, you can not for the z60t.

Who shoshould buy the ThinkPad z60t series:If you like to be portable with a thin-and-light notebook and want a widescreen display coupled with a powerful processor, the z60t gives you this. the z60t is more generous compared to the T40 in terms of ports too, it has 3 USB 2.0 ports, A media card reader and FireWire -- all missing on the t43. a Windows key and more keyboard shortcut cut functions are available. the z60t is a comparable weight to the T40, it's about 5.5lbs travel weight, so slightly heavier. the build and quality is the same as the T40 series, it has a newer SATA hard drive, but right now that means no 7200 RPM hard drives are available to configure. for me it's a toss up between the z60t and T40 series, if you like some of the more consumer oriented features of the z60t it's the one for you. but you lose a slight amount of portability in terms of battery and tiny weight differential (and even that's dependent on your specific configuration ).

Z60t build and design

The z60t is as solid as any ThinkPad there has been, crushing any notion that the Lenovo takeover of IBM PCs wowould lead to an immediate change in build quality and the use of recycled plastic shopping bags to build thinkpads. it's quite the opposite, Lenovo has placed a new sturdier chasis inside the z60t that they claim offers 30% more shock absorbtion to internal parts. the keyboard spill proof mechanisms and drainage system has been improved. go ahead, spill two cups of coffee and not one. the hard drive area also has added protection via a guide rail pack. and there's an option for a titanium lid that offers Supreme protection (and cool looks) to the top of your ThinkPad.

Z60t right side view (View larger image)

Z60t left side view (View larger image)

Z60t front side view, notice the Wi-Fi switch, SD card reader and headphone/microphone jacks on the front (View larger image)

Z60t back side view (View larger image)

The hinges on the ThinkPad z60 are actually much thicker than any other model I 've seen, just look at the images of this laptop to see They're metallic and beefy, offering great support of the screen -- there's zero wobble. the screen lid on my review unit has a titanium lid, this offers some nice extra rigidity and protection to the lid, there's no way to push in on the lid and cause ripples on the screen. the only thing better Lenovo cocould offer is a bullet proof lid, for those times you have to go to war. right now the titanium lid is only available on the higher-end pricier models, please have asked when the titanium lid will be able on lower end models, but Lenovo has no commitment to a date on that other than "some time ".

Thinkpads are typically built to keep ve up to 3 ft. drops and have a built-in hard drive protection system called APS (active protection system) to make sure if the laptop doesn't keep ve then at least the data does. thinkpads areNotA true rugged notebook, look to $3,000 + Panasonic toughbooks for the type of laptop that supports 150 + lbs of weight and sandstorms, but the ThinkPad z60 is definitely highly durable. the body is a very thick and rigid plastic composite with little flex. there is slight flex on the right side palm rest, other than that none.

I did have a problem with the z60t upon arrival, This Is A Review Unit and as such was poked and prodded by folks at Lenovo that setup laptops sent out to reviewers. when I got ed the z60t I found the right side palm rest to be loose and was able to lift the area easily. I later found a clip was not in place here, after corresponding with Lenovo I found that this z60t had been taken apart to look at internals and was not put back together quite right. rest assured, the people that put together the ThinkPad z60t in China will do a better job than the higher paid American counterparts whose sometimes job it is to put together a notebook. the irony.

Design looks wise the z60t breaks with tradition in 4-ways.

1. The corners of the z60t at the front are rounded, not squared.
2. The screen is widescreen, not standard.
3. The lid can be configured with the silver titanium look.
4. Keyboard look and buttons have changed somewhat, the power button is silver, there's a windows and application key and the red stripes have been removed from the trackpoint area.

Despite those 4 differences, this ThinkPad looks very much the same as any other, it's black all over and looks professional and well built. look at the image above with the x41, T40 and z60t and you'll see the genetic code for a ThinkPad didn't change all that much with the introduction of the z60. after all, there 'd be riots in the streets of every city and longtime business channel buyers wocould end contracts with Lenovo if we saw a silver or white ThinkPad.

Z60t under side view (view larger image)

Processor/memory/Hard Drive Performance

The ThinkPad z60t is reachable with the latest intel celeon m or Intel Pentium M processor (up to 2.13 GHz ). the celeon M configuration will save you money, a high end Pentium M processor such as the Pentium M 760 2.0 GHz in the z60t I have will give very good performance at a higher price. the Pentium M 2.0 GHz with a 533 MHz FSB and 2 MB L2 cache using the latest intel mobile chipset has proven itself worthy of belonging in high-end gaming rigs such as the Dell XPS and alienware machines, and you'll find it's a veritable overkill for any business application -- but nice to have nonetheless if you don't mind paying.

The 1,024 GB DDR2 533 MHz SDRAM in this configuration is nice, 512 MB is probably okay for the average user, but more and more I like to see the 1 GB amount as it does give you a boost of speed. up to 2 GB of RAM can be installed. if you use a database on your machine, the 1 GB of memory is clutch. I often Install SQL Server on laptops to run local databases and I found that the z60t with its 2.0 GHz processor and 1,024 GB was very snappy returning queries even on tables with millions of records. so if you're a programmer or database developer, you'll appreciate the power this notebook can provide. if you're a business user with large access databases you'll appreciate more RAM as well.

And what of gamers? The z60t doesn't offer a dedicated graphics card, just Intel's integrated multimedia accelerator, but with a fast processor and lots of ram you can still play a number of games, even newer ones, as long as they don't demand lots of polygon shading or include fast moving 3D objects that scale rapidly. I played a few demo games, one of which was a sports game named pro evolution soccer 5 and had no issues running the games.

Arsenal and Real Madrid kickoff in a friendly soccer match-games such as the new pro evolution soccer 5 that aren't demaning on the graphics processor run great on the z60t, even without a dedicated graphics card

The hard drive in the z60t is the first in a ThinkPad to be of the SATA (S = serial) variety, which is the latest in hard drive technology as far as transferring information goes. the old standard was PATA (P = parallel ). there's a slight performance increase with Sata over PATA, but it's nothing compared to the speed at which the hard drive spins. with the z60t you get a standard 5400 RPM hard drive, certainly more generous than the 4200 RPM drive extends other manufacturers stick. you can get up to 100 GB of storage. no 7200 RPM drive config is available yet, and probably won't be until into next year.

Boot up time from pushing the power button to arriving at the desktop background that displays after loading Profile settings (I had no user logon setup, just bypassed that) was almost exactly one minute and 10 seconds, timed 3 times for purpose of accuracy. I didn't disable any startup processes using msconfig, you cocould probably kill a few startup processes to win a second or two back.