T61p | I Spit Hot Fire

Lenovo Thinkpad T61p 14″ [Review]

Thursday, March 20th, 2008

I’ve talked about it a number of times already, and now I’ve had about three months to really give some impressions of it.

Overall, I am liking it a lot. I’ve never had a Thinkpad before, although I did use my dad’s for for four months in 2003 while I was studying abroad in Vietnam. Before this, I used a HP ZT3000 for 4 years, which was a really good laptop, but a big big with a 15.4″ widescreen (1680×1050!) and close to 7 lbs.

This time around, went smaller and lighter: 14″ non-widescreen (14″ widescreen is lower resolution compared to the 1400 x 1050 screen I got). Mine’s also a heavy version, a more power hungry of the 14″ T61. I have a Nvidia Quadro 570M for gaming and a 9 Cell Battery (standard is 6 cell), so when you look at the laptop, the battery looks oversized not flush with the back. The total weight, with battery, is about 6lbs, while normally, it should be closer to 5.3 to 5.5 with the 6 cell.

Quick summary:

The T61P is heavier that I would like, though this is my fault for wanting a better video card, and then getting an oversize battery to compensate for loss of battery life. It’s just a nice powerhouse laptop that can do a bit of everything at a smaller size. I don’t regret the purchase at all.

System Specs:

Intel Centrino Duo Core 2.2 Ghz
14″ LCD (1400 x 1050)
3 GB RAM, 1GB Turbo Memory
100 GB 7200 RPM HD
8X DVD/CDRW Combo
Nvidia Quadro 570M, 128 MB RAM (64 Bit Bus vs 128 bit in 15.4″ T61P)
9 Cell Battery
About 6 lbs with the 9 Cell

Gaming:

The Quadro is good for gaming- it’s not as fast as the 256MB version in the 15″ T61P, but I can play games like Bioshock (ok, at 800×600 with max detail/quality at 30 fps), Virtua Tennis, and Half-Life Orange Box. It’s definitely not top-of-the-line, but you can enjoy a good amount of current-gen games. I think the Quadro is the fastest video card you can get for a 14″ system.

Windows Vista Home Premium (now with Service Pack 1):

For desktop use, I think the system is quick. Again, I come from an 4 year old laptop, but things run and load quickly. A lot of people have dismissed Turbo Memory, and I haven’t tried turning mine off, but programs load really quickly for me, even on first load, and I think that’s a mix of Turbo Memory and Vista Pre-Fetch (I use Vista Home Premium). You can expect any program, even Microsoft Office, to load within 2-5 seconds. Hard drive copy and pasting speeds are a bit slow, but I hear with Vista SP1 (coming in March), those speeds are a lot better.

Overall, Vista is nice. I know search is supposed to be a system hog, but I don’t notice any issues, and system search is really good (instant fast) now. The Aero Desktop interface is nice as well. Not revolutionary by any means, but it looks much nicer.

I consider my system to be stable under Vista. The only issue I do have is with hibernation/sleep. At random times, the computer will lock up resuming or coming back from sleep. The power meter will say everything’s fine, but I can’t get the LCD to go back on. I recently updated the system’s firmware, but I’m not 100% sure I can trust the laptop if I put it to sleep. It does feel more less likely to crash post-sleep, but maybe it’s because I am more careful about when I let it sleep; my current settings are so that the laptop doesn’t go to sleep if I close the lid.

I installed SP1 for Vista a couple of days ago, but have no real feedback on it yet.

Overall, I think Vista will prove its worth over time. Maybe XP would in some ways feel faster, but I think my system feels very responsive overall already, and I am a power user who switches windows and throws open 20+ Firefox tabs at once casually.

Portability/Battery Life:

If you get integrated graphics, the battery life is suppose to be very good, in the 4-5 hr range. Discrete (what I have) is supposed to be noticeably less.

I’ve never fully used the battery, but while using Vista Battery Saver, I think I can project to close to 4 hours with the 9 cell. That’s with wireless going, some light media play, just what I would do normally at work. I set the lcd brightness at 85% when on battery, but overall, the computing experience feels the same.

Other Comments:

The frame of the T61P (the P is for performance, oooooh) is pretty strong, though some of the edges have weak points that I could snap off if I tired, but it’s a well-built computer. I have the fingerprint reader, which is probably a waste of money, but I like it.

I’ve always been a big fan of the Touchpoint (red knob on the keyboard). Not a big fan of touchpads, though, and you can thankfully disable the touchpad so it doesn’t get in the way.

Some good resources to learn more :

Notebook Review’s Lenovo Forum
LaptopVideo2Go (Laptop Video Card Divers)
Forum.Thinkpads.com
Lenovo Drivers

Tags: intel, lenovo, microsoft, nvidia, quadro, Reviews, t61p, Tech, thinkpad, turbo memory, vista, windows

20.03.2008 Reviews, Tech No Comments

The Open Source Movement

Monday, February 4th, 2008

Emil is gung-ho open source: Linux, everything. I actually respect him because as stupid as he is (I say it to his face too) about it, he does have principles and he has become pretty consistent with it as open source has become increasingly reliable at producing what he needs in terms of software.

For me though, I liked the idea, just was not going to do it, at least for major apps like Office.

But when I got the T61P and also wanted my team to try out new software instead of just relying I-use-Photoshop-to-crop-images not this other lightweight and free software, I decided to try a bunch of free programs, preferably open source.

The test subjects:

Open Office:

Open Office is pretty well known, completely open source and free. Reviews are generally positive about it- some things it does better than Microsoft Office, many others maybe not as well. I didn’t use OO too much, but I did think it was slower than expected. Maybe this is because it runs on Java? I have a really quick laptop (dual core Centrinos at 2.2 GHZ) with 3GB RAM, and it didn’t feel as responsive as I would have liked. Opening files was a bit slower but I think that’s because I was always converting MS Office documents, not working with the native format. In Calculator (Excel-equivalent), there were some things that I was used to in Excel that I couldn’t reproduce in OO. I’m no pro, but just thinks I needed, basics like auto-filter- it didn’t quite work right, but it again, maybe that’s from opening an Excel sheet.

Nonetheless, I needed 100% compatibility to want to keep running it.

Since I’ve been running Office 2007 for a while, I can definitely say it feels quicker. Again, that’s not to state it as fact for everyone else out there, but for me, it is. Overall, I think OpenOffice is ideal for an international business, or where everyone in the office is using OO. In terms of personal use, I’d say go for OO all the way but in business situations, no one will give you slack because you’re using OO and its compatibility may not be 100% perfect.

Pidgin IM:

I have used Trillian for IM for a long, long time, at least 5 years. Before that, I used ICQ. I only used AIM through Trillian because after getting used to ICQ, I’ve been a power IM user. I’d tried Pidgin before when it was called GAIM, but its AIM-like interface threw me off. It still has it, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing, just depends on you. The biggest thing I noticed with Pidgin is that you can’t do metacontacts, that is you can’t combine X different contacts from the same person into 1 combined “metacontact”. You’ll just have the other contacts mixed in with the rest, and the results can be confusing. I also like Trillian’s method of sorting. Online and offline contacts can be separated, and while you can do that in Pidgin, it’s different. I can’t remember how it is, but it’s impossible to recreate how it feels in Trillian. Is it fair to compare when it’s not necessarily worse or better than Trillian? Probably not, but I have to use what I like.

I think most people will like Pidgin a lot, especially those who like the AIM interface. I’m more ICQ-oriented and Trillian was almost like the next step of ICQ for me.

Mozilla Thunderbird:

I already mentioned that I went back to Office 2007 for things like word processing and spreadsheets. Same thing for e-mail. Thunderbird has some cool features, but I think if people developed more for it (like they did with Firefox), it could be the best e-mail solution, even for business. Firefox is probably no different from Internet Explorer 7, if not worse, without extensions. While Thunderbird has some nice ones, just can’t match up vs Outlook (2003 or 2007) in business settings.

Like the other software, I suppose it hurts because I am familiar with different software and expect similar feel. But I have to assume that many people out there are the same. I found myself confounded by how you address e-mails (you seem to have to use the mouse a decent amount to send an e-mail, though I am sure I just needed to learn the shortcuts). I really need that Ctrl-K to finish my e-mail addresses.

It really felt like I had to relearn a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff where I didn’t see a need to relearn things (things didn’t get better).

With things like OpenOffice and Thunderbird, I ask, why not replicate the same functions and way to execute those ways that Microsoft Office does them. I’m sure in one sense, you don’t want a copy, but at least offer a “use X like Office” keymapping- after all, the biggest way to gain adaptation is if everything works like your old software did, but maybe you add some extra features in that take some learning to get used to, or maybe you’re missing some of those extra features.

Overall, I just felt slowed down by Thunderbird. The Lightning/Sunbird extension is not so bad for personal use, especially with the Provider Google Calendar Syncing extension,but overall, definitely lacking for a business environment. Considering it’s free and for personal (casual user) use, I don’t mind it.

Screen Captor:

I never used screen capture software until I started working for software companies. Now, it’s pretty indispensable to show examples of bugs or issues, I used to use CaptureWiz, for not other reason than someone suggested it to me, and I mainly like how it’s able to detect boxes or what you might be wanting to capture, very useful. Otherwise, it’s simple to use and no issues.

Screen Captor is pretty good. I have no real problems though I couldn’t get it to quite work in terms of object detection like Capture Wiz. I think Captor has the same feature, but even though it has extensive options, not as intuitive to get the same results as Screen Captor. Then again, Screen Captor is free, and I think most people will really like it.

FileZilla:

I don’t really use FTP software other than for downloading the latest version of XBMC or updating I Spit Hot Fire. I normally used FlashFXP, and while I’d heard great things about FileZilla, the one thing that stood out to me was that it seemed so much slower in file actions versus FlashFXP. Not sure if it was my Internet connection (though I tried it a number of times over a week+), or some settings, but it just felt incredibly slow.

Final Remarks:

It’s a bit sad that I ended up using all my original preferences versus open source software/free software, but I don’t think that’s a reflection of the software, more so of me. I think everything was quite good, but habits die hard, especially in a business setting where you need to feel comfortable to get things done.

Update (02/05): Right after I posted this, Lifehacker posted Make Word and OpenOffice More Compatible

Tags: filezilla, firefox, flashfxp, icq, lenovo, mozilla, open office, open source, pidgin, Reviews, t61p, Tech, thunderbird, trillian

04.02.2008 Reviews, Tech No Comments

Geek Moments

Saturday, February 2nd, 2008

I think being geeky is hard to classify. I think we all know what we would think is geeky, but your geeky is probably not the same as my geeky.

For example, I compare it to being a sports fan. If you’re a football fan, then almost all football fans can relate.

But if you’re a geek, that’s too general because there’s just too much geekiness to really classify.

For example, we’d probably admit it, but [[Jimmy]], Mike, myself, and Emil are definitely all geeks. But we’re geeks about different things, so much so that Mike would easily tell me, “you are such a geek” yet he is as much or moreso a geek in his own right, in his geeky interest.

Jimmy could be a social bookmarking geek, Emil is a Linux geek, and Mike is a anime/manga geek. All things that even though we are somehow generally classified under geek, can still be completely independent of each other with our geekiness.

Here is my geeky moment:

(By the way, is it just me, or you also wondering about the word “geek” because you’ve repeated it so much in the last 4 paragraphs)

XBMC (XBox Media Center) + modded XBox + Last.FM +

Harman Kardon Soundsticks II +

LG 26″ LCD HDTV +

Windows Vista + Lenovo T61P

Samba (SMB) Share + 120GB Western Digital Passport USB Hard Drive +

My Room +

Hanoi, Vietnam

F’ing greatness. I know have my super streaming media box setup from Vista to my Xbox, and I just got the last component, which were the HK speakers. Now I can listen to music in high quality (because of the speakers), watch downloaded videos on the HDTV (w/upscaling!), and even look at my photos. Last.fm will even track the music I listen to. (look to the right)

Oh, and there’s of course basically my videogame history lesson packed in the XBox, which is full of complete collections of SNES, NES, Genesis, PC-Engine/TurboGrafix 16, Arcade, etc….games.

Tags: emil, genesis, harman kardon, last.fm, lenovo, lg, mike, neo geo, nes, pc engine, snes, t61p, Tech, Video Games, vista, xbmc, xbox

02.02.2008 Tech, Video Games No Comments

Brrrr, It’s Cold

Tuesday, December 25th, 2007

I’m back in San Jose for a couple of weeks, and while Hanoi isn’t warm (55 F), especially when you’re riding a motorbike (instant wind chill), it’s downright cold here (40 F).

I had been planning on a lot of basketball, but now, I’m not sure when I’ll get out there. It’s gonna take everyone wanting to play basketball for me to get out there- shorts and jersey top are definitely not cutting it for this weather.

I came back Thursday night, and haven’t done much so far. Saw I am Legend on Friday, was disappointed. Will probably try to see Juno before I head back as well.

Other notes of the last couple weeks:

This website was messed up for a week or so. I think someone was hacking the site, and then I tried to resolve security issues, and then the whole thing went ugly for a bit. Ngoc Anh put it back together, and now everything is seemingly ok.
Flew back on China Airlines (Taiwan leg). China Airlines is pretty awesome now. Or the planes they use are awesome. I have never been a big fan of theirs, but they always had the lowest price to Vietnam, but coming back to the US, we got seats with their own TVs and movie selections. Normally, when I go on these flights, the first thing I do is look in the in-flight magazine to see what’s showing on-board, and then I notice that although the movie selection for all flights is pretty good, my flight is always ridden with crap. This is kind of what happened this time. There were movies like Bourne Ultimatum, Transformers, Ratatouille, Superbad, The Simpsons Movie, and I didn’t have any one. Then I learned that my TV set could choose movies! Food was pretty good too. Now I hope I get the same type of TV when I head back to Vietnam.
Got to finally check out all the stuff I ordered. Everything came ok, though the Halo shirt I got (for $45!!!!) is probably too small. It fits really tight, so I think my sister will wear it (it’s a Men’s small, so it’s slightly big for her, but it seems like a smaller than normal Men’s small- I normally wear medium)
Typing this on my new Lenovo T61p laptop, took a few days to set up.
Saw the Dark Knight trailer, it’s awesome. Simply awesome. I’m going to go sell Batman (original with Jack Nicholson). I think the major difference in the Joker is that from the trailer, Heath Ledger’s Joker sounds crazy. Jack Nicholson did not seem that crazy or psychotic to me, but Heath Ledger has that certain thing that makes him feel insane. “I like that”
Got Rock Band for PS2. It is fun, though I just want to get to Enter Sandman. Drums are going awhile to learn, my sister is already pretty decent at it.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Tags: Basketball, batman, china airlines, heath ledger, i am legend, joker, lenovo, Movies, playstation 2, rock band, san jose, t61p, will smith

25.12.2007 Basketball, Movies 1 Comment

YES! New Laptop!

Wednesday, October 31st, 2007

Lenovo T61P! (Now I just need to get back to the US to pick it up. Can’t wait! Been using a HP Pavilion ZT3000 for four years, even though I still love it- the 1680×1050 Widescreen on it is fabulous.) I got the fingerprint reader, Turbo Memory (I hope Vista XP1 comes out sooner rather than later, I hear TM isn’t that great right now in its current state), and Vista Home Premium. Click on the picture to see the full order specs: