alright, here's a mini review did out of pure enjoyment. enjoy!
pros:
-this has to have one of the best keyboards i've ever used, better than my desktop logitech one. i am actually typing this review on it now(wirelessly)
-excellent screen. honestly, for a $850 notebook, it has a very bright and clear screen. the hinges are made of metal/steel so that gives you re assurence. however, there appears to be some backlight bleeding (i ithink that's the term) on the bottom in the right hand corner: but overall, it's not that bad that i would take it back)
-track point, holy snap, i've never used an ibm notebook with one of these, and i have to say, these things rock! i would say it's 10x better than a track pad. you just have to try it to believe it. you can type and move the cursor without taking your hands off the keyboard which is so darn conveniant. it also came with 2 other switchable track pointers, i like the concave one as i think it gives me a firmer grip and more control. forgot to add that it also has a scroller button. you hold that down and move the track point up or down.
-wireless, wow, talk about easy setup. after i configured xp for the first time and made it into the windows desktop, the wireless adapter found my home's network. it asked me if i wanted to connect, i said yes, it asked me for the WEP key, i entered it, and bam! i was online. very fast connection i might add, i haven't lost a signal yet.
-hard drive, is relatively fast for it's speed. i BELIEVE it is 4200rpm, but i might be wrong. boot up time is extremely fast for a notebook and after i de fragged it, whoo, it made it even faster. it is nice and quiet and the temperature stays around 39 celcious which isn't too bad.
-cpu, man, pentium m's pack a serious punch. it can underclock itself to reduce heat and battery drain and i must say, it is a sweet feature. my battery time is 4 house, 100% to 10% and that is exactly what it was advertised at (4 hours) it is extremely zippy despite it being a lower end dothan, running at 1.6GHz, but i like it's relative speed/heat ratio compared to my prescott desktop cpu.
-heat, i find this part of reviews the most important and i think that some people agree with me. the heat on this, to describe to you what i would want described to me is, well, it's generally warm. it can get hot but that depends on what program/cpu use is going on. the fan is pretty quiet, it will run at it's mid speed which isn't loud at all, but when you boot it up and it runs at it's full speed for like a second, well, that's loud, but i haven't heard it run at full speed yet so that means it's doing it's job. the bottom of the notebook does get warm and i'd say that the entire bottom gets warm, not just certain parts. the exhaust vent is on the left side (my left hand) and you can see the beautiful copper heatsink/heat pipe cooling system which re assures you that this thing can be kept very cool. it idles in the 30-40s and when running folding at home at 100% cpu usage, it went up to 63 degrees which i guess isn't too hot for a mobile cpu. when i lowered usage to 50%, it would hover around 47-50, so that's where i left the setting. overall, great cooling.
-status indicators, omg, this thing is so informatve. it has the indicators right below the screen, backlit green. battery light, wireless light, hard drive activity, caps lock, num lock, scroll lock, and one more that i'm not sure of, next to the battery light. it has everything on the keyboard:fn + anything and it will do anything.
-battery, like i said before, 4 hours battery life. it holds a good charge and lasts long. good charger included, with a velcro tap to neatly tie up the cables. battery plugs into the back side of it. overall, great battery life.
-think light, boy, talk about innovation! you just hit fn + this one button and it turns on the think light, which is an led at the top of the screen that illuminates the keyboard. i thought that it'd be a waste, but it DOES light up the keyboard jsut enough for you to read the keys without any problems. i'm actually typing this in the dark (without think light on: i'm such a good typer )
-included software, talk about security, this thing is loaded in a sub start menu section about ibm access and all this other good stuff. i am impressed with all these features because i know that they're there if i ever need them. also, there is a nice little battery symbol in the taskbar, next to the icons, which is very convenient.
cons:
-backlight leakage, like i mentioned before, bottom right corner which isn't too distracting, but you know it's there. BUT there were no dead pixels.
-no touchpad! yeah, i knew it wouldn't have one, and i thought that i would want both the track point and a track pad, but i now realize that the track point makes life a lot easier.
-SPEAKER!!! this speaker is so crappy, it's just crap. 1 speaker, not even two. i know ibm isn't a media buff pc maker, but come on, why not 2 speakers? suprisingly though, sound is loud and crisp, no static or any distortion. i evem played some music on there. even though it lacks bass, it is a pretty ok speaker, similiar to head phone quality.
-graphics, well, they are integrated intel extreme 2 graphics, which is mostly meant for business type applications, but it actually did ok in gaming. i played wolfenstein et on it and it ran pretty ok for integrated. i'll load up bfv later also. i mean, nothing compared to my 6600GT, but hey, it's a general use notebook and it can do some light fps gaming so i'm not too disapointed.
yeah, that's about it for the cons, i think it is one of the greatest laptops ever made IMO. the casing is nice and sturdy and there are no creaks or anything. it looks thick closed, but when open, the bottom portion and the screen portion are pretty thin. nice and sturdy.
my specs:
intel pentium m 1.6GHz
760MB DDR333
32GB HDD
Intel Extreme 2 graphics
15in 1024x768 LCD display
integrated intel pro wireless a/b/g
). overall, nice extremely fast system for $850. very sturdy. the track point thing is pretty sweet to. display is bright and overall nice looking. battery time is pretty darn good. i charged it up completely at 4 ish and turned it on at 5 with battery at 100% full. it is now down to 24% as of 8 o clock. not bad considering i did a defrag, rebooted for updates, wireless is on, and it's running at 100% cpu utilization (F@H)
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