Which laptop: T42, X40, or X31?

[fixthefoo]

I am going to be in college soon and need a quality portable and durable laptop. I have been waiting as long as I can to get the latest technology of course. I am considering three IBM's, the upcoming T42, the X40, and the X31. I am leaning toward the T42 with a 2GHz Dothan.

When the T42 is released in the comming days will the Dothan be available at 2GHz? I need a powerful computer that is also very portable and durable and has very long battery life. For battery life if I get the T series I will get the slim Ultrabay polymer battery and the high capacity battery to use in conjunction with each other. I will be on the move and yet very work intensive. The only appeal to the X40 to me is its small very light dimensions, but I am afraid it is too slow for the engineering work I am to be doing.

Will the T42 2GHz be my best choice or is the 1.7GHz X31 a better idea? Will a T42p be available when all the others come out and would its 1400x1050 screen and FireGL card be good for CAD and math software?

Thanks for any suggestions, and if you are a student please tell me what laptop you use and please let me know why you like or don't like it, thanks again.

 

[DaWill]

HAHA, sorry to use my first post to burst your bubble, but the chances are you ain't going to need much power being a college student. I personally got my undergrad engineering degree 1.5 years ago and I used my laptop mostly to remote x into the sparc stations so I wouldn't have to deal with the stank the foreign electrical engineers gave off. Trust me, those labs get pretty nasty. They need to teach those fresh off the boaters how to bathe or wear deoderant or something.

Anyways, back on subject, you also aren't going to need 8-10hrs a battery life or whatever at school either. I think they have power outlets every 5ft at universities. Sure in the middle of class you can't always sit next to an outlet, but when are you going to have 9hrs of class in a row? I guess it is just that you have all these great dreams about college and how your going to be designin so much stuff in cad, and doing these wonderful projects. However the truth is they teach you most of the stuff via old pen and paper. You aren't going to ITT tech. They don't want you to learn just how to do it on a pc, they want you to learn the theory behind it.

I'm glad your looking at the ibms though, the dells and hps and etc can't hold a candle to ibm in terms of durability. You are going to be take your laptop around with you in your backup to most of your classes. Even with a special compartment or a sleeve, your backpack is going to be bumping the ground a lot and half the time you forget you have a laptop in their and just drop it to the floor like normal. My dell in college lasted 1.5 years before i went to pick it up once and the entire side of it broke in half right through the pcmcia slots. The sad part is they made dells better back then than they do now. I was able to buy replacement pieces for it off ebay, since dell gave me crap about how i mistreated it, or some bs. Anyways i vowed never to buy another dell laptop again.

I'm actually looking at buying another laptop now that I'm back in school getting my masters, and I would have to say the t41 and what I have heard about the t42 make it the best candidate. However, you don't need dual batteries, and you shouldn't go wasting your money on a 2ghz cpu. The difference in between a 1.7ghz or 1.8ghz and a 2ghz is minimal. Add some more ram and get the 7200rpm hd instead and you'll notice a bigger difference in speed.

Finally, I wish you the best in college and I hope you aren't completely dissapointed by the academic machine. You go there with big dreams just to realize your just another cog. Anyways i'll shuttup before i start depressing you any further.

 

[bsmit]

i'm not another cog! i'm important!

hahahahaha

ok, yah, seriously- unless you're going to a uni that predates electricity, there will be so many power outlets that your head will explode just thinking about how many there are. you shouldn't need more than 4-5 hours unless you insist on using the thing 24/7 and refuse to plug it in

also, i don't know what engineering field you're going into, but engineering and science students tend to need to carry the least computing power with them because a) they have access to the most labs (bring gas mask!) and b) they don't have to use crap by microsoft until after they've flogged the fundamentals to death.

it's ridiculous what i see the liberal arts students carrying around though.

 

[jimmyl930]

Of those three, I'd go with the T42 for the optical drive (easier to install stuff, watch DVDs, etc).

Also the video on the T42 should be much better. The X40 has integrated Intel graphics and the X31 has the Mobility Radeon (16mb IIRC).