Truly Business Class - Powerful and reliable. Review on IBM ThinkPad T42

"Business Class Laptops"  from  "International Business Machines". These are the ferrari's of late 90's and early 2000's.

The thinkpad T41, 42 and T43 were the last series built by IBM before the laptop/computer manufacturing was sold to Lenovo. There are other thinkpad series as well like the X series, etc. But the Thinkpad T42 series is the most popular and preferrable one because of the ideal screen dimensions and full size keyboards.

The screens are available in 14 and 15 inches (14 inches are best ones as 15 inches makes them heavier). Keyboards are full size and keys are very very ergonomically placed and designed. I haven't found any laptop "till date" which is so pleasing to type. Keys are neither too small nor too big..and its very easy to type at high speeds without typo errors.

One more important thing is the screens are bit  "square-ish" not exactly a square but they are not wide screens like the ones with today's laptops. The advantage is that you dont have to waste your time scrolling up and down unnecessarily. The screens are bright, sharp and crystal clear - look at the screens from any angle. They look good. The pixels don't burn easily. Atleast for 10 years you can rely on the screen.

These laptops are very very light and slim. Believe me, these were sold in late 1990's and early 2000's but they are lighter than much of the laptops that are available today (2010) in market.

They are fast enough to run office applications (MS office, emails, ppts, pdfs, excels, movies, music, photoshop, etc) all simultaneously. Although these laptops are 10 years old. They are fast enough to do all the official tasks. I have even installed a 20 GB oracle 10g database in my laptop .and it runs well.

Unless you are looking for a cpu challenging application like 3d gaming or movie animation. There is no requirement to have higher processing power than this. I was a fan of thinkpads in my college days .. but I couldn't afford one as it was too costly (from 1. 2 lakhs to 1.8 lakhs) in those days 1999 - 2000. But to my surprise I got a job in IBM and I was given the same laptop (T42) in my office. I used it for around 4 years ... without any problems/

The best part about thinkpads is .. they are like Nokia 1100's.. they never go for repairs and can be put for rough use. I used to keep my laptop "on" playing music and internet  for more than 2 days continuously in weekends and they never gave me trouble. The batteries are awesome.they are 4 years old and still give around 3+ hours backup.

These laptops are very tough.  I dropped it down twice and nothing happened.

My friend was carrying a thinkpad while driving a bike. He met with an accident and fell down and his thinkpad flew in the air for few metres (5-6 metres) and it just  broke its hinges (screen and laptop apart) and nothing else. He got  the hinges fixed and cable reconnected to screen and it worked fine .

They have a hard magnesium casing which keeps the screen safe. There is also a Hard disk shock absorber which will protect your hard disk if you drop it down. Also there is a motion sensing technology which detects if there is a sudden physical movement of the laptop (like the one which is caused when you drop down) and it automatically stops the power to your hard disk. To ensure the platters and head are not in motion when there is a jerk/shock.

You can also set hard-disk passwords and there is a finger print reader in some t42/t43 variants.There is a Think Light (A small white LED on top of your screen which points to your keyboard). So you can switch it on and type when you are sitting in a dark room.There is an inbuilt powerful Microphone and good speakers ... for recording/listening audio. You also have powerful wireless. Bluetooth is also available in few T42 variants.

They come only in black colours and look highly business class.The black body of the laptops has a thick coating which makes them scratch-proof. Its difficult to make a scratch on these laptops unless you take a screwdriver and try hard. There are ports for connecting to printer, USB drives, Datacards, keyboards, mouse, headphones, projectors, docking stations.

Upgrading RAM and Harddisk is very easy. You dont have to open the entire thinkpad. There is a small door with 2 screws for adding new RAM/Harddisk. So its "easy". Batteries give "Long Life" , even after 4 to 5 years unless they are misused like putting the laptops in hot places for long time (temperatures above normal - 40 or 50 degrees). They still give 3+ hours of backup after 4 years. There are also OS settings for increasing the duration of battery backup, using power management. So power to HDD, drives is switched off if the laptop is idle. These laptops don't get overheated easily, unless you block the airwent from where the fan dissipates heat.

If you go abroad and see any of the executives using laptops, you will still see most of them using thinkpads . Reason is that they are very convenient and reliable even 10 years of their manufacture.There are many users who had used other laptops and then settled for a thinkpad. But you'll hardly find people who have used thinkpads. Going for other laptops. "use it for a while and you'll feel the difference".

I have upgraded my Thinkpad T42 with 2 GB RAM and 100 GB HDD and never had an after thought about buying another laptop. Most of the spare parts are still available. You can get them on ebay easily if you don't find with your local service centre. But these laptops will never go for repairs unless you do something unusual.

They are "Truly Business Class" laptops secure, tough, elegant, reliable. Although they don't look glossy like Apple Macbooks. They are still business class because your data is secure even if you drop them or your laptops are stolen. With features like magnesium casing, hard disk password, shock absorbers, finger print readers, 3+ hour battery backup (Can be increased if u buy an extended battery). They are really business class. What more "important" would be for you if you are on a business trip and your laptop falls down?This is a Laptop from IBM.The makers of First commercial PC in the world and if they dint understand what is expected out of a laptop. Who else would have done it better ?

Thinkpads ruled the market in spite of tough competitors like Apple and HP. They were highly priced due to which IBM dint find it profitable from sales. so the laptop/computer division was sold out to a Chinese company (lenovo). Although T42's are not available in market today if you are interested to try You can still buy them on e-bay  (refurbished or used).They don't need repairs even if they are old.That's why I call them the Nokia 1100's.

Thanks

Ramu