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IBM ThinkPad T42

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At a Glance
Low installed memory
Medium-size display
Windows XP OS

$725.00
From 1 Merchant

Performance
WorldBench 5: Performance word scores reflect comparisons of PCs in the same category running the same operating system. See Guide to the Top-Rated Products for more details.	Very Good: 83 (Windows XP Professional)
Features	Very Good
CPU	1.7-GHz Pentium M 735
Screen size	15.1 inches
System memory	512MB of DDR333 SDRAM
Hard drive	40GB
Graphics	64MB ATI Mobility Radeon 9600
Pointing device	Touchpad, eraserhead
Bays	One
Bundled removable-media drives	One multipurpose bay with DVD-ROM and CD-RW combo drive
Floppy drive	None
Ports	Parallel, two USB 2.0, microphone, headphone, S-Video, docking station, two PC Card slots
Communications	V.92 modem, gigabit ethernet, 802.11g
Business suite	None
Other features	N/A
Overall design	Very Good
Battery life (hours:minutes)	Good: 4:09
Weight (typical/minimum, in pounds): Typical weight includes the computer, AC adapter, optical drive, and floppy drive (if offered).	Light: 6.9/5.9
Support policy	One-year parts and labor warranty; free unlimited 24-hour daily toll-free support

What You Should Know about the ThinkPad T42

Not Much RAM for Multitasking

The more RAM your laptop has, the faster programs will run and the greater number of windows you can work in at one time. If your needs are simple and you rarely do more than two things at once on your PC, the relatively modest amount of memory that comes installed in inexpensive laptops will be enough. Today the standard amount of RAM shipped in most PCs is 2GB. If you like to multitask--say, you want to launch a search for a file and start backing up data to a disc while you watch a news video--you need more memory.

Reviewed by: rleo25

Duration of ownership:

Strengths: Extremelly well designed and manufactured. The best keyboard. Portability and support.

Weaknesses: Display resolution. Lack of some ports.

Overall Evaluation: I received my thinkpad last week and I´m surprided with the high quality of this machine. I intend to use it for basic business work and light entertainment at home, no huge gaming... however. So this equipment suits well enough my needs and surpases all the expectatives I had berfore buying.In the last 4 months I had an Acer 4001, and a Tecra A4 and had to resell them because of some insatisfaction I had with those machines especially in issues as: solidness, endurance and confort in long work hours. So I am sure this Thinkpad will be with me until a new and high differentiating quality change in IT industry makes me move into anopther direction. And I believe this won´t be happening in at least two years.I am worried only on the change to Lenovo. Heve you seen already the new Z60t ? It looks like a **** son of the family (no offense...) but it is a mixture of different design trends, componenets and manufactureship that are degenerating the largely and stutbornly preserved caracteristics of the brand... will signify this our last IBM products will get new added value? or are being depreciated instantly? I would prefer the first, and think this will happen in the short run...
Reviewed by: Sion126

Duration of ownership:

Strengths: Starts up, processor quite quick

Weaknesses: Hangs, gets slow, keyboard sometimes lags by 64 seconds

Overall Evaluation: This is my second Thinkpad. The T41P was quite good, but these T42's are very dissapointing. Several of my fellow workers have them and we are all complaining about the drivers, the way the encryption software on the hard drive places the CPU into a serious delayed state and general poor user experiences with them. I recently reviewed some HP business notebooks and they do not have the same delayed lag and hang issues. Thinking it was a Windows problem I loaded Suse linux on it, but sadly the result was the same. I have gone off IBM Thinkpads for a while