Editors' Rating
| Service & support |  |
6.0 |
| Design |  |
8.0 |
| Features | |
8.0 |
| Battery life |  |
8.5 |
| Performance | |
7.5 |
Published: 12 Apr 2006
The first new iteration of the ThinkPad T series since Lenovo bought the ThinkPad business from IBM, the ThinkPad T60 retains its trademark design but adds in the latest components, including Intel's Core Duo processor and a handful of new features. The ThinkPad T60 is built for large-enterprise business customers, incorporating a deep supply of connectivity features but few multimedia extras. With a starting price of around £1,000 (ex. VAT), the ThinkPad T60 is not exactly cheap, but it offers a sturdy design and extensive configuration options, as well as very good performance and a comprehensive array of features. As a result, we recommend the T60 to any serious business that can't afford to scrimp on its notebook fleet.
Depending on how you configure it, the ThinkPad T60 weighs approximately 2.3kg and measures 31.1cm wide, 25.5cm deep and 2.54cm high -- virtually the same dimensions as the previous ThinkPad T43 model. There are many more-portable notebooks on the market, even within Lenovo's portfolio, but the ThinkPad T60 is light enough for occasional travel and movement around the office.
The ThinkPad T60 is extremely well designed and features thoughtful touches such as sturdy steel hinges, drain holes for accidental spills onto the keyboard, and -- new to the T series -- a shock-mounted hard drive and internal roll cage that holds components in place. The ever-excellent keyboard offers a comfortable layout and features the traditional red eraser-head pointing stick and a relatively small touchpad, each of which has a set of mouse buttons. Above the keyboard are three handy external volume controls -- the extent of the ThinkPad T60's dedicated multimedia controls -- and a blue ThinkVantage button, which summons Lenovo's excellent system support and help utility.
Like the ThinkPad T43, the ThinkPad T60 can be configured with either a 14.1in. or a 15in. standard-aspect display and a variety of native resolutions. Our test unit, featuring a 14.1in. display with a standard 1,024 by 768 native resolution, looked crisp, clear and reasonably bright; still, we prefer the wide-aspect displays found on many consumer notebooks and recently on business systems such as Dell's Latitude D820. The ThinkPad T60's speakers sounded clear but, even when maxed out, soft and relatively flat.
When it comes to ports and connections, the ThinkPad T60 keeps it basic. You get a VGA port, headphone and microphone jacks, slots for Type II PC Cards and ExpressCards, and three USB 2.0 ports -- one more than the ThinkPad T43 but still short of the Latitude D820's four -- and a DVD/CD-RW combo drive in its swappable bay. On the other hand, the ThinkPad T60 has basically all of the networking connections a businessperson could want: Gigabit Ethernet, 56Kbps modem and Bluetooth, 802.11a/b/g wireless. Lenovo has also announced plans to integrate wide-area wireless connectivity -- GPRS, 3G and, eventually, HSPDA ('Super 3G') -- into its T series (and X series) notebooks, but this functionality is not yet available in the UK. A handy switch on the front edge turns all wireless radios on and off.
The ThinkPad T60 lacks a number of multimedia connections, such as FireWire, S-Video and a media card reader -- features that aren't crucial to typical productivity work, but which are found on other business-class systems. Security features abound, however, including a fingerprint reader and an Embedded Security Subsystem -- a hardware security feature that's similar to a Trusted Platform Module.
Our relatively low-end test unit, priced at £1,129.99 (ex. VAT), was configured with a workmanlike set of components, including a 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo T2400 processor, 512MB of speedy 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM, integrated Intel GMA 950 graphics that dynamically use up to 128MB of system RAM, and a 60GB Serial ATA hard drive. The ThinkPad T60 turned in a decent score on the MobileMark 2002 test, significantly ahead of the previous generation of similarly equipped Pentium M business notebooks. Our ThinkPad T60 test unit shipped with a standard 6-cell battery that lasted just shy of five hours in our tests, which is about as good as it gets for a thin-and-light notebook.
Depending on which configuration you buy, the ThinkPad T60 is backed by an economical one-year or -- as with our review system -- a lengthy three-year warranty, during which you must carry in your system to an authorised repair centre; upgrades for longer terms and onsite repairs are reasonably priced. The company's support Web site includes a handful of troubleshooting topics as well as the expected driver downloads; the site lacks interactive features such as customer forums or the chance to chat in real time with a technician.
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