Got the Thinkpad A31p today...
The screen already has me spoiled. Now I have GOT to upgrade to LCDs from my dual 22" CRTs on my home machine. However, I am going to have to wait, because they don't make what I want at a reasonable price yet. Somebody else here had the same wish - I want the same pixel density in a larger screen. There are two problems with that - the few products that are available are REALLY expensive, and I think that DVI only supports up to 1600x1200. 1600x1200 is actually a joy on the 15" screen. Windows XP got it right - the system knows about the DPI (Windows actually has always had this, but very little hardware and even less software has ever paid attention to it...), so the system font size is actually set to "normal" rather that "large".
I got over-charged $100 for the extra 256M RAM by MP Superstore ($219 instead of the already-inflated price of $119 that I was willing to pay to get it pre-installed - IBM gets $109). If I had it to do over-again, I would have just put the memory in myself - it's very easy - and gotten it locally at The Chip Merchant for $89. (Probably would have been better, power-wise to just get a 512M module from The Chip Merchant, and remove the supplied 256...) They gave me third-party memory anyway. And they shipped me some cheesy third-party power inverter instead of the IBM DC-DC auto-airline adapter I ordered. (Or THOUGHT I ordered.) It's absolutely impractical - you'd need this big-ass power inverter PLUS the regular power supply. (The IBM part is used in place of the normal power supply.) The shipping price was inflated as well, which I knew about, and accepted, since it was still cheaper over-all than from the next best-price source. So, I have some "issues" with MP Superstore when my salesman gets back in tomorrow...
Part of my shipment also arrived from PC Universe - I got the UltraBay 2000 hard drive adapter and the extra 60GB hard drive. Of course, you always learn the tricks AFTER you buy this stuff - although I got the drive a LOT cheaper than from most of the notebook dealers (I paid $410 - the list is $649, most stores that discount the notebook inflate the hard drive another $50 to $100) I found out later that I could have save d about another $100 by ordering by the IBM Travelstar part number instead of the Options by IBM part number. It's absolutely the same thing - no special brackets, etc. come with the Options by IBM version of the drive... I found it on the web for about $300, though nobody actually has it in stock, so I won't try to return it. But I do think I want a third drive for backup (I like to keep two generations) so I will go the Travelstar route next time...
The hard drive swap situation is acceptable, though I wish somebody would get this right. The primary hard drive is very easy to remove - you remove a door, removing one screw with a flat-blade screwdriver. You then have to remove two screws to remove the plastic door-cover from the hard drive, and transfer it to the other drive. As far as the Ultrabay 2000 adapter goes, the hard drive just drops in and then pushes into a connector, and you lock it in place with a plastic do-hickey. Not quite what I'd like, but acceptable. I can easily make backups onto the Ultrabay 2000 drive, boot off of it in an emergency, and should some problem occur with the primary drive that would require replacement, it should take about 5 minutes to swap it with a backup. The Ultrabay 2000 option would work very nicely for booting multiple OSs or keeping a personal drive to use with a work machine. (You can boot from the second drive with F12.)
They've committed a marketing-speak blunder with the Ultrabay-Plus/Ultrabay 2000 slots. I still have no idea what the difference is, except that I know that some devices work in one, some in the other, and some in both, and I hope I never have to figure out what goes where. The supplied CD/CDRW/DVD came plugged into the Ultrabay Plus (right-hand) slot where it is going to stay. There is an empty Ultrabay 2000 slot on the left, where I can plug my extra hard drive, or a second battery that I ordered. I'm glad I got the Ultrabay 2000 battery instead of an extra standard battery, because the standard battery is an odd shape that you wouldn't want to pack. The Ultrabay 2000 accessories are roughly rectangular and flat.
(Dell got it right on the battery. They have 3 bays on the 8200 series, all the same size. The one on the left side takes media options. There are two on the front - the one on the right is dedicated to the standard battery, and the one on the left takes a media option OR an extra standard battery. But, of course, they didn't get the hard drive right - the media bays will take a hard drive option that you have to buy from Dell and that doesn't seem easily exchangable with the primary drive. I REALLY like the adapter for the IBM that you just drop-in a standard drive to...)
The machine runs really cool. If you've been using it for a while, you can feel some heat from the fan on the left side, but it won't cook you while you work like some notebooks. I'm glad I didn't settle for one of the non-M Pentium IV desktop replacements.
It's pretty darn compact considering the 15" screen. There is almost no bezel space around the screen. It's certainly not thin, but that's the trade-off. It will probably fit on a tray table, which has been cited as a problem area for some of the other 15" and 16" models out there. The weight, at 7.4 pounds (I weighed it) is excellent for a large-screen desktop replacement.
The keyboard is going to take some getting used to - it is a REAL pain in the neck. They added a stupid "Internet" keypad on the left that offsets the whole keyboard to the right. It's very awkward. You just don't expect the keys to be where they are.
The built-in keyboard light is a joke. I was expecting something sexy, the way they hype it. I thought it was some electro-luminescent key thingie. Picture an itty-bitty book light (a REALLY itty-bitty book light...) located in a little cutout in the bezel. I guess if it were REALLY dark, and your eyes were adjusted, you might see the letters on the keys. But you would NEVER see the blue lettering for the special function keys (brightness, Hibernate, etc), which, really, is the only reason you might need a light...
Haven't tried either the built-in 802.11 or Bluetooth. I really want a Bluetooth mouse, though the Microsoft one won't work for me, because it is right-handed. Not sure about the Logitech? This is one of the few cases where Bluetooth really makes a lot of sense. 802.11 takes too much power for a battery-powered mouse. I hope that Bluetooth takes off for notebook peripherals - it is going to eliminate a LOT of fiddling. A Bluetooth headset would make a great option as well, if you are going to watch movies on a plane, etc. though I don't know if that usage is supported yet. I peeked at the Bluetooth driver information, and found somewhat to my surprise that it was from a company that I'd worked for a couple of years ago, so the work I did on Bluetooth Windows drivers finally made it's way out into the real world. :) (I know somebody who still works on that project, so I expect EXCELLENT Bluetooth support, LOL!) Now, if they would just start putting Bluetooth in more phones - which was the original application... It's absolutely the right way to sync your phone book and to use your phone to make an Internet connection.
I got used to the "eraser" (TrackPoint) right away. I was a little concerned about that, but I had used one several years ago and found it not bad at the time - and in the mean time, they have gotten better. A lot of people have complained about the lack of a touch-pad, but, for me, touchpads drive me nuts - I prefer the eraser. |
