IBM ThinkPad T43 Specs as Delivered
Intel Pentium M 750 (1.86GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 533MHz FSB)
14.0" SXGA (1400 x 1050) display
60GB, 7200RPM Hard Drive
512MB DDR2 SDRAM
CD-RW/DVD-RW (CD 24x Read, 16x Write) (DVD 3x Read, 2x Write)
Standard 6-cell battery and optional 9-cell extended life battery
Ports: 2 USB 2.0, 1 ExpressCard slot, 1 PCMCIA card slot, 56K Modem, Ethernet LAN port, PS2 port, headphone jack, microphone jack, parallel port, VGA out port
Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2
ATI X300 Graphics Card with 64MB RAM
Intel PRO/Wireless 2915 802.11 a/b/g internal wireless card
Fingerprint scanner for security
T43 Datasheet (1.8MB): IBM T43 Datasheet
ThinkPad Overview
The latest ThinkPad thin-and-light T series notebook addition comes in the form of the T43. The ThinkPad brand has been built over many years now and has come to stand for high-quality, solidly built notebooks that are rugged in their matte black look, yet sleek and professional at the same time. Usability is second-to-none with the ThinkPad line and consumer oriented bells and whistles such as multicard readers or widescreen LCDs are shunned in favor of things such as adding keyboard lights, biometric security readers, hard-drive shock protection or other things that generally add to the usability, durability and security of a notebook.
T43 Design
Aside from the new fingerprint reader (optional), we find that the design for the T43 does not deviate from previous T4X models. Since the ThinkPad T43 is intended for and targeted at business buyers, continuing on this look is just perfect.
Important to note is that there is both a 15.0" and 14.1" screen configuration available, our T43 is the 14.1". Settling for the smaller sized screen results in a smaller overall footprint, less weight and longer battery life and so is better for someone that desires to be more mobile.
A 15.0" model T42 on the left, 14.1" screen model T43 (with extended life battery installed) on the right (view larger image)
Like IBM's previous T4X series models, the T43 is a textbook definition of physical quality. From the first time you touch it, you know it's just good. The screen cover for the ThinkPad T42 is constructed of magnesium alloy and prevents any screen flexing. With other laptops you can usually push on the back of the lid and get a worrying ripple effect on the LCD screen, the T43 protective case will prevent such a thing from happening. The ThinkPad's insides are housed in a case of titanium-reinforced plastic. The whole thing is held together by a pair of sturdy metal hinges that attach the screen and main body of the laptop. These metal hinges ensure that there is no screen wobble, even when on a turbulent plane ride. The T43 simply looks like it's been designed to take a beating (although you should still avoid abusing the notebook when possible).
Input and Output Ports
Below are some pictures of each side of the ThinkPad T43 that displays what ports we have on each side of the notebook. Please note that I have the optional 9-cell extended life battery installed so the battery sticks out, the standard 6-cell battery is flushed with the back of the T43.
On the right side of the T43 we have the optical drive and what's called the D-SUB port (can be used to carry analogue video signals to a monitor). With this configuration the optical drive comes in the form of a CD-RW/DVD-RW drive. This bay is actually completely modular and is called the UltraBay by IBM. You can use the UltraBay to put in an extra battery, a different type of optical drive or even a sled that contains a secondary hard drive that is possible to boot to. Also of note is the hard drive for the T43 is at the front right side and you simply remove a screw from the bottom of the laptop and then slide out the tray it's stored in to swap the hard drive out if you wish.
ThinkPad T43 right-side (view larger image)
On the left side of the ThinkPad T43 we have a majority of our ports. Two USB 2.0 ports are on the back right side. Personally I'd like to see more than just 2 ports, but for a thin and light this is acceptable, although not optimal. We also have an S-Video output port available. The modem and Ethernet jacks reside next to the S-Video port. Headphone out and microphone in ports are sandwiched between the Ethernet port and fan vent. On the front right side we have a PC card slot (PCMCIA slot) and ExpressCard slot. It's nice to have the ExpressCard slot as that will be the standard of the future for allowing accessory expansion on notebooks. However, for right now there are very few ExpressCard compatible accessories available.
ThinkPad T43 left-side (view larger image)
On the back of the T43 you can see the battery (sticking out in this case because it's an extended life battery), power jack input and parallel port. The parallel port is a legacy port hangover and is completely unnecessary for the consumer, but there are some corporate customers that still need this.
ThinkPad T43 back-side (view larger image)
On the front of the notebook the only thing we find are the two latches to hold the screen down (two latches work much better than one for keeping the lid down and tightly closed by the way) and an IrDA port for wireless infrared communication with other devices or laptops.
IBM T43 keyboard / TouchPad / TrackPoint view (view larger image)
The TrackPoint navigation featuring a pointing stick, touchpad and multiple mouse buttons lets you choose your favorite way to navigate the cursor on the screen. I'm a huge fan of the pointing stick. The pointing stick and TrackPoint navigation are great for three reasons.
The pointing stick makes it really easy to get the cursor where you want it to go on the screen. I've never met a touchpad that gives you precise control and gets the cursor where you want it to go 100% of the time. With the pointing stick the cursor goes exactly where you want it, and if it begins to act funny and not go where you want it to, simply let go and the machine recalibrates the pointing stick automatically.
When the pointing stick is combined with the scroll button (located between the two upper mouse buttons) you can scroll through web pages and long documents with ease. Just hold down the scroll button and push the pointing stick up or down to scroll to where you want on a page.
The mouse buttons are raised very nicely making it easy to feel the buttons and push them. Competitors often have buttons that are barely raised, or even worse, flat.
The keyboard on the T43 is in line with the usual IBM exacting standards, there's not a notebook out there with as usable a keyboard. In fact, I prefer the T43 keyboard to even some external computer keyboards I've used. The IBM ThinkPad keyboard uses 7-rows of keys as opposed to the usual 6-rows competitors' use, this makes for more typing room and less cramping of the fingers. Each keyboard key is firm and has excellent travel, and each key feels individual. On a lot of notebooks you'll get flexing of the keyboard, so when pushing in a key you'll see other keys around it get slightly depressed and if you push in on the keyboard you'll see the entire keyboard sag. Not so with any ThinkPad, the keyboard is solid with zero rattle and zero flex. The usability and ergonomics of a keyboard is hugely important for a laptop, IBM has done much research and exerted great effort to ensure this important feature is as good as it can be.
IBM ThinkPad keyboards are sealed and sit inside of a tray so that spills do not get to the electronics underneath. Now this doesn't mean the T43 is waterproof and 100% spill proof by any means (liquid can still get in the vents if your aim is really bad), what it does mean is that if you spill some water onto the keyboard then you'll have time to tip up the notebook and pour the liquid out before it seeps down into the internal components of the notebook.
One thing I should note regarding any ThinkPad keyboard is that IBM has always been stubborn about not putting a "Windows" key on the bottom left-side that nearly every other notebook has. Pushing this key by default pops up the start menu in Windows. Some people like having this and find it annoying when it's not there, personally I don't care, and I'm sure some Linux fans are just plain chuffed that IBM chooses to leave this Windows friendly button out!
Above the main keyboard are a few hardware buttons: the power button, volume up and down buttons, a mute button and the blue "Access IBM" button. The Access IBM button will launch an IBM software application called Access IBM that will guide you in using, protecting, configuring and updating software on your T43. Once again, this shows IBM is highly concerned about the ThinkPad's usability and end user experience. It would have been nice to have play, pause and stop buttons for the DVD player, but these are more consumer oriented features and in general IBM shies away from such things. Apparently in the future this "Access IBM" button is going to be named "ThinkVantage" due to the Lenovo buyout of the IBM PC division (more on that later).
Processor and Performance
This particular ThinkPad T43 I'm using comes with a Pentium M 750 1.86GHz processor, and for using standard work applications this is absolutely more than enough for what you'll need. In general, with a 7200RPM hard drive and 512MB of RAM (my T43's configuration) you'll be very happy with the overall T43 speed performance. Running programs such as Microsoft Visual Studio, Adobe PhotoShop, Microsoft Word and Media Player at the same time, and flipping between them, were common tasks I performed and never made the T43 hiccup.
We use Super Pi to get a benchmark of processor speed. The Super Pi program simply forces the processor to calculate Pi to a selected number of digits of accuracy. Calculating to 2 million digits is our benchmark:
Comparison of notebooks using Super Pi to calculate Pi to 2 million digits (plugged in):
Notebook Time to Calculate Pi to 2 Million Digits
IBM ThinkPad T43 (1.86GHz Alviso Pentium M) 1m 45s
Fujitsu LifeBook N3510 (1.73 GHz Alviso Pentium M) 1m 48s
IBM ThinkPad T41 (1.6GHz Banias Pentium M) 2m 23s
Compaq R3000T (Celeron 2.8GHz) 3m 3s
Dell Inspiron 600m (1.6 GHz Dothan Pentium M) 2m 10s
Dell Inspiron 8600 (1.7GHz Banias Pentium M) 2m 28s
Although the T43 is fast for common applications, if you want to play games, it's a bit of a different story. The T43 I have comes with an ATI X300 64MB graphics card. This is certainly better than integrated graphics, but the X300 won't deliver enough power to run Doom 3 with any type of satisfactory playing experience.
Benchmarks for ThinkPad T43 compared to Fujitsu N3510 (both have X300 64MB Graphics Card)
Futuremark PCMark04 Scores
IBM T43 (1.86GHz) Fujitsu N3510 (1.73 GHz)
Multithreaded Test 1 / File Compression 3.33 MB/s 3.24 MB/s
Multithreaded Test 1 / File Encryption 27.19 MB/s 25.58 MB/s
Multithreaded Test 2 / File Decompression 23.4 MB/s 22.72 MB/s
Multithreaded Test 2 / Image Processing 10.88 MPixels/s 10.03 MPixels/s
Multithreaded Test 3 / Virus Scanning 1914.17 MB/s 1752.97 MB/s
Multithreaded Test 3 / Grammar Check 2.82 KB/s 2.8 KB/s
File Decryption 54.11 MB/s 51.45 MB/s
Audio Conversion 2496.87 KB/s 2346.96 KB/s
Web Page Rendering 5.27 Pages/s 5.25 Pages/s
DivX Video Compression 51.71 FPS 46.08 FPS
Physics Calculation and 3D 159.19 FPS 168.02 FPS
Graphics Memory - 64 Lines 868.44 FPS 1486.18 FPS
Futuremark 3DMark05 Scores
3DMark Score 727 3DMarks 721 3D Marks
CPU Score 3414 CPUMarks 3242 CPUMarks
Gaming Tests
GT1 - Return To Proxycon 3.3 FPS 3.7 FPS
GT2 - Firefly Forest 2.2 FPS 1.8 FPS
GT3 - Canyon Flight 3.4 FPS 3.5 FPS
CPU Tests
CPU Test 1 1.18 FPS 1.6 FPS
CPU Test 2 2.9 FPS 2.9 FPS
So the graphics performance specs aren't terrible for a thin-and-light, but if you compare it to the Dell Inspiron XPS2 desktop replacement/gaming ntebook's(
Dell Inspiron XPS2 Review (pics, specs)) 3DMark05 score of 4,915 3DMarks...well, you can see that a gaming notebook will put the ThinkPad T43 to absolute shame. So a gaming notebook the T43 is not, but you will be able to play a few recent 3D games on their low settings or run older games without any problem.
Sound
I've used one laptop in the past two years that has truly impressed me with its built-in speaker performance (and I've lost count of how many total laptops I've used!), that computer was the Dell Inspiron 9100. Ironically, Dell made the 9100 for all of six months before ending its production. The ThinkPad 43 does not end the streak of disappointing laptop speakers. The T43 speakers are very average, there's no bass whatsoever provided by them and any high notes sound thin. Headphones or a pair of external speakers are a necessity for decent sound. I can say the same for just about every other laptop I use though.
Heat & Fan
The palm rest areas on the T43 are extremely sturdy and, more importantly, don't get too hot, even with prolonged use. I recently used a Dell Inspiron 600m and on the left palm rest the heat build was a big annoyance at best, uncomfortable at worst. The ThinkPad T43 won't make you sweat though. The bottom does get warm after a while, but not to the point of discomfort if you are using it on your lap. The right side palm rest does get warmer than the left side because that's where the hard drive is, but never has that area become hot to the point of being uncomfortable.
The cooling system of the T43 is not entirely dependent upon the fans. Clever internal design and placement of vents goes a long way to keeping the T43 cool enough. However, a fan is of course necessary after a point. The fan on the T43 is on the left side; it doesn't run very often and makes a quiet "whirr" sound when it does. No loud vacuum cleaner sounds here. You'll get a little bit of vibration in the left side palm rest when the fan runs, but nothing bad. The internal heat and frequency of the fan running on the T43 is largely dependent upon how many and what applications you are running and what the external environment temperature is. This is the same for any laptop. I ran the program HD Tune (
HD Tune website) for a few days and found the average temperature of the hard drive to bounce between 96 and 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Not bad.
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2285
RFS : Extra Item
Asking Price : 7.5k php Negotiable
Contact : 254-0221 / 09066699677
Look for : Jesse
Please Respect my thread.
NO TRADES!! NEED CASH!!
IBM ThinkPad T43
Reply With Quote
Posting Permissions
