Background:
I'll be starting one of three programs at the local college in the fall: Industrial Design (Bachelor of Applied Technology), Computer Engineering Technology (Advanced Diploma) and Electronics Engineering Technology (Advanced Diploma). The latter two programs I have been accepted into and I am stilling awaiting word on the former. Since my current machine, a Late-2006 model white MacBook is (to me) not worth servicing anymore (case, keyboard, battery, screen) and has cooling issues, I have decided to get a used system. After much thought about how the system would be used, I settled on getting a W500 model 4058-CTO from a local reseller for just under $650.00 CAD. (eBay listing: http://www.ebay.ca/itm/230707089182?ssPageName=STRK:MESINDXX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1436.l2649) Why the W500 and not a T510 which costs less? After five years with this MacBook (Intel T7200) and much research into Intel processors and the 'Tick Tock' release schedule, I find it better to get a system 2nd generation (Tock) processor than a first generation (Tick) processor as everything would be more refined by then. The second reason is that I get the high resolution, wide gamut WUXGA display. (even though at 175 nits, it isn't as bright as the WSXA+ display) The third reason is the GPU which won't be used much now but will be later on as I get into 3D modelling (Blender) and image manipulation (GIMP). With that decision out of the way, I started looking at upgrades.

Battery:
While the 6-cell battery that comes with the W500 should suffice for the time in which I'm setting it up to be my main machine, I know I'll need to get the 9-cell battery to have a long runtime so I won't have to worry about finding a socket ever few hours. Checking on eBay leaves me with a lot of options from over $100.00 CAD to over $450.00 CAD while Craigslist turns up nothing and Kijiji turns up batteries for the T60 and R60.

Memory:
Since the most memory I can cram into this machine is 8GB (according to this ThinkWiki page: http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:W500), I most likely will be spending less than $60.00 CAD for it as evidenced by Newegg Canada: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007608%20600006178%20600000401&IsNodeId=1&name=8GB%20%282%20x%204GB%29

SSD:
This one seemed hard until I found a review of one of OWC's SSDs on Anandtech: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4315/owc-mercury-extreme-pro-6g-ssd-review-120gb I have since looked at their 60GB Mercury Electra 6G http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/SSDEX6G060/ which costs as much as their 60GB Mercury Extreme Pro 3G http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/SSDEX3G060/. My only other options seem to be Crucial, Intel and Samsung.

Processor:
While I never did see the point in swapping out one processor for another in a mobile system, I decided to make an exception in this case. When trying to decide which ThinkPad, I looked at the W500 and X200 as the finalists. I noticed that the beginning of processors' model numbers were different despite both of them being from the Penryn family. Upon further searching on the Intel, I found the twin to the T9400 residing in the W500, the P9500. http://ark.intel.com/compare/35566,35562 This chip has a TDP of 25W instead of the T9400's 35W. I considered having a cool system (literally) as very important given my heated past with the MacBook. (leg-fryingly hot when under even partial <20% load!) Which is why I am looking into this upgrade. It also helps that I found a good used one on eBay: http://www.ebay.ca/itm/390382658931?ssPageName=STRK:MESINDXX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1436.l2649

Any ideas, constructive criticism's, concerns or advice?

Eureka: X200s (7470-5HU), Arch Linux
Mirandra: T22 (Unknown), Arch Linux

Well, congratulations!




Why is that? My preferred SSDs that I recommend to my customers are the Corsair Force GT, Corsair Force 3, Patriot Wildfire, and the Patriot Pyro SE. If you are considering the OWC, then there is no reason not to consider the other Sandforce 2281 controlled drives. I have not tried the OWC drives and I do not have anything against them. The Crucial m4, Intel, and Samsung drives are very good, too, but they are definitely not your only other options. I think the W500 is limited to the SATA I specification, which means that all of these SATA III drives will give you the same performance. I stand corrected, as noted below, W500 has SATA II.



Totally unnecessary in my opinion. With tpfancontrol, you can decide for yourself what temperature you want your system to run. The W500 has much better cooling capabilities over the X200, and the W500 has no problem evacuating the 35W of heat. The manufacturing tolerances are not as tight as the specs lead you to believe. That is a lot of money for an upgrade that will make such a small difference. The maximum power usage under load between the two is less than 5W, and performance is nearly identical. Here is a great article comparing the two processors: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Comparison-of-Intel-Centrino-2-CPUs.11100.0.html

My wife has that same model of MacBook, so I know what you are talking about with the leg frying heat.

jayton4 wrote:



This statement is incorrect. W500 is SATA II all the way.

Soul_Est wrote:



This is a *huge* gamble. If you end up with a Samsung panel, you'll wish that you haven't gotten a WUXGA unit. It is garbage, plain and simple. WSXGA+ carries much more of a certainty when it comes to LCD quality on this generation of ThinkPads.



That's because batteries from T60 and R60 are the same as ones for the W500...shared by a number of other models as well...



W500 runs very cool and quiet (mine had a T9600) until pushed hard. No need for a CPU swap. upgrade or anything along those lines.

Happy hunting.

jayton4

Thank you. I actually just finished reading through the welcome package from the college as I typed this.


Well as the W500 has SATA II throughout the system, I figured that installing a SATA III drive would allow me to max out the I/O. This I found important as I planned on running Arch Linux on LVM on dm-crypt/LUKS for the sake of security. I'll definitely have a look at the Corsair and Patriot SSDs that you mentioned. Thank you for expanding my horizons on that.


Thank you very much for the link to that comparison. It put things in perspective for me. As for lowering the voltage of the processor and speed of the fan, I'll be looking at Linux-PHC, phctool and thinkpad-acpi to keep those in check as I don't use Windows at all now.


@ajkula66

That is very disconcerting news. I'll contact the reseller of the system next week and see if they can tell me whether the panel is a Samsung or not. Hopefully it isn't; although after reading through several threads at thinkpads.com and Notebook Review, I see your point entirely. Very disconcerting indeed.


Ah, I completely forgot that that was the case. I'll check with the reseller on that too. I've also e-mailed ThinkPad Lover about it.


I knew the system was capable of handling hotter processors but not the T9600 - T9900! Thank you for the well wishes on my search.


@jayton4 and ajkula66
Thank you very much for your replies. I really appreciate them and you both have shed light on things that I had completely overlooked and expanded my horizons in this endeavour. Thank you.

Edit:
I've contacted the reseller of the W500 about the panel issue and should expect a reply early next week.

Eureka: X200s (7470-5HU), Arch Linux
Mirandra: T22 (Unknown), Arch Linux

Unless you can extend the warranty on your W500 I would not put any money into it. I considered upgrading my W500 with maximum RAM, putting in SSD and installing Windows 7. I decided against it because I do not want to plow money into a machine that could die and leave me in the lurch: expensive repairs + lost upgrades (+ aggravation) or even worse: new machine + money spent on upgrades (+ aggravation).

So I just got a good deal on a 3 year warranty W520 and off set the cost by selling my W500 to a friend.

I have received a response to the question that I asked the reseller of the W500.

Here is my question:


And here is they're lackluster response:

Eureka: X200s (7470-5HU), Arch Linux
Mirandra: T22 (Unknown), Arch Linux

I honestly do wish that I could do that but a W520 with the options I'm looking for is >$1,500.00 CAD which is more than double my budget of $650.00 - $700.00 CAD.

Eureka: X200s (7470-5HU), Arch Linux
Mirandra: T22 (Unknown), Arch Linux

Some "experts" they are...

All he has to do is:

A) run the serial and pull the parts list (45 seconds on a slow connection) from Lenovo's website

OR

B) use one of a hundred *free* programs that determine the hardware...
Including LCDs, on any given machine...

That's a really nice W500, congrats on the purchase and your educational accomplishments.

Without question, an SSD upgrade is the only one that will give you a shocking increase in performance. I strongly prefer Intel drives.

Let us know how the LCD saga turns out, some poeple actually are not offended by the Samsung WUXGA, it's just that the alternative is really much better and some people eyes notice the graininess more. Lenovo should be more picky (or at least consistent) with their suppliers of LCD panels - it's what their customers see.

That being said, this post was written on a 15.4" WSXGA+ LG panel!

I'll ask 'thinkpadexperts' for the serial number of the machine and take your first suggestion. I found another person on Ebay selling a 4058-CTO with a WUXGA display and I'll ask them for the serial for that too. Thank you very much for the idea!

Sent from my ST18a using Tapatalk

Eureka: X200s (7470-5HU), Arch Linux
Mirandra: T22 (Unknown), Arch Linux

the SSD is the way to go, I put one in my T61, it was the single best upgrade I did. Watch newegg, I got mine (a sandisk 120gb) for ~130, and it has worked flawlessly since then, as well as giving a rather substantial boost to battery life.

Thank you very much for the well wishes but I haven't purchased the W500 yet. I agree wholeheartedly on Lenovo sourcing components from suppliers with consistently excellent component quality.


Thanks for the suggestion on the SSD and on Newegg. I have been a subscriber to Newegg's newsletter for a long time now.

Eureka: X200s (7470-5HU), Arch Linux
Mirandra: T22 (Unknown), Arch Linux

I have good news and bad news following the questions I posed to the two resellers that I could buy the W500 from. The first one, thinkpadexperts, got back to me promptly.

Here was my question:


Here was their reply:

This was the good, no excellent news.

Now for the bad news.
While I thought this response was more hot air over the internet, I decided to check to serial number (L3A2538) on Lenovo's Part Lookup page here: http://support.lenovo.com/en_CA/product-and-parts/partsLookup.page. When I put in the serial number of the machine, I was greeted with 'Error : Could not retrieve parts information for L3A2538'. Uh-oh. I then entered both the machine type and serial and lo' and behold, the part list loaded up. Unfortunately, in the parts list, the Mfg P/N, FRU# and Description are all the item of information I am given in addition to whether or not the part is serviceable or not. These items are 44C9613, 44C9614 and FLT PNL DS 15.4 INCH LCD ASSEMBLY FRU respectively.

Looks like I'll have to go in person to check out both machines and make my decision of which one to go with.

Eureka: X200s (7470-5HU), Arch Linux
Mirandra: T22 (Unknown), Arch Linux

Well...

Google brings FRU 44C9614 as a ltn154u2-l05 which is a Samsung panel...

Ah. That did happen as well but when I tried '44C9614 LG' I found LG manufactured screens as well. Looks like the FRU is the same no matter the manufacturer and it shouldn't be if Lenovo was actually concerned about quality of the entire machine. Even if it is a Samsung panel, I'll still use it. Coming from a Xperia Ray (3.3" @ 480x854) smartphone and a PRS-650BC (6" @ 600x800) eBook reader, I need all the pixels I can get.

One last question. Who finds the keyboard flex to be really noticeable? As I type away at the keyboard on my MacBook, I find the flex and cap wiggling to be a bit excessive compared to the T22 I owned before and may even be one of the contributing factors to my mild RSI aside from my right handed use many one handed objects. I was thinking of replacing the keyboard of the W500 with one from the T61 whether it were a NMB model or not to reduce the strain on my hands while typing. I'm already looking into switching to either Colemak or the Carpalx Fully Optimized keyboard layouts to reduce typing strain as well (if it's a viable option).

Just a few more days before I can buy it (I hope).

Eureka: X200s (7470-5HU), Arch Linux
Mirandra: T22 (Unknown), Arch Linux

Reading between the lines is the key...

That is a Samsung panel, make no mistake about that. And there are different FRUs for different panel manufacturers.

Anyway...my W500 (or any of the several T400 units I owned) had no keyboard flex whatsoever. I've heard the complaint but haven't bumped into a machine that would warrant a keyboard replacement with an older version. YMMV.

Good luck.

@ajkula66
Thanks for setting the record on the case of the panels. Samsung it is then. Only other good panel I've seen to compare it to is the beautiful 13.1" FHD panel residing in the excellently engineered Sony VAIO Z that was released last year. At least I won't have to deal with a flexing keyboard on the W500 I get either.

@ajkula66,craigmontHunter,underclocker,PeterNY,jayton4
Thank you all very much for your help on my research into the W500 and ultimately deciding to get it. I'm sure I'll get many years of use out of it and can finally retire the space heater that I've been using for the past 5+ years.

EDIT: Been looking a some other resellers as well for backup systems in case I can't get the W500. If any of you are looking for one of the legendary ThinkPads: the X300, I found several of them here: http://cgi6.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewSellersOtherItems&userid=neogeo_computers_laptops. So tempting but I can't afford both that and the W500.

Eureka: X200s (7470-5HU), Arch Linux
Mirandra: T22 (Unknown), Arch Linux

@ajkula66,craigmontHunter,underclocker,PeterNY,jayton4
Sorry to inform you all, but I missed the opportunity to purchase the W500 I was looking at by one day. Right now I'm looking into purchasing a W500 with a WSXGA+ display (ajkula66 would approve the move I'm sure), from Calgary, Alberta (I'm in Mississauga, Ontario and the listing is here: http://bit.ly/A3RBA9) as the W500's with WUXGA displays being sold in the US are way over my budget. If the WSXGA+ display proves to be too pixellated for me, I'll look into ordering a WUXGA display from China and see how that works out. Thank you all again for you help on this.

Eureka: X200s (7470-5HU), Arch Linux
Mirandra: T22 (Unknown), Arch Linux

Good luck! I am confident you will eventually succeed in obtaining a nice W500.

I don't know if that'll still be possible considering the luck I've been having. The CL seller I contacted about the system hasn't gotten back to me even with a second e-mail sent to them. I'm staying optimistic about it though.

I have found a couple T61p systems on eBay with the screen resolution that I'm looking for. The problem is that both of them have 1st Gen Core2Duo (Merom) processors powering them instead of the cooler running 2nd Gen Core2Duo (Penryn) processors powering the W500. Aside from that and the Nvidida vs. ATI graphics, there didn't seem to be an issue. Would be possible to get the T61p and bring to closer to a W500 by swapping out the T7700 (Merom) in it for the T9400 (Penryn) or am I just grasping at straws now? If the CPU swap isn't possible or is too expensive, would I be okay with the heat produced or would I have (yet) another space heater?

Eureka: X200s (7470-5HU), Arch Linux
Mirandra: T22 (Unknown), Arch Linux

Unless you can locate a *known good* T61p built after July of 2008, stay away from them, period.

W500 is a far superior machine in my book, and I've used both extensively.

There are people who swear by late-model T61p units - but these won't come cheap. A good date code and Penryn board...you're already above $300...unless the seller is clueless on what they are in possession of...

Fellow forum member TuuS specializes in machines of that type, and could likely get you one if needed...

Good luck.

I figured that there was a defect somewhere. Looks like I'll contact TuuS later and see what comes up. I just figured out that the seller of the W500 on Craigslist was none other than 'thinnkpadexpert' from eBay. This seller is also selling the T61p I asked about. As the last W500 with the specs I'm looking for is hours away in Markham (I'm in Mississauga), I'm out of luck on that for now. Thank you so much for the info.

If anything, I'll just wait until school starts and I get the money I need to purchase the W-series system I want. I just wished to get it before starting the program to become familiar with system while I got back into Arch Linux. At least I'll have Arch Linux, Zsh, Tmux and Vim down by then.

Eureka: X200s (7470-5HU), Arch Linux
Mirandra: T22 (Unknown), Arch Linux

Looks like I'm getting on the nerves of 'thinnkpadexpert'. Poor dear.

Here's my initial message:
[quote=Soul_Est]Dear thinnkpadexpert,

Good morning,

What is the serial number of the system? I would use it to
have a look at the parts list for the machine. Also what are the four
numbers on the very end of the same line on which the Type and S/N is
located? I would use those to check when the system is
manufactured.

Thank you for reading this and I look forward to your
reply.

-soul_est[/quote]

And their reply:
[quote=thinnkpadexpert]Dear soul_est,

come on man you are back again pls stopwasting my time . you have nothing
else to do just keep emailing . dude it doesnt work that way .pls go buy
from someone else I dont need bs
Thank you

-thinnkpadexpert[/quote]


I really don't believe my requests are for annoyance or wasting of anyone's time in any case. If I'm spending money I saved up over 2 1/2 years for on a single machine, I need to make sure of it's longevity in some way. The ad should have had the details I had asked about from their W500 ad so that potential customers could check these things themselves. I will respond to 'thinnkpadexpert' but it'll be the last one as they have decided to be uncooperative and rude.

Eureka: X200s (7470-5HU), Arch Linux
Mirandra: T22 (Unknown), Arch Linux

I've finally gotten the ThinkPad for me. It's a lot smaller and lighter than the W500 I was looking to get, but it still fits my criteria with a few tweaks. It has the pixel density I was looking for (~140 PPI), a second generation Intel processor and has a decently powerful GPU for now.

I bought a near-mint X200s (Type: 7470-5HU) yesterday for $350.00 CAD which was a steal considering that a X200 usually fetches that much or more (usually in worse condition).

As for upgrades, I'll be upgrading the battery first to a 9-cell and then I'll work on getting that SSD and RAM. As for a more powerful GPU, I found a thread on the NoteBook Review forums on building a eGPU. (http://forum.notebookreview.com/5324240-post1.html) As for those looking to build your own, this post is an excellent reference. (http://forum.notebookreview.com/8324410-post8472.html) All I'm going to do now is build a new home network, backup my data and reinstall Mac OS X on the MacBook (going to Mom) and install, test and configure Arch Linux on the X200s.

Thank you all again for your help in this. I really appreciate it.

Eureka: X200s (7470-5HU), Arch Linux
Mirandra: T22 (Unknown), Arch Linux