Hey all, it's been a while since I've posted here, but as always, you have been a steadfast and paramount resource for my technological life

I will be buying a laptop in the near future, I've read tons of review here and there, some comparisons, but a second opinion never hurts. I'll be using it for mostly for business and schoolwork when I'm mobile (i.e. programming, word processing, etc.), but it's not going to replace my desktop. Key concern is finding a balance between functionality and usage time slash battery life slash whatever you want to call it. Plus it would be nice to dual-boot Vista Ultimate and Linux I'm leaning a bit more towards the functionality side...

So, without further ado, the specs:

Lenovo Thinkpad T61
15.4" widescreen (1680x1050 max res)
Intel Core 2 Duo T9300 (2.5 GHz, 800MHz 6MBL2)
SUSE Linux Enterprise 10
2GB PC-5300 DDR2 (2x1)
160GB HD 7200RPM

Apple Macbook
13" widescreen
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz
2GB PC-5300 DDR2 (2x1)
160GB HD 5400RPM

I guess that's everything pertinent. I added integrated Bluetooth to the Thinkpad, upped the processor from the start and selected more memory and a bigger, faster hard drive to bring it up to spec with the Mac, and the specs on the Macbook are standard. Price is comparable, within a couple hundred dollars.

So... Penny for your thoughts?

Well as for programming, it would not be too wise to choose the mac. Also, the advertised 6 hour battery life on the mac is not accurate. My friend tested his friends and it got 2 hours while watching a movie. nothing else! so for battery life, the thinkpad prob wins. Im guessing the mac is cheaper, but the screen is also smaller. the mac can create pretty things, but so can a normal laptop. I would just say thinkpad, i find that i hate most mac users, Axel is not included. they just seem so snobby

Any reason behind this answer?

dr_worm: I too have been eyeing the Lenovo series for a while now. I'm looking to grab a tablet pc for myself, & I was pleased to find a positive response to these machines running Linux. Other than that I don't have anything to point out on either of these machines. Go with your gut, do some research, & relook over your goals.

Get a ThinkPad, I've been programming on thinkpad for a while, one more thing the battery on the thing pad will hold charge anywhere from 4 to 5 hours, considering one of older IBM T40 4 years old already still holds 3 hour charge, I have a T60p Full charge is 5 hours and 30 minutes for me, I use both of mine at school and for programming, also I haven't have any problems with mine, however if you ever decide to install more memory it is tricky to pop the cover back on.

This post has been edited by Mikhail: 23 Apr, 2008 - 10:00 PM

IMHO, it comes down to what OS you want to use. If you prefer Mac OS X, get the MBP. If you think you'd rather use Vista and SLED, get the ThinkPad. If you really need Windows, but prefer OS X, go look at VMware Fusion... It's pretty neat.

Hardware wise, they're both awesome machines. Having used both of them, I can honestly say that they're at the top of my personal rankings for "best laptop".

Personally, I'd probably go for the Lenovo ThinkPad. I love OS X, don't get me wrong, but if you're using it for business, and you're programming a lot, it might just be easier to have a non-virtualized Windows install for Visual Studio.

I'm just going to chime in here that whether the Mac is feasible for programming with depends entirely on what you're working with. If you're working with the LAMP stack or Ruby on Rails for example, you'll find that the Mac will suit you just fine - you might a well be using Linux, as most(if not all) of the utilities you want are available to you.

However, if you're doing something you need Visual Studio for(like C#), the offerings for the Mac just don't quite cut it.

I'm pretty sure I'm gonna go with the Thinkpad, mostly for the sake of usability. Dual-booting Windows and Linux would be ideal, and I think I'd prefer it over a Mac. Anyway. Thanks for the input, subsequent questions to follow...

I would still suggest the Mac mostly because of it's flexibility. If you need OSX, you can have it, but you can also install Linux and Windows through Bootcamp or virtual machine. You would not get that with a thinkpad. They tend to be very good, believe me.

Good luck buddy

This post has been edited by eowend: 26 Apr, 2008 - 10:34 PM

You can put Linux on a Lenovo. I've been shopping around for one for a few months now, & from the research I've done, nothing says that it can't be done.

I've been looking at the Tablet pc versions. They are simply X61, vs the T61 you are asking about.