11 responses so far ↓

• 1 Cochren

  I bought one of these for my old laptop which was dying. The new battery works as well as the original one did. I’ve had it for about a year now, and I haven’t seen that much degradation in performance yet.

• 2 Janes

  It charged in less than an hour, no documentation as to charging, but it’s worked fine so far. I ‘rescued’ this laptop from a trip to the dump and have Sabayon mini edition running on it. Now it’s portability is restored as well. I’m pleased with the product.

• 3 Kwong

  This product worked great for about a month, then it completely went dead, and was as worthless as the battery I replaced, giving you about 10 seconds before the machine totally shut off if you unplugged the AC. I called, and Tigerdirect said there was nothing they could do, but they instructed me on what to say to IBM Tech Support, regarding when I made the purchase and what not. The kicker is they wanted me to lie! I stayed on the line while the TigerDirect person connected me with IBM, and made the introduction to the IBM Tech Support person, he gave them my laptop serial number, (which should have nothing to do with warranty on an aftermarket battery!) and then turned it over to me, then dropped off the line! I told the IBM person, who mind you knew everything about me from my serial number, that I was being asked to lie in order to cheat them out of a battery by a rep at TirgerDirect, I applogized on TigerDirect’s behalf and hung up. That was a $65 mistake!

• 4 Teo

  I have owned and used the IBM Thinkpad over the years. Definately one of the best laptops I’ve used. I would recommend it to anyone.

  Mandee Burt
  Bruma’s Gift shop
  http://www.brumasgiftshop.com

• 5 Kwan

  I just last weekend bought this product refurbished, but I’ve already had enough experience with it to know that I’m retiring my old Thinkpad 600e (with profuse thanks, as that other IBM product has rendered yeoman service for the last 3+ years) and making this my main backup computer (if that makes sense – I mean that it’s the computer I will be using when I’m not in front of my Sempron 2800+-based home-built). About the only real faults I can find with the T30 are that there are no USB 2.0 ports integrated into the machine (you need to buy a PC Card for that, but they’re easy to get and fairly cheap and will literally plug-and-play install with Windows XP) and that the factory-install 40GB hard drive is a bit too small and, at 4200 RPM, a bit slow for modern purposes. However, any good modern HD with a capacity of 60GB to 80GB should suffice to upgrade this part. Optical drives and RAM expansion modules for this model are readily available, as are batteries; I’ve already oomphed up my T30 by boosting the RAM to 1GB, which causes the Windows XP Pro SP2 installed on this machine to run very smoothly indeed, and putting in an 8X DVD+/- writer (I am intending to find a lightweight, portable scanner and a USB 2.0 hard drive next). I really like the integrated wireless; for the first time in my computing career (and I’m admittedly rather late coming to this point) I really am experiencing the power of Internet mobility. The notebook is very sturdily and handsomely constructed, if rather utilitarian-looking on the outside compared to some offerings from other companies, and it’s the first Thinkpad to offer a touchpad in addition to its famous “eraserhead” pointing device. The power button is well-placed on the keyboard itself rather than on the side as in earlier Thinkpads, which prevents awkward accidents with the machine switching on and draining the battery inadvertently. The various ports are well-arranged. Please note that the floppy drive on this model is a separate expansion unit which must be installed into the UltraBay; it’s up to you whether you want to purchase one, since floppies really are pretty much obsolete these days with flash drives getting so cheap. The 14.1″ screen is not as big as some other companies’ models but delivers clear, crisp pictures. All in all, highly recommended for somebody who needs a high-powered laptop without wanting to pay a premium price for a new machine with the still-teething Windows Vista.

  EDIT: After nine months of using this laptop, there are several issues that have come up. None of them is a showstopper, but taken together, they’d probably take the overall rating down by half a star – still very good at 4.5 stars, but not quite as overwhelming as I had earlier deemed it.

  1) The Thinkpad T30 has a rather notorious problem with its RAM slots, in which the bottom slot often works intermittently or not at all. Depending on how much RAM you need, the impact can range from negligible to major, and is almost always frustrating because it cuts your total amount of RAM by half. In my case, this means that what should be 1 GB of RAM is actually 512 MB RAM – not inadequate for Windows XP Pro, by any means, particularly for the business purposes to which the Thinkpad series is usually put – but annoying. There are several workarounds for this problem, ranging from the field-expedient of inserting a folded piece of paper over the problem RAM slot (this is said to hold down the DIMM enough to make it contact properly) to outright replacement of the motherboard with a properly working unit.

  2) The LCD front bezel is rather flimsy. It cracked at the left front catch back in the late summer, making the unit a bit difficult to open. I haven’t had the opportunity to get this fixed yet, but it’s actually a fairly simple matter of getting a new front bezel – replacement parts are readily available through eBay and other sources.

  3) Make sure, as I indicated earlier, that you get a proper USB 2.0 PC Card for this unit, particularly one that has a power adapter. You’ll need it to run an external hard drive such as the Seagate FreeAgent Go, which doesn’t have an AC adapter of its own.

  Still very highly recommended, but do be aware of the potential pitfalls. Also be aware that at this point, warranty has very likely expired on any of this particular model you find, so you’ll need to know a local computer shop that has good repair rates if something goes seriously wrong.

• 6 Nessler

  Purchased both of these and had these for less than two years. Paid 600.00 for the T41 and 400.00 for the T30 at Budget Computers in Portland Oregon a big reseller of these. Well we are now finding out that there is a design flaw in these. Apparently the newer IBMs have a cage around the video card to prevent these heavy laptops from shearing the video card from the motherboard if you pick it up with one hand. But even with the new cages it can shear off from what I am told. Both of the IBM laptop video cards are failing. IBM won’t recall these or repair these. IBM was bought out by company in Hong Kong and from what I can tell on the internet the products are not good and IT managers are finding out the hard way just as I have. But the fact that they changed the design pretty much admits to the poor design. Budget Computer plays dumb and says if they knew about the defect they wouldn’t have sold it to us. But at the time we were in for another issue on one of them two days before the warranty expired they had kind of mentioned it under their breath saying they hoped this one was ok. So they knew. I guess someone is suing them right now. The did offer to take 200.00 off and sell us another IBM T42 or R51 for another 300.00. They omitted the part that some of the T42s still have the same poorly designed motherboards as the T41. Will never buy again from Budget Computer nor IBM. I had done all my home work and everyone said IBM made these stout laptops but I do not consider it a good investment by any means. All I can say is that it is timed obsolesence or lazy product development. Resellers like Budget Computer makes me want to avoid middle man altogether. I would not by another refurbished laptop from reseller again. Budget also ghosts the software onto the machines and never provides software disks and it is far better to have the software to fix issues. Always get the disks for software for your machine. You are not getting a deal at Budget. I even emailed the CEO of IBM and never heard from them. IBM even has a 1-800 complaint line separate from customer service, if that is not telling I don’t know what is. The complaint line takes you to India from the sounds of it. The customer support and tech support in Georgia was not that good either. They kept transfering me endlessly. I was so disappointed at their customer support and they were poorly trained. I wish I could find a laptop that really hold us to being moved around. Panasonic makes these supposidly tougher ones but they want 3K! Can’t anyone make a 600.00 laptop that is light enough and tough enough that it doesn’t bend the motherboard under normal use?

• 7 Noell

  I have owned IBM pc’s and laptops before and they have all been cheeply made and didn’t perform. Neither does this.

• 8 Chau

  I think this is a great deal. I get around 5-6 hours off of this new battery. Must buy good battery.

• 9 Qaddafi

  I ordered this as a supplement to original battery for my R51 laptop. The old one was only lasting about 2 hours; this one about 4, which allows me to use it on a long plane trip. So far, works great and price was reasonable.

  Just be aware that to get the extended battery life, the battery has to be bigger. No big deal except if you try to dock it in a docking station or port replicator. Because the battery sticks out the back, it won’t dock. So I use my old battery in the docking station and this one when I’m traveling.

• 10 Finch

  This is a late review as I have been using the battery for 2 1/2 years and it still retains +/- 90% of it’s original life. I’ll buy another as soon as this one dies.

• 11 Ulinski

  I was very happy with this product, and it was significantly cheaper then the replacement batteries sold by other vendors for my t42p.

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