Advantages: many unique features, robust, trustworthy
Disadvantages: more expensive than some brands

...I bought this laptop on insurance, as my previous ThinkPad was stolen and I loved it so much that I couldn't bear to buy a different brand. In my opinion, the Lenovo ThinkPad is the best laptop you could possibly buy for all-round performance, reliability, and features, but I will endeavour to make this review as unbiased as possible, and I will split it into different sections for easy reading. LOOKS/DESIGN We all know looks do matter, and the ThinkPad is nothing if not distinctive in design. Unusually amongst modern laptops, the ThinkPad does not have sleek silver curves everywhere. Instead, it is a matt black cuboid, with a nice texture. Some people may not prefer this, as I have been told "It looks like it's from the 80s", but the understatedness of the design is much less showy than most modern laptops, suggesting... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

Advantages: Light, flat and compact
Disadvantages: Being Black

...personal laptop - several microsoft office programs, 2 PC games, and the usual bits and pieces and it runs fine. The one thing that concerns me is the heat of the laptop once it has been on for a long while. The battery area does get very warm. Other than that, if you want a good laptop for personal use forget some of the well known brand laptops described as perfect for home use and buy a "small business" laptop - an IBM Thinkpad!... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Lightweight, protable, good for all business type applications
Disadvantages: poor stock specification, gets a little warm on your legs!

...I purchased my Thinkpad T20 second hand for around £300. For this money, I got the original specification machine fitted with a CDRW/DVD drive, which is an optional extra for the later models. With the ultrabay 2000, it is possible to use a range of hardware, without having to re-boot the system. Optical drives, hard disk drives and batteries are some of the possibilities to name a few. These all work at lightning speed and are so simple to change between. The lightweight design, topped good performance are impressive. The screen is 13.3 inches and is a good size and resolution for a small laptop. It comes with all the ports for network, modem, parallel and com ports, 2 PCMCIA slots and a singe USB slot. It also has a mouse and external monitor port, Infra-red port, built in speakers of a good quality for a laptop and line in... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Small size, Lights, Looks smart!
Disadvantages: Some say it looks bland, Small size limits functionality

...work and Internet browsing. Battery life is good at 2 hours, and the keyboard is up to the usual IBM quality, feeling firm yet responsive. Now on to a few things that need imporvement. The actual case of the laptop feels tacky and cheap, being entirely plastic. The small size of the unit means no internal drives are included, and I have yet to find an external bootable CDROM drive for my ThinkPad. If I want to install Windows I have to copy the entire Windows CD onto the hard disk, boot from a floppy diskette and then tell the Command Prompt where the installation files are. It really is a pain! The speed of the machine feels reasonable running Windows 98, but face it, we all want 2000 or XP. With any of these, the ThinkPad 240 really starts to drag, even with 192MB of RAM installed. The best way to make XP or 2000 run well is to have... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Easy to use, runs smoothly, good battery life and high quality.
Disadvantages: Some probelms with the wireless adapter.

...I have owned several different ThinkPad's over the years. I have enjoyed them all and found them to be extremely useful and reliable. I knew that I wanted a decent quality portable laptop that would be suitable for all the basics. I have been using the laptop mainly for office related items such as documents and spreadsheets but have also been using it to store and edit photographs and videos. So far I have had no problems and that fact that it comes with a media card reader was very useful. This version of the ThinkPad is pretty similar to the rest of the laptops in the series. There is little to no distortion with the screen and it is fairly bright and gives a high quality picture. I couldn't find any problems with the laptop as a whole, nothing is loose or flex's for the most part. The R61 has pretty much all the ports... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Extreme performace and user experience
Disadvantages: 128 mb graphics memory low performance

...IBM Thinkpad x41 with the Ultrabase is the best and most powerful laptop of its kind. 1.3 kg and with the 8 cell battery up to 6 hours operating time, it is mostly suited for travelers and collage students Instead of the standard 512 mb of RAM, ive got the 1.5 GB installed, so it is faster and has better performance. It has the touchpoint interface, which is the second best after the mouse because it is more precise than the touchPad. The ThinkLight HDD protection is useful when you are traveling by bus or train because it suits itself to repeated bumps and allows the HDD run even with heavy vibration. As suited to IBMs, there is a little light in the edge of the monitor, which is very good in the dark. Especially I like the location of the processor cooling vent, which is on the side and keeps the processor cool even... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: High spec for low refurb price, Windows XP Pro, great build
Disadvantages: Small hard drive, only 2 USB ports

...external drive. I need one of those due to the small drive, but that's no problem. Battery life is fairly rubbish but then again so are all laptops. It's adequate for a few hours but I wouldn't rely on the battery and I always make sure there's a plug near by. Speaking of adaptors: the design may look sturdy (of the adaptor itself) but there's a thing piece of wire which can break. I've had to replace the adaptor already but luckily things are readily available for IBM products. The screen is an adequate size but the resolution could maybe be slightly higher as you can't get much on to the screen. When you've been working on a larger monitor based PC, everything seems huge! You could always connect 2 monitors if you needed more workspace I suppose. It is bright however and doesn't fade that much if you tilt it (at least no more than... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Small, light and well spec'd
Disadvantages: Replacement parts prices.

...I originally bought my Thinkpad as a starter for my partner as she reckoned they are easier to use. My reason was that it was small enough to put out of the way if she never used it. I bought it off E-Bay and apart from a small amount of worry with the screen getting damaged in transit paid £200 plus postage. It arrived well packaged and undamaged and to my surprise looking very good for an older model laptop. HARD DRIVE It came pre-installed with Windows XP Pro as it would have when new, and booted up quickly and very quietly. The 40gb hard disk is quite ample as it gives you plenty of space to install whateve