Advantages: Quite, low power consumption, high capacity
Disadvantages: Expensive

...I have been using a Hitachi TravelStar for a long time now, I have had not problems with it and I have given it a good run for the price I paid for it. I originally started out with the 80gb model of this hard disk. I had absolutely no problems with it. (I now have the 100gb model as the laptop it was in was broken in a car accident). I had the 80gb model for a year and never gave me any trouble. It was: · Fast · Reliable · Quite · Super low power consumption · Had a quick spin up time · Very quick seek time · Standard 5 year warranty · Very helpful warranty/customer support Hitachi's customer warranty claims support is like no other that I have come across before. You go onto there website, fill out a warrant claim form; package the device (hard disk in my case) in the way they require. Once you have sent it to them... Read review

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Advantages: Easy Install - a dummy cna do it, I did! Very fast and quiet in use.
Disadvantages: None I can tell

...Being fairly hardware illerate, I put off replacing the HDD on my Dell Inspiron laptop as long as I could. Once it started to take 25 minutes to boot up and generated about 15 red alerts in the Windows XP event log, I thought "I am really going to have to go for it". I had an IBM 60 GB HDD in place, which was noisy when spinning, set the fan off incessantly and was constantly giving me Blue Screen of Death (BSODs). I started by internet researching and using the Dell forum to suss out the right disk to replace mine with. Taking a recommendation from a forum member, I looked first of all at the Travelstar 7K80 but decided to go for the newer version. I replaced a 60GB 5400rpm HDD with a 80GB 7200rpm HDD. I spent a day copying filed to CD, all my docs, pictures, music, software downloads, license/registration numbers etc... Read review

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Advantages: Slim, very light, IBM cachet, good screen, fantastic keyboard
Disadvantages: Build quality perhaps, ticking hard drive

.... My T-41 had a similar spec drive, but it was a Fujitsu one and didn't tick. The T42 has a Hitachi Travelstar drive. Both were made around the same time, according to the IBM site. My T42 seems to have had a rather long shelf time. While we're on hard drive issues, I've also heard rumours that a lot of the T-42's made in 2005 have hard drives going bad and having to be returned to base for replacement. Just google it, and you'll probably come up with something. I've been a fan of IBM thinkpads for a while now, having had the T30 and the T41 before this one. I resisted from buying the T43 (the T60 is out of my price range anyway) since online reviews don't really rate it very high. The first thing you do notice when you take it out of the box is how flimsier it is than the other 2 models. I mean flimsier, and not flimsy. After all the T42... Read review

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Advantages: Cheap, good speakers and ATI graphics chipset, Runs cool
Disadvantages: Only runs cool because of HUGE fans so noisy, Graphics are actually awful, Bad keyboard

...and use the V7010 you will see why I really don;t rate this machine well at all. The grpahics in question do support 3D, but of course don't have the power to run any kind of three dimensional rendering at all. The hard disk is one of the slowest I have ever come accross, and I use an old 20GB IBM Travelstar daily. The keyboard feels like you are typing on a piece of foam, and is so flexible I was firghtened of damaging it just by typing. The machine looks OK, albeit in a plasticy / tacky kind of way. Ideal if you have a PVC fetish, but not so ideal in a working environment where the laptop is likely to suffer abuse like mine did. It has wireless 54MBPS WLAN onboard, but my laptop had to go back to Fujitsu because this wouldn't work on my machine out of the box. I had my V7010 for a whole 3 weeks, and after that experience I... Read review

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