1,492
edits
Difference between revisions of "IBM Thinkpad 560"
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
m
no edit summary
Andrei.boiu (talk | contribs) (Created page with "__NOTOC__ {| width="100%" |style="vertical-align:top" | <div style="margin: 0; margin-right:10px; border: 1px solid #dfdfdf; padding: 0em 1em 1em 1em; background-color:#F8F8FF...") |
Andrei.boiu (talk | contribs) m |
||
| Line 34: | Line 34: | ||
== Benchmarks == | == Benchmarks == | ||
== Durability and Repair-ability == | |||
The mediocre plastic quality means that cracks of internal plastic screw stands are common, making disassembly and assembly operations quite difficult, with screws that are difficult to remove or tighten. The difficult access to the hard-drive, requiring full disassembly of the entire chassis is highly annoying. Going further with bad design choices, the LCD screen lamp is mounted vertically and it is very difficult to replace, requiring a full disassembly of the display. This means that you rarely can repair a screen without damaging or affecting something else with dust or slight manipulation mistakes. | |||
== Review == | == Review == | ||
| Line 40: | Line 43: | ||
The graphics chipset is really old, obsolete and inadequate. Using an ISA generation card in a laptop of that age is such an example. It is impossible to understand why such an old platform was used, except for cost. Since the graphics chipset does not implement even many Windows 3.x era features, it is already slow even for such an old operating system. For instance, a lack of fast screen scrolling severely limits windows graphics updates making any 2D or 3D graphics slower than on similar videocards such as the venerable S3 Trio 64 or the Chips and Tech 6555x chipsets that were available by 1995-1996. | The graphics chipset is really old, obsolete and inadequate. Using an ISA generation card in a laptop of that age is such an example. It is impossible to understand why such an old platform was used, except for cost. Since the graphics chipset does not implement even many Windows 3.x era features, it is already slow even for such an old operating system. For instance, a lack of fast screen scrolling severely limits windows graphics updates making any 2D or 3D graphics slower than on similar videocards such as the venerable S3 Trio 64 or the Chips and Tech 6555x chipsets that were available by 1995-1996. | ||
The LCD TFT screen is somewhat | The LCD TFT screen is somewhat alright but it uses a dated technology that results in low brightness, low contrast and very low long-term performance has quite good specifications but high resolution models are slightly dimmer overall and on the screen edges. Response time is somewhat reasonable. Definitely avoid the DSTN screens as they are way too slow, ghostly, and low-contrast. | ||
The CPU implementation is quite bad. Even if the CPU is passively cooled, with no fan in the chassis, which is fantastic in terms of noise, the rest of the configuration is not that great. It seems that no L2 cache is included, a very strange design choice. This, along with the slow memory | The CPU implementation is quite bad. Even if the CPU is passively cooled, with no fan in the chassis, which is fantastic in terms of noise, the rest of the configuration is not that great. It seems that no L2 cache is included, a very strange design choice. This, along with the slow memory severely affects performance compared with a typical Pentium 100-133 CPU. It seems that the platform was actually designed in the first edition Pentium processors era, around 1994, explaining the quirks of its implementation, such as no USB support. Including a 100-133 MHz CPU was only an afterthought due to demand and not hinting at a good design. The keyboard is durable and with good tactile feedback. The trackpoint is mediocre in terms of reliability clearly below the level of the classic, renowned IBM quality. | ||
Not having any removable drive capability is a very bad choice for such a laptop that does not have even a HDD tray. The rechargeable battery can be easily removed or replaced. The BIOS and timekeeping battery is a non-standard CR2016 3V button cell. | Not having any removable drive capability is a very bad choice for such a laptop that does not have even a HDD tray. The rechargeable battery can be easily removed or replaced. The BIOS and timekeeping battery is a non-standard CR2016 3V button cell. | ||
| Line 51: | Line 54: | ||
Software support is great if you like old operating systems. Due to the slow video chipset and RAM size Windows 95 is the most recent operating system you should install. Good DOS sound support due to the ESS1688 chipset that is Sound Blaster compatible means that vintage gaming is a good choice but seriously consider external speakers for reasonable sound quality. | Software support is great if you like old operating systems. Due to the slow video chipset and RAM size Windows 95 is the most recent operating system you should install. Good DOS sound support due to the ESS1688 chipset that is Sound Blaster compatible means that vintage gaming is a good choice but seriously consider external speakers for reasonable sound quality. | ||
{{footnotes| | {{footnotes| | ||