Features and Design

Lenovo’s ThinkPad T61p is the company’s top-of-the-line desktop replacement notebook. It’s not ultra-portable, nor is it necessarily for mom and dad. This is a hardcore, power-user notebook with extremely high-end specifications, making it a bleeding edge notebook that’s as future proof as notebooks get. We reviewed the T60p back in April of this year, and now that it’s been revamped and up-armored, it’s time to take another look.

Under the hood

Remember what we said about this being a desktop replacement? Nowhere is that more obvious than in the CPU department, as this rig is running the vaunted T7700 Core 2 Duo processor, which is the fastest mobile processor money can buy. It runs at 2.4GHz and features two CPU cores for extra performance in applications that are multi-threaded.

It also features the latest-and-greatest Intel 965 “Santa Rosa” chipset, which has a faster front side bus speed than the previous version, and also includes faster wireless (covered later), and dynamic bus-clocking for improved battery life.

Our test system came with 2GB of 667MHz DDR2 memory, which is totally sufficient and makes Vista run like the Dickens. You can opt for more memory, but with a 32-bit OS it’s a waste of money since it will not all be recognized. 

Ports and Connectors

The right-side of the T61p offers an 8X DVD-R and CD-RW multi-reader, along with two USB ports.

The right side of the T61p

The left side is much more busy, sporting a PC card and an Express Card expansion ports. There’s another USB port, headphone and microphone jacks, and Ethernet and dial-up ports.

The left side of the Lenovo T61p

The rear of the T61p is home to the AC power jack, and since this unit shipped with the optional nine-cell battery, we see it poking out the back of the unit about an inch. The six-cell battery lies flush with the back of the notebook.

The 9-cell battery pokes its head out the back just a smidge