IBM Thinkpad R51 1836BDU Mini-Review

A few months ago, I ordered an IBM Thinkpad R51. Rather than have them build one from scratch for me, I ordered the 1836BDU from Newegg.

CPU

Intel Pentium M Processor 1.5GHz

Memory

256 MiB DDR333

Hard Drive

40 GiB

Optical Drive

DVD-ROM/CD-RW

Video Card

ATI Mobility RADEON 7500

Display

15.0" SXGA+ (1400x1050) TFT

Communication

56K Modem, 10/100 LAN, 802.11b/g

Ports

Parallel, Two USB 2.0, VGA, Stereo Headphone, Microphone, Infrared, S-Video, PCMCIA

Dimensions

13.1" x 10.6" x 1.58"

Weight

6.8 pounds

Upon receipt, my first impression was that it looked quite sharp. I've got a thing for electronics, they should be flat black. I can't stand my almost black, but really dark gray tower, it drives me nuts. Anyhow, it's a nice flat black, I most certainly like how it looks. The battery came already charged so I just plugged it in and tossed in the Ubuntu install CD. Everything seems fine. The battery life claims to be a bit over 4 hours, but I get about 3. This may be a Linux issue, or it may be how I use the laptop.

After a few days of use, I noticed that when I went to charge the battery, it would charge for a bit, than stop. I quickly borrowed another AC/DC adapter and battery that I knew were in working order and the problem persisted. I called IBM tech support and they had me remove the laptop from AC power and remove the battery. Than they had me press the power button, I'm assuming to empty the capacitors. Reinsert the battery and connect the AC/DC adapter and I was good to go.

I assumed this was a one time fluke, however, the problem persisted. A few days later it occured again. I opted not to call tech support and repeat the process outlined above. Again it allowed me to charge the battery to the full capacity. After it happened a third time, I called tech support again. They told me they would send me a box for me to ship it back to them in and than they would have it repaired the same day and send it back to me.

The box showed up the following day by overnight mail and contained a block of foam occupying the entire volume of the box. The block of foam had several perforations in it, allowing me to remove portions based on the size of the laptop I was returning. I filled out the enclosed form and made note that I ran Linux and included a user and password if it was necessary for them to do anything aside from just replace hardware.

My laptop was sent back to me in the same box in 3 business days, an outstanding turnaround time. The form enclosed indicated that they replaced the motherboard and that my old one was defective. Since that time, I've had no problems. I think I will need to get more RAM since I was quite used to 2 GiB and 256 MiB is just not enough for my multitasking. I was also quite used to having the fastest hard drive on the market, a 15000 RPM SCSI beast, and dropping down to a laptop hard drive is sort of a let down. I also want to get the internal Bluetooth communicaitons daughter card as I really want to be able to surf the web everywhere I go and I have a really cheap data plan with my cell phone provider.

Aside from the battery issue, I'm quite happy with this purchase and with IBM's support. While the machine is not a screamer, it is more than enough for my email, web surfing, homework, and teaching myself a programming language or two.