Lenovo T61 vs T500 vs ?

[FusionX]

Hello all, and thanks in advance for any advice you may provide.

I'm in the market for a new (actually refurbished) laptop and I'm debating which Lenovo T-series to get. My plan is to install Fedora on it and I'll be using it for daily computing, development work and general play.

I'm doing my shopping at the Lenovo outlet website and am leaning toward a T61 or T500.

My understanding is that the T500 is the replacement for the T61, but I hear a lot of people gushing about the 61 and not the 500.

I'm wondering if anyone has any recommendations for me as far as which model works best with Fedora, which video card, etc. The more headaches I can avoid by picking the right machine, the better. I'm not a total n00b, but I'm not 1337 either, so any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks Again,

FusionX

[wagnerireena]

I don't think the T500 has LED display, only T400.

Otherwise:
- T500 has better nonintegrated graphics - matters if you game
- integrated webcam - matters if you spend IMing a lot on the road
- Ati GPU less Linux support but potentially avoiding problems with recent nVidia batch
- hybrid graphics for better battery life - only matters if you configure non-integrated GPU
- slightly thinner and lighter

Depending on price difference I'd probably stay with T61. If you need integrated webcam, tend to game and want to squeeze out all battery life go with T500.

In any case get a dock with DVI (advanced mini dock) - plugging cables in and out every day sucks.

[Robert2]

Typically the latest machines will cause you slightly more problems, as not all the support for it is integrated in current distributions.

Considering the T4/500 models
- no support for the Fingerprint reader
- switchable graphics requires a reboot

But have a look at thinkwiki.org and see what the status is of the various components in the ThinkPad of your choice.