From: STeve Andre' (andres_at_msu.edu)
Date: Fri Jan 07 2000 - 04:35:37 EST
I have one. I got it around December the 8th, and after it accumulated some
frequent flier miles on Airborne going back to think repair facility three
times, I've come to like it a lot.
First, the story of its problems. When I got the unit, I was busy with Y2K
insanity and basically the unit just sat on my desk, crunching away on some
problems for me but wasn't moved. When I did move it, I discovered a rattling
noise in the bottom of the unit, towards the back, sounding like a screw was
loose. Before I could do anything about it, said screw become welded to some
part of the thinkpads circuitry and I could smell smoke... Sending it back
to the repair place was a reasonably pleasent experience, as I got it back
after one day there. The unit was OK, but I found that when plugged into AC,
the modem had SEVERE 60Hz hum on it and would not work. On batteries the
modem was fine. This weirded the IBM people out, but they took it back. I
got it again, and all was well, except that the battery was charging at a
rate of 0.5% per hour. So off to the repair facility a third time, and this
time, it came back, and everything is perfect!
In all three cases the DC/DC card had to be replaced. This means that the two
replacement DC/DC cards they had in stock were defective, which doesn't make
me feel great, and of course the unit wasn't built as well as it should have
been, in that there was a screw loose initially.
However, having said that, the unit is a real joy to use now, and the little
"ThinkLight" is useful besides being cute! The one change they've made to
the unit (compared to other i series units) that reeks are the four special
colored buttons which are programmable. On my 1451 and 1472, they are the
F5 to F7 keys; here on the 1480 they are these sad little buttons, which sort
of work, but aren't great. The travel they exhibit is not good. How they
could have let this go out into the field is beyond me. It is the one cheesy
part of the 1480's design, but the only one that I see.
So, overall I am happy with the unit. As with the 1451 and 1472, this 1480
came with a perfect screen, no pixels blown. The 1451 has a 13.3" display
and the 1480 has a 14.1--that extra difference is noticable when I have the
two sitting by each other as I do now. The disk is *quiet*, compared to the
1451! The 1451 disk was always noisy, and is worse now, but the 1480 is much
better.
The unit comes with a Li ON battery, and with no power saving options
turned on
I can get about 90 minutes of life out of it. As with the 1451, I suspect
that
battery life will considerably improve once I do the usual tricks of dimming
the screen and turning the battery off, but I haven't had time yet to really
play with it.
My 1480 was fine in this regard, but some 1480's (and 1460's too) emit a
whining
sound in either the left or both speakers. Apparently this is a capacitor
in the
USB circuit, and there is a software patch which corrects this and makes it go
away. So if your 1480 sounds like a mouse in distress there is a cure for it.
Even with my initial problems with my unit, I would recomend it to others.
IBM
*DID* fix things, finally, and do stand behind their products. The problems I
experienced are endemic to the market we live in I'm afraid, as I've seen an
increase in problems in all the computing equipment I buy--design times are
shorter
than they once were, and the pressure to shave a few pennies here and there
have
made for an increase in problems for everything as I see it.
Two other things. The unit has a Win Modem, which I have a little more
respect
for than a "real" modem, in that when line conditions are good, the connect
rates
are actually pretty decent. Because I'm going to put OpenBSD on my 1480, I've
started to accumulate some 'real' PCMCIA modei, and I must say that while they
all do a better job at connect rates on a bad phone line, none of them connect
as well as the TP's modem does when conditions are good. If anyone has a
PCMCIA
modem that works better than the Lucent modem does under good conditions,
please
mail me.
The last point is that adding more memory to this 1480 *may* be something of a
problem. The 1472 I got last year had the bizarre problem of simply not being
willing to take extra memory, even though IBM took the unit and changed out
the
system board. I never tried the "IBM proven" brands, but the 64M dimm that
didn't
work in the 1472 worked so well in my own 1451 that I transferred it to
mine. I
have heard someone say that they thought the 1480 was like the 1472, with only
specific brands working. Now, I can't speak to that directly, but take
that as a
heads up.
Anyway, my two cents. I bought this 1480 with my own money, and I'm not
sorry I
did.
--STeve Andre'
andres_at_msu.edu
At 09:57 PM 1/6/2000 -0700, Chris Gruttke wrote:
>I was thinking of retiring the 560 I currently have and get i1480. Does
>anyone have any personal thoughts on this machine. I am aware of no drivers
>for NT but I have no problem just running win98. Any word if there are
>plans for drivers for Win 2000. Any bad or annoying things about this
machine?
>
>Thanks
>Chris
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