Re: Upgrading a 701C IBM Thinkpad

["Gene J" <blue@enteract.com>]

epbrown@enteract.com (epbrown) wrote:

>> Check out L.A. Trade (usually has ads in PC and PC-Computing) who 
>> lists 32MB for $536 for the IBM 701.  Their phone number is 
>> 1-800-433-3726.
>
> 	I tried these guys today, running a price check.  They said outright
> that the 32MB chip is "very expensive" and quoted me $789!  Gene, or anyone
> else, know what issue was being referred to that had the $536 price listed?

The issue is November 1996 (PC Computing magazine, page 310).  That's 
a big difference between what's listed ($536) and the $789 that they 
quoted you, beyond what's tolerable even with the disclaimer "prices 
subject to change without notice."

> 	Btw, I saw an upgrade company that'll bump the processor to a 586-133Mhz
> for $395 and another that advertises the 586-100 for $348, so I'm trying to
> decide which to do: processor upgrade or RAM (both would be a bit much, I'd
> go ahead and get the Toshiba 620CT).  How much more bang would going to
> 40MB give me?

I would question whether an upgrade for the 701 would give you that 
much more performance, considering the price and that you'd be 
voiding a 3-year warranty.  ThinkPads do break down and the EasyServe 
warranty is good compensation for that, I wouldn't want to blow it.

The 701 has some kind of lousy motherboard/system layout that doesn't 
even take full advantage of the 486DX.  From what I've seen in 
performance comparisons, the 701 is one of the worst performers in 
the 486DX75 class; there's a Toshiba that performs over 50% better 
with the same CPU.  While you may see a performance increase by 
upgrading to a 586-133, it probably won't be as fast as what is being 
touted; the performance increase at best would be incremental 
relative to the 701.  You may want to check out the Cyrix WWW page 
for more info on their 586 chip upgrades (at least I think its Cyrix, 
not AMD, that's making the 586 chip).  Also, I don't think that the 
Cyrix or AMD 586 (the one that's pin compatible with the 486) has a 
FPU, which would translate into less performance than having a real 
Pentium.  For some apps the FPU makes a big difference.

I know that I considered the 586 upgrade, but then I figure that I'd 
be better off using that money towards a desktop system (like a 
Pentium Pro 200n).

Considering that the total cost of investment into a 701 (or any 
486 laptop) to upgrade it, up to $650 for a 32MB SO-DIMM, $100 to 
$150 for a PCMCIA SCSI card, $350 for an external 8x SCSI CD-ROM (the 
Phillips model I like), and about $500 for a 1.3GB hard drive, one 
could easily spend $1500 on additional goodies for the notebook.  A 
Dell Pentium Pro 200 system with 32MB, 2GB hd, 8x CD-Rom, and 17" 
monitor is about $2700, for example, and those prices should drop 
even more around or after Christmas, and certainly more once the 
Pentium MMX units are released.

Another factor for me is the ISDN thing; I want to upgrade to ISDN 
and use an external ISDN unit (rather than PCMCIA), but because of 
the 115kbps limit on the 701 serial port I will never get full 
ISDN performance (approaching 200kbps with compression).  At 
least if I had a desktop I could buy a high-speed serial card for 
$50, havn't seen a PCMCIA high speed serial card yet.

I'm now leaning toward buying a desktop, and with Win95 
features like Briefcase and Direct Connect cabling, using my 701 as 
an extension of my desktop when traveling.  So I'm resisting the urge 
to pour money into things for my 701.  On the other hand, once the 
price of a 32MB SO-DIMM drops to around $150, I probably will upgrade 
the ram.  I bought my 16MB SO-DIMM for $500, and within months that 
dropped to $150, so now I'm trying to exercise patience.

One upgrade I will be buying for my laptop is a PCMCIA joystick 
adapter, one with a dongle that shouldn't interfere with the 701's 
keyboard.  I'll be picking it up from CDW (don't cringe) today, and 
will be reporting the results as soon as I install it; I have my 
fingers crossed.

Another thing that I'm looking at is the Olympus SYS.230 portable 
drive.  230MB (uncompressed) of erasable optical storage with disks 
running at $10/each in units of 5.  There's a version of the unit 
that has both parallel and SCSI connections for added versitility, 
but the drawback is the $375 price tag.  It just came out so I'm 
waiting for the price to drop (competition with SyQuest), as well 
as some assurance of media availability (that the Olympus 230MB will 
be readily available at $10/each in the future). 

Let me add that I do love my 701 though, its a great portable unit 
that meets all of my real needs (outside of playing Doom), and I'll 
probably keep it until it breaks beyond cost-effective repair.  :)

Just my 2 cents...
--
  Gene <blue@enteract.com>
       http://www.enteract.com/~blue
       IP #:     206.54.253.122
       IP name:  blue.sa.enteract.com