I've had my thinkpad for three days now... and I have one thing to say...
I LOVE IT
thats right, so far I find it to be the best laptop I have owned to date (or used for that matter).
My model is the t40p (has the 64mb 9000 GL Pro)
The build quality is amazing, not only for a laptop thats an inch think, but for a laptop in general.
No creaking, and a strong shell guarding the monitor (you can press hard from behind and not hit the LCD which was one of my major concerns <if you press hard in the center you can just touch it.. but you have to really push>).
I purposely gave it a rough treatment, threw it in a bookbag (unprotected) stuffed with other stuff and carried it around NewYork city for an entire day. There were no, I repeat, no marks on the screen whatsoever. This could be becase the keys are so new they are clean, but again, this was a major factor for me in build quality)
It's very snappy, much faster than my desktop (P4 1.7 ghz 512mb ram). I havent installed any games yet or my 3d software to test the video card. DVD playback is the best I have seen (no artifacts at all), and internet video appears w/out artifacts (boob-central.com/live). I believe the video card has a feature that cleans low quality video.
I purchased an echo audio indigo PCMCIA ($95) , so the sound is pristine, it also allows me to produce audio with latency as low as 512 samples (or 5 ms) thanks to ASIO and WMD Kernal streaming drivers.
The laptop is SILENT.. I mean you do not hear a whisper, the fan is amazingly quiet, you really cant hear it unless you put the vent to your ear. The keyboard I wont even get into (again, amazing), trackpoint and touch pad the same. After hours of use it got "slightly" warm. Almost like a body heat warm... far from hot, and not really noticeable.
Audio and other media programs FLY. I am assuming this is due to the 1MB L2 cache? (runs at full processor speed.. it's similar to Intel's Xeon CPU).
Wireless recpetion is also incredible. Walking into my loft, I had already picked up 3 available connections (I dont know where the source was), the signal is strong on all (time to cancel my ISP!), I was chatting on MSN to friends last nigh from my roof overlooking the Brooklyn Bridge.. it's corny but I felt like one of those saps in the Centrino commercials!
All in all I cant find one negative thing to say about it. It's only been 3 days I know, but these 3 days have felt special... almost like a love at first sight feeling.
I got this laptop prepared to smash it upon finding the littlest flaw. Maybe out of frustration because every laptop I have got in the past was never lived up to my expectations. I have used Fujitsu, Sony, Toshiba, the G4 Powerbook, and a thinkpad T30... they don't touch this thing, they dont even come close. The computer in general, it's build, size, preformance, and overall "feel" if that makes sense just continue to blow me away. I wake up every morning and run to it, ready to touch it's keys.
This might all sound sick to you, I dont get out much... but I can finally say I have found the perfect laptop.
My only gripe, the price. It cost me $2900 (bought it during the 15% off sale). It was certainly an investment, but one that I never once felt guilty about since turning it on.