Lenovo ThinkPad T42p PM-745 1GB 60GB 15.0 inchTFT Centrino 11b/g Blue tooth D Intel Pentium Mobile 38.1 cm (15") UXGA AMD Mobility FireGL T2

IBM doesn’t differentiate its ThinkPad range between consumer and business models, offering a uniform degree of build quality and scalability. In the same way, it does not specify the type of machine it offers, so on first appearances there’s little to inform the user that the IBM ThinkPad T42p is pitched as a mobile orkstation. Such laptops are suitable for those who use graphic packages on a daily basis. Therefore, the quality of the screen and graphics sub-system is as important as that of the main specification. IBM has moved away from the 14.1-inch screen it offered on its T41p workstation and the T42p comes with a 15-inch TFT panel.

While the main advantage of this, namely that of a larger visible area to work within, is obvious, IBM has also taken the inclusion of a larger screen to up the native resolution of the display to an impressive 1600 x 1200 pixels. Images appear crisp and clear and we were more than impressed with its overall quality. The panel is supported by the ATi Mobility Fire GLT2 with 128MB of dedicated VRAM. Under test, this graphics adapter returned a 3DMark 2001 score of 9204. While this falls short of the 10000 plus expected of the latest generation of ATi Mobility Radeon cards, it still represents excellent performance, making it capable of running all but the most strenuous of 3D tasks with comparative ease.