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IBMs latest upgrade to its T Series line is armed with Intels new 90-nanometer Pentium M processor, code-named Dothan. Released earlier this month, Dothan is the successor to Intels original Banias core and will be a component of Intels eventual successor to Centrino.
The T42 comes with a 15-inch or 14.1-inch TFT display and the 1.8GHz Pentium M 745 or 1.7GHz Pentium M 735. It can be purchased with the original Banias core chip set.
As with its predecessors, the T42 offers a choice of wireless technologies, including Intels 802.11b or IBMs 802.11b/g or 802.11a/b/g chip sets. The laptop has Bluetooth capabilities.
The T42 is priced starting at $1,599. My T42 test machine (which lists for $2,429) came with the 1.7GHz Pentium M 735, 512MB of SDRAM and a 40GB hard-disk drive.
With the 15.1-inch TFT display, my test machine sported a 13-by-10.6-by-1.2-inch chassis and weighed 5.8 pounds with the power adapter.
In performance tests done in conjunction with eWEEKs sister site, ExtremeTech.com, the T42 delivered a solid 16.7 on the Business Winstone 2004 benchmark, which tests performance as the computer runs a suite of desktop applications. The T42 scored an impressive 21 on Multimedia Content Creation Winstone 2004, which tests how drives perform real-world applications while executing scripts that represent real user workloads.
By comparison, a Dell D600 laptop with the Banias version of the 1.4GHz Pentium M and buffer size identical to the T42s scored 14.2 on Business Winstone 2004 and 16.9 on Multimedia Content Creation Winstone. This leads me to believe that the larger L2 cache is better for media-intensive applications.
More information is at www.ibm.com.
