Carla Thornton

IBM ThinkPad T22

Like its T20 and T21 predecessors, the ThinkPad T22 boasts a 14.1-inch, high-resolution screen and weighs only about 5.5 pounds--a dynamite combination of generous screen size and light weight. When you swap the internal 8X DVD-ROM drive that is included with this configuration for a hollow travel bezel from CompuLock ($20), the T22 tips the scales at less than 5 pounds. The internal bay can hold any one of six other devices, including the bundled floppy drive, a second battery, or even a second hard drive. The T series laptops include all legacy connections and great built-in sound with handy volume controls. IBM's ThinkLight, a small LED mounted on the screen frame, lets you see the keyboard more easily in dark rooms. The notebook's UltraPort, located atop the screen under a rubber plug, accepts any of four small, extra-cost devices sold by IBM: a basic digital camera, a compact memory card reader, an infrared port, or a digital microphone. The microphone is $199; the other three accessories are priced at less than $100 each.
At $3251 the T22 is expensive, even for a 1-GHz laptop. And some things that you might expect to get for that price cost extra: A parallel port cable for attaching the floppy drive externally costs an additional $49, and free technical support ends after three years. Printed documentation consists of one slim troubleshooting manual, but electronic documentation is available as well.
Identical in appearance to the older T20 and T21 models, the T22 has the same beveled black case, solid keyboard, comfortable mouse buttons, and fire-engine-red eraserhead pointer that ThinkPad fans have come to know and love. One change is a slightly easier-to-remove hard drive. With earlier T series laptops, you had to remove the battery first; now you extract just one large screw and then tug the hard drive out the T22's right side. An S-Video port lets you watch DVD movies on a television set. The T22 turned in average speed for its processor class, with a PC WorldBench 2000 score of 183. Its battery life of 3.2 hours was also about average.
ThinkPad T laptops are no longer the lightest portables with 14.1-inch screens. Several competing 5-pound Windows notebooks, including the Acer TravelMate 600 series, now offer screens just as big. And Apple's 5.3-pound PowerBook G4 beats them all with a whopping 15.2-inch screen. Overall, however, the T22 offers a more sophisticated design and a greater number of small luxuries than the others; for businesses and well-heeled individuals who prefer the eraserhead pointing device and can afford a top-of-the-line light laptop, it's the best of breed.

Buying Information

IBM ThinkPad T22 PC WorldBench 2000 score of 183, Pentium III-1000/700 CPU, 256MB of SDRAM, 256KB L2 cache, Windows 2000 Professional, 14.1-inch active-matrix screen, S3 Savage/IX graphics chip with 8MB of SGRAM, 32GB hard drive, 8X DVD-ROM drive, built-in V.90 modem and network interface, eraserhead pointing device, 6.8 pounds (including AC adapter and phone cord), Lotus SmartSuite Millennium Edition. Three-year parts and labor warranty; free unlimited toll-free 24-hour tech support during warranty period. $ 3251 PC WorldBench 2000 score of 183, Pentium III-1000/700 CPU, 256MB of SDRAM, 256KB L2 cache, Windows 2000 Professional, 14.1-inch active-matrix screen, S3 Savage/IX graphics chip with 8MB of SGRAM, 32GB hard drive, 8X DVD-ROM drive, built-in V.90 modem and network interface, eraserhead pointing device, 6.8 pounds (including AC adapter and phone cord), Lotus SmartSuite Millennium Edition. Three-year parts and labor warranty; free unlimited toll-free 24-hour tech support during warranty period. http://www.ibm.com/thinkpad 888/746-7426