A Tale of Two Thinkpads

Thinkpad X31, Pentium M 1.3Ghz (Banias) 512MB. ATI Mobility graphics 16MB. Windows XP (SP2)

Idle power: 7-8 Watts.
Battery life: about 5h

The New:

Thinkpad T60, Core Duo T2400 1.8 Ghz. 1Gb ATI X1400 Graphics. Windows Vista (Business)

Idle power: 16+ Watts.
Batter life: barely 3h

Even after disabling the desktop search and superfetch, the machine has no free memory to speak of and constantly accesses the hard drive. I guess I should have gone with 2Gb RAM. Its also .. oh God how words fail me here.. slow. Excruciating, throw-the-machine-through-the-window-screaming-in-agony slow.

The T60 has at least a factor of two performance advantage in the CPU, memory, hard drive, and graphics over the ageing X31. And all for nought and then some thanks, presumably, to Microsoft Vista.

Three years of hardware progress in the semiconductor industry p*ssed into the wind, half the battery life ... in return for this stinking pile of excrement? Increased productivity? Increased productivity? This is a sick joke.

Richard