The IBM

ThinkPad ThinkPad is a line of business-oriented laptop computers and tablets designed, developed and marketed by Lenovo, and formerly by IBM until 2005, when IBM's PC business was acquired by Lenovo. ThinkPads have a distinct black, boxy design la ...

T20 series was a series of

notebook computer A laptop, laptop computer, or notebook computer is a small, portable personal computer (PC) with a screen and alphanumeric keyboard. Laptops typically have a clam shell form factor with the screen mounted on the inside of the upper li ...

s introduced in May 2000 by IBM as the successor of the 600 series and the first model of the T-series which exists today under Lenovo ownership. Four models were produced, the T20, T21, T22, and T23;IBM ThinkPad - Withdrawn
Lenovo the series was succeeded in May 2002 by the ThinkPad T30, but was produced until July 2003.

Features

The T20 series succeeded the 600 series, adding new features such as S-Video output, an Ethernet port, and the UltraBay 2000 hot-swappable bay. The graphics card was upgraded from the 4MB NeoMagic 256ZX which was used in the 600X, to an 8MB

S3 Savage Savage was a product-line of PC graphics chipsets designed by S3. Graphics Processors Savage 3D At the 1998 E3 Expo S3 introduced the first Savage product, Savage3D. Compared to its ViRGE-derived predecessor (Trio3D), Savage3D was a technol ...

(16MB on T23 models) which was capable of rendering 3D graphics in hardware. The ThinkPad T23 was also the first ThinkPad laptop model to offer an optional

WiFi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wa ...

connection via a Mini-PCI card, using wireless antennas which were built into the lid on select upper-end models. The T20 series originally shipped with either

Windows 98 Windows 98 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. The second operating system in the 9x line, it is the successor to Windows 95, and was released to ...

Windows 2000 Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It was the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was released to manufacturing on December 15, 1999, and was officiall ...

, or

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...

, with later T23 models shipping with

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...

. All T20 models were capable of running Windows 3.x,

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturi ...

Windows NT 4.0 Windows NT 4.0 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It is the direct successor to Windows NT 3.51, which was released to manufacturing on July 31, 1996, and then to retail ...

OS/2 Warp 4 OS/2 (Operating System/2) is a series of computer operating systems, initially created by Microsoft and IBM under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci. As a result of a feud between the two companies over how to position OS/2 re ...

, or

Windows Me Windows Millennium Edition, or Windows Me (marketed with the pronunciation of the pronoun "me"), is an operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. It is the successor to Windo ...

as well as various Linux distributions. Additionally, the T23 was capable of running

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...

Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearly ...

, if equipped with at least 512MB of memory. One common problem of the earlier T20 series was a hardware defect which caused the machine to suddenly stop working and begin blinking the hard drive and power indicators. The machine would not power on. This became known as the "Blink of Death". In addition, on some T23 models, the rear memory slot could fail, rendering the machine only able to use up to 512MB of memory, rather than 1GB. Another common issue with the T23 was that one of the coils, near the CPU, could break off the motherboard due to cold solder joints. This caused multiple issues, including the inability to boot or hard lockup/freeze.

Models

*ThinkPad T20 - First model shipped, featured a

Pentium III The Pentium III (marketed as Intel Pentium III Processor, informally PIII or P3) brand refers to Intel's 32-bit x86 desktop and mobile CPUs based on the sixth-generation P6 microarchitecture introduced on February 28, 1999. The brand's initial ...

at 650, 700 or 750 MHz, all with

SpeedStep Enhanced SpeedStep is a series of dynamic frequency scaling technologies (codenamed Geyserville and including SpeedStep, SpeedStep II, and SpeedStep III) built into some Intel microprocessors that allow the clock speed of the processor to be dyna ...

technology. This model shipped with either a 13.3" XGA TFT or 14.1" XGA TFT display, and shipped with an external floppy drive, a swappable CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive, and a choice of a 6GB, 12GB, or a 20GB hard drive. The T20 also had optional Ethernet (consumer installable via mini-PCI on all models), one USB 1.1 port, PC Card Slot, and an S-Video output as standard features, and shipped with 128MB of RAM (upgradeable to 512MB using PC100 SODIMMs) *ThinkPad T21 - Featuring an upgraded

processor at either 750 MHz, 800 MHz, or 850 MHz, the T21 featured either a 13.3" XGA TFT, 14.1" XGA TFT, or a new 14.1" SXGA+ TFT display (exclusive to 850 MHz models). This model shipped with a swappable CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive, and a choice of a 10GB, 20GB or 32GB hard drive. The T21 features either a mini-PCI modem card or an Ethernet/modem combo card, one USB 1.1 port, PC Card Slot, and 128MB of RAM standard (upgradeable to 512MB using PC100 SODIMMs). *ThinkPad T22 - Featuring an upgraded

processor at either 800 MHz, 900 MHz, or 1.00 GHz, the T22 featured either a 13.3" XGA TFT, 14.1" XGA TFT, or 14.1" SXGA+ TFT display as standard. This model shipped a mini-PCI modem card or an Ethernet/modem combo card, one USB 1.1 port, PC Card Slot, a swappable CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive, either a 10GB, 20GB or 32GB hard drive, and 128MB or 256MB of RAM standard (upgradeable to 512MB using PC100 SODIMMs). *ThinkPad T23 - The final model of the T20 series, featuring the new Tualatin Pentium III-M at either 866 MHz, 1.00 GHz, 1.13 GHz, or 1.20 GHz (all with

technology) and either a 13.3" XGA TFT, 14.1" XGA TFT, or 14.1" SXGA+ TFT display as standard. This model shipped with 2 USB 1.1 ports rather than only one, a 15GB to 60GB hard drive, a

Mini-PCI Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) is a local computer bus for attaching hardware devices in a computer and is part of the PCI Local Bus standard. The PCI bus supports the functions found on a processor bus but in a standardized format t ...

Modem or Wireless card (on select models), a CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, CD-RW or combo (CD-RW/DVD) drive, and either 128MB or 256MB of RAM standard (upgradeable to 1GB using PC133 SODIMMs).

Comparison

References

{{IBM personal computers ThinkPad T20 T20 series

Features

Models

Comparison

See also

References