Got my T400 - initial impressions

I got my new T400 today.

My first impressions are that it's fine, though not as wondrous as when IBM used to make them. It felt a little more flimsy.

The keyboard flex is definitely there, though not to a ridiculous degree. Upper right and lower left corners flex if you press down on them, but I'm a pretty light typist so it doesn't matter too much. Still, I might replace the keyboard with the recommended one.

Also, the mouse buttons are a hell of a lot more flimsy-feeling than from the IBM days... I have bought a couple of those external Thinkpad keyboards that are designed to be just like the ones on the Thinkpads, one before Lenovo and one after, and I have to say I prefer the IBM one with it's very well-built mouse buttons.

The thing I will miss the most is the really great FlexView panel that's on my A31... it's so extremely bright and viewable from all angles. This one fades quite quickly when viewed from any angle... I don't know why Lenovo would put out a whole line of laptops without the great screens they used to... doesn't make any sense to me.

I will post more as I learn more.

- Tim

 

at last. you got it! congrats

 

Because in the world we live in everyone one runs to FatWallet and SlickDeals to look for coupons or tries to use they're not eligible for in order to get the best prices. There's probably not enough people willing to pay the premium to make it worth the effort of offering it. There's more money in selling to the masses.

The older ThinkPads had issues too. My R60 has been holding up better than my T42 at this point in it's life. If you think things were better before, you have selective memory.

 

I've got an A31 and an X40, and both of them have been plugging along pretty amazingly, though they are slow by modern standards.

In order to keep the A31 usable, I replaced the processor some time ago with the fastest one it could take (Pentium 3M, I think, not in production that long from what I remember). It's still pretty usable, but nothing like modern machines.

After I was going crazy with the verrrrrry slow X40 drive (that one that there's only one model of, can't be replaced with any other kind, etc.), I put Linux on it for development work, which makes it almost usable.

- Tim

 

well, nothing live forever, no point to die same time.

 

I'm so sorry for being off topic, but do you know which keyboards on lenovo's website mimick the laptop keyboard? I had no idea they were supposed to be the same, I thought they were just generic keyboards with lenovo logos. I don't like the integrated trackpad/keyboard ones, but do you think the standard key-only ones feel the same? I see for "Lenovo Enhanced Performance USB Keyboard - US English" the description says legendary keyboard quality, but for the trackpoint keyboard you are mentioning it specifically notes same as thinkpad.