Help me choose: T500 or T400?

I'm not sure if it was necessary to fill all this out, but here's what my situation is: I am looking at a T500 with WXGA LED screen, or a T400 with a WXGA+ LED screen. An LED screen is a must. I am currently on a WUXGA 15.4" screen. Text is too small. I have a feeling that an WXGA 15.4" screen will have too low of a resolution. Will a 14.1" screen with WXGA+ resolution on a 14" be in between the WXGA on a 15" and WUXGA on a 15" in terms of text size? Thanks in advance for the tips!

General Questions

1) What is your budget? <$1000 shipped

2) What size notebook would you prefer?

a. Netbook; 10” screen or less
b. Ultraportable; 11" - 12” screen
c. Thin and Light; 13" - 14" screen
d. Mainstream; 15" - 16" screen
e. Desktop Replacement; 17"+ screen

3) Where will you buying this notebook? You can select the flag of your country as an indicator. USA

4) Are there any brands that you prefer or any you really don't like?

a. Like: I am only considering the T500 or the T400
b. Dislike:

5) Would you consider laptops that are refurbished/redistrubited? No

6) What are the primary tasks will you be performing with this notebook? Pretty much school work (papers/presentations), work work (lots of spreadsheets), photo editing, basic audio multitracking

7) Will you be taking the notebook with you to different places, leaving it on your desk or both? It will be taken between my desk and the couch, and probably to/from school (commute on via a couple trains, so weight is a factor)

8) Will you be playing games on it; if so, which games or types of games? Maybe some games, but nothing graphic intensive really. Think strategy games, no FPS or any of that.

9) How many hours of battery life do you need? At least 4 hrs would be nice.

10) Would you prefer to see the notebooks you're considering before purchasing it or buying a notebook on-line without seeing it is OK? I am set on the T series, I just need to decide between the 14 and 15" models.

11) What OS do you prefer? Windows (XP or Vista), Mac OS, Linux, etc. XP

Screen Specifics

12) From the choices below, what screen resolutions would you prefer?

a. WXGA – 1280x800 or occasionally 1280x768; For people who like big text and icons that are easy to read. Less stuff fits on the screen, which translates into more scrolling.
b. WXGA+ – 1440x900; A modest bump over WXGA. Text and icons are a bit smaller. A little more stuff fits on the screen.
c. WSXGA+ – 1680x1050; The middle ground. Again, text and icons are smaller than WXGA+, and more stuff fits onto the screen. Good for having applications open side by side, like a web browser while playing a video.
d. WUXGA - 1920x1200; Very small text and icons, that can be hard to read. Lots of stuff fits on the screen, which means less scrolling. Good for applications that require a high level of detail like CAD or Photo Editing.

My current laptop has WUXGA resolution, and while it is amazing for photo editing and viewing, it is not so good for general web browsing and office work.

13) Do you want a glossy/reflective screen or a matte/non-glossy screen? Anti-glare/matte

Build Quality and Design

14) Are the notebook's looks and stylishness important to you? Yes

15) When are you buying this laptop and how long do you want this laptop to last?
For a very long time.

Notebook Components

16) How much hard drive space do you need; 80GB to 500GB? Do you want a SSD drive? ~250 GB would be sufficient

17) Do you need an optical drive? If yes, a CDRW/DVD-ROM, DVD Burner or Blu-Ray drive? I need a DVD burner pretty much solely for burning the recovery disks that are not included with the laptop.

 

Also, is the keyboard on the T400 full size like the one on the T500?

 

Why?

Text size on a 14" WXGA and a 15.4" WSXGA+ would be roughly the same.

If you need portability, the T400 seems a better fit.

 

If you're referring to why an LED screen is a must, it's because I want to save as much power as I can, and I think it'd be really nice to try out an LED screen.

I'm not sure if you misread my other post, or if you maybe made a little typo. Or, I could just be very confused.. (no offense!)

I can understand how text size on a 14" WXGA is comparable to text size on a 15.4" WSXGA+, but I am not sure how I can take this and relate to my situation. I have a WUXGA 15.4" screen. From what I've heard on this forum, the text size of a WXGA+ 14" screen will be a tiny bit larger but pretty comparable?

 

The Pixels Per Inch of a 15.4" WUXGA is 147 while a 14" WXGA is 120. Text on a 15.4" WUXGA would be about 20% smaller, but much more fits on the screen. WUXGA is about 12% smaller than WSXGA+.

 

You might want to find the pixels per inch for all the screens you are comparing by googling. Zaz has already given the numbers for some of them.

Keep in mind 15.4" laptops are singificantly bulkier than 14" laptops. Just looking at weight numbers between the two is misleading.

 

They are the same size. Personally if the 2 screens you mention are the only option, then get the t400.

 

A pity you find text on your WUXGA "too small". I have used W/UXGA 15.4/1" for 10 years, and have never had text size "too small" - after all, that is determined by appropriate software settings.
As for wanting maximum battery life, make sure you get an SSD, an LED screen, and the biggest battery available. For portability, of course go for the T400.

 

My sister bought a T500 several weeks ago, and I saw it for the first time this weekend. While my preference is definitely for the smaller, lighter X xxx models, I was surprised to find that the T500 wasn't as bulky and heavy as I was expecting it to be - even with the 9-cell battery attached. It was quite a tidy little package.

 

I ordered the T400 with WXGA+ LED backlight screen. If the text on that screen is slightly bigger than the text on my 15.4" WUXGA then I think it would be perfect. The more I think about getting a lower resolution the more I think I will miss the higher resolution. Thanks for the info, everyone!

 

Personally, I'd get the T400 since I'd choose portability over screen size, and the T400 is about 1 lb lighter than the T500, but a lot of that comes down to personal preference (the 13.3" X300/1 with WXGA+ is my own sweet spot). If I did get the T500, I'd get it with the WSXGA+ screen as WXGA would be too low resolution for my preferences (and you can always adjust the text size under vista...)

Edit: Too late!

 

Congratulations on your choice! It should be a very bright screen, with low power needs, and long life - and the native (hardware) PPI of 120, which is about 20% less than for the 15.4" WUXGA (147 PPI) will make it make it easier to set up in software fonts/PPI. How the text compares to your present screen of course depends on the software settings of the OS and each program on each system (determined by factory settings as modified or not by the user), not just on the native/hardware PPI.

 

Agreed, this was my exact reaction when I saw a T500 the first time, it really wasn't the behemoth I was expecting. Everything was really tight, and clean looking. I actually had to make sure it was _really_ a T500

The only reason why I didn't go for a T500 myself is the LED screen is only available for WXGA

 

Regarding "too small" text, it is good to keep in mind that the upcoming Windows 7 has really easy ways to make text bigger on these very high resolution but not so big physically screens. While it is true that making font larger you will loose some space, you can still use the display in its native resolution and don't hurt your eyes.

On my T500 with WSXGA+ (1680x1050) Windows 7 encreased the DPI by default. While first I thought about going back to default, it really helps late at night by not stressing the eyes

While increasing the DPI setting is possible with both XP and Vista, I found W7 to be an improvement over previous versions of Windows.

Anyway, congrats on the T400!

 

Thanks everyone!

I've gotten used to doing Ctrl+"=" in Firefox to increase font size. It's pretty much automatic for me. I will be waiting on that Windows 7 upgrade, hopefully that will help me if I have any issues, but I think the WXGA+ 14.1" will be perfect.

 

Personally I miss WUXGA, but with the scaling in vista and firefox I can make wxga+ feel more comfortable for the resolution junky in me.