Lenovo ThinkPad T400 Review

Certainly.
Considering lenovo has montevina, I'd consider that more state of the art, or rather, up-to-date than others that don't have it (apple and dell).
Because it's a 14.1 laptop, I understand them only putting a radeon 3470 in it (due to heat constraints). Just moving up to the T500 (15.4), they include a radeon 3650, which quite honestly beats the 8600GT in benchies.
Let's face it though, apple and dell are using yesterday's tech, and still charging yesterday's prices for it.
I'm disappointed by the keyboard flex, as what originally had me interested in lenovo when I heard they were coming out with new models, was their legendary keyboard.
Either way, I'm waiting till november to see what apple comes out with, and if they still haven't updated their lines by then, I'll most likely be getting a lenovo.

 

i think i'm in the same boat

 

how come on the lenovo site it lists the gpu for the t400 as the ati 3650? is this an error?

 

do all of the batteries stick out of the back?

 

Isn't it much better to compare the Macbook pro with the t500 given the size?
In terms of weight, t500 with a 4cell vs. a mac book pro is probably comparable.
Not only that, but the Macbook Pro is $2k, which is expected because that is the premium you pay for the Mac OS.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=44510

The 4-cell does not.

Kevin, is the angled 9-cell a hindrance when it comes to bags?

 

None of the Thinkpads I've ever owned or used extensively (T30, T42, 15" T60, 14" T60, 15.4" T61, X61 & X61s) have ever had a lose battery.

Also, frankly speaking, dedicated graphics cards on laptops are over-rated. That might be one of the things I regret about my only Thinkpad with a dedicated graphics card (15" T60). After enjoying games for a year, the card is unable to keep up with newer games with higher requirements, and just ends up generating heat and using precious battery power even when idle and completely underclocked. Unless you can afford to upgrade/change your laptop to keep up with escalating minimum requirements for new games, it isn't particularly worth it.

With regard to the T400, I feel that the LED screen and the MASSIVE battery life are the best things about it. While the LED screen is nowhere near as good as the IPS screens of yore, it still is leagues ahead of the pathetic TN-CCFL screens on the older models. Kudos to Lenovo for giving the LED option; it should be made de-facto on all models in time to come. And the crazy battery life makes my X61s with an 8-cell look inadequate.

cheers!

 

Crazy cause the T60 I am typing on right now has a pretty loose 9-cell, my sisters 15.4 T61 with 9 cell has the same thing, and even my dad's x61 has some wobble.

heh, even Andrews old 14" T43 on my desk a week ago had battery wobble.

 

Nice graphic—shame they still can’t get this right though.

 

As the owner of many macs including a MBP, I say it's a give and take. Thinkpads have superior performance, but MBPs have many little features like really high quality LCDs, ambient light sensors, IR remote, backlit keyboards and programatically accessible accelerometer. Like others have said, my main motivation for the Thinkpad is the insane battery life and build quality.

 

CCFL=Cold Cathode Fluorescent, which is the older technology, not as good.

 

outside of the diff specs and screen.. is the chassis itself the same as the T61? the only thing I noticed different is that it has a built in card reader now

 

The T500 has a built in reader. In the T400, it is optional and uses a pc card slot.

Keven states the chassis differences in his review.

 

Wow, this thing must made of magic or something. My poor D630 can't even close to that kind of battery life or power.

 

Hello Kevin (Kevo) nice review I also had one question for you if you could please answer me it will help determine my purchase. I'm a paper writer and keyboards are my thing.....
1st Chaz bought the hp and loves it, I'm wondering if i should go with the MBP (256) GPU or the T400. Graphics are a concern also i know that the MBP uses DDR2 and I do not want to contribute any off my funds to lenova for doing such a retarded things like change the keyboard they can go bankrupt now for all i care.

Question: Would you be able to advise me to either look into purchasing a T400, or MBP? I am gunning for quality and overall performance/speed/top technology/durability. This is a 50/50 call as I'm not to familiar with the ins and outs of what i could miss out on. Which is the 10/10 for me
Any thoughts anyone
MBP
OR
T400

Thank you

 

"System performance with the Intel T9400 processor and ATI 3470 graphics was great, handling everything we threw at it, even some video games." - Kevo



i'm just wondering if this graphics card can play games that are current?
Do I need a better card or will this card be sufficient to play WOW extremely well, or for that matter any highly intense 3D games?

 

I couldn't find any reason to buy new T-serials, cheap plastic and poor keyboard, I think for this price and this configuration, I can easily find many alternatives.

 

So these IPS screens...they used to be standard/option on ThinkPads and now only CCFL/LED are the options?

 

With annual sales of approximately $17 billion USD , Lenovo must be crying themselves to sleep at the loss of your business.

 

A poor keyboard that you've never typed on I'm sure. If you don't want one, don't buy one. Statements like this are not constructive to this thread, or helpful to potential buyers with questions about this computer.

 

Yep this will be my next lappy... T41 you've served very well but it's time we move on.

My kid will inherit my 41p.

 

lol how rude my question to kevin was never responded to what gives i want to know which is the better purchase in terms of graphics, the 256 mbp or the t400 he did both review s what a shame,
lol I have one rep NICE how did this happen?
Did people decide to vote me a rep point?
???...

 

Got my T400 yesterday. Couple comments.

Thinklight -- mine is fine, shroud is okay. It lights up the keyboard but doesn't blind me. I can see how what Kevin experienced it could happen though.

Keyboard -- if I really push down on it, yep the keyboard flexes some. Big Fat Deal. It still has a great typing feel and I don't anticipate making any changes. I experience no noticeable keyboard flex in normal usage.

IMHO this is a non-issue in terms of real world usage unless you type like a gorilla.

While it's been a while, I've owned true IBM Thinkpads - 750CD, 755cx, and up until a year ago a 390e I kept around for messing around with.

Hard disk -- for what it's worth, the 250GB 5400rpm drive in mine was a Seagate Momentus 5400.4 -- I ordered with the intention of swapping in a 250/7200 WD Scorpio Black and using the 250/5400 as a backup drive. I burnt the recovery media from the original drive and used it to build the new drive -- worked great, recreated factory state with Q: and S: partitions. I saw no way to customize what gets loaded; if there was something I missed it.

Weight -- also in the for what its worth category, weight of the system without battery is 4lb 8.7oz and my 6cell battery is 11.5oz. System: T400 P8600, discrete, 250GB/7200rpm, 3GB ram, WXGA+ LED/Cam, DVD-burner.

 

your right, thank you I have a better decision on what my next purchase will be thanks to your comments; still a draw MBP / T400

 

Weight -- also in the for what its worth category, weight of the system without battery is 4lb 8.7oz and my 6cell battery is 11.5oz. System: T400 P8600, discrete, 250GB/7200rpm, 3GB ram, WXGA+ LED/Cam, DVD-burner.[/QUOTE]

Does the battery wiggle, how long does the 6 cell last with gaming use and non gaming use without switching it off?

 

If I push on it I can make the battery wiggle, but it doesn't flop around. Also in the "non-issue" category in my opinion. If there were no room for any "give" at all you risk cracks in the plastics. Choose your poison.

Can't tell you about battery life -- UPS delivered it at 6pm last night and the evening was spent on AC power burning recovery media, changing to new HDD, restoring system on new HDD, and starting to install all my software. Won't get back to it until tomorrow and won't have much time to mess with it through the weekend.

 

I just took a look at the Mac Pro and they use old slow processors w/(800mz FSB)and old slow memory (ddr2 667mz) and Nvidia Gpu's that are causing alot of problems and Nvidia took a 200 mil. charge this quarter to fix them all but won't be enough. The price is about $1800 more than the current Lenovo sale a for a comparable configuration as I just ordered a T400 and I priced out a Mac Pro. The Mac pro only has 1440x900 res --the same as the T400 and the T500 has 1680x1050. So I hope you love your Mac

Roy

 

If you don’t like choice, go with a Mac. But in defense of Apple, who does make a nice product, I think they’ll announce a refresh of the Mac line soon/within the next few months.

 

I am using T60P at the moment with 1600*1200 screen, very dissapointed, there are 3 suqre of bad pixel on the screen, each with at least 100 bad ones. always got blud screen, and suddenly complete down once, cost my one month time to fix it. the customer support of Lenovo is terrible, I will never choose it again

 

Is anyone else disconcerted by the lack of reviews available for the T400? It's the same with the T500 and W500: NBR has pretty much the only review available.

The only other reviews I've been able to find seem to fall into three categories:
1. Previews masquerading as reviews
2. People who have taken elements of Kevin's review and re-posted them (his comparison of the T61 and T400 displays seems to be very popular)
3. Pages for reviews that are 'coming soon' (CNET)

What's going on? I can understand a delay if people are unable to get their hands on the machine, but why don't places like CNET have reviews? Surely they aren't having problems acquiring one!?

 

Does anyone know if the dedicated ATI Card can be disabled in the BIOS or something, or is it only switchable from Windows?

 

T400 may be one of the worst laptop in ThinkPad history. I guess Lenovo may have spent a lot in Notebookreview, that's why the reviewer will ignore the laptop weakness and even give it an editor choice.

The process of factory recovery has not programmed properly. This is a very serious issue as the Q and S drive, which are supposed to be the hidden factory recovery partition, are visible under My Computer. Some people loss the ThinkVantage recovery function as they have accidentally modified the Q or S drive without their knowlege. During the recovery process, user has to log on to Administrator account in order to continue the process. It should be automated! There is also no way to customize the programs to be installed, unlike the T61.

ATI graphic drivers is not available from Lenovo websites even the laptop has started to reach consumer since mid August. To make things worse, the shipping factory Recovery DVDs do not even contain any graphics drivers. Once the hard disk is clean wiped, user are forced to manually download Intel graphic drivers as factory installation failed to install any graphics drivers.

Lenovo also failed to give adequate guidance on switchable graphics. There is no instruction on how to switch the graphics between ATI and Intel.

Under a dos mode hard disk scanning test, a fully charged 6-cell battery is unable to last more than 80 minutes. The battery is not that long lasting anyway.

 

I don’t know that these issues alone make it the worst laptop in history, but it does show sloppiness on their part when it comes to the software. Hopefully the hardware team has done a better job.

 

Yup, new Macbooks and MBPs are almost guaranteed by the end of the year.

 

Hi,
if i buy the t400 with built in camera, may i implement the veryface tech? Or is it an Ideapad exclusivity?
Thank you!
Ors

 

Most systems dont go into any power saving modes in low-level environments. Sitting in the BIOS for example guzzles down a ton of power. It was probably stuck in the highest multiplier while you were doing your drive scan.

 

I see that you have a T400 on order but how do you find a 250 GB HDD at 7200 rpm --I can't find that option.

Roy

 

I bought the 80GB drive from Lenovo—and the 250GB 7200rpm drive from a third-party.

 

Who really cares? Who uses DOS?

 

I downloaded and tried to install, but it would not let me do so.

-- Lew

 

T400 sucks inferior keyboard + lack of DisplayPort is very disappointing i really think the T400 is the worst Thinkpad ever in terms of specs and quality, Dell Latitude E6400 is the best business notebook on the market now.

 

does the E6400 have a graphics card?

 

Which wireless card would be best to get? The three options seem to be
1) Thinkpad 11b/g Wireless LAN Mini PCI Express Adapter III
2) Intel WiFi Link 5100 (AGN)
3) Intel WiFI Link 5300 (AGN)
I don't know what the main differences between any of these are.

 

That's a matter of opinion. It's also more expensive than the T400, so it might not be an option for some.

 

It would be so perfect if they would have the sense to keep up the keyboard legacy!

Say, do you think you could slap the keyboard from a classic ThinkPad on one of these new ones? Would it fit?

As far as Dell goes, let's hope they put the screws on Lenovo a bit, and make them perform. :yes:

 

I received my T400 today and the keyboard seems fine to me. The screen is a lot better than the T61 that I have now.

 

So say you push down on a key, and then push hard on it; does the keyboard flex?

Glad to hear the screen is good.

 

I pressed down on a few keys and I didn't notice any flex. The idle temp while surfing is about 37 C.

 

It has the Quadro NVS 160M, which I fear is yet again inferior to T400`s HD 3470 and isn't switchable Thats _the_ reason I'm leaning towards the T400 for my next laptop, otherwise I'd pick the E6400 in a heartbeat.

 

I get the idea the keyboard is still good, but not ThinkPad good. So, the ATI card is better than the previous nVidia pick? Cool beans.