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    Lenovo ThinkPad T400s Review

    Discussion in 'Notebook News and Reviews' started by dietcokefiend, Jun 22, 2009.

  1. sgogeta4

    sgogeta4 Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    Try Vista or 7?

    Depends on your budget and usage...
     
  2. vishalba

    vishalba Notebook Enthusiast

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    I am using 60% (roughly) screen brightness, tuned power profile(turning off HDD, screens if idle, etc) I am using a 5400 RPM 250GB HDD. I have never used a SSD but will that reduce the battery time by 50%?
     
  3. sgogeta4

    sgogeta4 Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    They probably have minimum brightness, all other hardware turned off, tuned their power profile. SSD would probably give another 30 min or more. Also, RMClock undervolting would give additional time too.
     
  4. mtalinm

    mtalinm Notebook Consultant

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    yeah pretty much whenever manufacturers quote battery life figures, it's with the settings on "maximum power saver" which typically involves turning the screen all the way down, the CPU as slow as possible, etc.

    I set up a profile which is basically "Balanced" but allowing it to spike to 100% CPU when I need it for my number-crunching. Using that with a six-cell AND an ultraybay battery, I get 7h on average. I'd bet 2h of that is from the ultrabay battery, so that would mean about 5h on the normal battery. I have the screen at 11/15 brightness.

    My bet is that I could get 8-9h if I turned the screen all the way down, but then I couldn't see anything...
     
  5. rafaelholter

    rafaelholter Notebook Enthusiast

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    Correct me if I'm wrong:

    I heard that Lenovo before was a subsidiary of IBM and now it was taken over by a Chinese computer firm? If this is true, then is it possible that the quality of current Lenovo's laptops are at risk?
    I don't like to sound a racist here, but I read articles about the substandard qualities of some Tech products from China. All we want are the best right?

    What do you think of this?
     
  6. JaneL

    JaneL Super Moderator

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    IBM sold their PC business including the ThinkPad brand to Lenovo in 2005.
     
  7. sgogeta4

    sgogeta4 Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    While I've experienced Thinkpad quality to be declining in quality since the IBM T41 and Lenovo's taking over of the Thinkpad line, they are still among the best in terms of quality. In general, the trend is for cheaper notebooks, which unfortunately means a sacrifice in quality. Because of this, we can extend the trend to consumer notebooks, which are far inferior to real business notebook.
     
  8. newsposter

    newsposter Notebook Virtuoso

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    Lenovo did not "take over" the Thinkpad line.

    Lenovo was the primary designer and sole manufacturer of Thinkpads since 1995. IBM sold the trademarks and copyrights to "Thinkpad" for a nice piece of change a few years back. Lenovo wanted to get into the direct-sales US market.

    What so *I* think of this? I think people need to do a lot more research than simply BSing with their friends and reading the first three results on a Google page.
     
  9. Serg

    Serg Nowhere - Everywhere

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  10. newsposter

    newsposter Notebook Virtuoso

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    pick many nits do we? The name of the company is unimportant. The underlying entity has remained the same.
     
  11. pufftissue

    pufftissue Notebook Evangelist

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    For those thinking that the battery life is low on the T400s, I am not surprised because the battery is less than the "standard" 56wh 6 cell battery. I'm not sure how I feel about the 3.9 lbs. It's easiest to skimp on the battery to save weight.
     
  12. gadgetfreak

    gadgetfreak Newbie

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    Thread is a bit old.. just got my t400s replacing my T60S.. I like the thin body, but the screen is widescreen 14.1 so it's smaller than my T60S. It's a wider laptop than was necessary i think. They should have used the borders like the mac screen all the way to the edges.

    One question no one has answered yet. Does the displayport pass audio? I just bought a displayport to hdmi cable and am hoping i can watch material on my bigscreen passing image and audio.
     
  13. Johnny T

    Johnny T Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    No, display port does not pass audio. It's basically a step up from DVI.
     
  14. gadgetfreak

    gadgetfreak Newbie

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    So only on the Dell? boy Lenovo blew this.

    so how is everyone hooking up their laptop to their TV's? displayport to HDMI for the picture and a seperate cable for audio? I want to watch Hulu/netflix, and downloaded content from my T400s to the hotel tv, etc. Although do TV's support inputs like this? usually audio in via analog they look for video in analog as well.
     
  15. Johnny T

    Johnny T Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    Pretty much yeah... :( But you gotta thing of this from the market point of view. This was designed as a business orientated notebook not a multimedia notebook. (But I do own a HP business notebook with HDMI out...)
     
  16. gadgetfreak

    gadgetfreak Newbie

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    So how do you suggest I hook it up to a TV to watch?
    Should I try this
    http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10114&cs_id=1011403&p_id=6039&seq=1&format=2

    I just ordered this hoping the displayport passes audio http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10246&cs_id=1024607&p_id=6010&seq=1&format=2
     
  17. Johnny T

    Johnny T Notebook Nobel Laureate

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  18. noteuser1234

    noteuser1234 Newbie

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    We are currently replacing T60 and T61 with T400 and T410, still using Windows XP.

    The main drawbacks we experienced:
    1. Undocking while the operating system is running does not work any more reliably, i.e. the notebook does not know the "sleep" key any more, and it freezes when powering down.

    2. The battery lifetime of the 6 cell battery is only 1.5 up to 2 hours, compared to 3-4 hours with the T60.

    3. The quality suffered, some notebooks seem to have a damaged battery charning electronics, which causes to be even shorter reach with the 6-cell akku.

    As the capacity of the 6-cell battery did not increase a lot the drawbacks might be the same with the T410.
     
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