Lenovo Thinkpad T500 User Review

By David Li

The Lenovo Thinkpads, famous for their legendary solid build and brisk performance as well as their plain, staid look, have long been icons of business computing. The T500 is the latest model of the portability-meets-performance Thinkpad T-series line, and contains a plethora of new features, at an affordable price.

Competitors
Before we continue in depth on the T500, it is important to know what other major options are out there in the 15” business-computing segment, to better understand the advantages and disadvantages of the T500 in comparison (by no means is this a complete list - I just included the main ones that I considered in my laptop hunt).

• Dell Latitude E6500 / Precision M4400*
• HP Elitebook 8530p / Elitebook 8530w*

*Note: Technically, these contain workstation graphics cards and are competing with the W500, not the T500.

Thinkpad T500 Ordered Specifications & Context for Purchase

• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo P8700 (2.53 GHz, 1066Mhz FSB, 3MB L2 cache)
• Screen: 15.4” WSXGA+ 16:10 (1680x1050) CCFL-backlit matte LCD display (LG)
• Memory: 2GB DDR3 RAM (1 DIMM)
• Hard Drive: 160GB 7200RPM (Hitachi)
• Graphics Processor: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650 (256MB DDR3) / Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X4500 [switchable graphics]
• Optical Drive: DVD+/-RW
• Wireless: Intel 5300 WiFi Link 5300 802.11 a/b/g/n; Bluetooth 2.0
• Integrated Webcam: 1.3MP camera with microphone
• Battery: 9-cell battery (85 WH) (Sanyo)
• Power Supply: 90W (20V)
• Operating System: Windows Vista Business (64-bit, SP1)
• Warranty: 1 year standard depot warranty
• Dimensions: 14.1” x 10” x 1.2–1.3” (357.5mm x 255mm x 30–34mm) (taken from Lenovo official measurements – my ruler is not very good)
• Weight: 6.3 lbs (measured with bathroom scale - take it with a grain of salt)
• Price: $1,135 (after CCP and eCoupon discount, without tax)

I bought my T500 to serve as a replacement for my aging ultraportable 12” Averatec laptop. I had heard many good things about Thinkpads, and my dad’s company-issued T60 also impressed me with its build quality and battery life. I thus purchased the T500 after much deliberation, and with high expectations.

I have some biases resulting from my previous experience with my Averatec, and a Dell Latitude before that, which I will do my best to keep out of this hopefully objective review.

Initial Impressions
My package arrived quite promptly after shipping out from China, and was delivered with insurance by UPS into my hands. The nondescript cardboard box contains a surprising amount of paper documentation, in the age of cheap electronic pdf manuals, including a maintenance and care manual that covers the procedure of dismantling the T500 to replace/add memory or a hard drive. Also included were the standard warranty information and some other documentation, Windows XP Professional SP2 recovery disks and instructions, two alternate ThinkPoint nubs (soft rim and eraserhead), and a replacement nylon-coated screw and a screw to lock in the removable UltraBay module.

I was happy to see that the laptop, secured with foam and encased in a plastic bag, was rather sparse on stickers, only having the standard Windows Vista and Intel Centrino 2 vPro stickers on the palmrest, easy-to-remove EnergyStar sticker on the lid, and standard regulation stickers on the bottom. The typical giant “your-laptop’s-features” stickers were thankfully missing.





Build & Design
The T500 is more or less the typical Thinkpad in terms of design.

The lid is standard Thinkpad, sporting a clean, simple rubberized plastic coating and the new Thinkpad logo (first adopted in the T61). If looked at from the edge, the lid shows a slight outward curvature (curving away from the LCD in the center)—after some research, I found that this was not a defect, but a purposeful design decision so as to allow the lid to absorb more force (when crammed into a backpack with several textbooks, for example).


The screen itself is very firm, and did not flex from side to side when opened from either corner. One should note that the screen is not mounted symmetrically—the left bezel is roughly three times as thick as the thin right bezel. Although this is quite noticeable in pictures, in actual use, I often forgot that the screen was off-center. The top bezel is also rather thick (approximately same thickness as the left bezel). The bezels are very firm and solid, without the alarming play of the Dell Latitude screen bezels.

The lid is attached to the chassis with two solid, large, metal hinges. These hinges were so firm, in fact, that opening the lid actually takes some effort, to pry the lid and laptop body apart. This is where the thick top bezel came in handy—it prevented me from accidentally touching the screen while opening the laptop.

The laptop body is robust, with the same black, unpainted plastic used in the T61 and T60. I detected little to no flex in most areas. Although I have heard a few reports of considerable flexing above the hard drive on the right palm rest, I found only a tiny, nearly undetectable amount of flex in the very center of that palm rest piece. While typing this review and resting my palm on the palm rest, I cannot notice any flex—it feels rock solid. There is approximately the same amount of flex (or lack of it) above the UltraBay drive. The left palm rest has absolutely no flex whatsoever, except at the very edge, right on top of the spring-loaded flap concealing the ExpressCard and PCMCIA card slots. If one looks at the underside of the right palm rest (through the card slots), one can see a piece of metal reinforcement, the Thinkpad Rollcage. I found that it definitely did its job in strengthening the notebook chassis. I did find a bit of chassis flex on the left speaker area, above the heat exhausts, but it should not affect many users, as few would hold a laptop there. The panel between the two speakers and above the keyboard flexed quite a bit when pressed firmly, because it is merely two layers of plastic above the battery.

There is no battery wiggle issue (an issue commonly brought up with Thinkpads) with my 9-cell battery—it fits in very snugly. This may vary, though, since my dad’s T60’s 6-cell does wiggle slightly if pushed.

One nice touch in the T500 that is absent on the T60 or T61 is a beveled right edge. The edge falls straight down (from the edge to the right of the keyboard) halfway down the edge, and then angles in to the laptop, giving a thinner look. The left side is not beveled, presumably to accommodate all the ports. I would have liked to see beveling there, though.

Similarly, the laptop tapers off in the front, to allow for a thinner look, and for the display to close clam-shell-like over the edge of the laptop, offering additional protection.

The UltraBay drive fits decently into the UltraBay slot, with a thin gap above the drive (between the top of the DVD drive and the case). By no means does it feel like it is going to fall out at all, though I would have preferred a little bit tighter fit there.

One annoyance was the hardware wireless switch on the front edge—it was extremely firm and tight. I would have preferred it if it were easier to move.

One should also note that upgrading the T500 is a bit more intensive than many other laptops. To replace RAM, once must unscrew four indicated screws on the bottom of the laptop, and remove the front palm rest panel. Hard drive replacement is actually easier—only one screw has to be removed, and the hard drive slides out from under the right palm rest. Lenovo allows replacement of most basic laptop parts without voiding the warranty, unlike many OEMs, such as Averatec.



Keyboard & UltraNav
The keyboard and UltraNav (touchpad and TrackPoint [little red nub in the center of the keyboard]) are what draw many prospective laptop buyers to the Thinkpad family. I can confidently say that the keyboard is the best I’ve used on a laptop, with very good key pitch and great feel, with nearly no flex**. By pressing quite hard on the keyboard with one of my fingers, the only place I could get to flex slightly was the first column of keys from the Esc key down to the Tab key. I wasn’t too bothered by that, seeing as in normal typing, my fingers would not press with so much force. The spacebar, however, seemed quite a bit louder than the other keys, and a bit flimsier—I wished it were quieter. Liquid drains are present to drain the keyboard after a spill. Missing, however, is the grey color of the two rows of function keys at the top, also present in the T-series prior to the T60. Overall, the keyboard feel was great, much better than my old Averatec’s—no small accomplishment on a 15” laptop, which tends to have more “empty space” in the case.

The UltraNav layout was very good, and I appreciated the TrackPoint, which was very useful for getting across the large screen quickly. The touchpad is typical of Thinkpads, in that it is rather small (70x34mm)—it is widened from the T60, however, and dark-grey scroll regions are painted on. The TrackPoint buttons are soft and very quiet. The touchpad buttons are firmer, have good travel, and are quiet. The one thing that I did miss was the striping on the TrackPoint buttons, which was present in the T-series prior to the T60. The UltraNav control panel provides a plethora of customization settings, ranging from customization of the size of scrolling regions to additional functionality of the middle-click button to virtual scrolling.

**Note: When the T500 was initially released, Lenovo had redesigned the keyboard in order to save weight, but after user feedback complaining of keyboard flex, Lenovo reversed its design decision and reverted back to the keyboards used in the previous generation T61. It is still offering to send a replacement for any unsatisfactory keyboards of the old design for no charge. The keyboard on my T500 seems to be of the old design, with a solid metal backplate, manufactured by NMB.



Size & Weight
The T500 is quite a bit heavier than my old Averatec (4.2 lbs), so it took a little while to get used to carrying it in my backpack (especially with the sleeve). It weighs about the same as the Dell Latitude E6500 with a comparable battery, while the HP with its thick metal construction weighs notably more.

The T500 may seem very thick at first glance, but one should note that the screen is easily 1/3 to 1/2 of the total thickness of the laptop, and the laptop seems much thinner when opened.



Display
The WSXGA+ CCFL-backlit display on the T500 is sharp and vivid, and the 1680x1050 resolution is very good for multitasking (I can fit two pages side by side in Microsoft Office Word 2007 with each page at 97%).

To my eye, the display seems to have good color reproduction, although if I was forced to judge one way or another, I would say it is leaning towards the cooler blue side. Colors are not washed out, even at maximum brightness.

The display is evenly backlit to my eye. Even at the highest brightness on the black Windows Vista Logo screensaver, I didn’t notice any bleed.

Brightness is pretty average, although likely not as bright as the WXGA LED display also available. There are 16 brightness levels, from 0 to 15, much more than my dad’s T60 or my old Averatec. Not all the levels are evenly spaced in backlight brightness—the difference between the brightest and second brightest levels is large, and the difference between the dimmest and second dimmest is also very large. The rest of the levels are more or less evenly spaced. When plugged in, I can very comfortably use the display at two notches from maximum in my bright room (with my poor vision—if I wear my glasses, I can use it at a lower brightness). If you are going to frequently use your T500 outdoors, I would recommend giving the WXGA LED-backlit option a look, since it has a higher nit rating (brightness).

Viewing angles seem pretty good, especially horizontally. My brother (seated next to me) had no problem watching a movie with me. I did not have an issue finding a vertical “sweet spot,” contrary to some T400 users’ experiences with their LED-backlit screens.

The matte coating is even, and there are no issues with graininess. After checking with various programs, and looking over the desktop, I found no dead pixels.

A parts-lookup showed that the display was manufactured by LG.

I would have liked to see WSXGA+ or WXGA+ LED-backlit screen options, as offered on some of the T500’s competitors. The screen is one area where Dell and HP have a leg-up over the Thinkpad line.





Speakers
The T500’s speakers are typical business laptop speakers, with both positioned above the keyboard. Although this is an improvement over the T60’s speaker placement (along the front bottom edge), speaker quality still does leave much to be desired. At a low to low-medium volume, the two Conexant speakers’ sound quality is acceptable, with clear highs and mediums, but very weak bass, typical of business-grade laptop speakers. The headphone jack outputs clear sound and worked well with my Sony MDR-EX-85 headphones.

DVD-RW UltraBay Drive
Other than the small gap issue I mentioned in the Build & Design section, there were no issues with the UltraBay drive. It was relatively quiet, from my experience, and much quieter than my old Averatec’s drive when reading and burning DVD’s. Roxio Creator Business Edition is included.

As a general note, the UltraBay light can be rather bright in a dark room, but since it is facing downwards, it isn’t a distraction. The UltraBay drive can be easily powered off manually by using Fn + F9, and also shuts off automatically when not in use while on battery power (the light turns off then). Upon ejection of the disk tray, the drive automatically powers on again.

A great feature that the Thinkpad T500 has is the modular UltraBay drive. This drive can accommodate either the included DVD drive, an extra hard drive through an available hard drive caddy, or a 3-cell UltraBay battery. The second hard drive could allow for a SSD-HDD setup, with Vista installed on the fast SSD and data stored on a hard drive located in the UltraBay. For long trips where the DVD drive is unnecessary, the battery could be very useful in boosting the long battery life even further.

One software quirk to note regarding the drive: Lenovo installed Intervideo WinDVD 5 for playing DVD video, an outdated version. The current version is WinDVD 9. If you order the T500 with the available Blu-Ray reader and burner, this may be an issue for you, since WinDVD 5 does not support the playing of Blu-Ray disks. I uninstalled the software and installed Cyberlink’s PowerDVD 9.

Web Camera and Microphone
The T500’s webcam isn’t spectacular, but isn’t horrible either. It provided video quality better than needed for video conferencing, such as Skype. Under various lighting conditions, I found the color of the picture to be quite good. The auto-adjustment to various lighting was quick and very good. No one on the other end of the call had any negative comments on video quality. It compared favorably to the Creative Live! IM webcam I was using with my Averatec, which did not have an integrated webcam.

The microphone, located in the screen bezel beneath the screen (towards the left side) was sufficient for video conferencing, although I do not know how well it will fare with music recording. Callers over Skype confirmed that the sound was quite clear, without sound interference.

Port Selection
The port selection on the T500 is slightly below average in my opinion, which according to the designers on their blog is due to the inclusion of larger dual heat vents. I found that a reasonable cause—I’d rather have a machine that runs very cool than one that runs hot (and consequently louder) but has a few more ports.

The ports are arranged in a logical fashion, although it definitely favors right-handers. The vast majority of ports are along the left edge, with only the modem jack on the right edge.

On the left edge, we have, in order from the rear of the laptop, the standard VGA-out port, DisplayPort***, Ethernet jack, three vertical USB ports, and ExpressCard and PCMCIA slots behind the spring-loaded flap. This layout of USB ports could prove to be an issue for devices with large dongles, as one dongle could block another USB port. To try to alleviate the problem slightly, Lenovo has staggered the last USB port a bit of a distance away from the other two.

On the right side, we have a lone modem port, the UltraBay drive and indicator light, and an unscrewable cover, behind which is the hard drive.

On the front edge, from left to right, we have an IEEE 1394 Firewire port, a wireless on/off switch, the standard headphone and microphone jacks, and the 4-in-1 card reader and indicator light.

At the rear, from left to right, we have the Kensington lock slot, the battery, power jack, and heat vent.

I would have liked to see one of the USB ports double as an eSATA port, as both Dell and HP offer on their business laptops, and also the more prevalent HDMI port.

On the bottom, we still have the same docking port as Thinkpads of the past.

***Note: In the Montevina implementation of the DisplayPort standard, Intel chipsets do not support audio-out on DisplayPort, although the port itself is able to support both video- and audio-out. Therefore, it is not possible to output audio from the T500 through the DisplayPort.

Software
The T500 came with the full Lenovo Thinkvantage utility suite, which I found to be mostly useful. I didn’t have use for some pieces of the suite, such as Access Connections and Client Security Solution, but these were easy to remove independently of the other useful Thinkvantage utilities.

Thinkvantage Productivity Center, accessed by pressing the blue Thinkvantage button (note that it's highly customizable, as shown with the HW Monitor, Process Explorer, and HD Tune additions):


There was little bloatware installed on the notebook, and the little that was installed was easily uninstalled. Aside from the quirky choice of WinDVD 5, the included disk software was useful, and worked properly.

Switchable Graphics
One of the major factors that induced me to choose the T500 over the rival business laptops from Dell and HP was the switchable graphics system. Made possible by the Intel Montevina platform, the switchable graphics setup allows you to switch from a powerful discrete graphics card to a power-saving integrated graphics set, all inside Windows Vista itself, without a reboot. When you switch graphics sets, the screen turns black, and sometimes flickers for a few seconds, and then it’s done. Some users have reported that the graphics drivers sometimes crash while switching, or when docking the T500, although I personally have not had any of those troubles.

The switch is accomplished through a simple right-click menu on the Power Manager icon in the taskbar, as shown:


Display Settings for Intel Integrated Graphics:


Display Settings for ATI Discrete Graphics:


Performance
My T500 blazes through everyday tasks, and feels extremely snappy. The 7200RPM hard drive and fast Core 2 Duo processor definitely contributed to this. Graphics performance with the ATI Mobility Radeon 3650 was quite good as well, handling many older games at maximum settings and newer games towards the higher end of settings.

CPU Information from CPU-Z:


GPU Information from GPU-Z:


The Windows Experience Index (by no means a perfect benchmark) provided the following ratings:


The HDTune hard drive benchmark revealed that my drive was a Hitachi 722016K9S 160GB 7200RPM model:


[3D Mark]

With 2GB of DDR3 RAM, I feel that my T500 is good for almost all tasks, although I do plan on installing a second 2GB SODIMM at a later date.

Heat & Noise
I have long been impressed with Thinkpads’ management of heat. My Thinkpad remained silent during all normal tasks, with the fans increasing in speed only when gaming and benchmarking—even then, the fans are not audible at all unless I put my ear practically on the side vent. The quietness of the Thinkpad was a large reason for me to pick the T500 over the HP Elitebook 8530p, which according to many users has a louder fan.

I actually found the Hitachi 7200RPM hard drive to be louder than the fan. It was audible in a completely silent room, and sounded like a quiet rush of air, but perhaps with a bit more rattle. At first, I found it a bit annoying, but during most tasks, and while not in a completely silent room, it was completely inaudible. I could feel no vibration anywhere near the hard drive, even with my hand on the right palm rest while typing. The noise was only apparent in my completely silent room.

I do not have an infrared thermometer, so for case temperatures, I relied on my touch.

After word-processing for 2 hours on battery power, all parts of the case remained cool to the touch. On the underside of the laptop, the area directly below the left palm rest was slightly warm, and the top left corner where the two heat vents are was also warm to the touch. The rest of the underside was cool to the touch.

After running benchmarks for half an hour or so while plugged in, all parts of the case still remained cool to the touch except the top left corner, above and to the left of the Esc button, which felt slightly warm. On the bottom, the warmest area is again the heat vents on the upper left corner of the laptop. Also, below the left palm rest and touchpad, the area felt warm. The area underneath the right palm rest (where the hard drive is) felt a bit warm as well.

The computer, when unplugged, is not uncomfortably hot to use on the lap. I tested this by word processing and surfing the internet while watching TV.

The power adapter reached a typical warm/hot temperature when gaming, and remained cool or slightly warm with normal use, which was not worrying at all.

With CoreTemp, my temperatures hovered around 25-40 degrees C on idle use, with the average being around the high 20s to low 30s.



I used HWMonitor to record current, minimum, and maximum temperatures, shown below (while on Intel integrated graphics, and on ATI discrete graphics). These numbers varied a bit from CoreTemp’s reported temperatures. They include idle/minimal use (and FPS gaming with the ATI):

Intel GMA X4500:


ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650:


Update - below is a screenshot of my T500's temperatures after playing Bioshock for around half an hour, in my room (ambient temperature: 80-90 degrees F):


[PICTURE]

Battery Life
Battery life for the T500 is definitely above average for a 15” laptop.

With 3 bars of screen brightness and integrated graphics while word processing and web browsing (WiFi on) almost continuously, the laptop achieved around 7:30 hours before it hibernated at 8% battery. When at minimum brightness (screen was very dim) and integrated graphics, with WiFi off and doing on-and-off word processing (some idling time) indoors, I got a bit more than 8 hours of battery life before it hibernated as well. Do note that I conducted these benchmarks with the 9-cell battery charged to a threshold of 95% full and with BatteryStretch off, so it is possible to squeeze out a little bit more battery time with a 100% full battery and BatteryStretch enabled (which, by Lenovo’s Power Manager estimates, should add another half an hour to my second trial.

Gaming with the dedicated graphics card and at a higher brightness drained battery much faster, and the Power Manager supplied an estimate of about 3 and a half hours when I Alt-Tabbed from Halo.

With Lenovo’s Power Manager, it is possible to set any charge thresholds you would like, to increase battery lifetime. The tool also provides other very useful battery-life customization options, as well as a very convenient battery indicator bar in the taskbar which I found to be quite accurate.

Thinkvantage Power Manager, a very very useful tool:


Networking
Both the wired and wireless internet worked very well. Signal strength for the Intel WiFi Link 5300 was very good, constantly achieving 99% strength (according to Access Connections; all 5 bars according to Vista) throughout my entire 2-story house. When at a friend’s house on a cul-de-sac, I was able to detect and connect to numerous unsecured wireless networks of both the G and N protocols.

Conclusion
In conclusion, the T500 is worth every bit of the money I paid for it. I am impressed with its performance in daily work tasks, as well as in games. It battery life is stellar, allowing for long on-the-go computing sessions. The switchable graphics system definitely contributed to this. I would have liked to see an eSATA/USB combo port, and an HDMI port instead of the DisplayPort without audio, as well as better LED screen options, but in the end, the T500 turned out to be a good fit for my needs.

Hopefully this review has helped you get a fuller picture of the pros and cons of the T500, so you can choose a laptop best for your needs.

Pros:

• Very powerful machine for business or personal use
• Stellar battery life for a 15” laptop (or, for that matter, most current laptops)
• Very impressive switchable graphics for uncompromising performance and battery life
• Solid, satisfying keyboard with TrackPoint and much-needed larger touchpad
• Extremely quiet fan that was completely inaudible under normal use
• Built Thinkpad-tough: no chassis flex in nearly every spot
• Modular UltraBay drive
• Mostly useful ThinkVantage utilities with little other bloatware
• Included Windows XP Professional installation discs
• Simple packaging, with very minimal stickers that were easy to remove

Cons:

• Lack of eSATA when both Dell and HP provides it on their competing business laptops
• Lack of a brighter WSXGA+ LED-backlit screen option
• Questionable choice to implement DisplayPort without audio output (a Montevina chipset issue)
• Hitachi 160GB 7200RPM drive a bit loud (louder than the fan, in fact)

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*******END REVIEW*******
=======================

Here's my near-completed and long-overdue review of the T500 that I received at the beginning of February 2009.

If you have any comments/corrections, definitely post them!

 

Nice review! Its nice that Lenovo still include recovery discs.

 

Thanks.
Yeah - many other OEMs are charging for those disks now, even at order time.

Added a few more pictures, and HW Monitor and CoreTemp temperatures.

 

Screen: 15.4” WSXGA+ 4:3 (1680x1050) CCFL-backlit matte LCD display (LG)

should n't the aspect ratio be 16:10? am i missing something.

nice review.

 

Ah, thanks for catching my typo!

 

your temperatures seem to be a lot cooler. i have a t9400 and my ideal temperatures hover around 60 degrees at 2.53GHz with ordinary usage and 40 degrees at 800MHz. my GPU regularly touches 80 degrees while gaming. i use tp fan control. i am thinking of getting a cooler or a gel pad

it is quite heavy at 6.3lbs. i used to think it is more like 5.8lbs

 

You do have to consider ambient temperature though - recently, it's been pretty cool in the Bay Area in California. I bet my tempertures will rise during the summer. I also have my laptop on a Knex stand that I made, so it's ~2 inches off my desk, for more air circulation. 60 degrees does seem rather warm though.

Yeah, it isn't very light, especially with my 9-cell.

EDIT: Added a quick section on the switchable graphics feature, since I don't think I did it justice in the other sections of the review.

 

whats your ambient temperature? is the stand easy to make? any tips on this stand?

 

Around 63-68 degrees F.

It's just a simple flat stand, but it does its job. Here are some links for inspiration:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Knex-Laptop-Macbook-Uber-Docking-Stand/
http://www.instructables.com/id/cooling-tray-for-a-laptop-made-out-of-knex-no-wei/

 

Thanks for the links, very easy to make. will give it a try, .

few weeks back, i tried out a improvised stand that will make my tp completely vertical. it gives some good cooling, though cannot use the keyboard. i also tried using an aluminium metal bar in contact with bottom left side, reduces the temp by 5 degrees. it is also kind of annoying

 

hahah! Nice. I made a lego notebook speaker stand once. :laugh:

 

Haha. I should do something with all the Legos I have...

 

You forgot about the clear Lenovo sticker on top of the lid.

 

Your hard disk WEI seems kind of low. I have the same disk and am showing 5.6 albeit with a T9600 processor.

 

One of the things that got me into buying my Ideapad Y530 was Lenovo's keyboard quality. I am glad that they still haven't changed their keyboard design. Whenever you press down, it feels like there is a piece of cloth to stop the keys.

Excellent review!

 

That's some tasty battery life for such a large and (what I consider) powerful machine. Still, I'm partial to the T400 as it suits my needs better.

Say, what is it with people named David Li being good at writing notebook reviews? You're not the same David Li that goes by "David" on this forum and wrote this review are you:

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4838&review=dell+precision+m2400

uncanny similarity in writing style, exact same name, but different tastes in laptops!

 

Haha thanks
I noticed that too after I read several of the [other] David's reviews. For my review, I referenced Kevin's, David's and your reviews - back when I found this site last year, I was really impressed with your professional and very detailed reviews. Kevin's T400 and T500 reviews were especially useful in helping me finally pick out my notebook. So, I tried to give back a bit with my own review of the T500

 

MidnightSun,

Thankyou for a nice review and I mean that.

-Renee

 

Too bad WEI doesn't really matter for anything in the real world. Aside from that, excellent review. Very thorough.

 

Yeah, that is true. Windows 7's WEI is much more accurate as a benchmark, from what I've heard.

But, my 7200RPM disk does seem on the slow side as compared to some other 7200RPM drives out there. Added to the fact that it's actually louder than the fan when the computer is idle, it's probably my biggest annoyance with my particular T500 (well, maybe the lack of audio over DisplayPort is more annoying).

And thank you so much to those who +reped me. Glad you liked the review

 

this is an awesome review, unbelievably helpful!

 

Thanks for the great review, it was very informative.

I do have a question about the portability of it. I am planning on buying a laptop for college next year, so I would like it to be reasonably portable, but I also would like something that has pretty good power to play some games and wont be outdated/slow for several years, so the netbook option is out. Is this laptop pretty easy to carry around? I will probably get a backpack that has a laptop compartment so that should make it pretty easy to carry, as long as the laptop itself isn't a beast.

 

The T500 is easy to carry around, although it does weight 6lb~ with the nine cell battery. I have no trouble carrying it in a regular Jansport backpack with a binder and even have room for a textbook. Also, the T500 have an insane battery life for a 15in screen with a 3650 gpu.

Although the lecture hall desk is a bit small, it still stays in place.

 

My backpack is kind of small, so in the Zeroshock it barely fits. It feels like another textbook in the backpack, but it's bearable. If you're going to be constantly carrying it around, it may be a bit tiring.

I recently acquired Bioshock from a friend and installed it. I found that temperatures of the GPU do go up a bit more than my screenshot shows, so I'll add another screenie of HW Monitor maybe later tonight.

 

Generally 15 .4'' notebooks are what I consider the limit in terms of portability. My notebook is around 6.1lbs, its fine to carry with just notebook plus a text book or two along with a couple of little things in a backpack.

The worst case I have had was carrying notebook+charger+mouse+travel stuff+a load of other stuff from my suit case (over weight at the airport). My messenger bag (one side carrying all the weight) came out to 9.4KG and I had to walk around with that for 2hrs, my shoulder didn't feel all that great for a day or two. I am pretty small guy heh.

 

Yeah I can deal with just another textbook's worth of weight, I won't have to walk around too much anyway. Sounds like the T500 might be a perfect fit for me!

 

great notebook. I would have gotten one if it had hdmi like the sl500.

 

thanks for the insightful review rep+

seems like a very nice notebook.

 

Because its an older generation 7200rpm drive. My one step newer (and a lot faster, at least in HDTune) 7200rpm Hitachi HTS723225L9A361 drive is also the loudest part of my D630, when its fan is off.

I'm considering ditching my desktop and current laptop and going to a 15,4" powerful laptop for overall use. I'd say the T500 is high on my list, if only it had a WXGA+ resolution option. 14,1" WXGA+ is bearable to use but past experiences with 15,4" WSXGA+ have not been so bearable.

 

The T500 is not too difficult for me to carry around. However, it is just slightly annoying depending upon how small the desks are where you sit. If you sit in a university lecture hall, the small desks and tables make it more difficult to wield as it is fairly wide. A T400 is more lecture hall friendly.

If you are going to be gaming a lot (although you should be studying :wink , the T500 would be better despite the size and extra weight.

 

Thanks for the review. I have been eyeing the T500 for weeks now but haven't made the plunge yet because I am still paying off my credit cards. I am seriously considering taking the plunge and buying a T500 with a 64GB SSD from the outlet store but I am not in school now and I have a desktop. There is no reason for me to buy the laptop now besides the sheer wanting!

BTW I am going to pharmacy school at the end of August so I will need this laptop eventually.

 

Updated with the promised temperature screenie after playing Bioshock in warmer weather.

 

Does T500 come with 3 years Warranty?
According to this web site

http://uk.insight.com/apps/productpresentation/index.php?product_id=LENYA06BOT

and

http://www.dabs.com/products/lenovo...=50600-50220000-403550000-51340000-4294952904

 

At least in Finland (and to the best of my knowledge, in most of Europe) ThinkPads come with 3 years warranty as standard. In the US you probably have to buy extended warranty for that. So it really depends where you are planning to buy it.

 

It's 1-year warranty standard, at least in the US and China. You have to add a fair amount to get 3-years. Debatable whether it's worth it or not.

 

MidnightSun, have you had any trouble at all with your T500 frequently dropping wireless connections?

 

This T500 says 1-year warranty

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/154656

 

No, I have not. But I know many other people have had/are having issues with the Intel 5x00 cards dropping connections frequently - Lenovo recently released a new Intel driver for the wireless cards, and the changelog notes that it fixed a connection-dropping issue.

Perhaps you should try updating your wireless driver and see if that resolves the issue.

 

@midnight sun, are you running the newest switchable gfx drivers found here?
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-70417

 

At the time I wrote the review, no, but now I am, yes (I updated a few days ago with no issues). It supposedly resolves the docking and external monitor issue, although I cannot test this to verify, as I don't have a dock and I never had problems with the display driver.

 

MidnightSun,
I don't think it's debatble at all. I would advocate that no one get's a computer with the matching warranty. I'd say yes to the a repair contract to be part of the price.

 

Do you feel the a backlighted keyboard would have been a great addition to this laptop?

 

If I would have to pay additional money for the feature, or if I would have to sacrifice keyboard feel, no. The Thinklight works very well, and I can use it to read notes in the dark as well, which a backlit keyboard would not be as adept at.

 

What is Thinklight?

 

Com'on, type it into google, click images, there you have a page full of them!

 

Actually, i went to google this and then i forgot to report back telling what it is. lol!!

 

Hello guys,
I´ve bought my T500 with preinstalled XP PRO (Vista Business with XP PRO downgrade). But my laptop comes without the restore DVD´s.
I would like to install windows Vista, but I don´t have vista recovery DVD... so is there any way where can I download the vista instalation DVD?
I don´t want to buy original lenovo recovery DVD for 30usd... thanks!

 

@MidnightSun: what can you tell about the portability as compared to a unibody macbook pro? I'm quite interested in the t500. Would you find it bulky as compared to a unibody macbook pro?

 

I'm not too sure, as I have not had the experience of carrying around Macbook Pro, I've only used it for a while in person. The MBP is undoubtedly thinner (mostly due to the T500's very thick and reinforced screen) and lighter, so it would probably be the more portable of the two.

 

Taking an MBP user's perspective (i am not one but I have used them enough times. ), you would undoubtedly think the T500 as bulky. Also it is abit heavier. But for some reason, I personally don't think the Unibody is really 5.5lbs, the old MBP was 5.4lbs and it does feel very light when you pick it up, but the unibody doesn't.

You will find the T500 as a solid notebook that was designed to get the job done. And not anymore. Thats how I like my notebooks.