New T510: questions

I am typing on a very new T510 laptop with i5-560M processor, integrated graphics, and six cell battery. Overall, it is an excellent machine, and of course very fast. Build quality is great: keyboard is solid and everything seems to be solidly put together. The keyboard on this machine is both quieter and more solid than the keyboard on my T400. Compared to my T400 (also 6 cell), the laptop body is thicker and bigger, but does not feel heavier. It's footprint is wider than the T410, but not deeper, because of the 16:9 resolution screen of the T510. The HD+ (1600x900) screen is nice and bright, and subjectively has good contrast and color. Something like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZXGtyMVusg looks pretty good. My T400 has a CCFL WXGA+ screen, which also has good contrast and color, but the HD+ screen is brighter, thanks to LED backlighting. Backlight bleed on a black screen is minimal. Overall this is a good machine.

I do have two questions about the machine. The first, is that my rear vent seems blocked up, like in this link: http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo-ibm/467418-brand-new-t510-possible-defect.html. I don't understand the purpose of that. Is this supposed to be there?

Also, the fan on this machine does seem to spin more often than on my T400, but this machine also has a hotter processor, so that's perhaps why. But I am trying to decrease the power consumption while on battery. With brightness at 5, and with energy-saving power manager settings (power source optimized), the laptop is still burning about 13 watts. Interestingly, PC wizard (a program) displays the processor voltage at 1.544 V. This, I find hard to believe. So my second question is, what's up with the voltage reading? What's typical for power consumption of a 15 inch laptop?

Thanks. Btw, anyone know how to get rid of the scrolling in the tab bar in firefox? I like to see all of my tabs, no matter how small they are and how many I have, and modifying the mintabwidth doesn't seem to be doing anything.

 

From a closer reading of the link in my OP, it seems that having the rear vent blocked might be the default configuration for T510 laptops with integrated graphics. I think it's strange to have a vent blocked by a piece of plastic, but I don't think it's affecting the performance of the machine in any way. I'm not interested in it enough to give lenovo a call about it.

I was initially disturbed that voltage reading in PC Wizard read around 1.5 V. But I now think that voltage reading must either be in error or be the voltage for something other than the CPU. My processor temperature readings are normal and in power manager, power usage is as low as 7 some watts with wireless on and brightness at 5/15. If processor voltages were really that high, I'd expect excessive heat and power usage.

As an aside on power consumption, this machine has better idle power usage than that of my T400, thanks to an LED backlit screen and a 5400 RPM hard drive. But power consumption can spike up in battery mode if the CPU has to do something intensive. Arrandale processors are more powerful than their penryn predecessors but also can use more power. If I extrapolate, I think this machine with the 6 cell should be able to give 4-5 hours for a full battery charge, which is similar to my T400.

I have some further thoughts on the HD+ screen. The viewing angles on the screen are pretty good, more like a desktop TN LCD than like a laptop LCD. Again, the color, contrast, and brightness are all good. I don't see any dead or stuck pixels. Lenovo should procure screens like this for the rest of the thinkpad lineup.

The touchpad needed some settings adjustments, but is now fine. The trackpoint is great.

The CPU seems to make some noise when changing frequency. Firefox seems to be a "noisier" application than internet explorer. I see that processor whine with the T510 has been a cause of complaint. I don't know if it comes from the processor itself, or from the power regulators around the processor, or is a result of an unfortunate synergy between the processor and its its power regulators. The sound is undesirable, but I don't know if there's anything that lenovo can do about it. I've heard processor whine coming from a variety of laptops, and so I think it's something inherent to a fraction of the processors intel produces.

So overall, I don't have any more issues with this laptop. I am satisfied.

 

Hah, I noticed some CPU buzz on my T400 because of the new T510. If I listen closely, sometimes my T400 makes some buzzing noise too, but it is very quiet and intermittent. Anyway, the T510 makes me wish that my T400 had the advances of the next generation: the multi-touch touchpad, the revised keyboard, the better screen, and displayport (not that I use it).

The fan on the T510 seems to like to spin a bit more than the fan on my T400. With my T400, during normal web browsing and office application usage, the fan never spins, i.e. I never feel any exhaust coming out of the air vents. With the T510, the fan tends to spin a lot more when plugged in. The fan also probably spins half the time when on battery. Now my temperatures seem to be ok, and so there's some thermal envelope for less aggressive cooling.