So is the T400s the lightest 14" laptop out there?

Its all in the title. Can somebody confirm this?

Thanks

 

I believe so. If it is not the lightest then at least it is the thinnest .83" thin 14" laptop in the market. You will not get a business notebook which is as thin and light as T400s from any other well known manufacturer like Dell or HP. You might get a thinner laptop in 14" form factor from MSI but the build quality is susceptible.

 

The Fujitsu S6520 is close, but it uses a standard hard drive, which gives you more options. It's glossy if you like that sort of thing.

 

Panasonic Toughbook-F8 is lighter (3.7 lbs) than T400s (3.9 lbs). But its sale price will make T400s look very reasonably priced.

 

Actually the Panasonic Toughbook Y8 (aka Let's Note Light Y8) is lighter still: 1.52 kg / 3.56 lbs. But it's a Japanese-market only item, as far as I know, although you can find it via various importers. It's also SXGA+, which is just killer if you can't stand the loss of vertical screen real estate in widescreen displays.

 

T400s is the lightest fully featured 14.1 widescreen inch notebook out there. Regarding the Panasonic Toughbook, the cd drive on these machines are not that good, it has a fixed read mechanism, so the life span of these drives are not great. Also, the hinge of these machines are another weak spot of that machine. Finally, the CPU of these machines are pretty outdated too.

 

Who burns discs anymore, but the SXGA+ is a useful feature. I'd say for most the L7800 is more than adequate. The handle takes some of the charm away. The Y7 seemed better.

 

I have the Y5 myself, I just broke the screen on it a month ago unforunately.

I must say my experience with the Y5 is completely counter to what you claim:
- the DVD drive was going strong with no read problems
- no, no issue with the hinge, whatsoever (in contrast to the Dell I use at work)
- CPU on the Y5 was 1.83 ghz core duo and you know what it did a great job with running MS office Enterprise version, my Firefox browser with sometimes 50-80 tabs open and playing videos. The only issue I could find with it was some stuttering on certain 1080p and 720p videos - maybe about 30% of them.

And for that it came in at 3.5lbs with 14" 1400x 1050 screen and legit 8.5 hrs battery life when new - still gave me 4 hours runtime after 2.5 yrs of use. That's pretty sick even for today. You cant find anything on the market right now that will match that all round performance. In fact its a problem, because i am spoiled by that experience - I a too demanding a buyer now. Even their F series is not good enough IMO.

All I want to know is why Panasonic didnt just continue the Y series using Intels 17W CPU's like what is in the T400s. Would have been the ultimate laptop. And would be like 3.2lbs if they did it without the DVD drive. Sick......just to good to be released frankly, in this day and age when even 11 and 12" netbooks weigh more than that.

Also little known about the Panasonics is that they all use a tiny power supply. At 8 hours runtime, you hardly need it, but in situations where you travel, the the size of the total package is even lighter compared to most laptops. The mainstream manufacturers cheap out on this - its a hidden corner that they cut. For example the size of the Power supply on my XPS M1330 that I have at work is ridiculous for what is supposedly and "ultraportable"

Again, I just dont understand why Panny didnt just continue or switch to making better killer 10-13" mainstream laptops - they have all it takes to do crush the rest and still come in at a decent price.

I had a previosu version of that Fujitsu before the panasonic. The DVD drive on it is modular and can be removed, replaced by a plastic cover. At that point the unit travels at just 3.75 lbs.

 

It's not the lightest 1440 x 900 machine out there, but it's possibly the best compromise, alas.

 

I live in Canada, and for me, the T400s was the lightest 14" laptop out there that was easily obtainable. Meaning that I could buy it from a store (online or otherwise) without having to worry about "importing it" and paying for duty and such.

I'm still very happy with the weight and form factor of the T400s, also, I have yet to use the DVD drive, so it's removed and I insert the cover plate, shaves 0.16lbs off the laptop, but honestly, but I'm thinking when a laptop is in or around the 3.5lb mark, it's probably going to be pretty comfortable to carry around.

 

there are people whom still use burn discs, you can look at the sale data of burnable discs (both blank dvd and cd). Regarding, the CPU, when you pay so much for new Panasonic laptops, the word 'adquate' may not sit that well with the general consumers. Panasonic use a different product development model to that of the tier one computer companies, whom chase the latest and greatest features as the point of difference. Panasonic builds high quality laptops, but they are slow to refresh their product range when compared to the other computer companies.