T400s officially announced.

I just unexpectedly picked up a T400s (a deal I could not pass up on), and it is indeed 2801, manufactured in July.

This laptop is absolutely fantastic. The build quality is much much better than vanilla t400. No flex anywhere, keyboard is probably Lenovo's best ever and the touchpad is absolutely lovely. The panel quality is not as good as WXGA high nit, but a huge improvement over WXGA+ LED on T400. My particular specimen has a LT141DEQ8B00 (LTN is samsung, what is LT...toshiba or somebody else?). Colors are nice and contrast ratio is acceptable. SSD is super quick as well.

The only problem i noticed is obnoxios high pitched CPU whine which is accentuated by the fact the the rest of the computer is almost silent. For those of you with new T400s: do yours have this high pitched whine or did I get some weird outlier?

 

Finally a confrimed 2801, thanks !

Do you happen to have webcam on yours ? is it indeed a 2MP ? Asking because Lenovo sales told me it is 1.3MP as said on the ordering page, I am confused.

 

How do i check the number of megapixels on the camera?

In lenovo nomenclature the model numbers show nothing more than different warranties

2801 = 1 year depot
2815 = 3 year depot
2823 = 3 year onsite

 

if you can take a pic that produce an 1600 x 1200 image, then you got a 2MP,

We all know how bad the 1.3Mp is that comes with the T400, in some instances its worse than a 0.3 cam

 

Both LTN and LT are Samsung identifiers...

 

mine is 2801CT which I believe just means it is a custom model

 

The same here, 2801CT - custom build.

And I do not hear any high pitch whine. What you refer to is probably coming from your fan. Go to your battery/power control util and try to adjust fan control speed.

For the 2MP confirmation, when you click on camera util, it brings up a window where you can start some Roxio program. There you can select either video capture or picture capture. When you go to picture capture you have an option for different resolutions, 1600x1200 (~ 2MP) being the highest. After taking a picture, open it in any picture editor and look at property to confirm this pixel resolution.

One questions to you guys with T400s. I can't figure out how to disable this. Every time I unplug AC power cord, screen blinks and comes back up. The same when I plug it back in. One thing if you have discrete graphics and laptop is configured to switch between integrated and discrete when running on battery, but I don't understand why its doing it here? Any idea how to disable it so the screen wouldn't blink?

 

I have noticed this as well. I don't know how to disable/correct it although I haven't really looked yet. Maybe something for the Lenovo forums? I have seen this before on an Inspiron 1525 where it seems to happen as a reset of settings such as screen brightness every time you change power sources.

 

it has something to do with pre-installed software. After a doing a clean windows reinstall with format, mine does not do it at all. Screen just dims when you pull the cord and goes full brightness when plugged in. I am using default power thingy in Vista now.

 

@zenit: no changes in BIOS, only uninstall of Lenovo utils, correct?

Just made a post over at Lenovo. Will see what they have to say.

 

I did a complete and repartition of the machine and install with Microsoft's own DVD. So no lenovo software or utils at all except for the drivers.

I did disable all CPU power throttling options in the BIOS to get rid of CPU whine. But i doubt the display is connected to that.

 

Can anyone with a T400s tell me if the max height for a 1.8" HDD is 5mm? Because according to Intel, their X18-M 160GB is 8mm. Only their 80GB model is 5mm, which kinda sucks. Might help anyone considering upgrading to an Intel... If you have an Intel 80GB in your machine, please help me out at:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=400120

 

Since the rumor is Lenovo will offer 80GB/160GB Intel SSD as an option, I would assume it should fit. I haven't taken my hdd out yet (I have Samsung 128GB ssd), and I'm not sure how easy it would be to measure the height of hdd opening. Call Lenovo to confirm if they indeed planning to offer 160GB Intel SSD. BTW, how much are these go for now? I remember seeing it in $700 - $800 price range. BTW, here is a LINK where under Price tab they list 160GB X18-M and specify it as 5mm part.

 

According to Intel specsheet, it's only 8mm, so unless someone has the product, I would be skeptical.

 

Zenit,

Would you be kind enough to post pictures of your high-nit T400 and your new T400s screens, with worst-case scenarios where I find the screen in the old T400 wxga+ led to be bad: dark video scenes' contrast ratio and vertical viewing angle :> Would you be happy watching full-screen video (.mkv 720p files) on this laptop?

Pretty please?

 

Just checked mine, display manufacturer: LTN141BT08001, product id: LEN4036.

I wonder if that will make a difference in RGB adjustment between mine and yours, but I still would appreciate if you can let me know exactly how you adjusted Blue and Red. I have been tweaking it back and forth, and so far turning down brightness of Blue shows the most promising improvement. Just not sure what is a best setting and if any other controls beside Brightness need to be adjusted (also, you mentioned about tweaking red?). Thanks!

 

Brightness:

Blue -20
Red +5

Seems to look alot better. Keep in mind I have a different model of the panel.

 

dont have any 720p videos but this is just regular avi. As you can see the black levels and contrast are superior on high nit screen. Notice how much blacker the black is on high nit panel on two black edges of the picture. I think they had to make this screen have high contrast so it doesnt wash out with 680 nits of backlight. High nit is better than regular screen, but not as good for videos as glossy panels. Thinkpads really make poor multimedia/gaming PCs in my opinion.

 

Thanks a bunch, Zenit! T400s doesn't look that bad to me, and I know that on the 'old' wxga+ led on the T400, it would have been terrible.

 

its not that bad, definately better than on old T400, but its still not super good. Maybe the extra 50 nits helps making whites a bit brighter increasing the contrast. My wife's macbook pro does a way nicer job at displaying videos. I find videos to be much much better to watch on glossy screens.

 

Thanks!!! -20 for Blue was exactly what I settled on myself as well

Another thing I found very important is the angle from which you look at the screen. Again, going back to FlexView/IPS - right/left/up/down it all looks the same - great. With this LCD screen wide right/left angle is good, BUT when you look down at the display colors are too whitish and when you look up they are too dark. So just from my personal observation, right/left wide angle doesn't influence color, BUT up/down viewing angle from the center is much more narrow with significant deviation of brightness outside of it. It means that depending on the surface level where laptop is being use, I have to adjust angle of the screen to find that sweet spot. I think I finally narrowed it down

 

Good horizontal and horrible vertical viewing angles (as well as a bias towards blue) is pretty common for TN (Twisted Nematic) style panels.

 

welcome to the world of TN panels. Narrow vertical sweet spot and poor contrast ratios are probably the worst thing about them, and matte anti-glare layer doesnt help. I've never been completely satisfied with any laptops containing anti-glare TN screens, for some reason they just look alot better in glossy form. IPS and MVA panels, however are a different story. They have the contrast ratio required to pull off the matte coating well.

 

The design of this new thinkpad is getting less messy comparing to T400. I think in future the PC that will come close to MAC style would be thinkpad except thinkpads are alway black and matte.

 

So are there any laptop manufactures/vendors who implement IPS/MVA screens now?

 

I believe only a few tablets use MVA, none use IPS.

 

No proper notebooks use IPS, MVA or AFFS. You can only find those displays on tablets nowadays, and usually in 12" form. The only tablet with 13.3" AFFS screen is Fujitsu T5010 and it costs $2k+. Display on it, however, is fantastic. TN panels arent that bad when they are glossy, but in anti glare form they leave much to be desired.

 

A little expensive don't you think????


ThinkPad T400 ThinkPad T500 ThinkPad T400s
From: $1,166.00*
Sale price: $749.00*

From: $1,205.00*
Sale price: $779.00*

From: $11,869.00*
Sale price: $11,598.00*

 

Hah! They must be selling them with the new Intel G2 SSD drives now. I'm going to put my order in right now and make sure it is shipped overnight so I lock in the great price

 

so when are we expecting a price drop?

 

t410s out in 5 months
maybe a price drop when that releases?

 

It was just released a couple of days ago? Why don't you get yourself a cheaper laptop if you can't afford it? You don't need a luxurious one to get your work done.

 

affording it isn't the issue, but why pay more when you can pay less?

it's been out for a month now, and i seem to remember a pretty quick price drop after the initial rush after the last X series came out. i just forget the details.

 

Keep waiting then until you find it cheap enough...

 

Has anyone tested the multitouch functionality in Linux yet?