T410 for school vs X201

I'm looking for a second-hand school laptop (were I live laptops don't cost less than ~500$) and I came across these two. I don't mind the extra weight of the T410, since the backpack I currently carry weighs more than 6 kilograms.

T410: core i5, 8 (!!) GB of RAM, very good condition. ~180$
X201: core i5, 4GB of RAM, very good condition. ~260$

I don't know the condition of the battery in each, but new ones are available where I live.
The price difference between the two would allow me to get a caddy, and replace the T410's disk drive for an SSD.

 

The T410 is a good workhorse, but with two minor annoying flaws:
- Fan error message
- Creaking plastic palm-rest

I used to have one until recently. If you don't mind the smaller screen, I would go for the X201, as it's just as powerful as the T410, but more portable.

If you insist on a T410: T410's with the 1280*800 display are pretty subpar, avoid if possible. The 1440*900 display is much better, but they are rare.

 

Define better? While it's true you do get a bit more resolution, I don't think image quality is better. I say if you don't mind the extra weight and can get some add-ons that will enhance the T410, that's probably the way to go.

 

I don't know the resolution of either of them- but a 1440x900 T410 costs the same as the X201. The cheap T410 is no longer available, so it's now a toss-up between the high-res T410 and the X201- no addons. Later on, maybe, but not currently.

 

Resolution-wise 1280*800 on 14 inches is not ideal, things look a bit blurry, and having multiple windows open at the same time is almost impossible.

@OP: If your budget allows, you may want to consider the next-gen Sandybridge equivalents - X220 and T420. (Better battery life, runs slightly cooler, and better integrated graphics, if those things are of importance to you.)

 

Well then it purely boils down to portability. If you want proper portability, and don't mind the smaller screen, go for the X201. Otherwise, 1440*900 is a decent resolution to work with.

 

The T420 and X220 were my first choice, but they both cost nearly twice as much as the T410 and X201.

 

I agree with Incontro. The main issue here is portability. The X201 (that's what I have, btw) is ~3 lbs, and the T410 is ~5 lbs. That's a significant difference if you'll be carrying your laptop around a lot. In exchange for the extra heft you get a bigger/higher res screen, an extra USB port, eSATA port, optical drive bay, DisplayPort, and FireWire.

So basically you get to make the trade-off between a more portable machine, or a heavier one with a bigger screen and more ports.

 

One thing to bear in mind...

X201 will run hotter than the T410 with a comparable CPU. Having said that...

1280x800 on a 12" LCD is almost acceptable. If portability is your main concern, X201 is the way to go.

From a different perspective, a T410 is a far more of a "jack of all trades" especially with a 1440x900 panel.

My personal choice for a travel machine was T410 but my needs are likely different from your own.

My $0.02 only...

Happy shopping.

 

Everyone, thanks a lot for your responses! I'll definitely take them in mind!

 

OK, I found a store selling refurbished laptops- will a T60 buy laptop LENOVO THINKPAD T60 or T400 buy LENOVO THINKPAD T400 still be powerful enough?

 

T60 is getting long in the tooth, T400 is still OK.

 

Alright, thanks a lot! May I ask, have you owned a T400 before? If so, how is the battery life?

 

the t410 battery life wasn't so great nor the x201 imo. They were probably in line with the t400 battery life, maybe a very small bit better. If you can stretch your budget a tiny bit maybe go for the t420? It looks basically the same as the t410, same weight etc but you can get 1600x900, it runs a lot cooler, battery life is much better probably 1.5x, chance of fan error message is a lot less, I think you get better sata speeds, msata support, more max ram capability.

imo if you use something everyday buy the best you can get even if it costs more, the utility you get from it each day pays for itself. Course I don't know your location and the price difference in other countries is a lot. In the US the price difference isn't much between the two.

 

I've owned numerous T400 machines. Now, the real question here is: how much of a battery life do you need?

There are 4-cell, 7-cell and 9-cell options for these machines. The first one should be forgotten IMO.

Units with Intel-only graphics will also have a better battery life than the ones with switchable graphics in my experience.

Model numbers starting in 6*** and 7*** are Intel-only, the ones starting with 27** are equipped with switchable graphics.

Units with "P" series CPUs will also have a somewhat better battery life than machines equipped with "T" series CPUs.

My experiences only.

Good luck.

 

I agree with this. T400 is way too old... We're talking 6 years old. How long do you plan on using a 6 year-old laptop?

T410 would be tolerable if you were desperate, but a T420 preferable since Sandy Bridge is a significant step up in terms of efficiency.

 

The problem here is pricing at OP's location...

T420 is twice as much as T400...check the site:

Laptops - dmarket

Having sold several ThinkPads to that particular neck of the woods, I'll say that my customers were not happy with the customs/VAT rates...so importing one from the U.S. might not be a great option when a less expensive machine is to be considered...

My $0.02 only...

 

T400 still means a Core 2 Duo though. I use an HP laptop (6530b) that's similar age and spec to a T400 for certain things, and it works fine. Heck, my friend has a T61, with an SSD and a little RAM added, and hasn't bothered to upgrade yet. Things don't get outdated as fast as they used to, so if you don't do much, I don't see a problem (in terms of performance) with old hardware.

 

^^^^^^^^

This. Times many.

"School" means different things in various sets of circumstances. If one is going to be doing graphic-intensive stuff or crunch a huge amount of numbers 24/7/365, then yeah - T400 won't fly - but I'd be doubtful that even a T420/430 would.

The *00 series ThinkPads run W7 exceptionally well and are fine as "daily drivers" for a lot of people.

Having said that, only OP knows what type of use on daily basis the machine should be expected to handle.

My $0.02 only...

 

Very, very true. Another example is my father. He's been using the original (1st gen) Thinkpad Edge 13 ever since it was released. That has a U version Core 2 Duo and is still very snappy. An even more extreme example is my mother- Fujistu laptop. 15.6" screen at 1280x800. Pentium 4 and 2 GB RAM, running XP. For what she needs (iTunes, emails and photo storage) that's more than adequate.

 

Windows XP is really dangerous to be running right now, for security reasons... There is an unofficial way to get the updates that are still being released for the embedded version, through a registry hack. So you should do that if you aren't already. Otherwise I'd expect that her laptop is already part of a botnet by now...

 

Yeah, I've told her- multiple times. She says that "when the hackers kill my computer, I'll switch to a new one." All her files are backed up to the cloud anyway, so I might just have to get some Mint running there...

 

I have a T410 in my office and it is well liked by the people that use it. We have the HD+ display and I find it to be fine for a T series panel. The notebook is heavy and battery life of the Arrandale CPU is not very good. Other than that, the unit is a tank. If I was carrying the notebook around campus, it would by the X201. Better yet, find an old X301.

 

Looked at specs, from what I can figure, it's pretty similar to the original Thinkpad Edge 13, right?

 

If you mean the X301? It was Lenovo's first attempt at responding to the MacAir. It is a 3lb, C2D SU9400 notebook with HD+ display. It was built really well and cost over $2K new. I have a thread about it in my sig.

 

Sounds pretty awesome- too bad it is nowhere to be found second hand in my country...
Funny thing- it is still being sold new- for 2600$!! A lot of older machines are still being sold where I live, but at the same price as when they were launched/new (~5 years ago).

 

It was the second attempt, you forgot to mention the X300.
The screen had WXGA+ (16:10), not HD+.
It was also available with the SU9600 and the SU9300.
I recently bought one for 150€...

 

You mean X301, correct?

X300 was available only with SL7100 and utilised DDR2 RAM as opposed to DDR3 on X301.

Category:X300 - ThinkWiki

 

Yes, the specifications I mentioned are those of the X301, but the X300 has been the first attempt to compete with the Mac Bowl Air. Sorry for the confusion.