T500 & T400

Hello everyone!

I'm a newbie here. Let me briefly introduce myself - I am an applied science student at college who owns a macbook (1yr old) and thinkpad R50(5yrs old). I have been thinking carefully about getting a new laptop for school and have come up with two laptops in mind that are T400 and T500.

I like macbook except the fact that I can't run any of the engineering applications I have. Maybe I just have to buy ones for Mac. I also loved the R50's flex view SXGA resolution. It was a great screen but it's much dimmer than what it looked like before so I'm a little concerned about non LED screens.

I know as for T400 it offers an option of choosing a LED screen but XGA is too small so I've kind of made a decision to T500 (for now). I also would need DisplayPort.

But anyways when choosing the configuration in the optical drive it says :

DVD Recordable, Ultrabay Slim [add $70.00]
Selecting this option may delay your shipment 3-4 weeks.

Has anyone here experienced this much of delay after ordering ? In any thinkpad directly from lenovo it says it may delay more than 3-4 weeks. I am a BC resident and am planning on ordering the T500 from lenovo directly in Canada.

Also for those who have compared T400 and T500 please let me know pros and cons and I would very much appreciate if anyone has a picture of both of them. I have pretty much googled through all the reviews of T400 and T500 so URLs aren't that helpful to me anymore.

Thanks!

 

If being able to run Windows applications is the only reason to buy a new notebook, then you might want to consider to buy a Windows XP license. By doing so, you can run Windows on your MacBook. This is by far the cheapest option.

Depending on the kind of applications you want to run, a ThinkPad W500 might be more appropriate. For it comes with certified graphics drivers.

 

T400
Pros - light, option for a 1440x900 LED screen, longer battery lifetime with LED screen (much less power consumption from screen), 9 hour battery life with 9-cell extended battery, very quiet
Cons - graphics card leaves much to be desired in gaming/more graphically intensive tasks, media-reader is an option and not standard, on LED screen sometimes has a misaligned Thinklight

T500
Pros - very powerful, great battery lifetime for a 15", great WSXGA+ screen resolution option, very quiet (though louder when gamingm, due to higher-power graphics card)
Cons - heavier, lacks high-res WSXGA+ LED option (which reduces battery lifetime), runs warmer than T400 because of higher-power graphics card (but still cool compared to the bulk of other laptops on the market)

A quick summary of the differences between T400 and T500, hope it helps. The W500 will be a suitable option for you, and will be the same as the T500, except for a workstation-oriented graphics card.

 

>>Izmi

I used to run XP with parallels and tried bootcamp, but it doesn't let me make a partition on the HDD. Beisdes I am not very concerned about the financial part, but am worried about specs. W500 is definitely a desktop replacement laptop and I would like a portable one with discrete graphic card, which I thought T400 or T500 would be reasonable.


>>MidnightSun

I doubt T500 has WSXGA+ LED option. Yet, they have the WXGA+ LED option, but again I would prefer WSXGA+ resolution so it is the CCFL display- probably the same quality or slightly better than the display of R50. I just don't understand why T500 doesn't have the media card reader option. Also T400 doesn't have the DisplayPort...

 

Lenovo offers WSXGA+ (1680x1050) on all of their 15.4" models (SL500, R500, T500, W500).

 

The T500 and W500 are the same size (identical in all ways except the GPU). If you are an engineering student, and are concerned with engineering applications (e.g. SolidWorks, AutoCAD, etc.) you would be better served by the W500 due to the FIREGL card. The W500 maintains switchable graphics.

The T500/W500 doesn't list a media card reader as an option, because IT IS STANDARD. The extra size in the 500 case is used for a dedicated card reader and DisplayPort (on the T400 you sacrifice an expansion card slot for the media card reader).

You should check the Tabook for detailed specs (ports, dimensions, weight, estimated battery life, etc.). It is far more useful than review for this type of information.

 

Yes, the T500 does not have WSXGA+ LED option - for that res, it's CCFL. The T500 has the media card reader standard rather than as an option - presumably because there is more room for it - it's on the front edge. Note that the current generation of Displayports on laptops do not have audio out - it's a chipset issue, I believe - meaning you will have to hook up another cable if you want audio out.

 

>>jonlumpkin & MidnightSun

I didn't know T500 and W500 were the same size - I even looked at the specification and yes! They were the same! And it looks like the graphic card 512MB FireGL V5700 is more suitable for my use. Like T500 since W500 has the switchable graphic card I wonder how accurate the battery life listed on tabook is. It says 9.4 hrs with a 9-celll which is the same as T500.

As for the weight, like the size and battery, it's also the same as T500. So I can conclude the only difference between T400 and T500 is the graphic card and price otherwise they are almost identical to each other.

I didn't know the media card reader was standard! That rocks.

Again, has anyone experienced about the delay about the shipping ? When choosing the optical drive to be the dVd-writer it says:

"Selecting this option may delay your shipment 3-4 weeks."

But if I chose cd-rw/dvd-rom then it's only within 16 business days.

Sigh... why does it take so long ? Or is to totally BS ?

 

Battery life in the tabbook is fairly accurate, to the point that it is attainable.

If you use the integrated GPU, allow the processor to adapt the slowest speed setting, reduce brightness to around 40%, and run applications like MS office or a web browser, you can hit the 9 hour mark.

However, switching to discrete graphics, forcing the processor to maximum speed, maximizing brightness, and running an application that is both processor and disk intensive (e.g. a lossless video encode or a 3D game), will substantially increase wattage and decrease battery life (this is true of all notebooks).

The W500 also offers an extremely high resolution 1920x1200 display as an option (1680x1050 is probably more than adequate however).

Lenovo's shipping estimates are notoriously unreliable. Sometimes they will delay an order multiple times for little reason, other times a notebook will ship a week before the estimated day, and go from China to the states in 48 hours on "ground shipping". My guess is that Lenovo is currently out of stock of the DVD+RW drive, and is using 3-4 weeks to cover themselves (it may only be a few days until they get more).

 

To get 9 hours of battery life on the T500, you'll have to opt for the LED screen. The most I've heard people get from the CCFL screen is around 7-8 hours, and that's with WiFi off and screen at minimum brightness, I believe.

 

I get 7 hours with WiFi on and doing basic Word/web browsing stuff. Of course, that is with the Intel wireless card, 9 cellbattery, and everything downcranked. Still amazing

 

>>LaptopGun

Could you please take pictures of W500 when the screen is on ? I know the resolution is WSXGA+ or WUXGA+ but I would like to see how much space I get on the screen if I purchase W500. Also do you have any downside of W500 ? Lasting 7hrs with a 9-cell is more than enough for me. My mackbook does about the same. I know the fact that since Lenovo took Thikpads over IBM the customer service had been awful; it's impossible to talk to them.

I would still like to get the T500 or W500 though. But again the only concern is the shipping 3-4 weeks seems too long to wait

 

I'm in Toronto and got my T400 with DVD writer in approximately two weeks.

 

It's not true for me that I have any trouble reaching customer service at all.

Renee

 

>>i5aac

When you ordered your T400 did it say "ships after 3-4 weeks " ? I would totally buy one right now if I can get it any faster than that. 2 weeks is good

>>Renee

It might be only in Japan. The customer service there is not cool at all. I wasn't able to reach the operator when I had to call them.

 

The lenovo canada has been a little updated. The shipping for T500 is "Ships 1-2 business days". If this is accurate it may be the time to purchase T500.... So tempting... Yet I don't mind waiting for WSXGA+ LED screen to come out.

 

I used this to decide in favor of t500
http://shop.lenovo.com/ISS_Static/merchandising/US/PDFs/t400_and_t500_datasheet.pdf

 

All the information you'd need is pretty much here. Once again, Jon, I would like to thank you on behalf of so many.

 

When will that happen?

 

Should be any time...... There might be the new T500 coming out any time soon too.