Thinking about buying a T400

First thing first : I'm not a profesionnal of some sort. I'm a undergrad student with a 1500$ (including taxes) budget.

I curently have a Ibook G4 (the last update before the switch), but it's getting old (4 years almost).

I have a very powerfull desktop (custom built C2D 3ghz, 2gb rams, 8800gt, 500go RAID-0) so i'm aiming at portability and autonomy here. Not power and gaming. I'm gonna do mostly Word/Excel/Powerpoint/MapInfo/arcGIS/Photoshop. Play some divx and mp3.

I'm looking for a laptop with those caracteristics :

LED screen (for better autonomy)
Small hard-drive (200gb and + like Dell is offering is too much)
+4h battery life


So here are my questions :


1 : About Lenovo warranty. How does it work since i'm not a company or an enterprise? Do I just call a number and tell them the computer doesnt work anymore and I ship it back to them? (I'm Canadian, so anyone from Canada for this?)

2 : My college shop is an authorized dealer for Lenovo (and Apple). Can I just give them the laptop even if I didn't buy it there like I do with my Mac?

2 : Is it me or Lenovo seems a strange choice for a student because I never see anybody at college with one (I know 1200-1300$ isn't cheap, hence a lot of Dell and HP, but I see a lot of Macbook in the same price range as well)

3 : What would you choose between a T400 and a Dell XPS1330? (I have a 300$ off coupon on the Dell so it's almost the same price)

4 : How much autonomy can I expect with the 4-6-9 cells battery?

 

Hey,
I actually purchased an XPS1330 and returned it. I couldn't accept the build quality of that computer. The lid doesn't completely close shut (magnetic) and one of the buttons on the keyboard was not functional. Now the XPS service is quite impressive and they sent a tech out for repair within 1 businees day. Nonetheless, I couldn't justify paying so much money ($1500) for a computer that didn't feel sturdy.

I ordered a T400 and waiting to receive it. I am also a student (grad school) and I understand your question about the popularity of Lenovo. I have a couple of professors with T series laptops but don't see students with them often. I have worked in an IT department for a year where I was responsible to maintain law students laptop. I have seen everything from hp, Sony and Dell in addition to IBM (lenovo). The majority came back with loose parts (basically falling apart) except for the IBM which were rock solid. To me, it is not about the looks of the computer the functionality and durability. The T400 provides relatively light weight with all the features you need.

 

im a college student and i ordered a t400 if that helps....stilllllllll waiting for it though.......

 

I'm grad student I've ordered one as well. Personally I think the Thinkpad line looks great! I have, however, always been partial to simple and functional designs.

I've owned Fujitsu, Dell, and Sony laptops but by far I think I like the looks of the thinkpad series the best. They just look like they mean business!

 

So nobody has received their T400 yet ? Is it a new model?

 

It's a newly released model. The only person so far that has received it and posted pictures are Kevin (posting frontpage review soon) and s2000hku.

 

So I can wait to see the new Macbook update since I won't have it for a while lol

 

Starting college in 2 days and ordered a T400. I think simple looks great.

 

The mobile characteristics of the T400 will probably end up being one of the best in current generation laptops, when we consider the computing power into the calculation. I don't think there's any doubt about that.

If you've been using an iBook however, you might want to wait a week or two longer, since it is possible that Apple will release a significant update to their Macbook line around September 5th/7th event.

You might also want to consider the Ideapad U330 line, which is virtually similar to the T400 line spec-wise (unless you really pour some money into the T400 configuration) with LED-screen and better than Macbook battery life... It's cheaper, has dedicated graphics and has an HDMI output, if you're into that sort of thing.

Oh, and I think T400 looks wonderful, btw.