Thinkpad T400 Configuration: Your Input Needed

Hi everyone,

recently the third GPU I had to go through on my Dell E1705 crapped out on me so I started looking for a new laptop. I settled on the 14.1" category and this time, ditched my urge to buy a gaming laptop and concentrated solely on build quality and customer service. Since I absolutely did not want another Dell, the Latitude E6400 was out of the question and I settled on the T400. Over the past week I've done lots of digging on NBR and the web and here is the configuration I came up with for $1,120:

- Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor P8600 (2.40GHz 1066MHz 3MBL2)
- Genuine Windows Vista Home Basic
- 14.1 WXGA+ TFT, w/ CCFL Backlight, Camera
- ATI Mobility Radeon 3470 with 256MB
- 2 GB PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM 1067MHz SODIMM Memory (1 DIMM)
- UltraNav (TrackPoint and TouchPad)
- 160 GB Hard Disk Drive, 5400rpm
- DVD Recordable 8x Max Dual Layer, Ultrabay Slim (Serial ATA)
- Integrated Bluetooth PAN
- ThinkPad 11b/g Wireless LAN Mini PCI Express Adapter III
- Integrated AT&T Mobile Broadband Card (3G)
- 9 cell Li-Ion Battery
- 3 year depot 9x5 Next Business Day

I am an engineering student and have access to 64 bit Vista. I chose the 1 DIMM RAM because I want to get another one off Newegg and make it 4GB. Similarly, I want to get a Seagate or Western Digital 320 GB 7200 RPM HDD so I chose the cheapest option here. Befire I pull the trigger on this I hope you guys can help me with some questions:

1. Since Lenovo has this "spring sale" going on right now I wonder if you guys can tell me if this price is good or if you often come across similar prices with the various "sales" Lenovo offers.

2. It seems there are no WXGA+ LED option right now. Is there ANY method of getting the LED option and if not, is the CCFL a big step down from the LED?

3. Is that 3 year depot warranty a sufficient/adequate one?

4. Is my CPU/GPU/RAM (4 GB eventually) combination sufficient for CAD programs like CATIA and NX?

5. How do you rate the fingerprint reader?

6. I'm pretty sure that changing the RAM and HDD does not void the warranty but can anyone confirm?

7. I am a student but can't find my school in the list, so I have to use the "students and alumni" link which apparently doesn't allow any coupons. Does anyone know if any coupons can be used for that?

8. I tried entering two coupons during the regular checkout but only one goes through each time, i.e. they don't get stacked. Is that because they are designed not to be stacked or is there some clever way to stack them?

9. What's the difference between the regular T400 and the "enhanced" T400 option on Lenovo's website? Does it have anything to do with the slight redesign as reflected by the latest NBR review?

10. If I am not a student there can I still randomly pick a school and use their checkout? Do they ask for verification somewhere down the line?

11. Will my GPU be able to run Simcity 4 at all?

If you have any other comments to make please do! TIA for your input!

 

1.- This seems to be a pretty good price, especially with the nice warranty. Lenovo has sales literally every week, though, so it's hard to guarantee that that's the best price. What you can do, however, is take advantage of Lenovo's save-a-quote policy. When you get to the credit card stage, you should see a button that says "Save as quote" or something like that. The quote can be used within 21 days to pricematch, even if the price goes up later. All you have to do is call and they'll give you the discount.

2.- The only way is to buy on eBay or some other retailer who still has those models. Apparently Lenovo ran out of the WXGA+ LED screens. Dell and HP still have WXGA+ LED screens on their business models though.

3.- That is a nice warranty. Some may argue that on-site warranty is worth the extra price, since you won't be without a computer, and you can make sure the tech fixes it exactly right.

4.- Your CPU and RAM should be sufficient. The GPU is not a workstation GPU and may be less than ideal for CAD programs. HP and Dell offer workstation cards in their 14" business laptops, but they lack switchable graphics. Lenovo has the W500, which is a 15" workstation laptop (which is identical to the T500 in every way except the GPU, which instead has workstation drivers), but that will obviously be less portable.

6.- You can change these without voiding the warranty (along with a long list of user-replaceable parts), although I would still recommend putting the originals back in in case you need to send it back for repair, to avoid any hassle of them losing your part or whatnot.

7.- Generally, the discount for students and alumni is not that great. The Lenovo site with coupons is far better, and CPP/EPP is even better (but no dicussion on this forum regarding those codes - I will suggest Google though).

8.- No, you cannot stack the vast majority of Lenovo coupons.

9.- No difference except pricing and starting configuration. With some configurations, starting with the Elite or Enhanced base configs will be cheaper than adding parts from the Basic T400. Play around with all the configurations to find the best price.

11.- Definitely. The Simcity series can even run on integrated graphics.

 

Thanks so much for the quick answer David! Your excellent review is one of the ones I read first as I was deciding between the T400 and the T500 (in fact, I'm still kind of torn: inclined to get the 3650 but do like the smaller size. I had a 13.3" Apple Macbook as part of my school job and my dad has a 15.4" 1520. I kinda wanted something in between.)

I tried to run SC4 on my MacBook but it ran pretty poorly, not to mention on a small WXGA resolution and 13.3" screen, hence my question.

 

As for #2, as far as I heard the CFL display is basically the same as the LED display. Obviously the difference is the backlighting technology. The LED panel is a little brighter (I think 250 nit vs 200 nit for the CFL) and is a little bit better of battery life. Overall, I think you'd still be happy with CFL. Even though the 200 nit CFL panel isn't as bright as the LED, it is still much brighter than the old 150 nit standard on prior thinkpad models so it is still an upgrade.

Everything else looks pretty good, solid configuration when your done upgrading it. When you install your own copy of Vista, make sure you follow the clean install guide somewhere on these Lenovo sub forums (just do a search) as it has the correct order for installing drivers to maintain the good battery life as the original Lenovo image.

 

1) Price seems decent. Not earth shattering, but not bad.

2) The main Lenovo portal is not offering WXGA+ LED. However, many smaller portals (e.g. the custom academic portals for Purdue and Ohio State) DO offer the WXGA+ LED. These portals often offer reduced prices as well. As such, I would suggest you check with your university and see if you can get WXGA+ LED through them.

3) I have the 3 year depot, and recommend it for other people as well. On-site is worth considering if this is your only computer and losing it for up to a week (depot turnaround for a more severe problem) would cause you serious problems.

4) The GPU is the only thing that might limit you. If you are serious about CAD you may want to consider the FireGL due to the FireGL GPU.

5) The Fingerprint reader is kind of nice for a tablet (can log on without using the keyboard). However, it is of less clear value for a conventional notebook.

6) The RAM, HDD, Keyboard, and a few other parts are CRUs (Customer Replaceable Units). As such, replacing them does NOT void the warranty.

7) Not sure. As I said, check with your school as many have their own portals with reduced prices and expanded options (e.g. WXGA+ LED, UWB, PC-DOS, and the P9500).

8) Again, not sure.

9) The enhanced simply means that it comes with more options (e.g. P8600, 160GB HDD, 2GB RAM, etc.) standard. It is sometimes less expensive to start with the enhanced model if you want lots of upgrades (you seem to).

10) Again, not sure.

11) Sim City 4 is an old game. The Radeon 3470 will run it without any issues and even the Intel card should be more than powerful enough (only concern would be that bad Intel drivers can cause visual artifacts in some titles).

Only other suggestion I would make is to upgrade the wireless card. Most campus/public networks are 802.11 b/g, but I would recommend an 802.11N card (I'm satisfied with the 5100) for future proofing.

 

1. I honestly think that you could do a little better. i got almost the same config, sans the dvd, but with more ram and a larger harddrive for 1000 (before tax) in September

11.
As a fellow Simcity 4 fan and t400 owner, yes you definitely need the dedicated GPU.

It will not run at all on the integrated, errr actually it will, horribly slow.

With the dedicated it runs pretty well but it can slow down occasionally with a 400,000+ population.

The 3470 is right on the edge of being able to play it will almost no hickups

Simcity 4 is a 6+ year old game but it is pretty damn demanding

 

I bought this computer about 3 weeks ago only my specs are a little better. I definately think you can do better on the price. I bought it over a weekend when they had a 20% off coupon good for the weekend and I had 210 taken off my computer. I also tried to use the student discount but it wouldnt let me stack a coupon on top of that discount. So you would be better off with a coupon then the student discount. There is a link on this website that has all the updated coupons. All you have to do is wait. There are almost always 15% off coupons and if you see a 20% off then its a good deal.

 

Thank you guys so much! I've decided to wait a little longer since I wanted to give Lenovo a call anyways, to see if I can get the LED screen through a rep. But please, if you have any other purchasing or general comments just keep 'em coming!

Alex, do you play SC4 with STEX?

 

well i like to keep my game vanilla as bats go.
Mainly i play with NAM and the industry quadrupler.

industry annoys me.

o and to increase loading speed you can delete all the music files.

 

1. Lenovo had a pretty good March madness sale, but the 15% coupon (that expired today) is still a very good deal, coupled with free shipping. Ordered a pretty decent T400 for my friend today for about $860 with tax. I would wait until they bring out the 15% or higher deals.

2. If they don't have it, then it's not an option. If you really want the WXGA+ screen, i would get it. The thinkpad's usually have very nice matte screens so you shouldn't be disappointed. LED's are thinner, lighter, brighter and a little more power efficient. An LED WXGA+ screen would be great.

3. The 3 year warranty is definitely sufficient. Thinkpad's are built like a tank so I doubt you'll ever need it.

4. I've never used CAD so I can't comment but i would say the amount of RAM and the ATI should be sufficient.

5. I like my fingerprint reader, but I haven't used it much since i started using the sxipper extension on firefox, which saves your info and lets you one click log in.

6. Companies these days will allow you to change RAM and hard drive without voiding the warranty.

7. If they allow you to stack coupons, then I would try to get the student discount as well. If not, I would just use coupon codes, as they generally better than student discounts.

8. Lenovo made it that way, it's not very often they give out stackable coupons

9. I think those are just different tiers of the T400, like good, better and best. Probably just the specifications that are different, and maybe included software. Of course, you can just customize it to your liking.

10. They might ask for a school email to verify

11. Most definitely

 

Im in the same boat as you, and after speaking to 3 reps there is no sign of the wxga+ LEDs coming in. Now they may be wrong, but I figured I would chime in since Im in the same boat as Im looking to purchase tomorrow. And yes it sucks that I missed the 15% coupon, but doesn't lenovo have a price match deal or something?

 

Only if you saved a quote, or if you haggle on the phone with a cooperative sales rep.

 

I spoke with one of their reps today (Listen Dell: they actually know their own products!) who, without transferring me to a single other department, confirmed that the WXGA+ LED option is not there because of the high volume of orders right now. I specifically asked if this is temporarily or a permanent discontinuation and she replied that it is temporarily and might be back in a month or two. That they don't know yet. I guess it's good news... in the mean time I'll just have to watch what I do on my E1705. Anything graphics intense will BSOD it.

 

Ahh then thats a no. Im a terrible haggler.

Yeah I got the same response and after some tough considerations I'm going with the ccfl over LED as I cant wait a few months for a work/school PC. I will just have to deal with less battery and not as clear of a screen (even though I have never owned an LED screen).

 

Sorry about reviving this thread, but I have some more questions. I am now able to configure this EXACT same (almost, but with the ThinkPad b/g/n card) system for a grand total, that is, after tax and shipping, for $990. Should I have a go at it now or wait for the July 4th sale, assuming there is one? Has it been a great sale in the past years?

Also, I am not so sure about the various options for both wireless and broadband.

For wireless, I see the following. What's the difference between them?

1. ThinkPad b/g/n
2. Intel WiFi Link 5100 (AGN) with My WiFi Technology [add $16.00]
3. Intel WiFi Link 5300 (AGN) with My WiFi Technology [add $32.00] [Lenovo recommended]
4. Intel WiMAX/WiFi Link 5350 (AGN) with My WiFi Technology [add $64.00]

For broadband, I see the following. I know I wouldn't be using any cell phone networks to surf very often, if at all. So should I go for the cheapest option? What's the difference between option 1 and 2? Also, should I ever need to upgrade, is it easy to upgrade from option 1 to 2?

1. Integrated Mobile Broadband upgradable [subtract $24.00]
2. Integrated AT&T Mobile Broadband Card (3G) Two great offers on AT&T Mobile Broadband
3. Integrated Verizon Wireless Mobile Broadband Card (3G) [add $96.00]

Thanks again!

 

The ThinkPad B/G/N is a new option and I don't know much about it's capabilities or manufacturer (Broadcom?). In the past I have heard that the Intel cards tend to use less power, and have better Linux drivers, than the "ThinkPad" branded solutions. I have the 5100 and have been very satisfied with it (check the 802.11N link in my sig). The 5300 is supposed to have more antennas and should theoretically have more range, and speed at range; however, it is otherwise identical to the 5100. The 5350 is identical to the 5300, except it also includes WiMax (AKA 4G); this is an alternative to WWAN and is really only useful if you live in Baltimore (the only place it has been widely deployed so far [Xohm]).

Upgrading from option 1 to 2 for WWAN is relativley easy (just remove the keyboard, insert the new card, and attach the antenna leads). However, the price of buying the card later tends to be far higher than getting it upfront (>$130 last I checked). As such, if you think you might use WWAN in the future, I recommend you get the card now.

 

And what you say about this:
http://www5.pc.ibm.com/cr/products.nsf/$wwwPartNumLookup/_NM54DCX?open&OpenDocument&epi=web_express
...
Screen type description: WXGA+ TFT with integrated camera
Viewable image size (diagonal): 14.1inches
Screen illumination: LED Backlight
...

 

Iron Eagle

Have you considered a pre configured model? Tigerdirect is selling the 2767-12U for $899 and has better spec than what is currently available direct from lenovo. These model types arent the latest(Sept 08) but still given what you are getting I dont think its big sacrifice. Plus, looking up the PSERF list, the 276712U model types seem to have 3yr depot warranties as well.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...p?EdpNo=4538480&sku=T70-141002&srkey=2767-12U

Product Info...
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/quickPath.do?quickPathEntry=276712U

 

regrading tigerdirect, that does not include the dedicated card, which is a requirement.

 

According to lenovo it does...

 

o alrighty

 

Quick question...does this effect the height of the laptop then?

 

No. The laptop exterior dimensions are the same no matter what screen option you choose.

 

The design of the laptop is only affected for manufacturers who use exclusively LED screen. Consider Sony for example, the top portion of their Z-series and TT-series is less than 2mm thick.
For Lenovo, they have the laptops with both CCFL and LED variant as an option, so they have to keep the same design for both types of screen. This means that for the LED screen, the lid is thicker than it's supposed to be. However, they pad it enough so that you won't hear any rattling inside, you can be sure of that.