Thinkpad T410s soon?

All current 14+" notebooks use TN panels, except maybe HP Elitebook 8740w. Coming from an IPS panel to a 6-bit TN panel will most likely not be great. On average Lenovo Thinkpads use subpar screens, except their W701/ds.

 

coming from an ips panel
you are going to be beyond disappointed in the t410s screen
not to say you wont get used to it
and it is functionally usable for business applications

 

The LCD screen producer has stop producing the 16:10 lcd, everyone is moving to 16:9. Lenovo is using lcd from their inventory. When the inventory ran out, you can say good-bye to 16:10.

 

so since IBM (or any other manufacturer, correct me if im wrong) uses IPS panels on thier notebooks anymore, whats next best? how are the FHD screen on the 15in machines?

 

HP has an IPS panel on their 8740w. The only better screens are the AFFS+ on the Lenovo X. The WVA screens in some tablets (Fujitsu T5010, I think) are pretty good, then the best TN panels are the 8-bit ones in the Dell Precision M6500. The rest of the industry uses 6-bit TN panels, but the RGBLED ones are at generally at the top of those (Lenovo T/W, Latitude/Precision/Studio/XPS, Elitebooks/Envy, Apple MBP, Sony VAIO).

 

lenovo does not use RGBLED in their TN screens

 

I thought the 95% gamut FHD panel for the T510 / W510 (currently not available) is RGB LED.

 

no it isnt

 

Well then, that brings up the question, how does the 95% gamut FHD screen compare to a 100% gamut RGB LED screen?

 

Honestly you're better off without wide gamut screens. The newest HP ZR24W 24" IPS everyone is clamoring for is 72% gamut... and that's the reason people want it. Wide gamut displays have "toxic reds" and usually don't look right.

 

<percentage> gamut without mentioning the colorspace is meaningless.

Case in point, the HP ZR24W covers 72% NTSC = 97% sRGB. The specs don't mention it, but that should be about 75% of Adobe RGB.

You can always set your wide gamut monitor to sRGB, so even if you don't know how to color manage your display will look fine. If you can't operate your monitor's controls then there is probably no hope

 

Just received my T410s this week, and overall I'm very happy. The weight and thinness for a laptop this powerful are fantastic. As has been addressed at length, the screen quality is not great. It's fine for me, but nothing stellar.

Has anyone who purchased an extended warranty noticed that it doesn't show up in the ThinkVantage toolbox? I bought a 3-year warranty with ThinkPad Protection, but it's saying my warranty expires in 1 year. Anyone having the same issue? I was thinking I'd call, but perhaps there's a simple explanation...?

Happy computing!

 

Go to the support webpage, enter your serial number and see.

 

Yea...I did this. It still says one year. Thanks though.

ETA: Just spoke with customer service. They say it takes a week or two for the extended warranty to show up in the system.

 

Do you think you would be able to use it outside comfortably? For example, if it is a sunny day and the sun isn't directly hitting the screen, would the screen still be adequately readable to work for an extended period of time?

 

Anyone have info regarding shipping dates? It says 13 days but I want to know a ballpark figure because I'll be changing addresses soon... About how long has it taken people to get theirs?

 

I haven't tried it outside yet, but I'm not super optimistic. It might be okay, but I have a feeling visibility will be substantially compromised in the sun. To put this in perspective, I've had several laptops and haven't found any to be satisfactory working outside. Maybe I will be presently surprised....

As for the poster above asking about ship dates, mine came much sooner than promised. I think the original date was mid-April and mine came on the 1st.

 

Thanks! I'm about to pull the trigger on mine...

For anyone who has purchased a T410S, would you be willing to share the price you paid and your specs?

Thanks so much

 

Mine came out to about $1,750...that was with max RAM and a 3-year extended warranty with accidental damage protection. I got one of those 15% coupons which was nice.

 

what about screen t410? especially in comparison with that used in the VAIO Z ?

thanks

 

the screen in the t410s is matte unlike the glossy in the vaio z, which is a good thing in my opinion

different sizes, of course

other than that, the screen in the t410s is much poorer quality than the one in the vaio z - an unfortunate fact of life that we just have to live with

on the other hand, the vaio z as a whole is much poorer quality than the t410s

 

I just got my T410s, I'm quite happy with it most things are as expected.

1) Screen is not great but not a total disaster either (my previous screen was an IPS panel on T60). I played a 1080p video from youtube, the playback was smooth but there was a lot of backlight bleeding from the edges.

I noticed the screen's colours wash out when you tilt it towards you much faster than when you tilt away from you. I'll be posting my impressions later today.

oh the 80GB SSD is a G2 hurray!

 

In regards to viewing angles and overall screen quality, is the 410S screen good enough for 3 people to comfortably watch a full screen movie from about 6 feet away

 

how many threads are you going to copy and paste this question in?

 

Well, I finally did it. I ordered a T410s last night. I decided not to wait for the T510 with FHD panel and that 1400x900 is pretty near optimal resolution for screen real estate vs readability / eye strain. 1920x1080 is a little small on a 15" screen.

Also, I could care less about the switchable graphics after reading that Nvidia no longer supports the open source version of their driver (which wasn't very open to begin with). Nvidia's stance regarding Linux / open source software is really crappy and I won't be purchasing any laptops in the future that have Nvidia cards unless this improves.

The T410s has everything I want in a laptop (specs, features, form factor, usability) and my only concern is the panel quality. I'll be able to set it up side-by-side with my Dell E6400 to compare in terms of quality and usability outdoors.

Estimated ship date is April 22. Hopefully, no delays and maybe I get lucky with a sooner ship date

 

I feel the same way about the T410s. Well, maybe I'm concerned about the relatively short battery life also. But, still... I hope you get your laptop in good time and am looking forward to reading about your impressions of it - please post them when you get it!

 

does anyone has a side-by-side pictures of T410S and T410? Would like to get a feel of how much slimmer the "S" is.

 

Well, I don't have a T410 to compare it to, but I did take a few shots of it next to my T60 that I can share along with some shots of the T410s unboxing. (Sorry for the poor image quality.)

T410s Unboxing




Side-by-Side with T60



As you can see, this thing is really thin, but even so, its looks are deceiving. It is extremely light - even more so than it looks. Also, note how quickly the colors invert when the screen is tilted toward you. Anyway, I hope that helps a bit!

 

Whoa Nellie! Got an email this morning that my T410s has shipped. This is way ahead of the estimated April, 22.

 

Maybe they finally caught up with all the orders.

 

(Quote clipped)
@Matt: Matt, thanks. But those pics are really waaay too small.

 

Not to be a smartass, but you know they're thumbnails, right? They're links to larger images.

Not that the larger images are that huge either.

 

Matt:

Thanks for the pictures! The machine looks stunning. An in-depth review would be greatly appreciated, but if not, have a great time with your new laptop. Honestly, judging from the pictures of your panel, the quality seems good enough for me. I mean, if you look at it from a totally retarded angle, you will get distortion, right?

Overall, looks great! Thanks again.

EDIT: I was wondering -- just for kicks -- how do you personally feel about the panel quality? Is it adequate for your needs?

(Quote clipped)

 

Yeah, no problem. I really wish I had a higher quality camera, but oh well. And sure, I could comment on a couple areas of the T410s. I'll keep it short, though.

Battery Life
Honestly, a bit disappointing. I'm seeing 3 hours with a "balanced" power plan and about 4 on max battery life with Battery Stretch enabled. It's sufficient, but I would have liked a little more outlet freedom. I'm considering picking up the Ultrabay battery, but I'm concerned about how quickly it'd deteriorate.

Weight
Like I said, very, very light. I'm quite happy with it in this regard. 3.91lbs feels like a huge change from the 5.1lbs I was used to on my T60.

Form Factor
Pretty sleek and slim. The pictures really don't do it justice - you have to feel the thing. You won't be disappointed. Also, the bottom of the notebook is nice and clean which I appreciate.

Screen
Like I've said before, I'm not terribly picky about screen quality. Compared to my T60's screen, the T410s screen has a more blueish tint and appears to display colors more vividly and crisply. All this said, I've been experiencing a bizarre phenomenon where the contrast will slowly decrease and then slowly increase. I believe this happens when I've been idle for a few minutes, and I had thought preventing the refresh rate from lowering would fix it, but that doesn't seem to be the case. It's truly weird. (Anyone else want to comment on this?) Also, when switching between power plans, the screen will flicker/turn off momentarily. Kind of annoying. =/

Lastly on the screen... resolution. There's no point in complaining about this since 1440x900 is quite standard, but I do miss the extra 250 vertical pixels I had on my T60 (1400x1050). I find myself using Firefox in fullscreen mode to compensate. =/

At least it is sufficiently bright. I'll give it that. In fact, I rarely use it at full brightness.

Keyboard
Absolutely fantastic. I love the lessened gaps between the keys and, although I didn't think I'd care, the enlarged Escape and Delete keys are actually quite handy. Coming from my T60, I did notice that I need to press down the keys further to get them to register, but after a week of using it, I was used to it.

Speakers
About what you'd expect on a ThinkPad. Not much louder than my T60 (maybe a bit) but I actually do notice a bit more bass. Also, the speakers being next to the keyboard (and not on the bottom of the notebook) is helpful. The speakers are satisfactory to me - listening to music, watching TV.

Touchpad
I'm not a touchpad user, but I did spend some time playing with the multi-touch features (two-finger scrolling, three-finger swipe for browser back/forward, etc) and they're pretty neat. I did disable the touchpad since I'll never use it (and it gets in the way now more than ever because of its size) but as far as touchpads go, it's pretty nice.

Performance
Specs: i5-520M (2.4GHz) | 4GB RAM | 128GB Samsung SSD | Ultimate-N 6300 WiFi

The processor speed is definitely fast enough for me, and I use both Photoshop and Visual Studio quite regularly. The RAM speaks for itself. The SSD is extremely snappy and quite roomy thanks to the $200 upgrade I opted for. Lastly, the wifi card is very impressive. On my T60, I had the Atheros 802.11n card which had always beaten any notebook I'd tested it with (including newer Dells). However, this wifi card is even faster and I've noticed it can keep a connection much more reliably.

 

Awesome. Thanks, Matt.

 

No link clicking the thumbnail. Maybe something wrong with my laptop?

 

Hmm, that's weird. All of the links work for me. But I'll paste them below for you.

T410s Unboxing
http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/9709/img1786q.jpg
http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/7098/img1787f.jpg
http://img260.imageshack.us/img260/4782/img1791p.jpg
http://img580.imageshack.us/img580/5138/img1795.jpg
http://img260.imageshack.us/img260/1839/img1796te.jpg
http://img580.imageshack.us/img580/4765/img1798c.jpg
http://img714.imageshack.us/img714/236/img1799w.jpg
http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/1095/img1800oq.jpg
http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/839/img1881m.jpg
http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/9953/img1883k.jpg
http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/8894/img1886k.jpg

Side-by-Side with T60
http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/7561/img1802t.jpg
http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/1668/img1803w.jpg
http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/4447/img1804h.jpg
http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/3808/img1805j.jpg
http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/6754/img1806g.jpg

 

Now we are talking! Thanks!

 

Not a problem.

 

Matt, can you check to see if that 128GB Samsung SSD supports TRIM? Sorry if this was already answered.
Thanks

 

Notebook check has just reviewed T410s.
The same $hit LCD panel (1:95 contrast ratio, poor vertical view), short battery life (( strange device.

 

How do I switch the FN and CTRL keys on the T410S?

 

There should be an option in the bios. Press and hold F2 during boot.

 

What they are saying is correct, however they have a few mistakes as:

DisplayPort cannot output audio, while is true for the cable it's not true for the port. You can buy a $5 DisplayPort -> HDMI adapter and output video+audio with HDMI. I think someone has successfully done that in the forums.

 

Well, HDMI, port, number of USBs, etc are minor things I personally don't care. It is trifle comparatively crap display and stupidly short for the mobile device battery life. It is wrong laptop for right reason

 

Yes, there is alot to be disappointed with this model, lcd and battery life. But, I like mine alot, very portable, and I am able to get 4hours with wifi on with it.

Also, the screen is ok for me, I like it better than my old 2008 macbook screeen, due that it is larger, more pixels, and not glossy.

Once you plug in it, you have a very powerful notebook with the intel i5. And you have the ability to configure the ultrabay with either the dvd, additional battery, or additional hd. Work fine for me.

 

the t410s with switchable graphics is showing up now in the tabook

 

Sure if you'll enlighten me on how to do that.

 

Crystal Disk Info should give details on the hard drive. Thanks
http://download.cnet.com/CrystalDiskInfo/3000-2086_4-10832082.html

 

sorry if this is not known...what is tabook? thx
i've been waiting for the switchable t410s