buying a thinkpad t400 or t500

i just have some questions before i pull the trigger on buying one.

1. i have heard the issues about the flex on the keyboards and the body of the both, i have an old vaio (a consumer grade notebook), so is the build quality an issue? my vaio flexes but it doesnt seem like much of an issue (then again i never take it off the table)

2.is the graphics card on the t400 good enough to handle hi def movies? no gaming, but i would like to hook it up to a monitor to watch a movie or two.

3.does either notebook seem like a good choice for my major, computer science and engineering?

 

You don't need a discrete graphics card to watch movies. If your engineering involved any modeling then a graphics card could be handy, but since you said CS as well it is probably not necessary.

Go off of screen options.

 

1.- If you do indeed have a problem with it - many people do not until they read this forum - you can call Lenovo and try to get them to send you a non-flexy T61 keyboard.

2.- Plenty good enough. Technically, even the Intel integrated 4500 GMA should handle HD quality video playback.

3.- Depends on your exact uses, but it should be a good fit. I would recommend the T400 if mobility matters, as it seems to satisfy your needs. The T500 would provide much better gaming capability, if that matters to you.

 

thanks for the help!
i've heard about the infamous flex on the keyboard of the newer thinkpads and its good to know that i can just get an older model keyboard if i get the "flexy" one.

now should i just get the low end hard drive and ram and just upgrade myself and if i do, how do i clone the drive so the one i buy is the exact same as the factory one?

should i get the 3 year accidental damage protection warranty if i plan on using it for four years in case something happens?

sorry for all the questions, im a first time buyer and i want to make sure i get the right product for what i need.

 

yes try getting the lowest for the hard drive and ram, you can upgrade it on the cheap.

get the 2gb of memory (1 dimm option) and just another 2gb stick of memory from newegg for $25-$30, assuming 4gb of ram is what you want, which should be more than enough.

same for the hard drive just buy a cheaper one online at like zipzoomfly.com (better packaging on hard drives than most places imo) or wherever you'd like.

 

Ya, newegg tosses drives around :\.

 

to give a little input on your second question it depends on what external monitor you are hooking it up too. If its a regular 22" with 1680 by XXXX than it should be fine with the T400 since it just has vgi. But just to let you know the T500 also has display port so you can use dvi for greater quality. But then the T500 is bigger and you sacrifice weight and battery.

Just go for the T400!

 

VGA should be able to do 1920x1200, although it will be an analog signal.

unless something in the t400 limits it?

 

No, but at that resolution the picture may have artifacts or may be grainy.

 

1. No
2. Yes
3. Yes

 

To clone a drive, use Norton Ghost or a similar cloning software. You'll need a connector to interface with your second hard drive; USB to SATA probably. Just take it to your local computer tech shop, they'll probably have what you need to do it. I do data recovery/cloning all the time at my job.

 

You won't need to clone your drive. When you get your laptop, boot from the original hard drive, and, in Vista, burn the set of 3 recovery disks. Then, replace the hard drive. Boot from the recovery disks, and follow the instructions. You will then have the factory install (the same one on the original hard drive) on your new hard drive!

 

Bingo.

Is the keyboard (just going by mine) slightly less than perfect? Yes. Is it anything to go nuts about? No.

 

Good advice here, you'll want to have the recovery discs anyways in case anything happens.

Makes it easy to do as well.

 

Either will suit your needs. Im a CS major atm and my t400 suits me well. The only thing I would say is if it is your only PC the t500 is better for the resolution, but WXGA+ in a 14.1 is actually quite nice. The reason I say this is that it is really nice having screen space when coding. I will have to say going from 1280x800 to 1920x1200 was HUGE.

As for the two t series you get better battery life and smaller size with the t400, but the t500 has much better resolution and gpu. Since you dont need a gpu since you dont game, the t400 may be a better option. But then again if this will be your only pc then the t500 with wsxga might be worth it to check out.

As for the keyboard flex I wouldnt even have know unless I read the forum as other have stated many times before. There is flex on the left side if you press hard, but even as a keyboard pounder I notice nothing that inhibits my typing.

 

If you're a CSE major, getting an external LCD is a must. It's nice to have two screens running side by side so you can run your application while having your IDE open in another screen... That is, if you're serious about programming.

 

While I agree when at the office or home, while out and about having a nice res helps ALOT.

 

If you do a lot of programming away from home and away from your external monitor then T500 having WSXGA+ (1680x1050) resolution is much better. Though it's 1lb heavier but it fits so much more on screen than T400 with WXGA+ (1440x900). I would not do any programming on resolution smaller than WSXGA+, maybe only some quick fixes.

Also T500 has DisplayPort if you ever decide to connect your laptop to flat screen TV, you will not be able to do it with T400.

 

While I do agree about the display port, I can have a jcreator/eclipse screen up and a VS2008 screen up at the same time doing a java to c++ conversion easily with wxga+. Granted the more res the better, dont count 1440x900 out on a 14.1 screen. But again i would have to say if it is your only PC then go for the t500.

 

thanks for all the replies. about the resolution, is there a difference between the LED vs the CCFL screen? because all of the higher resolution screens are ccfl i was wondering if the colors come out as well as it would on a led screen.

 

led and ccfl is just the way the screen is lit, the resolution is based on what yo choose, in the case of the t400 WXGA or WXGA+, the higher res screen wxga+ can only be configured with the CCFL backlight as of now, it used to have the led option.

LED has advantages over CCFL in terms of brightness and power usage, dont think colors would change between the two, but the LED might look more vibrant because of the brightness, but its not a huge difference.