first Thinkpad - impressions and some questiones

Hi,
This is my first Thinkpad laptop T400 ( I have used Dell Latitudes for the last 4 years). There are a lot of things that I prefer on the Thinkpad over the Latitude so far and some that I dislike toough; I get the feeling that it is a very good thought out and top engeneered machine with a good build quality overall but with some not so top materials used ( but for that price, I got mine for $700 - what can one expect?).

Things that I like on the Thinkpad more than my present Latitude E6500 (well, I have the Thinkpad for only a couple of days though :
- Much better display hinges, even though on the latitude are also steel and the dispplay is hard to open there is significant shake on them on certain display position;

- Much better and convinient trackpoint and truckpoint buttons

- Radioator grills - on the Thinkpad both the intake and the exaust one are placed on the sides;thus the bottom of the laptop can be situaded on a soft srface - like bed or sofa ( where many people keep it most of the time) - and the cooling system still operates normally. Nice!

- Display Lid Cover- very stiff on the Thinkpad! One can sit on it! Very flimsy on the Latitude and the whole magnesium plate flexes when you pless a bit.

- Speakers - not that the ones on the ThinkPad are so good - Just the Latitude ones are THE WORST SPEAKERS EVER! Even though they look so cool from outside

Other comparisons:
Keyboards - both are very good for me - much better than the ones on consumer laptops; the thinkpad one flexes a bit more when pressed hard, but that is not something that bothers me;

The plastic panels around the keyboard and the palmrests are stiffer on the Latitude - especially the area under the left palmrest (and over the HDD) on the thinkpad flexes much more;

Heat and noise - both are pretty cool and quiet but so far I think that the Thikpad is a bit quieter - at least the fan turnes on rearly. The annoying noise that comes out of both machines is from the HDD. I thought that my Latitude 6500 is very noisy due to the lack of the HDD caddy and the big 2 platter 7200rpm HDD that's in it, but the (probably) one platter 160GB HDD in the Thinkpad is noisy as well. The 40 GB Toshiba HDD on my 3 years old Latitude D520 is whisper quiet compared to both of them.

Displays - I can't quite compare them - there are so many different panels; both on mine are of the old type none LED 1280/800; so far I like the colours of the Latitude better ( after calibration this may change though), but the viewing angels of the Thinkpad are much better ( and this may be due to the bigger pixel density of the 14'' display compred to the same res 15,4 Dell Latitude)
..............................
I just have a couple of stupid''newbie'' questions:

1. - I just can't figure out why is my battery indication light always on when pluged in? No mater if the notebook is swiched ON or Of - Does it mean that it charges the battery all the time and makes some extra circules that reduce the battery life? On my other laptops it is on only when charging; when carged at 100% the light turnes OFF... Is this a setting on Lenovo that can be changed or the battery indicator light is always ON when plugged? Is this something I shoud warry about?
2. The laptop i VERY SLOW so far with the preinstalled Vista Home Basic and all the applications that come with it. I am thinking of a clean instalation with some partition deleting and than repartition. I am not very aware which of the preinstalled software I will need. I defiinetely want to keep the Think Vantage software; other things - like some trail programes like Roxio and so - all go to garbage.Do you think that something else is worth keeping?

Other thing is that I don't have a DVD writer and can not burn the partition with the OS and the software. I have 3 partitines on my 160 GB HDD mark as following -

- one small 1,5 GB ( service ''S'';
- one 10 GB ( Lenovo ''Q'') one
- and one 130 GB ( C ) - where the OS and the programes are; My questions are:

2. - Where is the Think Vantage software installed? Is it on 1,5 ''service'' partition? I guess that if i wanted to keep this software I need to keep this partition untouched when I make the new instalation and deleting partitions. Is this right?

3. - Is there a way that I can transfer somehow the recovery partition on an external HDD, considering that my laptop is wihout a DVD burner? And than transfer it on another comp. and burn it there. If I wanted to have a licensed Vista OS do I need to use thes particular file on my recovery partition or i can install other Vista Home Basic and then use the Microsoft lecense key from the paper tag on the bottom of my Thinkpad? After all - when they sell you a laptop with DVD combo and don't supply a recovery Windows DVD media - how are you supposed to keep your OS lecense that you have paid for?

sorry for the big post;
hope that it could be useful to others as well;
thanks in advance to those that reply!

 

While this doesn’t answer your questions, I just wanted to let you know Lenovo doesn’t make the HDs. I bought an aftermarket Seagate and I NEVER hear it.

 

The battery light is on all the time if the notebook is plugged in and/or on. However, the battery only charges when the light blinks. There are in fact a variety of states and colors for the light (orange when low, multiple blinking frequencies, etc.).

You can adjust battery charge thresholds with Power Manager. I would recommend this if you want to maintain the life of your battery. Default is start at 96% and stop at 100%. I would recommend setting the base to 80% or lower and the stop point to 95%. These settings will reduce the speed at which the battery ages and minimize the number of cycles.


The 1.5GB 'S' partition is used for the pre-desktop environment. You can access this by pressing the ThinkVantage button before boot. This partition is essential for using the recovery image and restoring your system to factory settings. It also has additional features like fixing the MBR and allowing you to transfer data files off your HDD if Windows fails to boot.

The 10GB 'Q' partition is the actual recovery image. The 'S' partition uses this data to restore your computer to factory.

The ThinkVantage software is installed on your 'C' partition (should be in your program files directory).

Transfering the recovery partition to an external HDD could prove difficult. However, you can use CD-Rs for the backup (it will take quite a few though).


There are two ways to get a licensed clean install. You can follow the instructions in the clean install guide to backup and restore your activation data. Alternatively, you can use the key printed on the bottom, but you will have to manually activate it.

 

Man, that was a huge wall of text. Learn to use spaces and use them well man.

 

He at least sectioned them.

I think the e series latitudes are built well, but I do not think the keyboard compares at all. The mouse operation also feels pretty bad. I just got an e6400 from work. I think the locking mechanism for the lid is pretty bad as well. It doesn't feel sure when I close it.

 

It's a different beast, and it's a personal thing I'm not much of a dell fan anyway.