should i go for this T400 ?

hi guys. i got an offer of $460 for a used new t400 (replacement unit), warranty expires March 2013. should i go for it? here are the specs:
T9600 (2.8ghz 6mb L3), 2GB ram, 160GB HD, ATI 3470, turbo ram, 1440x900 screen, 9cell battery, verizon broadband, bluetooth, web cam, Fingerprint Reader, security chip, win vista.

 

Looks tempting.
What do you mean with used-new-replacement? Is it brand new and never used that came as replacement for someones broken T400? If so, you might snatch it.
On the other hand, if its been used and is not brand new, then I would seek for bargains online for brand new or negotiate for even lower price


I got my R400 brand new sealed with same specs as yours except for no dedicated graphics card and T9400 instead of T9600 and no WWAN for $520 in september. Then again, perhaps old inventory has been sold out and there are no Tx00/X2xx left in stock.

 

$460 dollars is not too bad for a T400, given that you have the WXGA+ and ATI switchable graphics.

 

it is a replacement unit and it is new. except the 9 cell battery looks beat up.

and yes WXGA+ screen looks nice compare to my m11x.

seller tells me there is turbo memory, what is that?

 

Intel Turbo Memory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

As far as I understand turbo memory in T400 is useless since users cant choose which processes to accelerate, Windows chooses it on its own and while I have Turbo memory in my R400 I feel no effects of it.

Version 2 supposedly adds user pinning which lets users to select what to accelerate, but T/R 400 dont have it if Im not mistaken.

But its nice to know, that your machine has basically everything it can hardware wise especially end of life laptop which is not built by Lenovo anymore

 

i see what turbo memory is now. SSD or ram upgrade would make more sense i guess. i looked on newegg and i couldn't find anything decent in $450 price range, especialy the screens on most of them are 1366x768 or less, such a deal breaker.

 

Intel does allow users to pin applications to run from the turbomemory, thus allowing selective acceleration of certain processes. But you are better off with SSD.

If you do get the machine, take the turbomemory out and sell it, and then use the money towards the ssd.

 

cheap as peanuts!! same price i paid for my t61 used..world wide warrant till nxt yr june 2011..prices in UK are always expensive.

 

If its brand new and doesnt have even the tiniest scratch from use then go for it, but perhaps see if you can get even better price ?
Either way - brand new - take it.
Used - if youre not in a rush - then wait for better deals eventually.

PS. Version 1 turbo memory didnt allow users to allocate which process to boost, it was introduced in versoin 2.0, at least thats what I found when I was looking for ways to utilize it and came up with nothing for the one I had in my R400.

 

This process is available in my X61, which should have the v 1.0 turbo memory.

The half height turbo memory used in the T400, R400, W500, T500, R500 should be v 2.0.

http://download.intel.com/design/flash/nand/turbomemory/320288.pdf

P.S. User pinning is only available on the 2 and 4 gigs Turbo memory.

 

Hmm, thats weird, I didnt find anything for the one in mine, apparently didnt look hard enough
Bummer, I wont have one in replacement T410 Im getting soon, forgot about mentioning turbo memory, lets hope that according to Lenovo config lookup 3gb of RAM, twice the storage in form of 320gb HDD and i5 will make up for it lol.

 

just get a SSD, the turbo memory was Intel's ploy to get the consumer excited about NAND based storage device, so it was the training wheel before they released their SSD lineup. Now that they have the SSD products, the turbo memory is no longer necessary.

 

thanx guys, i got the system today. looks and feels nice. t9600 is so much faster than su7300(1.73ghz), like it very much. seller didn't give me any disks, should i ask ?

 

usually the Thinkpads don't ship with recovery media disks, you can create a set (provided the person whom sold you it did not do so) from start->program->thinkvantage->Create Product Recovery Media.

 

thinkvantage is great, thanx

thinking of upgrade to at least 3GB ram. should i replace existing ram with 2x2gb or add an additional 1gb or 2gb ram. on 32bit vista business.

 

i suggest you put some money towards Win 7 OS. The T400 runs much better with the Windows 7, and they are less resource hungry. You could also skip to 64 bit OS during the process.

 

Yeah, as lead_org said get Win7 64bit and THEN upgrade to 4Gb of RAM
After I used Win7 there is no way Im going back to XP on any of my computers.
Congrats on your new machine, given that its almost the same as R400 Id say youve gotten one hell of a good frankensteins laptop, theres something in this assymetrical design coming from mad scientists lab
Enjoy!

 

This is so true! I love the asymmetric design of my R400 and would miss it in future versions which revert back to the symmetric design!

 

One of my favourite ThinkPads could be one with assymetrical LCD and with new keyboard with larger esc/del keys as well as new-bigger touchpad but with the old trackpoint buttons

 

Lenovo should keep the asymmetric design or at least allow it as a customization (though it would probably be very expensive).

 

by asymmetric do you guys mean that the screen is little bit to the right instead of centered ?

i'm still new to laptop. can anyone point me to a post or a guide of how to install win7 but keep all the lenovo good stuffs. i really want win7 now after you guys brought this up. and also i want to get another 2gb ram, will it work with my existing lenovo ram?

 

Yes, this is precisely what we were referring to!~

 

guys, i have problem. the charger that comes with T400 is making some kind whining noise when pluged in. is that normal, if not, is it covered under warranty?

 

It probably is.

 

how loud is the noise? is it detectable when you are 2 m away from the adapter? if it is then you can get a new adapter from Lenovo (provided you are under warranty).

 

One of my Lenovo adapters does this when they're plugged in and the machine is sleeping and charged (not pulling much current). The one that makes the whine was made by Astec (which was recently bought by Emerson) whereas my Delta-made adapter is completely silent.

In my experience Lenovo is happy to swap accessories if you have a problem, and they will cross-ship. I am currently on my third UltraBay Slim battery. They keep losing capacity fast thanks to Lenovo's poor battery management that always drains the UltraBay battery fully first.

By the way, good pick on the T400. My T400 is easily the best machine that I have ever used, by far. I loved my T61 but the T400 is better in practically every way.

Do upgrade the RAM. I would actually recommend 2x4GB DDR3 1333, which you can get for around $80 now. 4GB is fine for Windows 7 but why go short on RAM when it's so cheap. Even if you don't have programs that use lots of RAM you still get some benefit from disk cache, which can make a big difference if you don't have an SSD.