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With a lot of ThinkPads in its arsenal, Lenovo has decided to add one more member to the family: the ThinkPad T400. Before making your purchase, it’s best to take a closer look at its features and determine what kind of user this laptop is most suited for.

 

Pros

The Thinkpad T400 has much to offer to the average business laptop user. The user interface is highly notable due to its soft and responsive keyboards. The user who frequently works on documents will find that tasks are done quicker and with more convenience. Since typing can be done in a speedier fashion, it goes a long way in making work go more efficiently.

 

SPECS	AVAILABLE OPTIONS (From Apple’s website)
CPU	Intel Core 2 Duo – Penryn-3M (medium-voltage, 45 nm) (P7350,P8×00)Intel Core 2 Duo – Penryn (standard-voltage, 45 nm) (T9×00)
RAM	Up to 8GB 1066Mhz DDR3
Screen Size	14.1” WXGA or WXGA+ Widescreen
Operating System	Microsoft Windows Vista 32bit Microsoft Windows Vista 64bit Microsoft Windows XP
Battery Life	4-cell: starting at 4.3hr 6-cell: starting at 6.5hr 9-cell: starting at 9.8hr 9-cell + bay battery: starting at 13.0hr
Graphics	Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD ATI Mobility Radeon 3470

 

The touchpad is very sensitive and it almost feels like you’re using an external mouse to do the scrolling for you.

 

The T400 also has a liquid-drain feature, which we think is essential and something that other laptop makers should install. The liquid drain system makes the keyboard virtually waterproof. If someone spills liquid like coffee or soda over the keyboard, you don’t have to worry about anything. Simply let the laptop be, turn it off, and wait for the drains to start working. Lenovo has obviously put the laptop’s longevity as its top priority for the design.

 

Lenovo has already considered the bothersome situation of seeing glare. The T400 has light emitting diodes for backlighting the LCD screen. No matter how bright the sun is behind you, you can always find a visible display in front of you.

 

Cons

Although the ThinkPad T400 comes highly recommended in terms of specs and performance, performing upgrades or installing new components may prove to be more complex than usual. Much effort is necessary in unscrewing the case and exposing the parts so that the user can upgrade the memory or hard drive.

 

The LED that serves to illuminate the keyboard in low light settings may in a few instances be considered a liability. In dim areas, the ThinkLight feature blasts a glaring light directly at the face of the user. This is because of the small shroud that is supposed to shield the user from the onslaught of the white LED.

 

Another thing that people will find disappointing about the T400 is its lack of a digital output. This means that you cannot hook it up to a high definition TV for better display. There is also the VGA output option, but nothing beats accessibility to HD output.

 

Conclusion

Despite its shortcomings, the T400 remains impressive. It may not be equipped for an HDTV output and its glaring ThinkLight could be a problem but the T400 still has enough features that can make one think that the money spent is worth the purchase of the laptop. The liquid drain system, for example, is a very neat feature to have since it enables you to avoid damage due to liquid corrosion.

Related posts:

1. Lenovo ThinkPad T410s – Review
2. Lenovo ThinkPad W700ds – Review
3. Lenovo IdeaPad S12 – Netbook Review
4. Lenovo Ideapad S10 – Netbook Review
5. Lenovo Ideapad U330 – Review

Tags: Lenovo, notebook, Thinkpad

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 28th, 2009 at 6:22 am and is filed under Lenovo, and is tagged with Lenovo, notebook, Thinkpad. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.