Okay, so I get grief for talking about fishing and shaving the dog’s butt on this blog by people who for some resason think that the guy who does digital marketing for the company that makes ThinkPads is going to blog about ThinkPads. No way! Ok, so sure, I try not to get all spammy and promotional for the company that pays my paychecks, but every so often we do something that reminds me why I here and glad to not be there, and that’s my simple love for classic stuff that works, is designed by people who care about what they are making, and carries a kind of craftsmanship that I sure as heck didn’t get from my rental car this week.
For the last year I’ve had a serious love affair with my ThinkPad X200S — a bad ass little ultraportable with a 12 inch screen. I love it so much that I just juiced the hard drive to 320 gigs and am tempted to go buy some more memory to make it fly …
But then this came along. Just another ThinkPad?
This is the T400s. The T-series is our bread and butter ThinkPad — the one our corporate users roll out to their employees. If you are reading this post on a ThinkPad your IT department gave you then you are probably reading it on a T60 or a T61. It’s what I was given at IDG in 2005. If you bought it yourself, or are a big traveller, then you may be on an X200 like me, or an X60-61.
So why am I getting all spammy and in your face about just another black laptop?
Ah ….. This thing took all the glory of our X300 — the notebook Businessweek called the Perfect PC — and puts it into a serious heatseeker of a laptop. You can, if you are inclined to spend the big dollars, make this thing behave like a serious workstation. Configure it with a big SSD drive, max the RAM and you’re talking one of the most powerful laptops ever conceived. Super thin, and loaded. I could see toting this around for the next two years with never a regret.
I’d dumping the X200 for this. Listening to my buddy David Hill go on about the design enhancements– the interior design — not the skin, the bling, the crud that our competitors seem to think makes idiots buy PCs, but the internal genius… in this. I personally love the consistency of our design, I just need to figure out how to show you the inside genius.
Want one? Send me an email for my employee purchase code. dchurbuck AT lenovo.com. Here’s David on the keyboard.
David,
The X200(s) keyboard is supposed to be a standard sized “T” keyboard. Will the new T400s keyboard fit in the X200(s)?
Also, I think the X200s is far superior to the T400s. It is has the same specs in terms of screen (WXGA+ 1440×900)
It is far lighter starting at 2.5 lbs. My 8 cell is 3 lbs.
It is smaller and more convenient to carry around.
Battery life is around 9-10 hours with Win 7 on the 8-cell, far exceeding the T400s battery life.
Running with SSD or even hard drive I can’t see any reason to have a faster processor than the 1.86 GHz (6 MB cache) processor of the X200s for most standard tasks.
Has the more standard 2.5″ hard drive instead of the non-standard 1.8″ of the T400s.
The only advantage the T400s has that I can see is the touchpad for those that want it and larger characters for those who need it. Of course there is the optical drive in the T400s that is not in the X200s but I almost never need it because I can use Daemon tools software to read CD/DVD images that are on my hard drive. I do have a $60 small portable USB drive when I need it. Honestly, with the use of netbooks, people are finding out they really don’t need the optical drive except on rare occasion.
So why really would anyone prefer a T400s over an X200s unless they have a difficult time reading the smaller characters, “must have” a touchpad?
Also, Matt, could you please explain why the SSD upgrade options for 64, 128 is $40, $240 for the T400s and $250 and $450 for the X200s? This is really annoying…
Also, there are frequent Lenovo coupons listed on http://www.logicbuy.com for anyone thinking of purchasing a laptop.
David, I really can’t believe you’d want an T400s over the X200s, especially with your heavy travel schedule on airplanes.
Try the X200s instead of the T400s. And please write something about the wonderul X200s!
David — no, the drain holes and the screw holes won’t line up in all probability.
I remain a huge fan on the X200 — but I am rethinking my anti-optical stance due to a big Netflix addiction.
I need the processor push. I am going to rev my x200 with 4gb of RAM to see if I can give it some headroom, but the optical and the extra 2″ of screen are compelling me.
Plus the T400s is sexy thin.
David,
X200s is not an X200! 4 GB of RAM will help.
For DVD watching when I want it I carry around a very small, thin Samsung drive. It is very thin and barely larger in width and depth than the DVD itself. Normally, I don’t carry it with me: Cost $60.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151178
Also, to speed things up consider changing to an SSD drive. These are my Windows Performance Index with the X200s and Intel X-25 M SSD (which is a standard Lenovo SSD):
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU L9400 @ 1.86GHz 5.3 4.1
Memory (RAM) 4.00 GB 5.8
Graphics Mobile Intel(R) 45 Express Chipset Family 4.1
Gaming graphics 1695 MB Total available graphics memory 4.9
Primary hard disk 25GB Free (74GB Total) 5.9
David,
BTW X200s is also sexy thin! Definately a chick magnet!
I am on my second T-series laptop here at AT&T. This one, a T-61 is the workhorse for folks in my group. We’ve had Dell’s, we’ve had (ugh) Sony Vaio’s but the one I count on when I head off to Korea, Taiwan, Japan, or Hong Kong is a ThinkPad.
I do have to question the decision to put in a 1.8 inch hard drive. While true, most people using this thing will have it assigned to them by the company they work for, the geek factor out there, interchangable parts, is severely limited in choice when you shrink to the 1.8 inch hard drive market.
Granted, SSD based 1.8 inch hard drive is fine, but how many corporate clients are going to pony up for that? How many poor souls are going to get stuck with the spinning hard drive?
It was one of the biggest faults of the X40, and you’re repeating the same mistake again.
Even Matt from Inside the Box, comment 22 of this post: http://lenovoblogs.com/insidethebox/?p=259 says “if
it were up to me, I’d ban all spinning 1.8? drives from ever being used in PCs”
Hi David,
I think I will plug in my shameless (or not) complain here, just because I love Lenovo as well.
To make it short, I will point you to the summary of the situation which I posted here:
http://blog.rubikintegration.com/2009/08/04/promise-the-moon-and-dont-even-deliver-earth-orbit/
So I got on Ebay, buy a new keyboard for 40usd + priority shipping fee (hey, Im happy that I spent the money, I was losing sleep because I was so angry with the service)
So in any case, David (aka thinkpad_parts), the ebay seller who happens to have the same name with you, pointed me here and told me I could complain to you. I thought to myself “hey, I dont want to have anything to do with Lenovo anymore”. But somehow, deep in my heart, I still love this product (which is why I was so angry, I guess I expected too much. I expected Lenovo to be a company that is NOT DELL). In any case though, I don’t care about the guarantee or anything anymore, I will have my new keyboard arrives soon, and the money is well spent. I guess I just feel very sad/upset about this whole issue.