Purchasing advice needed on T410 and its cousins

[ajkula66]

Yes, you read it correctly: silly old me - of all people - is asking for an advice on purchasing a ThinkPad, and April 1st is nowhere in sight...

Here's the essence of the story: my daughter's maxed-out 14" SXGA+ T60 is getting a little slow for her needs, mostly games and multitasking as in being on Skype while watching a PowerPoint presentation and listening to music...right. Here's what I know:

a) The "new" machine needs to be no larger than 14", with an integrated media drive.

b) It should be a ThinkPad, since it's a lot easier for me to support it.

c) At one point in the game I gave her an Intel-based T400 and she was underwhelmed, which leads me to believe that an Intel-based T61/R61 would be an absolute non-starter. She positively hated the dim (in her opinion - it was an average panel) CCFL LCD.

That's when I started doing some research and came to realize that examples of the T410 palette can be found for less than I expected. The problem is, I have extremely limited experience with these machines, and am therefore looking for words of wisdom...

I would honestly rather stay away from sub-models utilizing 1.8" drives unless someone around here sells me on the concept.

The machine *must* have a WXGA+ panel, that much is clear. However, I can't really make heads or tails of the graphics options and would need guidance primarily in this department.

Oh yes...one last thing: the young lady in question has discovered Linux and is liking it a lot. So, whatever GPU ends up as the choice of the day should have some support in mainstream distros such as Mint.

Thoughts, experiences, known caveats/weak points?

TIA my fellow ThinkPadders.

[ZaZ]

If I remember correctly, the nVidia card in the T410 is barely better than the Intel GPU. It's also an Optimus card, which generally doesn't play well with Linux. Perhaps newer versions are better. It's been a while since I've seen anything about it.

[ajkula66]

Thanks for the heads up, ZaZ...

I was initially more interested in Intel-based units anyway...and after your post am likely going to scrap the nVidia option from consideration altogether.

Still, more feedback on any aspect of these machines would be appreciated...

[FunkyRes]

T410 with Intel graphics, everything I have tried works fine in Fedora 18 except the left Ctrl key - Fedora is clearly registering a keycode because cursor stops blinking, but it isn't acting like a Ctrl key. That may be Fedora specific. And the wireless network LED (next to HDD LED) flashes a lot, but wireless networking works.

My T410 feels slow to me but I suspect that is I've recently spoiled by SSD in T520.