buying a T400 laptop

[cold2fusion]

I there a reason I should buy a T400 instead of like a dell. And is the T400 a good quality laptop I have seen lots of videos where people say the quality is not the same anymore

[outofin]

After all technical reasons, I bought it because it feels so right. Black, square, smooth yet firm, hmm, so sexy...

[Dead1nside]

No quality is not the same, it's better in my experience. I've had a T41p a T61 and a T400, the T41p was from the old IBM era and it developed a few faults. Both the newer models have had sturdier chassis and better cooling.

I couldn't be happier with my T400 14'' with switchable graphics, it's more powerful than my desktop and even only on a 4-cell battery I can get 3-4 hours of work out of it at a push.

[paradox183]

I am the IT guy at my work, and while I personally love Thinkpads, for various reasons (75% price, 25% politics) we buy Dell PCs at work. The higher-end D-series Latitudes such as the D830 have held up pretty well for us, but I think Dell is phasing them out in favor of the new E-series. Some Dell form factors still feel kind of "rickety" sometimes. I like the design of the E-series since they are reminiscent of Thinkpads (all-black body, similar angles), and the two E5500's I've bought for one group have held up well, but they mostly just sit on the desk.

Based on these experiences, and being unable to afford a Thinkpad at the time, I bought an E6500 for personal use a few months ago. After three days of owning it, part of the monitor bezel chipped off. A month later, another larger piece chipped off. Another piece came off again a couple months after that. "Fortunately" the laptop was stolen a couple weeks ago, so I'm coming back to Thinkpads.

In contrast, I have had my R51 for almost four years now, and just this last week part of the bezel chipped off for the first time. It has held up remarkably well.

I ordered a T400 for my wife, so once it gets here I'll let you know how it compares. But if it feels any bit as solid as the R51, it is going to be much better quality than a Dell.

[ZaZ]

I think the Dell E series are very competitive. Both are solid machines. You can get some great deal in the Dell Outlet, especially when Dell's offering that 20% off in the Outlet Coupon. Each has their pros and cons. The T400 has a better keyboard and GPU, but the Dell has a better warranty and a more forgiving return policy should things not work out.

[paradox183]

The T400 has a better keyboard

While I haven't tried the new T series keyboards yet, the Dell E series keyboard is quite good. It's a little clicky/noisy but the feel of the keys was great. Still liked my R51's keyboard better though.

One MAJOR drawback of the E series that I noticed was that the touchpad is not as good. They have Alps touchpads instead of Synaptics, and the difference in quality was very noticeable for me. The Alps was slower, not as responsive, and sometimes produced erratic behavior. Their drivers also screwed up the mouse cursors in Vista (can be fixed by editing the registry, but must be done every time you upgrade/reinstall drivers), which is minor but not having the animated cursors was a little annoying. Because of that experience, one of the first things I did when looking at Thinkpads was make sure that they still have Synaptics touchpads.