Thinkpads Forum

My old R40 finally bit the dust. Video stared to act up, which from what I read was the video chip separating from the board. It was a pretty peppy machine maxed out. I did like it, but hated the screen. Time to move on I thought.

So, I'm looking at getting a T400. These are the planned specs: T9600, WXGA+ w/ LED, Radeon 3470, 3gb ram (for now), 160 GB, 7200 RPM, Intel WiFi Link 5300, 9cell.

I will be using Adobe CS2 or CS3, which ever one will work on the OS I choose, Office 2007, Cinema C4d, Autoengunuity scan tool, and several other various programs. I am fan of XP and haven't went to Vista. From what I heard Windows 7 is a huge step above XP and I am thinking of going with it on this machine.

So, how does W7 64 work on the T400? Any reason I should stay with XP over W7? Also, any comment on the configuration I am planning on purchasing?

I do know that the screen is a hot issue, but I am coming from an old R40, so any screen would be an improvement and my portable isn't my main computer.

-Chris

I have Windows 7 Pro 64 bit on my T400s and it runs great. Why would you want 2001 technology on a brand new computer?

I'm sort of a W7 skeptic. I don't for me see it offering me anything that XP does not other than a slicker interface. Supposedly the high brightness WXGA LCD is the best screen offered on the T400 in terms of image quality.

I totally agree - no reason to stay with an old operating system on a new and powerful machine.

What Win7 offers you depends on what it is you need and expect, but there is nothing that makes it "less" than XP, unless you can't live without some legacy features (such as classic start menu) or some Thinkvantage applications which only support XP (like Thinkpad Configuration).

The problem with Vista was that it was released unoptimized and was too much of a resource hog for the average computer at the time of its release.

Win7 is more optimized, and the hardware is stronger, so performance should be a non-issue.

And of course, my opinion - 64-bit only. Why stay behind?

I don't see Vista as that bad, but when it was not ready for prime time, which is hard to believe after five plus years of development. With the service packs and some tweaks it doesn't run too bad.

Art Vandelay wrote:I have Windows 7 Pro 64 bit on my T400s and it runs great. Why would you want 2001 technology on a brand new computer?

I have used Vista in the past and it always left a bad taste in my mouth and I don't want a repeat with W7. However, I haven't heard anything bad about W7 and that it is much better than Vista, which is why I am strongly considering it. Right now I am waiting to head back from Autoengunity to see if their software runs on W7.

FredGarvin wrote:I'm sort of a W7 skeptic. I don't for me see it offering me anything that XP does not other than a slicker interface. Supposedly the high brightness WXGA LCD is the best screen offered on the T400 in terms of image quality.

I've heard that about the screens, but I like high resoultion better... However, I'm going to have to see if I can find notebooks locally with WGA+ and WGA resoultion on a 14.1" screen to compare and see if I can live with WGA.

Chiana wrote:I have used Vista in the past and it always left a bad taste in my mouth and I don't want a repeat with W7.

The key question is - what side of Vista was responsible for the bad taste? Win7 does address the shortcomings of Vista, when it comes to performance and usability at default configuration. But the UI itself is of course still that of Vista (with some extras), quite different from XP.

I don't mind the Vista interface, I could probably get use to that. The problem with Vista was that it was soooo slow and stability wasn't there. I had used Vista on new Dells and a few other machines and my old R40 with XP was always much faster. However, from what I have read that changed in W7.

Oh.. and since I am considering W7 that opens up the option of Turbo Memory. I have read mixed reviews of that as well. Most of the instability issues were due to the drivers from what I gather, which has been fixed for the most part. But does it make a difference in performance?

I have a T400 with very similar specs to what you are looking at (differences are 4g ram, 320gb hardrive (brand new, yay!) and I have used XP pro (32-bit), Vista Ultimate (32-bit), and now Windows 7 Ultimate (64 bit) on it. I run the same types of programs you do as well (office, adobe cs2, dreamweaver, as well as some gaming). I have also owned a few other widescreen thinkpads (to comment on the screen) so I hope my experience can be of some use to you. My comments are below, organized by topic.

1) Operating System:

Windows XP Professional (32 bit): xp ran just fine, as is to be expected on a machine with these specs, although the 32 bit OS limited performance by not using all the ram. Overall it was a stable, no frills, good basic operating system. With XP pro on a T400 you get what you expect, but it is an 8 year old system that is frankly rather uninspired and boring.

Windows Vista Ultimate (32bit): simply put, it ran like Vista. It was graphically quite pretty (aero is pleasant to look at), but fairly slow, and always gave me weird issues regarding power states, wireless, and graphics (lots of graphic card crashes, even with switchable disabled, running only on the ATI). I had only 1 BSOD in my 9 months of use - so the stability issues that other people complain about were never a problem on the T400. My lasting impression though (and why I had switched back to XP until this weekend) was that vista always felt "bogged down" despite the high spec of the machine.

Windows 7 Ultimate (64-Bit): I did a clean install of Windows 7 Ultimate (64 bit) this weekend, and I finally feel like I have unlocked the potential of this machine. It is incredibly fast (53 seconds from pushing the power button to open browser window), graphically stunning, and so far perfectly stable. Actions like opening documents/folders/programs are almost instantaneous. Web pages open faster. In my gaming experiences I have gained 20+ FPS accross the board. The windows aero interface is beautiful and seamless (no hiccups or delays as with vista) and resource allocation is much more economical. The install took almost no effort as virtually all of the drivers were included in the Win 7 build, and system update (the only thinkvantage stuff I reinstalled) took care of the rest. Simply put, Win 7 is perfect on a T400, and really unlocks its true potential. I could not be happier with the performance right now.

2) Screen Choice
WXGA LCD: I had the ultra bright standard WXGA screen on my Z60 and Z61, and it was a solid performer, although nothing spectacular. While it was noticeably brighter than screens on comparable dells and hps, it was just a basic 1280x800 laptop setup. Nothing bad to say about it, but nothing extraordinary either.

WXGA+ LED: This screen is one of the reasons I originally purhchaed a T400 because I wanted the greater real estate (1440x900), the lower power consumption, and the extra brightness to limit eye strain. It has been all I was looking for and more! This LED screen on a T400 is exceptionally bright, blowing away my desktop monitors and every other laptop screen I have seen. My mac loving friends (poor buggers!) mocked my purchase of a business machine until they saw the screen, because it makes their macbook pros look terrible in comparison.

Some people have complained about the color range and brightness but this utterly baffles me. Blacks are true black, colors are vibrant (and again true) and as commented before the brightness is exceptional. There is also tremendous adjustability in the brightness level, from almost completely off (only readable in the dark) to bright enough to light a room (never have a problem in the sun or with reflection). It is the best laptop screen I have ever used (and I have played around with just about everything) and is one of the elements that, in my opinion, sets the T400 apart from the field.

The lower power consumption is also a nice feature, as with a medium setting I can get almost 3 hours out of the 4 cell battery using a good balanced performance setup with discreet ATI graphics. I could probably push 4 going to max battery state and using the switchable, but I hate gimping performance.

3) Configuration:
Regarding your configuration, there are a couple changes I would make.

RAM: Get 4gigs of ram and a 64 bit operating system, these are keys to top performance. Crucial has 4gb kits for almost nothing right now, so you could order your machine with the bare minimum and just install it yourself (easy peazy).

Hard Drive: The 160gm hard drive actually only gives you around 120gb usable after the recovery partition and other lenovo install files are taken into account. I would opt for a 250 or 320 to ensure you have plenty of storage in the future, especially considering how much the prices have come down. Stick with 7200 rpm as you planned, it just makes everything faster.

Wireless: Good choice on the 5300 wireless card - it get great reception and holds it.

Graphics: The ATI discrete graphics card is also a must, and if I were you I would just disable the switchable graphics entirely and run exclusively on the ATI. The power consumption only changes by about 15% so you can still get acceptable battery life while enjoying all the bells and whistles of Windows 7 in all their glory.

Battery: Regarding the battery, the 9 cell will stick out of the back a fair bit. It is the one design element I think lenovo did poorly, as only the 4 cell battery actually looks like it is integrated into the machine - the 6 and 9 both jut out the back in an awkward manner. If you can afford it, I would get two batteries (one 9 cell and one 4 cell). Use the 4 cell for general lugging around where you know you will not need more than around 2-3 hours of battery time or will have easy outlet access. It is lighter and smaller, and it makes the computer fit better in bags. Throw the 9 cell in when you need 5 hours+ battery runtime, as I said it sticks quite far out of the back of the machine in an awkward manner, and makes it impossible to fit into some laptop backpacks.

Turbo Memory: I do not see a need for turbo memory on a machine like this, simply because in a 64 bit operating system you can utilize 4gigs of ram (or more) to its fullest. Turbo memory is an innovation that essentially addressed the limitations of 32 bit systems by trying to squeeze extra performance when the OS was maxed out in terms of the resources it could utilize. Now that 64 bit systems are mainstream (they were very limited when turbo memory was introduced) the OS is no longer limited and your 4 gigs of high speed ram will do more for performance than the turbo memory could dream of. I say skip it.

I hope this post is useful to you - please let me know if I can provide anything further.

reforminded, thank you for your post, it helped a lot.

As far as the WGA vs. WGA+ screen, if everything else was equal (brightness, contrast, color, etc) what is your opinion of one resolution vs the other?

Seems like XP vs. W7 is a bit like a situation I had when XP came out. Windows 2000 vs. XP. I was hesitant to go with XP over 2000, but did the switch on the same machine. XP ran so much faster than 2000 and rock stable.

Looking at the cost of Turbo Memory, I could skip that and get the larger drive. Of course, 7200 RPM. I had the 5400 in my R40, and upgraded to 7200 RPM with a very noticeable speed boost. No 5400 RPM for me. SSD is out of my price range too. As you said for the ram, it is an easy and quick change later down the road if I don't go 4gb now.

I understand your thoughts about the battery.. but I don't mind the extra bit sticking out of the back for the extra battery life trade off. But your idea of getting both batteries make sense.

Since I frequently switch between my T400 and my old Z60, I can comment directly about the resolutions as well. I was at first worried that the fonts would be too small on the T400 with the 1440x900 screen, but now when I go back to the Z60 I feel like the icons and font are almost comically big. It reminds me of switching from 800x600 to 1024x768 back in the Windows 95 days. If given the option, I would choose the WXGA+ every single time over the WXGA. You get more screen real estate, and in my opinion things look sharper. I would only purchase a laptop with a 1280x800 screen now if it was the only one offered. Looking at the pricing, it only costs an extra $50 to get the LED WXGA+ screen, which makes it a no-brainer.

On another note, I strongly urge you to consider buying the laptop with 4 gigs of memory from lenovo. It is a minimal cost upgrade for high quality (OEM) memory that will be covered under warranty should anything go wrong. Most importantly, you will immediately see the difference in the performance of the machine right out of the box. The next step up is moving into 4gb single dins, which costs a ridiculous amount (even from crucial - over $200 per dinn) so you will likely not be upgrading for a very long time. In this case I strongly advise getting the OEM stuff up front - it only cost $35 more than the 3 gig option, which is much less money that it would cost to buy an aftermarket 4gig kit (2x2g). You can't lose.

Also, don't forget to select the 64 bit Windows 7 professional!

PS: I forgot to mention before, good choice on the T9600 chipset - doubling the FSB to 6mb again is an immediate and noticeable performance upgrade.

The other thing about the memory I forgot to mention is that with 3 gigs you will be getting a 1gig dinn and a 2gig dinn. In my experience as a tech, and from every source I can have talked to, intel based comps work best when using memory that is paired identically. In other words, using either 2x1g or 2x2g, as opposed to mixing them. I do not know why this is, but the allocation of memory resources just works better when they are correctly paired. My z60 ran better on 2x1g than it did on 1x1g+1x2g, despite the extra ram. Get the 4g setup now, you will not regret it. (and again, its cheap! )

reforminded wrote: If given the option, I would choose the WXGA+ every single time over the WXGA. You get more screen real estate, and in my opinion things look sharper.

Then WGA+ LED it is.

On another note, I strongly urge you to consider buying the laptop with 4 gigs of memory from lenovo.

Point taken, and depending on how far I will be over what I budgeted I will consider the 4gb

Also, don't forget to select the 64 bit Windows 7 professional!

Of course. And when i was referencing XP I was speaking of XP Pro.

PS: I forgot to mention before, good choice on the T9600 chipset - doubling the FSB to 6mb again is an immediate and noticeable performance upgrade.

Thats why I chose it!

There is absolutely no reason to choose Windows XP. If you have an application that only works in Windows XP just download and use the XP mode (basically just a XP virtual machine) that Microsoft gives users for free. The only thing is you need to make sure you get Windows 7 Professional/Ultimate. Or if you have your own copy of Windows XP then it doesn't even matter - Virtual PC 2007 is free and you can use it to set up your own XP virtual machine.

I placed the order two days ago. Started off with teh Elite T400 and added a few items.

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo processor T9600 (2.8GHz 1066MHz 6MBL2)
Operating system: Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64
Display type: 14.1 WXGA+ TFT, w/ LED Backlight
System graphics: ATI Mobility Radeon 3470 with 256MB
Total memory: 4 GB PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM 1067MHz SODIMM Memory (2 DIMM)
Pointing device: UltraNav (TrackPoint and TouchPad) with Fingerprint Reader
Hard drive: 320 GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm
Optical device: DVD Recordable 8x Max Dual Layer, Ultrabay Slim (Serial ATA)
System expansion slots: Express Card Slot & 7-1 Media Card Reader
Bluetooth: Integrated Bluetooth PAN
Wireless card: Intel WiFi Link 5300 (AGN) with My WiFi Technology
Mobile Broadband: Integrated Mobile Broadband upgradable
Battery: 9 cell Li-Ion Battery

Now I just have to wait...

So.. I called up Lenovo Monday evening to verify my order that I placed on the website earlier in the day. There was no problem with it. I called them again last night and was told the order had been canceled. No notice was given to me or anything. They couldn't even give me a valid reason. I was quite aggravated and thought about taking my money else where. I placed another internet order last night after I got off the phone and will call to verify it this morning.

Given the rave review of the T400 WXGA+ LED screen by reforminded above, I'm curious, is this screen fundamentally different from that included in the T400s? I recently returned a T400s because the screen was so awful--zero vertical viewing angle, nothing approaching a true black, contrast ratio 98:1 (according to one online review, and it looked it), washed out colors.

Reading others' reviews on this site, it's clear that many share my serious disappointment with this screen. But I also noticed that many reviewers state that the quality is comparable or better than what is available elsewhere in the current Lenovo line, including in the T400. Then I read this page, and people seem thrilled with at least this particular T400 screen, and argue that it is far better than the current Macbook Pro, which to my eye is a very solid screen. Heck, I'd be happy if the screen compared favorably to my five-year old T42.

So I find it very hard to imagine we're talking about the same, or similar, screens. Can anyone shed any light? I don't imagine that a more powerful backlight could explain the difference; after all, if blacks are already grey on the T400s, amping up the backlight on the same screen would only make that worse. Brightness isn't the problem.