T410 - updates/recommendation requested

[Edward]

All,

I am considering buy a T410 this holiday weekend. Either:

(a) i3 model with integrated graphics
(b) i5 model with integrated graphics
(c) i5 model with nvs 512 discrete graphics

Questions -

(1) Can anyone share their experiences/describe (if any) their cpu-whine and fan on excessively/loud? If the machine is loud, does using the fan control limit the noise?
(2) I really hate bad pixels. Would like to know if anyone has received their T410 with them.
(3) I would like to play some basic games (e.g. not FPS, forthcoming Civ 5) but it will primarily be for CS4/CS5 work. Would the new integrated card work or is the discrete a better choice.
(4) Thoughts on i3 vs i5?

Thank you.

[raydabruce]

I have a T410 with the specs you see in my signature. I have no dead pixels and no issues of any kind. I'm very happy with it. The integrated graphics included in this model is pretty amazing for being integrated rather than discrete. Read about it here:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Grap ... 065.0.html

ThinkPads are not designed for intensive graphics work due to the display screens that come with them. If you'll be doing a lot of Creative Suite work, you might want to get a Macbook Pro for that. Or, if you have a good external monitor, that may work for you after tweaking the color & contrast settings in the graphics control panel (the Intel one, included with the integrated graphics). The discrete Nvidia card they offer uses a driver that's optimized for business graphics. Not so good for gaming or photo/video work. Also, I've read a lot of complaints from T410 owners who have that card in their machines... it seems to cause problems for some. But then, I'm not a big fan of Nvidia anyway. I had an IdeaPad Y560 with the ATI card. That laptop was terrific for games and any kind of video-intensive activity. But Ideapads don't have the build-quality of ThinkPads. I prefer ThinkPads for their engineering and durability.

Definitely go with the Core i5 rather than the i3. It has advanced technologies included that the i3 doesn't. You can research that on Intel's website and see benchmarks all over the net... like Passmark.

[Edward]

raydabruce. Thanks for the replay.

Could you comment on any fan/cpu noise if any or significant?

[Navck]

Have a i7-620m but I'd recommend you to get an i5-520m or i5-540m over the i3 and i5-430m.
Have NVS3100 256MB discrete graphics, worked great for Half Life 2, system runs pretty cool once it gets underclocked and the power consumption is OK too.
Neither card will help you with Photoshop, short of having a Matrox for serious 2D use, buy a desktop for that sort of thing.
No bad pixels here but I also got lucky on my T43 IPS screen too until it got that giant blot (From what I'm told it was pressure damage?)

I've actually heard the CPU whine when I was using scandisk at boot, I thought it was the drive making the slider move back and forth rapidly for a moment until I realized it wasn't coming from the harddrive.
Fan noise isn't bad, you just hear a little turbine spinning on the high settings, using TPFC, the 1 setting is lower than the harddrive idle (Which isn't anything close to loud either.)

Also it seems there is a luck of the draw with the LCDs, I got a really great LCD where blacks look black and whites look white. A lot of other people seem to of gotten The Worst LCDs On Earth(TM).

[niccolo]

Re the LCD, I wonder whether Lenovo, seeing some of the early reviews, was able to source better screens? It is quite striking that some of us view these as "The Worst LCDs on Earth" (nicely put, and not a huge exaggeration), consistent with the screen data notebookcheck.net posted in their reviews of both the T400s and T410s, while others seem quite happy. There are folks on this board who source larger numbers of machines, I'd be curious to hear whether they see meaningful variation between screens.

[raydabruce]

Could you comment on any fan/cpu noise if any or significant?

I honestly can't hear any noise at all -- even when putting it in maximum performance mode and running CPU-intensive applications. But I'm usually not in a totally silent environment. (And then there's the issue of my nearly 60-yr-old ears.) I can tell you that the fan exhaust doesn't get hot, just a little warm and only then when I'm stressing the machine.

As for the screen, I can say that video doesn't look so great on it. The glossy displays seem to be better for that. Maybe if I tweak the color saturation/contrast/gamma/brightness/hue settings some more they would look better. This is a 16:10 aspect ratio screen which gives a bit more vertical depth -- good for web-browsing, reading, writing, etc., and that's mostly what I do. Photos look good but the video seems a bit dull. It may be the quality of my videos... I don't know for sure. It will play them smoothly, though. The CPU/Intel HD works well. You could always pipe the video to an external display via the displayport (you'll need to buy one of Lenovo's adapters to hook it up to HDMI or DVI).

[SteveDC]

I am looking at the display options on the order page for the T410 and see two choices:

WXGA: Widescreen XGA Resolution: 1280x720,1280×800, 1280x768

or

WXGA+: Widescreen Extended Graphics Array Plus Resolution: 1440x900


I wonder why there are three resolutions for WXGA?

Anyway, as a former T40 user wanting to go back to something along the lines of that computer's 1400x1050 resolution, I think the WXGA+ display makes sense. Unless, of course, it does not for some reason.

[raydabruce]

The WXGA for ThinkPads is 1280x800. I have the WXGA+ (1440x900) and like it very much. I have enough resolution to get adequate screen real estate without text and everything being too small. Of course, in Windows 7 you can adjust the size of icons and text fairly easily. I'm happy with the screen after making some adjustments in the color settings (brightness|contrast|saturation|hue|etc).

[Edward]

Got option (a), the i3 with integrated graphics, ship date is 7/21.

Looking forward to it. Really hope no bad pixels or annoying fan/whining noise.

[raydabruce]

When you read complaints about fan noise, the screen, etc., this is the exception rather than the rule. I would guess that, like me, 95% of all owners have no complaints. They knew what they were buying and did not have any unreasonable expectations. It's not a cheap consumer laptop with a glossy, pretty screen. But it will outlast any of those laptops by years and years with only reasonable care.