hrmphColonel O'Neill wrote:By the way, the webcam on the T400/T500 sucks if you have a fluorescent light that is slightly yellow; it somehow whitebalances it to practically pure yellow. The newer ones on the X100e, T410, T510 are much, much, MUCH better.
this is tempting me even more to just get the T510.... but it's $1200 versus $500 for that T500 on eBay. Heck, I could get the T500 on eBay, use it until the warranty expires, and probably get a used T510 for $700 at that point 
hmmmm, thanks for your info. Coming from a T42, I think it may be best to just grab one of those laptops in the auction. I don't *need* a webcam. But good battery life is indeed important to me.LegendaryKA8 wrote:I honestly don't think you can go wrong with either system. There are pros and cons to each but those can be only nitpicks. As you said, you don't really game or do CAD work so you probably won't miss the T500's better GPU. I'm assuming the T510 is equipped with integrated graphics; even with an i7 I think it'll get similar battery life to the T500.
The auction I linked to the T500 has a 9-cell battery, but the machine is used... I don't know if the battery is in good or bad condition. I can say my 9-cell T400 switched to the X4500 can get around 5.5 hours on battery, wifi on, light browsing and word processing work only. My battery has about 20% wear, so I'd estimate about 6.5-7.0 hours with my usage profile. The T500 will turn similar numbers on a 9-cell as long as the battery is good(I can't say for certain how good the battery is until I have mine).
Regardless, I think you'll do well with either machine. It's a hard decision, and for what you use a computer for I think it'll boil down to if you want a new machine or one slightly behind the curve. You might also want to wait and save up a few months until the new Intel Sandy Bridge notebooks come out, however they'll be fairly expensive new.
I haven't read any reviews on the T510, but looking at Colonel O'Neil's battery life survey thread seems to indicate the T510 can get alright life out of a 6-cell.
And, the T500 listed in the auction doesn't come with a webcam, unfortunately.
And, not a problem!manlymatt83 wrote: A few final questions (I hope):
1) Do you know if a T42 9 cell battery will work in the T500?
2) You say the T500 has a better graphics card than the T510 - will that use more battery? I just need basic graphics. I know the laptop I was quoted for the T510 had integrated graphics. What's the difference between integrated and discrete? If getting the T510 will get me a less good graphics card, perhaps that's a good thing
3) What about screen? The T510 screen I was quoted was 15.6HD+ANTI-GLW/LEDBKLIGH. Will the screen on the T500 in the eBay auction be much worse? How will it compare to my T42 Active Matrix display?
Thanks!
Slightly off-topic, but that particular T510 machine is doing terribly battery-life wise, hence my motivation to start the thread.LegendaryKA8 wrote:I haven't read any reviews on the T510, but looking at Colonel O'Neil's battery life survey thread seems to indicate the T510 can get alright life out of a 6-cell.
LegendaryKA8 wrote:
And, not a problem!
1: T4x batteries won't work in the T500. The T500 can take batteries from these ThinkPads: T60, T60p(14", 15" and 15.4" wide), T61(14" standard, 15.4" wide; the T61 14.1" wide isn't compatible), T61p, and W500. Those have 6 and 9-cell variants.
2: The T500 has an ATI HD3650, which is more powerful than either the discrete and integrated cards on the T510. However, the T500 is a switchable system. If you don't need the power, you can switch to the integrated card already onboard(in Vista/Win7 you can get to it from a menu in the Power Manager). and therefore save battery life. Most T510's are not switchable; the feature only came out a couple of weeks ago. You can buy one new from Lenovo if you wanted to.
3: Both the T500 and T510 have regular TN screens. I'd think the T510's LED screen's going to be brighter, but screens on ThinkPads are the luck of the draw either way. I upgraded my T400's screen to an LG LED display not long ago and like it, mainly because the colors are more accurate. The T500 will have the larger resolution, 1680x1050 versus 1600x900 on the T510. In comparison to your T42, it depends on what you have in that one. If you have a 1024x768 screen, it won't be much different. If your T42 is a 1400x1050 or 1600x1200, you have a Flexview display. Those are regarded to be the best panels ever placed in a ThinkPad, and anything else is going to look inferior.
Edit: Please note that the T500 in the auction I linked you to will have WinXP preloaded. The switchable graphics don't work on the fly in XP. You can either go shut the system down and change the BIOS settings every time you want to switch if you want to keep XP, or you can upgrade to Vista or Win7. I'm pretty sure that the T500 will have a Vista license key on it, making an upgrade to Vista free if you want to go that route. When I get mine I'll be doing a fresh install of Win7, anyway.
*sigh*So you seem to be well respected here - what would you do: stick with the T42, get a T500 from eBay for $480, or get the new T510 from Lenovo for a heavily discounted $1100?Colonel O'Neill wrote:I'd say run XP or 7. Skip the whole Vista stuff.
As for Flexview... as long as you're not editing photos on a professional level, you don't really need it. Granted, the large viewing angles are nice, but my TN is fine for casual gaming or video watching.
What you typed above is crucial. Things look HUGE on a 15.0" 800x600 screen. And if you find text too small at 1024x768, then I urge you to avoid high-res laptops. Previously, I thought that you might have been used to 1400x1050 Flexview, and so I was concerned that you would find HD+ (1600x900) too short. But since you are fine with 800x600 and prefer everything looking huge, and also don't mind TN screens, I should recommend you to get a 15.0" T60 with 1024x768. Others can correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that on all 16:10 Thinkpads, the lowest 16:10 resolution setting is 1280x800, whereas on all 16:9 Thinkpads, the lowest 16:9 setting is 1366x768. Even at these resolutions, things look much smaller than they do on your T42 at 1024x768. If you drop the res setting below these, you will only get 4:3 resolutions (i.e. 1024x768 and 800x600), which would look TERRIBLE because the screen would be stretched horizontally to fill the display. Sorry, but it sounds to me like you have no choice but stick with old 4:3 laptops, unless you train yourself to tolerate small text and images.manlymatt83 wrote:2) On the higher resolutions of T500 and T510, is it possible to downsize the resolution? For instance, my old laptop allowed up to 1024x768 but for a while I ran in 800x600. I haven't quite gotten used to the small text yet
killer wrote:It took me under a minute to adjust from 4:3 to 16:9. In summary, I don't understand the fuss. Change is good if you adapt to it. Stand in its way and it will demolish you.
Thanks for your longer reply. This shorter reply was easier to quote, but it had valuable information, so I appreciate it...Colonel O'Neill wrote:Agreed. I'm all for that T500.
Thanks for your reply. I actually hate 800x600. I'm used to 1024x768 on my T42. Could I go a tad higher? Sure.... sometimes I feel like I don't get enough screen space on my 1024x768 and text on websites wraps a bit.... so I bet I would be willing to try something a TAD smaller, but not too crazy. But yeah, I'm definitely used to 1024x768, not 800x600... that's way too big for me.pianowizard wrote: What you typed above is crucial. Things look HUGE on a 15.0" 800x600 screen. And if you find text too small at 1024x768, then I urge you to avoid high-res laptops. Previously, I thought that you might have been used to 1400x1050 Flexview, and so I was concerned that you would find HD+ (1600x900) too short. But since you are fine with 800x600 and prefer everything looking huge, and also don't mind TN screens, I should recommend you to get a 15.0" T60 with 1024x768. Others can correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that on all 16:10 Thinkpads, the lowest 16:10 resolution setting is 1280x800, whereas on all 16:9 Thinkpads, the lowest 16:9 setting is 1366x768. Even at these resolutions, things look much smaller than they do on your T42 at 1024x768. If you drop the res setting below these, you will only get 4:3 resolutions (i.e. 1024x768 and 800x600), which would look TERRIBLE because the screen would be stretched horizontally to fill the display. Sorry, but it sounds to me like you have no choice but stick with old 4:3 laptops, unless you train yourself to tolerate small text and images.
Then get a 15.4" 1280x800 laptop -- look for a T500 with this resolution. Things would look even smaller on a 15.6" 1366x768 laptop, such as the T510.manlymatt83 wrote:so I bet I would be willing to try something a TAD smaller, but not too crazy...
See, that doesn't look too bad. Frankly, it looks almost like my 1024x768. If I get the T510 HD+, I believe that's something ginormous, right? I really don't think it'd be too bad.LegendaryKA8 wrote:(Warning, following link is to pic at UXGA(1600x1200) resolution! Huge picture warning!)
http://thinkbbs.zol.com.cn/35/32108_347587.html
It's a Chinese forum, but the thread title is that T500's model number. That's a 1280x800 screen.
That's one way but a better way is to increase the DPI setting under "Display Properties" --> "Settings" --> "General" --> "DPI Setting".manlymatt83 wrote:Someone has suggested I just buy the T510 and increase text size in my operating system, which should help a lot?
). I tend to reinstall my OS once in a while for trivial reasons (once I reinstalled about 9 times in a week; I can get 5h30 on a 80% charge with a freshly drivered install, but that goes down to 3 after dumping apps on it.), and thus would probably experience too much performance and lifespan degradation on an SSD.Yes, that is what I would suggest. I would buy the highest resolution screen you can get in your form factor. It will be sharper, which will reduce eye strain, and Windows 7 is finally good at scaling fonts and other GUI elements in a smooth, usable way. With a higher resolution screen, you get to choose how you want to use your screen real-estate. You can make things larger or smaller as necessary. If you have a low resolution screen, you have much less flexibility. I can't imagine running a business 8 hours a day on a 1280x800 screen.manlymatt83 wrote:Thanks.
Someone has suggested I just buy the T510 and increase text size in my operating system, which should help a lot?
Thanks for your reply!zhenya wrote:A couple of other questions that may or may not be of any help -- you say that you use this machine in your apartment because you don't have room for a desktop. Does it ever leave your apartment? ie. do you ever use the laptop function or are you just using it as a small pc? I ask because you can buy VERY small pc's these days for less money than a laptop, and add a nice display in not much more space than a laptop takes up.
Assuming you do want a laptop, what about adding an external screen? Once you have worked with two screens, it is hard to ever go back. The ability to work in one program and look at another one at the same time is invaluable for productivity.
Assuming that you have already considered everything I've suggested here, I would suggest that whatever machine you get have the FHD or WUXGA resolution. At 1920 pixels wide, you can reasonably place two documents side-by-side on one monitor. (Windows 7 makes this easy - drag a window to one side or the other and it automatically snaps to 1/2 of the screen width).
Good luck!
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