Tech Solution Blog

The Lenovo ThinkPad T400 proved to be an exceptional 14″ business notebook, giving almost unheard-of battery performance under modest running conditions. Nearly 10 hours of runtime with the extended battery easily puts this notebook into the all-day computing category. System performance with the Intel T9400 processor and ATI 3470 graphics was great, handling everything we threw at it, even some video games. The T400 is not without its flaws though, having a decent amount of keyboard flex and a keyboard light that blinds you. Even with its flaws, with a starting price under $1,000 this notebook easily outperforms any other computer in its category.

• 10 hours of battery life with the 9-cell battery!
• Very bright LED backlit LCD
• Under normal conditions is very cool and quiet
• Hybrid graphics that let you switch between great 3D performance or great battery life
• Keyboard flex in a ThinkPad … the end of an era.
• Keyboard light that blinds you instead of just illuminating the keyboard

ThinkPad T400 specifications:

• Screen: 1440 x 900 WXGA+ LED Backlit (Matte finish)
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo T9600 (2.83GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 6MB Cache)
• Memory: 2GB DDR3 RAM
• Storage: 160GB HDD (7200rpm)
• Optical Drive: DVD+/-RW
• Wireless: 802.11a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.0
• Graphics: ATI Mobility Radeon 3470 w/ 256MB (hybrid switching)
• Built-in web camera
• Battery: 84Wh 9-cell and 56Wh 6-cell
• Dimensions: 13.2″ x 9.4″ x 1.47/1.12″
• Weight: 5.lbs 4.8oz with 6-cell, 5lbs 10.8oz with 9-cell

Performance

Lenovo ThinkPad T400 came with the Intel T9600 processor, clocking in at 2.8GHz, and jammed packed with 6MB of cache. For graphics, Lenovo included an ATI Radeon 3470 video card with 256MB of GDDR3 memory. A speedy 160 GB 7200 RPM hard drive was also included, which helped applications load without much lag. This notebook was outstanding for day to day use, and had enough power to handle most games around the office to kill some time. Half-Life 2 in native resolution (1440×900) kept above 30FPS even in heavy action scenes. Portal was another favorite that worked very well at native resolution, keeping framerates above 40FPS throughout most of the game.

For users who don’t wish to have as much 3D acceleration (or power consumption) during day to day work, you can switch between the Intel X4500 integrated graphics and ATI 3470 dedicated graphics. This switch can be made on-the-fly without a reboot. Not using the dedicated graphics resulted two hours of additional battery life.

wPrime is a program that forces the processor to do recursive mathematical calculations, the advantage of this program is that it is multi-threaded and can use both processor cores at once, thereby giving more accurate benchmarking measurements than Super Pi.

Battery Life

To get 10 hours of battery life from a notebook this size, most people think you would need a huge battery attached to the bottom of the case, another battery taking the place of the optical drive, and a big battery sticking out the back. With the T400 you can reach 9 hours and 41 minutes with the wireless enabled, screen backlight at 60%, and the laptop in integrated graphics mode using only the 84Wh 9-cell battery. In this situation the notebook is only consuming roughly 8.5 watts of power. In dedicated graphics mode under the same settings battery life falls by exactly 2 hours down to 7 hours and 41 minutes, and power draw increases to 10.5 watts. The 6-cell battery managed 6 hours and 4 hours and 28 minutes respectively.

Ports and Features

Port selection rates average on the T400, with 3 USB ports and no digital video output. You do have VGA, but it is not the best option if you want to hook the notebook up to an HDTV. As mentioned about in the Build and Design section, the T400 with the SD-Card reader option nixes one the PC-Card slot. For those thinking about using legacy external cards, you may want to reconsider that option.

One feature that has been on ThinkPads almost forever is the ThinkLight, which is a small white LED located above the screen that illuminates the keyboard. On every other model we have reviewed that has this light, it works as intended and gives a little light on the keys. On the T400 the shroud in front of the LED isn’t big enough, and the end result is a light blinding you. Your night vision is taken away and in the end it is a useful feature turned worthless by lack of proper design. Not exactly sure how it made it past quality control, but unless you have the screen tilted forward to an extreme degree you end up as blind as a bat.

Heat and Noise

The cooling system seemed greatly improved over the prior generations, letting the notebook run whisper quiet and very cool to the touch under most circumstances. I say most, since gaming did seem to make it run on the high side. When not gaming, one thing really working towards the system temperatures advantage was the very lower power consumption. Consuming almost half the power of the previous generation really helped reduce overall temperatures.

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Technorati Profile
A new survey says 46% of businesses expect to begin their Windows 7 upgrades before the end of 2009

Internet echo chamber went crazy over the release of a survey conducted by Dimensional Research on behalf of its client KACE. The survey asked more than 1100 IT professionals about their plans to deploy Windows 7, and the headlines, based on a few preliminary reports, were a predictable mish-mash of Microsoft bashing. The most common themes in the hundred or more stories I scanned (most of them second- or third-hand reports, based on the same preliminary press releases) suggested that businesses are wary of Windows 7 and that IT admins prefer XP.

The most negative headline of all was delivered by VentureBeat, which has backed up the hearse for Windows 7 and is ready to cart it away: Study: Windows 7 could follow Vista to an early grave.

They’re wrong. If the data provided by Dimensional Research is accurate, Windows 7 is on track to be Microsoft’s most successful business OS release ever. And a second newly released survey from a technology-focused investment bank suggests that those numbers are indeed a realistic reflection of how businesses plan to approach Windows 7.

I downloaded the full Dimensional Research report (sponsored by KACE and available in PDF format) and read it closely. I compared actual adoption rates of Windows XP against the projected adoption rates predicted by the Dimensional Research study. My reading of the data suggests that the echo chamber got the story backwards.

Here, see for yourself:

The orange line indicates actual adoption rates for Windows XP in businesses, which were at about 10% after one year and had reached 38% by early 2005, more than three years after XP’s release. The blue line is the Windows 7 adoption rate forecast by the Dimensional Research study.

According to Dimensional Research, more than 80% of IT pros plan to move to Windows 7 within 36 months of the survey date (which was in turn about six months earlier than the expected release date of Windows 7 in September of this year). That would be, by historical standards, phenomenal. Breathtaking, in fact.

Now, I have some issues with the Dimensional Research study, which is lacking some key details. For starters, they don’t offer any information about the size of the businesses that the survey respondents represent. And they didn’t ask about the specifics of their migration plans. So it’s hard to draw firm conclusions.

But the overall trend is confirmed by the results of another recent study, this one conducted by Pacific Crest Securities, an investment bank that focuses on technology. They asked 80 IT decision makers at enterprises with more than 1000 employees about their Windows upgrade plans. The results were startling:

* 50% plan to upgrade to Windows 7 as soon as it is available
* 46% expect to start the upgrade before the end of 2009, within months of Windows 7’s release
* 55% of respondents expect to do system-wide upgrades, rather than upgrading as new PCs are purchased.

That’s astonishing.

Digging a little deeper into the survey results, I noted that 34% of respondents said they like what they have seen in Windows 7 but are delaying deployment for economic reasons; another 12% are delaying deployment “for product reasons,” presumably meaning they want to see the final release and maybe even wait for Windows 7 Service Pack 1. Of the total responses to the survey, 96% said they “like Windows 7,” and only 4% said they don’t like it. An earlier survey of the same group in January had a “don’t like” rating of 12%. Presumably, the increase in approval is based on familiarity with the beta release.

The Internet echo chamber, which is conditioned to run at the speed of Twitter, assumes that any tech product is a failure if it doesn’t achieve world domination in 30 days or less. Businesses, especially large enterprises, move at much more deliberate speeds. I’ve written about Windows adoption rates before (and in fact drew the data for XP adoption rates from that earlier post). Businesses need a year or so after a new Windows version is released to test their in-house software for compatibility and to plan a thoughtful migration strategy. When nearly half of IT pros in large businesses say they are willing to begin migrating to Windows 7 within months of its release, that is a profound indicator of its potential for success.

Report sourcess : Zdnet

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