Deciding between the Lenovo T400 and X301
I'm in the market for a new laptop. I've got almost 4 years out of my Dell D610 (which I've been despising from not long after purchasing) and decided that I'll never buy from Dell again.
I used to be very down on ThinkPads because of the placement of the Escape key, but since I've been using one at work for the last 3.5 years, I've gotten used to the Escape key location, and found the laptops themselves to otherwise be very solid and well supported by Linux.
So Lenovo it is.
Next question: T400 or X301? I've seen both, and the X301 is very sexy in terms of thickness, weight, and having all the latest bells and whistles, but boy, is it expensive.
I did a side-by-side comparison between a T400 decked out the way I wanted, and an X301 decked out the best I could choose, and I've opted for the T400.
The main problems I had with the X301 were that there was no choice of processor, and the processor available seemed significantly slower than what I could get in the T400, and of course the cost. I seemed to be paying nearly $1000 more for a slower processor, just to get something extra thin and light, with LED backlighting and an SSD disk.
What finally swayed me to spending less money and getting an arguably "better" laptop was if I paid less now, I'd be more comfortable possibly getting something in less than 4 years time down the track. So if it came down to the X301 for 4 years or the T400 for 2 years, the T400 seemed like a better deal.
What will hopefully end up happening is I'll end up using the T400 for four years and not end up hating it by the end of that time.
Here's what I ended up going with:
- Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor P8600 (2.40GHz 1066MHz 3MBL2) 25W
- 14.1 WXGA+ TFT, w/ CCFL Backlight, Camera
- Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD with vPro
- 2 GB PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM 1067MHz SODIMM Memory (2 DIMM)
- UltraNav (TrackPoint and TouchPad) with Fingerprint Reader
- 160 GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm
- DVD Recordable 8x Max Dual Layer, Ultrabay Slim (Serial ATA)
- Intel WiFi Link 5100 (AGN) with My WiFi Technology
- 9 cell Li-Ion Battery
All of that plus a 2 year warranty and an additional 90W AC adapter came out at $1,240 (they have a 15% off discount code thing running until tomorrow, which brought the price down a bit)
I'm particularly excited about not having a proprietary graphics chipset. I'm particularly unexcited about it including Windows Vista Home Basic.
Drat, enumerating all of the options made me just realise that I seem to have omitted the 5-in-1 media reader from the final order. Oh well. That was largely just a nice-to-have anyway. Sarah tends to do all of the photo management on her laptop.
I doubt this will get to me before Thursday, so I should have it waiting for me by the time I get back from Barcelona.