
Review of a Linux laptop: Thinkpad T400. Do not buy it. - old-gregg
http://kontsevoy.blogspot.com/2009/09/lenovo-thinkpad-t400-review.html
======
tdavis
I was wondering when somebody was going to put out a consumer-grade LCD so
terrible that a consumer actually _noticed_. Even Macs use sub-par panels and
nobody seems to notice. I await the day when I am not considered a
"Professional" for requiring S-IPS or better panels -- I'm tired of paying a
near-50% markup on my LCDs.

~~~
cubicle67
I have an early 2006 20" iMac (one of the first Intel ones) and it has one of
the best displays I've ever seen. I also have a 1st gen unibody Macbook, and
the display on that is pretty crappy.

~~~
chrisbolt
The 20" iMacs have far worse LCDs than the 24" ones though.

~~~
pmjordan
The 2006 (Core Duo as opposed to Core 2 Duo; white plastic case) iMacs still
had Matte displays if I remember correctly, I don't think there were 24"
versions of those. Today's 20" aluminium iMacs have awful displays.

~~~
cubicle67
yes, it was a matt display Core Duo, and also sure 20" was the largest (sizes
were 17" and 20")

------
dryicerx
This is rather depressing. I've been a huge ThinkPad fan, on my 3rd T-series
at the moment... a T61p that still wore a IBM sticker and can't praise more
for the wonderful WUXGA screen... but guess Lenovo's corner cutting is finally
catching up, hopefully this is just a isolated case.

I'll always love and remember the thinkpads (at least IBM era) for their tank
like qualities; being able to use the laptop as a blunt weapon in a fight and
later using the same laptop to code and blog is a good feeling.

~~~
jonny_noog
Agreed. I have an IBM/Lenovo T60 which I run Debian on and it has served me
well, had it now for must be going on three years, never had an issue with it,
the build quality is rock solid. But even when these ThinkPads were released,
around about the time that they were making the brand transition from IBM to
Lenovo, I had doubts about what this meant for the future of the ThinkPad.

I have heard numerous horror stories about the quality of Lenovo gear since
then. I am saddened to think that my T60 may be the last ThinkPad I will ever
have considered buying. But then I am somewhat consoled when I remember that
my next laptop will probably be a Mac to go with my recently acquired Mac
desktop.

Aside from not being able to so readily beat someone to death with a MacBook
Pro, for me, Mac laptops are the new ThinkPads, mainly because I bought my
ThinkPad primarily to run a Unix-like OS (Debian), and OS X fits that desire
too. You also get to pay a premium for a Mac, just like a ThinkPad. :P

~~~
mst
I keep vaguely hearing horror stories but all the people I can actually pin
down as owning lenovo thinkpads are having a great time with them - me
included.

I suspect what we actually have here is a case of the usual random set of poor
experiences with any given product being much more conversationally trafficked
because people assume that "this is my first troublesome thinkpad" must be
because of the Lenovo switch rather than just being an unfortunate
coincidence.

~~~
jonny_noog
Yeah, just to be clear, when I said "I have heard numerous horror stories
about the quality of Lenovo gear since then." I was actually referring mainly
to anecdotes I had heard from people relating to non-ThinkPad Lenovo laptops.
As I said, I've had no problem with my T60, it's a great laptop for my
purposes and I have not purchased a ThinkPad newer than my T60.

My only concern about the newer ThinkPads - based off these anecdotes - is
that the quality of ThinkPads may be adversely affected as they ostensibly
become more Lenovo and less IBM.

------
iigs
I'm a screen junkie. The 14" diagonal widescreen perplexes me. They have
terrible color and resolution and are just generally miserable.

IPS panels ("FlexView" in IBM/Lenovo-speak) make a tremendous difference.
Compare these two pictures:

<http://ii.gs/gamma/t60p-t61p-onaxis.jpg>

<http://ii.gs/gamma/t60p-t61p-up.jpg>

I set up a site for quickly ironing out calibration issues with monitors that
people may be interested in:

<http://ii.gs/gamma/>

~~~
Zak
This makes me really glad I got a T60p when I had the chance. Somebody sold
off a bunch of them on ebay for $350 each a few months ago.

Is there a truly high-end laptop left? Apple's current offerings are a bit
disappointing and it doesn't sound like new Thinkpads are any better.

~~~
mhb
I'm happy with my X200s. I got it with the big battery, but that lasted so
long, I changed to the smallest battery. Now it's incredibly light and has a
quite reasonable battery life.

The keyboard is great. The screen is fine - much better than my previous X40.

It seems like an over-generalization to say that the new Thinkpads are worse
than the old ones,

~~~
technomancy
Agreed. I've had two lenovo X-series models (X61s and X200s); they've both
been fantastic.

------
oblommer
The last Lenovo/IBM laptop with a good screen was the T60p. I believe they
actually used IPS panels for that LCD screen.

The only good screens on Lenovo laptops these days are in the tablets. I know
for a fact that the X200 tablet uses a good panel with decent colors and
viewing angles, although it is hampered somewhat by the digitizer. It is
possible to replace the LCD panel in some Lenovo models with other panels of
higher quality. Here is an example of one such modification:
<http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=366472>

------
DarkShikari
In my experience (Thinkpads as employee laptops at Facebook) there seem to be
two varieties of screens: one set is utterly unusably bad while the other set
is perfectly normal. They appear randomly on the same model, and your chance
of getting one or the other is about 50/50.

Of course, I wouldn't want to leave it to chance. Don't buy one.

------
plinkplonk
OK, as someone who knows nothing about how to evaluate displays, what kind of
laptop monitor _should_ I be looking for? Where do I find information on which
laptop has the best monitors?

Thanks in advance.

~~~
old-gregg
Simple: there are 3 basic technologies involved and each has a good and cheap
flavors.

1\. Color resolution. Pick 8bits instead of 6. This is the most important
spec. Oftentimes it is not published precisely because it's important, but
8-bit displays are always marked as having 16.7 millions of colors, whereas
6-bit panels are often marked as simply "millions" (in reality they can
display only 262K colors)

2\. LCD pixel tech: pick IPS or PVA instead of cheaper TN. This very important
spec is also intentionally left out of the official specsheet, but good IPS
panels have 178/178 viewing angle, i.e. the same number
vertically/horizontally. TN-based junk does not - you can tell even visually
by tilting it left/right and up/down.

3\. Backlight tech. Pick LED instead of CCFL. LEDs are brighter, they don't
add yellowish cast and consume far less energy.

Bottom line, _look for a panel which is advertised as 16.7 million colors LED
LCD with 178/178 viewing angle._

~~~
plinkplonk
@old-gregg

Awesome reply! Thank You! This helped me narrow down some candidates. I am in
your debt!

Edit: clarification: I didn't find a _laptop_ with a screen that met these
specs but it help me choose a desktop monitor.

------
rsheridan6
Actually, that sounds like an ideal machine to implement pg's idea of having a
dedicated work machine where you don't screw around procrastinating. Your
screen doesn't have to look good to use Emacs.

~~~
jrockway
I have a thinkpad with a screen like the one in the review. There is no
contrast between the black background and the white text (or vice-versa). It
is very painful to use.

Unless you are using emacsspeak, you do not want to edit text on this thing.
(Actually, the speakers are crap too, so emacsspeak is probably painful as
well. Good work, Lenovo.)

~~~
rsheridan6
Wow, that's really bad. Never mind.

------
ErrantX
_Review of a linux laptop_

As the issue is with the TFT screen I fail to see the relevance of including
this in the title (especially as the post says it runs Linux reasonably well
:))

~~~
rbanffy
Actually, it says it runs Linux wonderfully.

------
al3x
I was researching various Thinkpad models for a friend (and out of idle
curiosity at the non-Mac laptop market) the other week, and found that
complaints about the display quality are true across the Thinkpad line, even
including their pricey MacBook Air competitor, the X300. Pretty surprising,
given the Thinkpad reputation for quality.

~~~
pyre
> _Pretty surprising, given the Thinkpad reputation for quality._

Why is that? The reputation of ThinkPads was created while they were owned by
IBM. It's just taken a while for Lenovo to start screwing with the brand that
it bought.

------
eli
I just set up half a dozen new T400s and they looked fine to me.

 _shrug_

~~~
pmjordan
T400s != T400. The T400s is a premium-range model as far as I can tell, the
T400 is about 700 grams heavier and has a worse screen.

How is the T400s by the way? I was thinking of getting one of those, though
I'm slightly put off by the 1.8" HDD/SSD bay.

~~~
eli
Sorry, several new T400 laptops (plural). I believe they were the 14.1" WSXGA+
models. You can buy 'em pretty cheap direct from Lenovo, especially if you
wait for a sale code (which seems like every other month)

I didn't realize they still had the -s line, actually.

~~~
pmjordan
I should have realised that, sorry. The -s suffix exists for a handful of
models (e.g. X200s) and seems to mean "slim" or so.

Unfortunately, it seems you can't order from Lenovo directly in Europe, so no
sale prices for me.

------
abalashov
I really don't get the "calculator keyboard" thing on the newer MacBook Pros.
That astounds me. I do not see how it is possible to type on that.

~~~
agazso
Every new laptop keyboard needs time to get adjusted to. It took me about one
day with the new Macbook/Pro keyboard, and since then I type quicker on it
than any other keyboard. Maybe it's because the short pressing distance, or
because the keys are really separated, I don't know.

~~~
cubicle67
same with my little MacBook; the screen's crap, but the 'calculator' keyboard
is brilliant

------
mbrubeck
I just got a T400 for Linux development last week, so I read this headline
with not a small amount of trepidation. Fortunately I fall into the author's
"Linux-powered typewriter" use case: I spend 80% of my time in fullscreen
(using xmonad) bash or vim sessions, using white-on-black color schemes. For
my development machine I don't really care about color fidelity or dynamic
range.

The reasons I like the T400 (and many of its Thinkpad siblings) are the
trackpoint ("pencil eraser" mouse device), nice keyboard layout, and hardware
that works out of the box with open-source drivers. I have had some
intermittent freezes on suspend/resume, which I hope are fixed soon...

------
brown9-2
So, as someone potentially in the market for a new laptop, which brand (if
any) would you guys recommend?

~~~
jrockway
They all suck. Get a desktop.

(I used to love Thinkpads, but this guy is right -- Lenovo cannot find a good
supplier of screens. I heard this is because they will only use Chinese parts
where possible, instead of Taiwanese, Japanese, or Korean parts. Needless to
say, the Chinese cannot make LCDs.)

HP doesn't make good laptops, Dell doesn't make good laptops (they are good at
making laptops whose batteries last for about 15 minutes after a few weeks or
so), Apple is Apple (nice screens, same crap everywhere else), etc.

I might consider Asus next -- the eeepc 901 is the nicest laptop I've had.
Nice screen. Unfortunately, the wireless card is a piece of shit that
sometimes takes several tries to associate to WPA2 networks. "Known firmware
issue." Great.

Basically, everyone wants cheap, cheap, cheap, and that's what they get.
People that actually use computers are part of their profession and not just
for watching porn are shit out of luck as a result.

(I will edit to add -- pricing things out, the desktop is an amazingly better
value. For $2000, you can get a high-end Thinkpad with 2G of RAM, 2 cores, and
a 160G SSD, etc. Or you can get a desktop with 8 cores, 16G of RAM, a 24"
monitor, 4T of disk space, etc. Laptops are nice if you absolutely can't work
at a desk. But if you can, you can save yourself a ton of money, and just use
a netbook when traveling. I do this, but with a Thinkpad as my "desktop". It
has not been undocked in years.)

~~~
plinkplonk
"They all suck. Get a desktop."

I am coming to this conclusion too. How should I select a desktop monitor? Are
there specific features to look for? Help a clueless-about-hardware fellow HN
er!

~~~
jrockway
Go to the store and look at them?

I have had good luck with Dell; a 24" LCD and a 37" TV. Both have beautiful
color rendering, good contrast, great brightness. I have had the 24" LCD for
probably 5 years, and it still looks as good as the day it arrived.

I have not looked into LCDs for a while, so I don't know if Dell still makes
good ones.

The best guarantee of quality is probably to buy a high-end monitor from a
company that also manufactures the actual panels.

~~~
lamnk
I don't think Del actually manufactures panels for their displays.

------
scythe
Google found this video of the t400 for those interested:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evk-Ln_TFLA>

Apparently some people like the screen; some absolutely despise it. Here's a
complete review - warning, bad music incoming:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKNxecHXUAU&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKNxecHXUAU&feature=related)

------
moe
Did I miss the sarcasm or does he really suggest to buy apple instead?

Last time I checked the Apple panels were horrible. Perhaps not as bad as this
foul egg, but still with comparable viewing angle problems; the slightest
head-movement would wash out the top or bottom part of the display. I also
recall horrible contrast (white bloom)...

~~~
old-gregg
Regular white Macbooks are pretty bad, sure but matte MBPs are OK: the color
gamut is still limited by 6 bits but viewing angles aren't bad IMO. According
to my extensive googling only HP's "DreamColor" line of laptops gives you a
true 8-bit non-TN panel.

[http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=7-10041-...](http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=7-10041-10146)

------
branden
This is really disappointing. I was about to buy a T400 after my way-too-
expensive and way-too-flimsy HP Pavillion's screen finally died. It was the
rock-solid construction and nonshit keyboard that drew me to it. Is there
anything like that with a screen that doesn't suck?

~~~
lamnk
I suggest you buy or take a look at HP business line. I have a HP Compaq 6910p
and an IBM (not Lenovo, mind you) T60 and actually prefer HP's keyboard over
Thinkpad's.

Oh well, but its screen sucks too :-(

------
matth2
I have a Lenovo Thinkpad T61P. It would be a good machine except (1) the
screen quality is consistent with that described in this article. Furthermore,
it's developed hundreds of dead pixels. (2) The shift keys need to be hit
exactly in the right place for them to work - the keyboard is a bit dodgy. (3)
I had to replace the battery twice (under warranty) in a period of 6 months
after buying it. I paid for quality (and was happy to based on reputation),
but did not get it. It's been a very frustrating.

My day job laptop is a Dell D630. Very happy with this. My next laptop will be
a Dell. The track ball on the Lenovos is much better.

~~~
janm
I have a D630 and I agree; it is a laptop and does all the right laptop
things. However: I got my wife a Dell E4300 and had many problems. Other
colleagues have got other E series Dells have have had basic problems like not
being able to suspend/resume under Windows and being forced to run a single
core to get basic reliable operation.

See, for example:

[http://en.community.dell.com/forums/t/19245498.aspx?PageInde...](http://en.community.dell.com/forums/t/19245498.aspx?PageIndex=1)

[http://www.datapoohbah.com/tech/2008/12/16/dell-e4300-is-
bit...](http://www.datapoohbah.com/tech/2008/12/16/dell-e4300-is-bittersweet/)

I don't know if things have improved, but based on my experience the D630 was
the last good laptop from Dell.

------
mapleoin
I have a T500 and don't really have any of the issues described. Viewing angle
is perfect, colors are nice, contrast is nice etc. My screen is WSXGA+ though,
so that might be non-standard.

------
scott_s
I'm typing this on a T400 (not mine). Perhaps his screen is a dud? Either
that, or my visual standards are lower than I thought.

------
earl
I swore off Thinkpads when my $2K (at the time) T60 couldn't drive an external
24 inch monitor without horrid text flickering. Thinkpad's "solution" was to
buy a $350 dock that had better external monitor electronics. Um, thanks, but
no thanks.

