Lenovo T400s Windows 7 Laptop Review

admin — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 10:31:07 +0000

The first laptop with the final shipping version of preinstalled windows7 is Lenovo T400s (“s” stands for slim) with a 14-inch screen. It is much better than older T400 model which has been updated to latest T400s after shedding off some weight and thickness. Also Lenovo is offering some custom touchscreen software and multitouch touchscreen. Lenovo’s attention to detail and build quality is undoubtedly the best. No wonder Lenovo T400s is a heavy duty and solid machine capable of lot of action. The price of this machine (touchscreen T400s) starts at $1,999 and includes software and hardware of Lenovo’s Think Vantage suite of security and business. The ThinkPad brand from Lenovo is almost synonymous with business laptops and it many years were spent by the company to perfect the non descript black-box system with its double set of mouse buttons and iconic Track point, hence it is targeted for corporate IT world and small business individuals who don’t mind paying extra premium for it because they know what they are looking and paying for.

The basic design of this laptop is similar to other ThinkPads with the right there TrackPoint and buttoned-down look. As it has rollcage skeleton made up of carbon fibre, it manages to give a solid and sturdy feel despite being lightweight and fairly thin. The system is capable of lying completely flat as the lid can fold back 180 degrees full. The keyboards are refined; based on user’s feedback and its detailed analysis, the DEL and ESC keys are made larger than usual and the tapered-key design makes them very easy to use and comfortable. The touch pad, though large enough is difficult to be seen against matte wrist rest. The indispensable TrackPoint pointing stick is nested in the middle of the keyboard, serving as second set of mouse buttons lying above touch pad.

As Windows 7 is a touch-friendly OS, it enabled PC makers to add touch functionality providing T400s a multitouch display which is the biggest addition to this latest version. In this case, just like tablet PC, you can touch and drag Win 7 menus, files and folders with your finger or use Lenovo’s custom touch interface called SimpleTap which is anchored as a small red button at the side of display. The touch interface opens by tapping this button enabling you to perform various tasks and basic system functions after proper configuration. The LED wide screen display offers standard 1440×900 native resolution and has anti fingerprint coating to help screen look good even after using touch functions.

The high-end 2.53 GHz Core 2 duo SP9600 processor from Intel offers good balance between computing power and energy efficiency. Compared with other laptops that include high-end Intel core 2 duo processors, T400s felt responsive and quick, as expected from business laptops. One drawback with its configuration is that you are compelled to choose between ExpressCard/34 slot and SD card reader and not allowed to have both. The connections and ports are on the rare edge of the systems and show desktop button at the far right side of the system tray.

Lenovo Idea Pad Y550 Laptop Review

admin — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 21:56:19 +0000

The Idea Pad Y550 by Lenovo is a glossy, big and plastic machine much different from the company’s sleek, understated business ThinkPad. This laptop from Lenovo is a mid-range, nice multimedia machine including many extra features to enable you easy customization of your rig. As it provides solid multimedia and gaming performance along with discrete graphics option, it will be well appreciated by multimedia fans. The good LED backlight display does a fine job while watching movies and has standard outputs for HDTV. The battery life supports you well through a loud and long action flick and its deep and responsive keyboard gives a feel of typing on full-size desktop keys. The machine was released recently in august 2009 and has a price tag of $1050. The Idea Pad Y550 may not be a bargain, and it doesn’t contain the style of some of the competitor machines, but packs a solid bang for the buck certainly.

The customization from the base Pentium dual-core to Core 2 Duo P9600 processor with speed of 2.66 GHz along with 6MB of L2 cache is possible and so with these processors options which are capable of running the 64-bit Windows Vista versions, you can upgrade for 4 GB of DDR3 SDRAM, however upgrading to get the best processor is not much needed for this machine. There is an audio output and an audio input jack and 15.6 inch 720p screen makes movie watching much fun on Idea Pad Y550.

There is also an Express card 34 slot on laptop’s side and multimedia card reader around the front of this laptop. There’s even a Movie Mode touch sensitive button near the screen that switches the settings to a more dim and cinema-friendly mode. The innovative One Key Recovery system is really helpful and best feature of Lenovo Idea Pad Y550.

The Dolby speakers and subwoofers are not very impressive and so is the time consuming Veriface logon. Lenovo should have focussed more on adding more multimedia software than so many security options. These plenty of security bloats slows down the performance of machine. In spite of these cons, the laptop makes for a solid device and packs plenty of punch and is available in a variety of configurations and range starting from $550 up to $1400 when fully loaded.

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Lenovo T400s Windows 7 Laptop Review

Lenovo Idea Pad Y550 Laptop Review