I'm overally very satisfied with my Thinkpad T400 laptop.It has everything that the Thinkpad is famous for: good reliability, good user experience, and everything. But I am also disappointed in a few places. The overall quality seems to be worse than earlier products, especially in some details. I might be picky, but I'm unhappy to find that the small locking pinch of the battery shaky and loose. I never saw this happen to any old Thinkpads. The DVD drive pops out very easily, even a slight touch would cause it pops out. And it's slightly annoying that I have to stop trying to move it and push the dvd drive back. Other things are generally satisfying, it's mostly still the old Thinkpad, it's cool, it's quite, it's black, it's solid and heavy. It doesn't have many fancy features with it, but it is really a pleasure to use. The keyboard and the ittle red point are my favorate. After using Thinkpad I just can't tolerate other laptops' hard and dry-feeling keyboards. The keyboard light is handy in dark. In a word, this is the old reliable Thinkpad, I recommend it. But I still hope they could pay more attention to details and keep its excellence.

zenyc

San Francisco, CA

Gateway Lenovo ThinkPad T400 Notebook Intel Centrino Core 2 Duo T9400 2.53GHz - 14.1 WXGA+ - 2GB DDR3 SDRAM ... (2768E7U) is actually the lap top I am using to write this review. I have no problem at all with this lap top for over two years now while prior to this I had many other ones and all of them crash. I am very happy with this one and highly recommend it.

zhilas

Northridge, CA

I've been using this laptop for 18 months now for business. in that time, I've had the motherboard replaced because the charging circuit would not allow the battery to be charged. First I though it was the battery, but it wasn't. The extended warranty took care of it without hassle. Memory and the cpu are adequate for business use, and I haven't played any intensive games on it. The unit is rather heavy, which is a drawback if you're carrying it on trips or holding it in the airport. I do prefer the TrackPoint over the touchpad, so much so that it was a major reason for the purchase.When the 20 year patent runs out on the TrackPoint feature, other laptops will eventually have it. All in all, it does the job, and I give it a marginal thumbs up.

jtspenfield

Rochester, NY

Thinkpad is one of the most classic model, especiall the T series 14 inches laptops (the other one is mac). Although lenovo's T400 is not as that good as former IBM models such as T40, T42 OR T43, it's still a good laptop model. I have two of the T400 with 1440 X 900 display, and they show very good for me. I prefer the high resolution 1440 X 900 than 1280 X 800, which could show more informations in a webpage, and give a good scene for movies and tv shows. The CPU is not hot, and I cannot feel (or hear) the cpu fan in the laptop. The keyboard is good, if you care more about it..... because there are still some noises when you typing. However, the sound effect is too bad.... as bad as T series before. Another things I have no idea is, why they change the display design... The left frame is thicker than the right frame. That's a weird design. Someone told me that's for Vista.....I don't think it's wise. At last, Windows vista sucks.....That's the worst operating system i have ever used.

chrisfly

Salt Lake City, UT

I am an avid computer user and use both PCs and Macs every day between work and home. At home we have 2 Lenovo T400 laptops, and we have been pretty satisfied with them, although we do see problems with them over time. It seems that they are suseptible to viruses, although I believe that all PCs are. There is just so much junk preloaded onto the computer when you receive it, that you almost have no chance of not getting a virus. My husband has had to reformat his laptop 3 times already just from going to regular websites and using regular programs. The one thing I love about the lenovo laptop though is the trackball. Not many laptops have those anymore, and I love them over the trackpad which I hate. I wish all computer would have the trackball. Other than running semi-slow from all the stuff preloaded onto it, it runs pretty good. I would just be careful and make sure to back up your work if you don't want to lose any of it.

bowzah1

Boston, MA

As a graduate student, this laptop was included as a part of my first semester's tuition. Initially I had high expectations for what it could deliver, but unlike most people I have found the headaches to outweigh the benefits. The specifications on the laptop are great and the chassis is relatively simple but sturdy. In terms of pros, the processor is fast, the built in webcam is nice, and the keypad is layout is great. Aside from those features as well as the fact that it allows me to get my assignments done, there isn't much to tout here. The computer is extremely sensitive. Over 20 of my classmates had hard disk crashes within the first week and all too often there is an error associated with how the computer was shut down when I am very careful to shut it down properly. If you feel like you can get used to incidents like these on a regular basis then perhaps this is the computer for you, but why put up with such irritating issues when there are better alternatives out there.

dayuce

Boise, ID

The T400 is amazingly the biggest pile of stinking garbage I have ever had the displeasure to support in an enterprise environment in about 13 years of working as tech support.  If you manage to not get a lemon then they work pretty good.  It's true they're lighter than many other laptops prior to the release of this one in 2008 or so, but compared to most other brands of the same size and capacity they're not particularly light anymore. I first started supporting the ThinkPad "brand" when it was still IBM from 1998-2000 for a smallish company and we quickly switched to Toshiba (which I wasn't entirely thrilled with either but at least their products generally worked).  In those days the Thinkpad with Win95, 98 or ME would have a number of problems with PC-Cards and frequently regardless of drivers and bios settings we could not get them to work.  That's not entirely un-common.  The Compaq LTE's from mid-90's did the same but I guess we were expecting more by that time. Well so now we're 8 years later and a company in China builds the Thinkpad for IBM, Lenovo.  They use some of the same cheapy capacitors that Dell uses in some of it's small form desktops over the last decade which can blow and leak pretty easily.  Out of one batch of 6 T400 laptops from the early part of 2010 I've had 4 of them lose their hard drives...I understand...companys sometimes get bad batches of components.  But others from other batches have had other problems.  And recently with one that had a problem with the motherboard it took our certified internal tech a few weeks to get an agent to really look at it (from Lenovo) and all they did was run their PC-Doctor on it and decide the hard drive was bad.  Now our service contract has changed a bit and we have a new setup with a new internal Lenovo certified service tech and he opens it up after a couple weeks of running and discovers some circuits burned out on the mainboard.  So...not only do they (Lenovo--not our internal HW techs) not help you in a timely manner, they don't particularly do a good job and while they tell me that there was nowhere (in writing) where they said they actually replaced the mainboard they obviously didn't look at it either or they would have seen the same things as our tech. Trying to use their website is pain in the butt too for drivers/diagnostics etc.  It's not QUITE as bad as when IBM was managing a site for downloads/support in the early 2000's but it's almost there...and...it's actually still being administered by IBM from what I can tell.  Parts are shipped from an IBM wharehouse too. Now...there are some on here that say they are IBM fans.  Fine.  That's good to have some brand loyalty...why else would the most boring car in the world (Honda Accord) continue to sell so well?  But both of my parents worked for IBM, my father being a RISC9000 and AS400 programmer, etc. for a long time and then a Unix/Linux support before retiring.  He wouldn't touch an IBM laptop/desktop either.   IBM does NOT have a good reputation for PC's and hence the reason they contracted out their assembly, etc. I have met a few people in person that like the Thinkpads but they are not tech people and so far haven't given me adequate reason to like the Thinkpad other than they're not high-volume users (like our medical clinics where they're in use 12 hours a day 5-6 days a week) and/or happened to get lucky to not have a lemon.   To be sure, I've had one myself for a year and a half and haven't had any hardware problems...but to have more than 1/2 of the ones we've ordered in the last two years go bad is a VERY bad sign.

paulyA

Payson, UT

I've been using the T400 for 2 years now, and am relatively statisfied with its performance and durability. Thus far I have had no significant problems, and it has proved to be sturdy even though I've had to transport it from home to work and on my travels across the country. In addition to its durability, the big advantages of the thinkpad T400 include its easy-to-use and durable keyboard (thinkpads are famous for this) and the fact that it is relatively inexpensive compared to the Mac options that are out there. However, it does have some drawbacks, especially relative to Mac options. It is very heavy, which makes it somewhat difficult to transport easily (although this also adds to its durability). It also tends to be pretty slow relative to Macs. I rarely turn my thinkpad off, because it takes so long to boot up and get everything running. In general, most programs run a little slower on the thinkpad, and it freezes more easily in my experience. However, overall, the thinkpad has no major flaws, and I would recommend it, especially because it is so much cheaper and long lasting than a lot of the other laptop options.

ebrquakerz09

Los Angeles, CA

Lenovo ThinkPad T400 Notebook is excellent for PHD student. Many of my friends on campus choose this mode to do research and entertain themselves. It is a really dependable computer, and can last for a long time. T400 is terrific as it won't bring troubles to you to fix it all the time. It is great for computing, especially for using some commercial software, such as Auto CAD, Matlab, Comsol, Origin, Anysis, etc., which are really memory comsuming, and need high computing frequency.  Lenovo ThinkPad T400 Notebook never disappoint us if you have many work to do with it. On the other hand, Lenovo ThinkPad T400 Notebook can meet our demand for entertaining. Even though there is so many thrilling computer games which need really high quality computer, T400 can satisfy us. Finally, I like the brand and the appearance of the computer. T400 is a fashion ion not because of it shining look,   but it is quality. I like that! I like the black, modest T400.

zonghanghang

Columbia, SC

I am big IBM fan and i always had thinkpads and I love those. you get what you pay for. even though lenovo's laptops are expensive, i feel they are worth it. they are awesome looking and good keyboard and nice display and most imporant the performance of the whole system is wonderful. go get one.....

ravindrab

Peoria, IL