Review of a Linux laptop: Thinkpad T400. Do not buy it. | Hacker News Reader

Review of a Linux laptop: Thinkpad T400. Do not buy it.

kontsevoy.blogspot.com

46 pointsold-gregg74 comments

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.

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.

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

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.

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

The first gen 20" iMacs were the midgrade model at the time. The 17" iMacs came with the crappy displays because they were the baseline. Not all 20" iMacs had worse LCDs than the 24" but all 24" iMacs have the best LCDs available.

Within reason of course. Most people won't buy a $1200 calibrated NEC or Lacie.

2006 - 20" iMac IPS

       24" iMac IPS

2009 - 20" iMac TN

       24" iMac H-IPS

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.

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

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.

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.

Not just that, but they also had a decent keyboard. I took out my old one (pre Lenovo) and was just amazed by how good the keyboard was.

Agreed. We have 5 old thinkpads from the IBM era (they are "R5" series I think off the top of my head) which run Backtrack or other flavours of Linux and work without fault even today.

We bought some Lenovo Thinkpads the other week for new employee's to use remotely - what a load of awfulness they were! Already trying to find a decent replacement.

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/

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.

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,

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

Nice pics, nice site, but, as an old computer collector, I must say: excellent domain.

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

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.

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.

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.

@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.

I'm surprised that no one in this thread has mentioned the OLED technology. just take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLED and you'll understand why it's the best: It just doesn't require any backlight, resulting in the most natural and eye-friendly viewing.

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.

pg suggests using Vim. :)

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.)

Wow, that's really bad. Never mind.

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 :))

Actually, it says it runs Linux wonderfully.

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.

> 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.

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

shrug

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.

I read T400s as the plural of T400.

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.

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.

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.

Next to probably a ThinkPad keyboard (which I haven't used in about 4 years), the Apple external/thin keyboard is my favorite. I haven't tired it in a laptop though so I don't know if it's the same thing or not.

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.

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

I agree, and it's not just the MacBook Pros, it's also the keyboard that comes with the non-laptop Macs. My new Mac Pro came with a keyboard that was comparable with the keyboard on the Tandy Color Computer I had in the early 80s.

On the Mac Pro it is easy to change the keyboard; I replaced it with a Unicomp keyboard. However, that's not so simple on a laptop, and the keyboard is a big thing stopping me from getting an Apple laptop.

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...

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

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.)

"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!

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.

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

I would reccommend this Dell monitor:

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/products/Monitors/product...

The key point is that it is LED backlit - this means much better contrast than similarly priced screens, as well as generally less power consumption.

CNET also gave it its highest-ever image-quality score, which as far as I can tell, is based on as objective of tests as they could do.

http://reviews.cnet.com/lcd-monitors/dell-g2410/4505-3174_7-...

http://www.pchardwarehelp.com/guides/s-ips-lcd-list.php

Depends on what you're going to do with it.

I've had good luck with Samsung-made screens. Nice colors and reasonable prices. Even for gaming(back in the day), they were still ok.

I read somewhere that DELL monitors are re-branded Samsung monitors. Not sure if that's still true or not.

You want to look for a few things, mostly the technology that the screen actually uses. S-IPS is one of the better systems, although apparently there are a few others today that are equally good when correctly implemented.

Basically, you will pay for contrast, color reproduction (both number of colors and overall gamut), and viewing angle.

The Apple Cinema Displays and some Dell displays both had a reputation for being good, but in any given year they can go from great to crap in no time at all, so YMMV. I have a 2005 Dell 20" SIPS and it's a very nice display...but I had to purchase it as a refurb because the 2006 were not rated nearly as well.

The biggest point I wanted to make to you, though, was more general: do not be afraid to spend money on a good monitor. It pains me when I see people spending a lot of money on a computer and then cheap out on the interface devices. Unless you're building a cluster (or something else you'll rarely work with directly), that's a mistake. Aside from the power switch and maybe a few indicator lights, all of your interaction with your computer is done via the keyboard, mouse, and monitor. And of those links, the monitor is the highest-bandwidth medium of interaction. It makes sense to spend money there; if you don't, your whole experience of using your fancy new computer is going to suck.

Also, interface devices have a very long lifespan if you purchase good ones. Last year, I upgraded (to the Dell) from a high-end CRT that I bought in late 2000. My keyboard is from 1996 (having long outlived the computer it came with), and my mouse isn't exactly a spring chicken either. I'm sure I'm not that atypical. (I know guys using IBM Model M keyboards that are way older than mine. Hell, they're older than some young people I work with.)

You only get a few years to recoup in productivity what you spend on a computer itself. All the expensive stuff inside that chassis will be so much e-waste within far too few years. But you have a lot longer to wring the value out of your input devices. Buy quality, and you'll be enjoying it 4 or 5 computers down the road in all likelihood.

Same goes for office chairs.

> How should I select a desktop monitor?

Buy a used CRT, they all look good at whatever resolution you want and you keep something from ending up in the landfill and save a few bucks.

Be careful with used CRTs. Always check it out before you buy. Even good ones get dimmer with age, cheap ones can get so dim you can't even read standard white on black emacs or command line text. Otherwise, I agree, decent used CRTs still have a better image than even pretty expensive LCDs.

There is not much value to speak of here but for a laptop I have been very pleased with my Envy 133- does that count as HP? I am not sure if it qualifies for being a netbook, but it is nice size for me and offers me enough performance that I can do what I need. It is not my only computer though. If using just one I would also say desktop.

http://www.voodoopc.com/#/productsenvy

The lack of a quality laptop on the market short of DoD certified Toughbooks is a serious market inefficiency. Is anyone interested in this problem? Email me; I am putting together a YC application that covers this problem. Macbook Air meets Panasonic Toughbook.

I use a sony z-series (z590) laptop. It's a 13.3" display, 1600x900 resolution, core2 duo@2.4 GHz, 4GB RAM, and it gets 7.5+ hours of battery life (with wifi enabled; ~9 without). If your eyes don't like tiny fonts it's not for you, and I had to do some unholy stuff to enable the virtualization because sony are bastards, but other than that, I love the thing. It's a carbon-fiber frame, and it weighs almost nothing.

EDIT: also, I'm running Gentoo on the thing. Everything works well except for the nVidia chip (which I don't like anyhow), the integrated camera (which sort of makes me sad), and as far as I know, the Sprint 3G network adaptor. I don't actually know that the 3G adaptor doesn't work, and I've seen claims that it does, but I've never tested it myself.

Can you go into the unholy VZ stuff? I'm looking at the Z series, and that (along with Linux compatibility) is one of my concerns.

I followed the directions at http://feature-enable.blogspot.com/ , and it worked out perfectly. You basically put a modified copy of grub in a certain directory structure on a USB key and reboot your laptop. The laptop's EFI firmware (normally hidden by a BIOS emulator) sees the modified grub and loads it instead of the BIOS. Then you get to poke some flash values, and reboot. It's a little scary, but I haven't heard of anybody breaking their laptops from it. It worked for me.

While sharing the sibling poster's preference for desktops, I have been extremely happy with my brand new Sony/Vaio VGN-NS328J. 3 GB of RAM, 250 GB SATA HD, Pentium Dual-Core T4200 (~2 GHz, 64-bit).

The 3D chip is a little lacking in oomph for a machine of these specs, but perfectly adequate for Compiz and other casual encounters with 3D in the course of development; it just doesn't run high-resolution BZflag very well. :)

No Linux compatibility issues. Works phenomenally well, and the build is relatively sturdy while remaining light. The keyboard also features big keys, good for people with big hands.

It was about $700 at full-blown retail.

EDIT: Battery life won't surpass 2 hours by much, though. Maybe you'll get a little more if you really dig into CPUFreq and backlight-dimming power management.

A Toshiba Satellite Pro.

* the keyboard is excellent * the touchpad is almost frictionless (it doesn't actively try to push your finger back in the opposite way: I'm looking at you, HP/Compaq!) * the touchpad is indented, so when you're typing you won't accidentally palm to touchpad, clicking somewhere else in your document, and filling text into a different section (I'm looking at you, Acer!)

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...

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)...

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-...

I can't say I've ever had quality problems with the screens on any of the Mac laptops I've used. Admittedly I'm not a graphic designer (and I'm mildly colorblind) so I may not be able to recognize that I'm not seeing all the colors I'm "supposed" to be able to, but viewing angle, contrast, etc. have all been fine. Only thing I've ever seen is the backlight in an older (3+ years of constants use) machine starting to go.

I think the display in the MBA at least is really good. As with any glossy display you have to move it a few CM now and again depending on ambient lighting conditions. Matte screens aren't really immune to that either though.

Apart from the 6-bit color gamut problem, the viewing angle and contrast on my macbook pro is really good... I wish it weren't this glossy though...

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?

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 :-(

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.

I also have a D630 for work. When I am working at home and open up the downstairs HP to refer to something on a separate screen, I'm always struck by the massive difference in build quality. The HP Pavillion dv6100 feels like it's going to droop like a taffy bar when I hold it with one hand. The Dell has a good keyboard, a pointing stick, a power plug that doesn't make me worry about breaking it, and a marginally usable screen.

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://www.datapoohbah.com/tech/2008/12/16/dell-e4300-is-bit...

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

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.

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.

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.

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