Notebook Review Spec : Fujitsu M2010

The M2010 is a new netbook to hit the market from Fujitsu, which is their first Atom-based model to date. Offering good looks and good build quality it is marketed as a "Mini-Notebook" aimed at casual users who want a small platform to surf the web or check email. In this review we take a look at all aspects of the M2010, to help you find out if this netbook is right for you.

Our Fujitsu M2010 features the following specifications:

• Operating System: Windows XP Home
• Processor: Intel Atom N270 Processor 1.60GHz (533MHz FSB, 512K Cache)
• Memory: 1GB DDR2 PC2-6400 SDRAM
• Internal Storage: 160GB 5400 rpm SATA HDD
• Display: 10.1-inch diagonal LED-backlit WSVGA (1024x576)
• Graphics: Intel GMA 950
• Wireless: Atheros 802.11b/g, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• Expansion: 4-in-1 media card slot
• Ports and connectors: (3) USB 2.0 ports, VGA OUT, power connector, RJ-45/Ethernet, stereo headphone/line out, stereo microphone in, 1.3 megapixel webcam
• Dimensions (H x W x D): 10.2" x 7.4" x 1.3"
• Weight: 2 lbs 8.8oz (3lbs 5.2oz with adapter).
• Power: 3-cell Lithium-Ion battery (10.8V, 2.4Ah, 26Wh)
• Warranty: One-year international warranty
• MSRP: $449

Build and Design
From the start Fujitsu made a great looking netbook. The M2010 has an excellent glossy metallic red paint job inside and out with glossy piano black plastic surrounding the top of the Keyboard and around the screen. I really think Fujitsu took a step back and thought before they came up with a netbook to launch into a saturated market ... and found some interesting ways to make it stand out. Whatever approach they took it worked.

Build quality is excellent with no squeaks and creaks around the chassis, and only minor flex from larger plastic surfaces. Even the screen hinges feel great with good tension when pivoting the screen and a very smooth action when in motion. On the bottom of the notebook we find the standard "Fujitsu Felt" underneath the processor location, which helps limit the amount of heat that can transfer into your legs when you are using it on your lap. This is standard across every Fujitsu notebook I have ever seen.

Access to internal components is handled through a single panel on the bottom of the notebook, but it only lets you swap out the wireless card and system memory. The hard drive requires further disassembly ... something that the average user might not want to undertake. Still, this was probably a poor choice, since memory and Storage are the only areas of expansion and upgrade for netbook users.

Screen and Speakers
The glossy display on the M2010 looks great, which is the case with many LED-backlit netbook displays. Colors are rich and vibrant, with deep contrast and excellent black levels. Peak brightness levels were great for viewing in bright office conditions, with my preferred setting right at the 50% mark. Viewing angles rate average, with colors starting to invert 20 degrees forward or back. Horizontal viewing angles were much better, extending until the screen bezel and reflection started to obstruct the view of the panel.

The speakers rate average compared to netbooks, and below average compared to most notebooks. Peak volume levels were fine for listening in a small room, but didn't have much power to fill a larger room. Bass and midrange were not present, with only higher frequencies coming through. Headphones would be preferred for really enjoying music or a movie.

Keyboard and Touchpad
The Keyboard is the primary area that I feel Fujitsu should have spent more time developing. Compared to almost every netbook on the market right now, it has one of the smallest keyboard layouts, which feels really cramped. While HP set the trend for one of the best netbook keyboards, manufacturers such as ASUS have been following a similar path, expanding the keyboard to make it as wide as the chassis allows. Fujitsu keeps a wide border around the keyboard, which looks good with the glossy red finish, but doesn't allow as large of a typing surface. Despite the small size the Keyboard itself feels very good. Support is excellent, with barely a hint of flex under heavy typing pressure. Individual key action is smooth, with very little key wobble when you try to move the top of the key around. Noise is minimal while typing, with a muted high-pitch click when each key is pressed.

The M2010 offers a smaller Synaptics touchpad with a smooth matte finish. During our tests it was easy to operate with no discernable lag (after some settings adjustment). Initially we found the touchpad to coast after you brought your finger off the surface, which felt very similar to a laggy touchpad. We found a Synaptics feature called "Momentum" was enabled, and once turned off made the touchpad motion feel much nicer. The touchpad also offers some multi-touch functionality, including Flick, Pinch, and ChiralRotate, used to rotate a selected object 90 degrees. No option for two fingered scrolling was found. The touchpad buttons are setup with a seesaw button which is flexible enough that both buttons can be pressed at the same time. Feedback when pressed is minimal, with a loud click when engaged.

Ports and Features
Port selection on the M2010 is average compared to most netbooks on the market, with three USB ports, VGA out, headphone/mic, and SDHC multi-card reader, and LAN connection. Fujitsu also includes a Kensington Lock slot if you feel the need to securely attach the netbook while it is unattended.

Front: Activity lights

Rear: Battery

Left: AC power, VGA, one USB

Right: SDHC multi-card reader, headphone/mic, two USB, LAN, Kensington Lock slot

Performance and Benchmarks
Initially system performance of the Fujitsu M2010 was well below average compared to similarly configured netbooks. wPrime, which tests just the processor was giving results in the range of 180 seconds, whereas it should be around 120 seconds. Other benchmarks were also giving results that were much slower than expected. After updating drivers across the board with little success, we hopped into the BIOS to see if there were any odd settings. As it turns out the BIOS allows you to switch HyperThreading on or off, with the default setting being off. Once this was turned back on the M2010 sped up and was performing in line with other netbooks. We don't know if this is a preproduction issue or not, but if you purchase this netbook checking the BIOS option should be the first thing you do after taking it out of the box.

With optimal performance settings the M2010 performs quite well in day-to-day tasks that you might expect from a netbook. HD video decoding and gaming aside, netbooks are great for web browsing, editing photos, typing documents, and just about anything you might want to do while traveling abroad or even to your couch. Boot and shutdown times once the OS had settled from the initial boot were very good, although this is with the AV software removed.

wPrime processor comparison results (lower scores mean better performance):

Notebook / CPU	wPrime 32M time
Sony VAIO TZ (Core 2 Duo U7600 @ 1.20GHz)	76.240 seconds
HP Pavilion dv2 (AMD Athlon Neo MV-40 @ 1.60GHz)	103.521 seconds
ASUS Eee PC 1000HE (Intel Atom N280 @ 1.66GHz)	114.749 seconds
ASUS Eee PC 1008HA (Intel Atom N280 @ 1.66GHz)	116.030 seconds
ASUS Eee PC 1005HA (Intel Atom N280 @ 1.66GHz)	116.421 seconds
HP Mini 2140 with HD screen (Intel Atom N270 @ 1.60GHz)	123.281 seconds
Fujitsu M2010 (Intel Atom N270 @ 1.60GHz)	124.499 seconds
Acer Aspire One (Intel Atom @ 1.60GHz)	125.812 seconds
Lenovo IdeaPad S10 (2009) (Intel Atom @ 1.60GHz)	126.406 seconds
Samsung NC20 (VIA Nano ULV U2250 @ 1.30GHz)	173.968 seconds

PCMark05 measures overall system performance (higher scores mean better performance):

Notebook	PCMark05 Score
Sony VAIO TZ (1.20GHz Intel Core 2 Duo U7600, Intel GMA 950)	2,446 PCMarks
HP Pavilion dv2 (1.60GHz AMD Athlon Neo, ATI Radeon HD 3410 512MB)	2,191 PCMarks
ASUS N10 (1.60GHz Intel Atom, NVIDIA 9300M 256MB)	1,851 PCMarks
Toshiba Portege R500 (1.20GHz Intel Core 2 Duo U7600, Intel GMA 950)	1,839 PCMarks
ASUS Eee PC 1005HA (1.66GHz Intel Atom N280, Intel GMA 950)	1,637 PCMarks
ASUS Eee PC 1008HA (1.66GHz Intel Atom N280, Intel GMA 950)	1,564 PCMarks
Acer Aspire One (1.60GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 950)	1,555 PCMarks
ASUS Eee PC 1000HE (1.66GHz Intel Atom N280, Intel GMA 950)	1,535 PCMarks
Fujitsu M2010 (1.60GHz Intel Atom N270, Intel GMA 950)	1,523 PCMarks
Samsung NC20 (1.30GHz VIA Nano ULV U2250, VIA Chrome9 HC3)	1,441 PCMarks
HP Mini 2140 with HD screen (1.60GHz Intel Atom, Intel GM1 950)	1,437 PCMarks

3DMark06 comparison results against netbooks @ 1024 x 768 resolution:

Notebook	3DMark06 Score
HP Pavilion dv2 (1.60GHz AMD Athlon Neo, ATI Radeon HD 3410 512MB)	1,520 3DMarks
ASUS N10 (1.60GHz Intel Atom, NVIDIA 9300M 256MB)	1,417 3DMarks
Samsung NC20 (1.30GHz VIA Nano ULV U2250, VIA Chrome9 HC3)	151 3DMarks
ASUS Eee PC 1005HA (1.66GHz Intel Atom N280, Intel GMA 950)	127 3DMarks
Acer Aspire One (1.60GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 950)	122 3DMarks
ASUS Eee PC 1008HA (1.66GHz Intel Atom N280, Intel GMA 950)	116 3DMarks
HP Mini 2140 with HD screen (1.60GHz Intel Atom, Intel GM1 950)	112 3DMarks
ASUS Eee PC 1000HE (1.66GHz Intel Atom N280, Intel GMA 950)	92 3DMarks
Sony VAIO P (1.33GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 500, Windows Vista)	88 3DMarks
Fujitsu M2010 (1.60GHz Intel Atom N270, Intel GMA 950)	83 3DMarks

HDTune measuring hard drive performance:

Heat and Noise
Compared to other netbooks the M2010 runs a bit on the warm and loud side of things. Under normal use temperatures settle in the mid 80's around the top surface, and after it has warmed up the fan likes to stay on. Under any heavier load the fan noise is considerably louder than most notebook fans. This can be common on some netbooks, since the fans are so small they have to spin very fast to move any measureable amount of air.

Battery
The M2010 didn't impress us with its performance in our battery tests. The standard battery Fujitsu includes with this model is a small 3-cell 25Wh battery which doesn't compare well to 6-cell batteries you would get in this price range from other manufacturers. Another problem we ran into was the default BIOS settings relating to HyperThreading being disabled. With it disabled, during our battery test with the backlight set to 50% and wireless active the M2010 managed 2 hours and 17 minutes. With it turned on, power consumption dropped by 1 to 1.5watts at idle, increasing our results to 3 hours and 12 minutes. With a larger battery the system could have easily competed with newer netbooks, but with the 3-cell limitation results were less than stellar.

Conclusion
The Fujitsu M2010 is a late arrival to the netbook market, offering very good looks and build quality, but with a high price and not so excellent performance. Compared to some of the newer netbooks on the market its benchmarks fall towards the bottom of the list, and battery life came up way short with the 3-cell battery. With its good looks and high build quality it seems to be pushed towards business customers, which might explain the higher price. Overall for if the price was about $100 less it would be much more attractive.

Pros:

• Great looks
• Solid feeling chassis with high quality components

Cons:

• High price
• Some odd default performance settings
• Small standard battery

Notebook Review Spec : ASUS Eee PC 1005HA

It's easy to get confused by all the variety of netbooks on the market today. These low-cost ultraportable laptops generally have very similar features and many even look virtually identical. That said, it's never easy to overlook the latest Eee PC from ASUS. The Eee PC 1005HA Seashell is the newest netbook from ASUS that promises to deliver the perfect balance between lightweight style and functionality. Let's take a closer look.

Our ASUS Eee PC 1005HA Seashell features the following specifications:

• Operating System: Genuine Windows XP
• Processor: Intel Atom N280 Processor 1.66GHz (667MHz FSB)
• Memory: 1GB DDR2 SDRAM (667MHz)
• Internal Storage: 160GB 5400 rpm SATA HDD plus 10GB Eee Online Storage
• Display: 10.1-inch diagonal WSVGA+ (1024x600)
• Graphics: Intel GMA 950
• Wireless: Broadcom 802.11a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• Expansion: 4-in-1 media card slot
• Ports and connectors: (3) USB 2.0 ports, VGA OUT, power connector, RJ-45/Ethernet (Gigabit), stereo headphone/line out, stereo microphone in, 1.3 megapixel webcam
• Dimensions (H x W x D): 0.89-1.40 x 10.2 x 6.9 inches (including feet)
• Weight: 2.8 lbs (not including weight of AC adapter).
• Power: 6-cell Lithium-Ion battery (5600mAh, 63Wh)
• Warranty: One-year standard warranty
• MSRP: $389.99

Build and Design
The Eee PC 1005HA is a lower-cost version of the 1008HA Seashell and features a similar clamshell chassis design but is a little thicker and comes with a removable battery. Unlike the 1008HA, which had plastic covers over every port, all of the ports on the 1005HA are easily accessible so you won't have to struggle to plug in a USB flash drive. The 1005HA also isn't as thin as the 1008HA Seashell, but the 1005HA makes up for extra bulk with a high-capacity removable battery.

If you look at the top of the 1005HA it's easy to see the "Seashell" heritage, and thankfully it manages to retain some solid build quality for a budget netbook. The glossy black plastics aren't prone to flex and the keyboard is very firm ... two things you usually don't see on budget notebooks. The various parts of the chassis come together with tight build tolerances like a higher-priced laptop. This isn't the most rugged netbook we've ever seen, but ASUS gave the 1005HA a pretty solid build for less than $400.

One nice improvement on this netbook compared to the last Seashell is the return of an easy-access RAM cover. If you want to upgrade the RAM in your 1005HA all you have to do is remove one screw on the access panel on the bottom of the netbook. I would have also liked to see an easy-access panel for the hard drive, but most netbook buyers aren't going to mess with the hard drive.

Screen
The new Eee PC 1005HA Seashell uses a fairly standard LED-backlit display panel with a 1024x600 native resolution. The glossy screen looks identical to what we saw in the 1008HA: the glossy screen offers good color and contrast, but glare and reflections indoors under strong lights or outdoors under direct sunlight can be a problem. Again, although the 1024x600 resolution is pretty standard for a netbook these days, I'd much rather see a 1366x768 screen in the next Eee PC. Vertical viewing angles are average, with minimal color distortion when viewing from below and some over-exposed colors when viewed from above. Horizontal viewing angles are better with colors staying accurate at extremely wide viewing angles with just a little bit of color wash out.

Keyboard and Touchpad
The 1005HA Seashell uses the same 92% of full size keyboard first seen on the 1008HA Seashell. The keys are slightly smaller than the keys on an average notebook but the spacing between the keys is quite limited. If you prefer the shape and feel of traditional keys then you'll probably like the new keyboard. That said, I personally prefer the "chicklet" style keyboard used on the ASUS Eee PC 1000HE since there is more space between the keys to prevent me from accidentally hitting the wrong key. Still, the keyboard on this netbook is quite usable and should be perfectly fine for typing quick emails or editing documents while traveling.

The Synaptics touchpad used on the 1005HA is likewise identical to the gesture-enabled model on the 1008HA. This allows you to use multi-figure gestures such as "pinching" your fingers together or "pulling" your fingers apart to zoom in or out. You can also use a "three-finger tap" as an alternative to a right click on a mouse. The Synaptics control panel in Windows also allows you to customize these gestures as well. The touchpad surface is covered in dots that provide a clear indication of the edges of the touchpad, but this also makes the touchpad surface too rough for quick finger movement. The left and right touchpad buttons are located beneath a single rocker-style button, but with no separation between the left and right side it's easy to accidentally press the middle of the touchpad button when you're trying to press the left or right side. The touchpad buttons have extremely shallow feedback, so it isn't always easy to feel when you have or have not pressed a button.

The 1005HA lacks a dedicated wireless on/off switch, but ASUS did include a dedicated touchpad on/off button as well as FN keyboard shortcuts for wireless, screen brightness, video output, volume, and Windows task manager.

Input and Output Ports
The 1005HA provides a few more ports than the 1008HA. Namely, you get three USB 2.0 ports, a 4-in-1 media card reader, headphone and microphone jacks, Ethernet port, and the return of a standard VGA out port. The 1005HA lacks the protective port covers seen on the 1008HA, but I personally don't like protective covers since I have to move them to use the ports.

Here is a quick tour around the Eee PC 1005HA:

Front view: No ports here, just clean lines and indicator lights.

Rear view: No ports here either, just the hinges and battery.

Left side view: Power jack, VGA out, USB 2.0 port, security lock slot, and heat vent.

Right side view: 4-in-1 card reader, headphone jack, microphone jack, two USB 2.0 ports, and Ethernet.

The 1005HA is also the first Eee PC to offer a software "dock" on the desktop that ASUS calls "Eee Docking software." In much the same way that the Apple OS X dock or ObjectDock from Stardock software allow you to use quick shortcuts to utilities and applicatiosn, the Eee Docking software provides an easy way to locate utilities, software and digital content. It consists of the following: Eee Vibe (music/media application and Eee download website), Sharing (Data sync, messenger, and Eee Storage), Xperience (Voice Command) and Tools (Parental Control, Font resizer, and Settings), and all of these suites are easily accessed as the software “docks” to the top of the screen and is semi-hidden when not in use.

Performance and Benchmarks
I've said it before and I'll say it again. It's difficult to get excited about the benchmarking a netbook since most netbook have virtually identical specs. If you've read our reviews of other netbooks that use the Intel Atom processors then you know that all Atom-based netbooks have nearly identical performance in terms of actual real-world use. Overall performance with the Intel Atom platform is very reasonable for daily activities like Web browsing, email, using Microsoft Office, listening to music, and even watching movies. If you're in a bind you can even use Photo Editing Software like Photoshop or GIMP for basic image editing.

On a positive note, ASUS includes a proprietary overclocking application on the 1005HA called the "Super Hybrid Engine" that allows you to cycle through pre-set power profiles to maximize battery life by underclocking the processor, keep the processor at stock speed or slightly overclock the processor (from 1.66GHz to 1.70GHz).

Unfortunately, there's only so much anyone can do with Intel GMA 950 integrated graphics. This integrated graphics processor (IGP) is powerful enough to handle displaying a PowerPoint presentation on a projector or watching DVD quality movies, but if 720p and 1080p video playback is your primary concern then you'll want to look elsewhere. That said, ASUS managed to squeeze some pretty solid benchmark numbers out of the Intel graphics in the 1005HA.

wPrime processor comparison results (lower scores mean better performance):

Notebook / CPU	wPrime 32M time
Sony VAIO TZ (Core 2 Duo U7600 @ 1.20GHz)	76.240 seconds
HP Pavilion dv2 (AMD Athlon Neo MV-40 @ 1.60GHz)	103.521 seconds
ASUS Eee PC 1000HE (Intel Atom N280 @ 1.66GHz)	114.749 seconds
ASUS Eee PC 1008HA (Intel Atom N280 @ 1.66GHz)	116.030 seconds
ASUS Eee PC 1005HA (Intel Atom N280 @ 1.66GHz)	116.421 seconds
HP Mini 2140 with HD screen (Intel Atom N270 @ 1.60GHz)	123.281 seconds
Acer Aspire One (Intel Atom @ 1.60GHz)	125.812 seconds
Lenovo IdeaPad S10 (2009) (Intel Atom @ 1.60GHz)	126.406 seconds
Samsung NC20 (VIA Nano ULV U2250 @ 1.30GHz)	173.968 seconds

PCMark05 measures overall system performance (higher scores mean better performance):

Notebook	PCMark05 Score
Sony VAIO TZ (1.20GHz Intel Core 2 Duo U7600, Intel GMA 950)	2,446 PCMarks
HP Pavilion dv2 (1.60GHz AMD Athlon Neo, ATI Radeon HD 3410 512MB)	2,191 PCMarks
ASUS N10 (1.60GHz Intel Atom, NVIDIA 9300M 256MB)	1,851 PCMarks
Toshiba Portege R500 (1.20GHz Intel Core 2 Duo U7600, Intel GMA 950)	1,839 PCMarks
ASUS Eee PC 1005HA (1.66GHz Intel Atom N280, Intel GMA 950)	1,637 PCMarks
ASUS Eee PC 1008HA (1.66GHz Intel Atom N280, Intel GMA 950)	1,564 PCMarks
Acer Aspire One (1.60GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 950)	1,555 PCMarks
ASUS Eee PC 1000HE (1.66GHz Intel Atom N280, Intel GMA 950)	1,535 PCMarks
Samsung NC20 (1.30GHz VIA Nano ULV U2250, VIA Chrome9 HC3)	1,441 PCMarks
HP Mini 2140 with HD screen (1.60GHz Intel Atom, Intel GM1 950)	1,437 PCMarks

3DMark06 comparison results against netbooks @ 1024 x 768 resolution:

Notebook	3DMark06 Score
HP Pavilion dv2 (1.60GHz AMD Athlon Neo, ATI Radeon HD 3410 512MB)	1,520 3DMarks
ASUS N10 (1.60GHz Intel Atom, NVIDIA 9300M 256MB)	1,417 3DMarks
Samsung NC20 (1.30GHz VIA Nano ULV U2250, VIA Chrome9 HC3)	151 3DMarks
ASUS Eee PC 1005HA (1.66GHz Intel Atom N280, Intel GMA 950)	127 3DMarks
Acer Aspire One (1.60GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 950)	122 3DMarks
ASUS Eee PC 1008HA (1.66GHz Intel Atom N280, Intel GMA 950)	116 3DMarks
HP Mini 2140 with HD screen (1.60GHz Intel Atom, Intel GM1 950)	112 3DMarks
ASUS Eee PC 1000HE (1.66GHz Intel Atom N280, Intel GMA 950)	92 3DMarks
Sony VAIO P (1.33GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 500, Windows Vista)	88 3DMarks

HDTune for the built-in hard drive:

Audio
The built-in speaker performance on the Eee PC 1005HA is pretty good for a 10-inch netbook. I'm not a fan of the location of the built-in speakers since they're located on the bottom front edge of the 1005HA, but the audio quality is better than what we typically hear from netbook speakers. The speakers produce good volume (enough to fill a small room) and there is minimal distortion even at higher volume levels. The speakers lack much bass, but the range of highs and midtones are fine. Still, the audio output from the headphone jack is free of any obvious distortion and is a better solutiuon when paired with earphones or a good set of external speakers.

Heat and Noise
Temperatures on the new Eee PC Seashell are in line with what we've come to expect from netbooks with Intel Atom processors. Temperature readings taken from the outside of the plastic chassis remained "lap friendly" during normal use. The only time that temperature readings spiked was when I connected the netbook to an external display.

Below are images indicating the temperature readings (listed in degrees Fahrenheit) taken inside our office where the ambient temperature was 74 degrees Fahrenheit.

Battery
ASUS claims that the 1005HA provides "all-day computing" with up to 10.5 hours of battery life on a single charge. As difficult as that might be to believe, it's not completely out of the question. In our test with the screen brightness set to 70%, wireless active, and XP set to the laptop/portable power profile the system stayed on for 9 hours and 37 minutes of constant use. If we turned down the screen brightness even more, disabled Wi-Fi, and allowed the netbook to occasionally go into sleep mode then I'm quite certain the 1005HA could have exceeded 11 hours of battery life!

Conclusion
The new ASUS Eee PC 1005HA Seashell might seem like "just another Eee PC" at first glance, but upon closer examination it's clear that ASUS has refined their popular line of netbooks with every variation. The Eee PC 1005A is one of the best eveolutions of the Eee PC line so far.

Yes, on paper there's not much to get excited about with the latest Eee PC since it features the same processor, integrated graphics, and standard 10-inch display seen in almost every netbook, but in this case the whole may indeed be greater than the sum of its parts.

I'd still like to see a higher resolution screen, different graphics solution, and better touchpad buttons in this netbook, but overall there are plenty of reasons to like the latest Eee PC. If you're in the market for a $400 netbook then this is worth your consideration.

Pros:

• Nice build quality
• Excellent battery life
• Good port layout ... for a netbook

Cons:

• Thick for a modern netbook
• Still uses weak integrated graphics
• Bad touchpad buttons

Notebook Review Spec : Lenovo ThinkPad T400s

It seems a common trend at Lenovo right now is making super thin and lightweight ThinkPads. First the X300 hit the market, offering a super thin and lightweight chassis with the ruggedness we have come to expect from a ThinkPad. Now Lenovo has done it again with the T400, bringing a newer, lighter, redesigned T400s to the table. In this official review we show you what's changed on this new 14" ThinkPad, which even includes the legendary keyboard.

Our ThinkPad T400s specifications:

• OS: Windows Vista Business (SP1)
• Screen: 1440 x 900 WXGA+ LED Backlit (Matte finish)
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo SP9600 (2.53GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 6MB Cache)
• Memory: 2GB DDR3 RAM (2GB x 1)
• Storage: 128GB Samsung SSD
• Optical Drive: DVD+/-RW
• Wireless: 802.11a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.0
• Graphics: Intel X4500M Integrated
• Built-in web camera
• Battery: 6-cell 11.1 44Wh
• Dimensions: (LxWxH) 13.27 x 9.49 x 0.83"
• Weight: 3lbs 14.3oz
• Starting Price: $1,599

Build and Design
The new ThinkPad T400s looks completely revamped and polished compared to the regular T400. The chassis has slimmed down significantly, and the weight of the notebook has also dropped by almost a pound. The exterior is still wrapped in Lenovo's much-loved rubberized black paint, but the design just looks cleaner and less busy than previous ThinkPad models.

Looking inside, the main changes start to become obvious. Besides the new keyboard and touchpad that we will go over shortly, Lenovo changed the shape of the palmrest around the touchpad, with the touchpad resting flush with the palmrest instead of being slightly recessed. The screen bezel is smooth all around the perimeter of the display, unlike the T400 which shows rough plastic grids near the built-in antennas and cutouts near the light and webcam. Even when compared to the ThinkPad X301, the new T400s looks more refined. The speaker grills are larger and look better suited to the design. Even the fingerprint reader manages to blend in better, with an all-black design instead of gold and silver like past models.

Build quality is still fantastic, with barely a hint of chassis flex even as it has decreased in thickness. The screen has some minor side-to-side flex when open, but no more than previous models. Protection for the screen, even with the super thin cover is surprisingly good, showing only small amounts of screen distortion when you are squeezing the back of the display. The new chassis feels quite rugged.

With the thinner design Lenovo completely reworked the chassis for the T400s, and it looks completely different than the T400 once you start opening it up. The hard drive is now accessed through a panel under the left side of the palmrest, which is now 1.8" instead of the 2.5" found in the T400. System memory and Wireless Cards are found under a single access panel on the bottom of the notebook. Compared to removing the palmrest on previous models, you now just loosen one screw and pop off a single panel to upgrade memory. With most of the slots changing location to the underside of the notebook, removing the keyboard is now only required to replace a broken one, or to get access to a half-sized mini-PCIe slot used for Wireless USB on some models. I really hope future ThinkPads follow a similar design to the T400s, since it is so much easier to upgrade components now.

Screen and Speakers
The LED-backlit WXGA+ (1440 x 900) display on the T400s rates above average, with good color reproduction and very good peak backlight brightness levels. The display part number is LTN141BT08001, which may indicate that it has a Samsung panel. Colors appear bright and vibrant for a matte-finish display, and it has very nice contrast when the backlight isn't at the brightest setting. At 95-100% brightness the screen starts to look slightly washed out, which is pretty normal for higher brightness displays. My comfortable viewing brightness range for this notebook is between 50-60%, giving great black-levels and no hint of backlight bleed. Viewing angles are average for a TN-panel LCD, with colors quickly inverting or washing out as you Tilt the screen forward or back. With the matte finish and higher backlight power the screen is readable outdoors and quite visible in your car on a bright day.

Speaker performance was lackluster, but that is common on most business notebooks. They work well for streaming audio or having a VOIP chat, but for movies and entertainment the headphone jack is a much better alternative.

Keyboard and Touchpad
Yes, Lenovo significantly changed the look, feel, and layout of the keyboard on the T400s. After you pick yourself up off the floor from fainting, you will quickly see most of the changes are for the better. The feel of the keys remains mostly untouched from past models ... outside of the fact that the spacebar seems to click loudly if you press it on the edges. The biggest change comes with a redesigned function key section, offering larger "escape" and "delete" keys. Through in-depth research Lenovo found that those two keys were used more than other function keys. As a result they doubled the height, and moved the position of the insert key and F1 key.

I think the coolest difference is the new media buttons and power button. The power switch and mute keys light up when activated, so instead of the power icon showing up on the bottom edge of your screen, the button itself is the indicator. The caps lock button now features a translucent window with an LED that lights up to indicate the caps lock is turned on. One thing that is missing is an AC and battery indicator light facing you with the screen open, as they are now external only.

The T400s offers one feature I have yet to see on any other notebook to date: a speaker AND microphone mute button. While I am not sure how often I personally need to turn off my microphone, if you videoconference or use Skype frequently then a quickly accessed mute button would come in handy. Another minor change is the key tolerances have decreased, meaning there is less room for crumbs or dust to fall in-between keys.

The new touchpad is different, but I am having a hard time figuring out if that is a good or bad thing. The old design used a slightly rough matte plastic finish, which gave some traction and made it easy to move your finger around even if sweaty. The new design has a raised dimple finish with a softer texture that feels strange. I found myself increasing the sensitivity in the Synaptics control panel to make movement feel more fluid, but then found it too sensitive. It seems that you need to apply consistent pressure when moving over the new touchpad, where before it was easy to flick your finger across. I think if the bumpy surface was glossy or more slick I might enjoy it more.

Another change is the shape and size of the trackpad buttons. The buttons have a radius contour that goes through the buttons to the edges where they meet the palmrest. From a design standpoint they flow better with the notebook than previous attempts, and it is even easier to access them from the touchpad now.

Ports and Features
Port selection on the T400s has been greatly improved over the T400 model. New to the back of the T400s is an eSATA port for Storage expansion and DisplayPort out, giving you digital video from the notebook itself. Just like the T400 it has three USB ports, one through a combo USB/eSATA port. Lenovo has kept the VGA port for legacy connections, since it is still used frequently for projectors. With the decrease in thickness the T400s lost its dual card slots, only keeping an ExpressCard/34 slot. The T400s offers a docking station connector on the bottom, but it is a new design that is incompatible with older models. The last big change came with the T60, and I can just hope that this docking station format stays the same for a few notebook generations to come.

Internal features include integrated 3G WWAN and a handy GPS receiver. While 3G is pretty common these days GPS seems to always be passed over. Lenovo includes software for initializing the GPS receiver, and translating the NMEA data through a virtual COM port for applications. Since I am fond of Garmin GPS receivers, I installed a trial version of Garmin Mobile PC. Installation was simple and the software will automatically find the virtual COM port for communication with the GPS unit. The T400s was quick to acquire our location with a six satellite lock inside our office. So if you don't own an automotive GPS receiver yet, this $60 piece of software might come in handy paired with the T400s.

Performance
With an Intel Core 2 Duo SP9600 and 128GB Samsung SSD the T400s was no slouch ... despite the Intel X4500 integrated graphics. The T400s was extremely fast to boot, and was quietly waiting at the desktop idle much sooner than other notebooks we have reviewed. The T400s handles day-to-day uses, such as typing a paper, watching Hulu while the boss isn't watching, or enjoying an HD movie all with ease. Gaming presented a problem with the X4500 integrated graphics, so instead of playing Left 4 Dead you might have to compromise with Peggle. 720p and 1080p HD video decoded with no problems at all thanks to the fast processor, although outputting it to a home stereo might be tough without digital audio out through the DisplayPort. One original concern we had with system performance was the speed of the 1.8" drive, but as we found out the 128GB Samsung SSD included with our T400s blew the socks off most 2.5" drives. The only downside to this is the SSD is fairly expensive and the small size has few aftermarket options, whereas the 2.5" market is loaded with affordable alternatives.

wPrime processor comparison results (lower scores mean better performance):

HP Pavilion dv4t (Intel Core 2 Duo T9600 @ 2.8GHz)	26.972 seconds
Lenovo ThinkPad T400 (Intel Core 2 Duo T9600 @ 2.8GHz)	27.410 seconds
Lenovo ThinkPad T400s (Intel Core 2 Duo SP9600 @ 2.53GHz)	30.328 seconds
Dell Latitude E6400 (Intel Core 2 Duo P9500 @ 2.53GHz)	30.497 seconds
Toshiba Satellite E105 (Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 @ 2.26GHz)	33.961 seconds
Lenovo ThinkPad SL400 (Core 2 Duo P8400 @ 2.26GHz)	34.628 seconds

PCMark05 measures overall system performance (higher scores mean better performance):

Lenovo ThinkPad T400s (2.53GHz Intel SP9600, Intel X4500)	7,590 PCMarks
Lenovo T400 (2.80GHz Intel T9600, ATI Radeon 3470 256MB GDDR3)	6,589 PCMarks
Dell Latitude E6400 (2.53GHz Intel P9500, Nvidia Quadro NVS 160M 256MB)	5,780 PCMarks
HP Pavilion dv4t (2.8GHz Intel T9600, NVIDIA 9200M GS 256MB)	5,463 PCMarks
Lenovo ThinkPad SL400 (2.26GHz Intel P8400, NVIDIA 9300M GS 256MB)	5,173 PCMarks
Toshiba Satellite E105 (2.26GHz Intel P8400, Intel 4500MHD)	4,836 PCMarks

3DMark06 measures video and gaming performance (higher scores mean better performance):

Lenovo T400 (2.80GHz Intel T9600, ATI Radeon 3470 256MB GDDR3)	2,575 3DMarks
Lenovo ThinkPad SL400 (2.26GHz Intel P8400, NVIDIA 9300M GS 256MB)	2,211 3DMarks
Dell Latitude E6400 (2.53GHz Intel P9500, Nvidia Quadro NVS 160M 256MB)	1,818 3DMarks
HP Pavilion dv4t (2.8GHz Intel T9600, NVIDIA 9200M GS 256MB)	1,741 3DMarks
Toshiba Satellite E105 (2.26GHz Intel P8400, Intel 4500MHD)	1,030 3DMarks
Lenovo ThinkPad T400s (2.53GHz Intel SP9600, Intel X4500)	996 3DMarks

*All 3DMark06 benchmark tests are set at 1280 x 800 screen resolution.

HDTune Storage drive performance results:

Heat and Noise
The T400s managed heat and noise very well during our tests, keeping external temperatures low with minimal noise from the cooling fan. After continuously stressing the notebook over a period of 30 minutes the fan never went above a whisper level. You had to put your ear to the vent to hear it above normal ambient noise. Under light activity the case barely warmed up above room temperature. Under heavier loads such as watching an HD movie or playing a quick game the temperatures increased slightly, but overall stayed very lap-friendly. External temperatures listed below are shown in degrees Fahreheit.

Battery Life
Time on battery with the T400s was good, but not as impressive as the 10 hours experienced on the T400. Currently the only battery size offered is a 6-cell battery with a reported size of 45Wh. Compare this to the 9-cell on the T400 with a capacity of 84Wh, almost twice the size. Even with the smaller battery the T400s managed 5 hours and 48 minutes with the screen brightness set to 70%, Vista set to the Balanced profile, and wireless active. During the test power consumption varied between 6.5W and 8W depending on load. Compared to the T400 the power consumption drop most likely comes from the 1.8" SSD and integrated graphics chipset. Lenovo doesn't have plans to offer a larger main battery for extended battery life, similar to the 4-cell, 6-cell, and 9-cell options on the T400. What they will offer though is an ultra-bay battery to run in place of the optical drive, which should extend battery life by up to an additional three hours.

Conclusion
Overall I think Lenovo put a lot of time into thinking through the changes they made with the T400s so they wouldn't offend too many ThinkPad customers. The keyboard change is significant, but for all intents and purposes they stuck with the tried-and-true design. The keys feel the same, the core layout is the same, the only thing that changed were the function and media keys. Even though the keys look weird at first it takes about 3 seconds to adapt to the new layout. I think the super slim and lightweight design is excellent, moving to a layout that is easier to service by the end-user. The inclusion of eSATA and DisplayPort is something that should have come sooner, considering that the T400 doesn't offer a digital video output without a docking station.

The only complaint I have is with the price, starting well above the standard T400, and the costly drive upgrade options since it is limited to 1.8" models instead of the cheaper and more widely available 2.5" size. If you are in the market for a new ThinkPad and don't mind spending a bit extra for something thin and lightweight, the T400s is a great choice.

Pros:

• Excellent build quality
• Good keyboard changes
• Nice polished design
• eSATA and DisplayPort ... finally
• Very fast even with integrated graphics

Cons:

• Limited battery options
• 1.8" storage drive
• Different docking connector