!8: Buying Lenovo Thinkpads: November 2011

!±8± IBM Lenovo Thinkpad T410 Review

The IBM Thinkpad, now produced by Lenovo, has continued to enjoy its status as a standard notebook choice among corporations and businesses worldwide. At the recent Consumer Electronics Show, Lenovo indicated it had no intention of letting up the slack in its efforts to stay current with the latest notebook technologies. It has continued to roll out updates to its flagship Thinkpad line, and in recent months, the Thinkpad T410 received several significant upgrades, including addition of the latest Core i5 and Core i7 processors by processing giant Intel. As a result, the Thinkpad line, known for its ruggedness, reliability, and unassuming black exterior, has received significant speed and power boosts to keep it in the competition among the latest offerings by other business laptop manufacturers. The T410 looks and feels like a Thinkpad. It comes in matte black styling, it feels rugged and resilient, but it has numerous and notable changes under the hood. Essentially, the outside looks old, but the inside feels new. The specifications of those insides will be discussed below.

What are the specifications of the T410?

The Lenovo Thinkpad T410 notebook is outfitted with an Intel Core i5 540 M processor that features four cores running at 2.53 GHz, which will provide more than enough power for typing documents, surfing the internet, and watching movies. 4 GB of IBM Memory is included, giving you the ability to multitask with several documents and windows open at once without the notebook slowing to a crawl. The graphics card is modest, an NVIDIA NVS 3100m with 512 MB in memory, but it will be enough for most non gaming activities, which the 320 GB 7200 RPM Seagate hard drive will be big enough for most work related projects and snappier than the typical 5400 RPM drive that comes with most notebook computers. The Thinkpad additionally comes with Windows 7 Professional, 4 USB ports, and a 1440x900 resolution 14.1" LED-backlit screen. However, the notebook does not include an HDMI output, which may disappoint road warriors who were hoping to be able to watch movies on high definition televisions in hotel rooms or when back at home. However, it is possible to order the T410 with a 9-cell battery that offers almost 8 hours of use.

Summary

For less than 00, the T410 is a worthy competitor in the growing market of fast and powerful business class notebooks. It comes in a 14.1" form factor that makes it small enough to be used in coach class seating on airlines, yet it packs in enough resolution at 1440x900 to make typing documents and watching movies feasible choices for people interested in a mix of business and pleasure. The notebook is not as thin as some might desire, but with that thickness comes the protection and reassurance that the computer (and all the data you have inside it) won't sing its swan song if you drop it from arm's height in a moment of carelessness while rushing to catch your flight.