thinkpad t400 vs t410

[jlee1]

I need to pick up a laptop during January for school. I'm currently looking at both of these machines(t400,t410) to get the job done. I understand that the t400 uses a core2duo opposed to the upgraded t410's ci5. The choice is obvious; but I am on a budget. I'm trying to keep the price under $250~280. This means that despite the t410's power advantage, I can afford a ssd for the t400.
I was originally looking at x60 and x200 but I've read that the x60 isn't able to utilize full sata speeds which would be a problem for ssds.
Do you guys have experience with any of these laptops or any thinkpads in general? Will the c2d be a slow hog for school, hd yt videos, and light gaming even with a ssd and 4gb? Should I shell out an extra $50 for an i5, but a disk drive? Or do you guys have any other suggestions and opinions?

 

[DaveVandorAmon]

IMO - the gaming performance is going to depend very heavily on the graphics card as well and without being able to compare those two directly, would not be able to give you guidance there. One would think the 3100m + i5 should be likely better than c2d + HD3450.

As far as peppiness and such in regular activity, a T400 with an SSD and 4-8 GB of memory could work very well. I ran a T400 with 8GB memory, and a 120GB Vertex2 for a while, and was very pleased with it. I was not so pleased with my T410, which also topped out at 8GB, since my use case was more memory dependent than CPU or graphics dependent. All things equal, they both have SATAII interface. Other than that, the experience was relatively similar. Going from a T61 to a T410 was a leap though.

What type of applications are you using in school ? Things like Excel and Word, web research, etc. will all work very well on any modern (6 year or newer) laptop with 4GB+ and an SSD when not specifically CPU dependent or multi-thread capable. If you are talking about things like Matlab, or Maya, 3DS, AutoCAD, etc. for special programs, then I would go with the T410 with an i7-620, if my choice was between the two or see if you can get a Precision M4500 since that comes with a Quadro.

Build quality, I find the T410 started the "seems more inferior than previous generations" ThinkPads. I've been using them since they were corporate armor though, so I've seen them get progressively less tougher over the years. Fans are also noisier and seem to spin more starting at this generation.

For the ultraportable, I'd look at an x201 if your budget allows and you need something portable. With the i5-540m, it was essentially a 12" T410.

 

[raildogg]

Why not get a new laptop at that price?

There are many laptops to choose from at that price that will likely have better battery life, maybe better screens, faster CPUs. I am not saying don't get the Thinkpad, I have one myself. But a newer laptop can last you a while in terms of being speedy enough. Plus, buying used from eBay doesn't guarantee a solid product always.

The newer laptops will likely come with HD4000 or at least Intel HD graphics which will be better than the one on the T410, let alone the T400.

 

[Sequences]

I have a 5 year old T61. It works well, and saw me through school with no problems. The only time it couldn't perform was when I had to use Matlab for linear programming and I ran out of RAM. It still continues to work just fine as my linux server.