Yes, the ThinkPad T400s exists. I use it. I love it.
A lot.
For now, to complete the Tornado Chasing series of blog posts, I’d like to offer you two videos of the machine in action. We’ll talk specifics on the machine once our embargo lifts.
We’re very proud of how our ThinkPads meet 8 US Military Grade standards for toughness (MIL 810-F), and what better way to show off what the system is capable of than to use it with the Center for Severe Weather Research (CSWR) team.
This first video is a combination of clips from my trip two weeks ago. You’ll see pictures of the machine in action interspersed with scenes from the CSWR team in action.
On this next clip, we wanted to have a bit of fun, but also make a point. Make sure your volume is turned up for the first part as the auditory experience from the system and the truck is not something you’ll hear every day. The first minute and the last 15 seconds are the most interesting parts, though I thought including the middle was important for those who are really into nuances of seeing the whole story. If nothing else, you’ll get a peek at the inside of the system.
I’ve been more than a bit verbose over the last few posts. I personally think the long-form is sadly lacking in journalism today, especially on the web, but that does not mean that all readers agree. I’ll be brief, but there are definitely a few more points I wanted to make about the CSWR team and my time there.
Connectivity
There is no question that connectivity makes this project work, and indeed makes it even possible. The whole Vortex 2 team was constantly pulling and pushing data across the Internet. The DOW vehicles had Wi-Fi networks. Whether it was downloading the latest National Weather Service radar data keeping up with all of the other vehicles, or even posting their updates to Facebook, they certainly drove the local cellular carriers nuts. More than once, the traffic was so heavy that they brought down entire cellular towers from the load. What was most interesting to me is that the signal would drop and reconnect automatically. As someone who lives in a PC world, when my WWAN signal goes away, the carriers don’t automatically reconnect me. I guess the CSWR’s network is closer to a mobile handheld device vs. a standard 3G enabled PC.
To compensate for the inadequate bandwidth provisioning, the team has developed special tools that are fault tolerant and loss-of-connectivity- tolerant. One especially cool one is called SASSI. SASSI is a sophisticated low-bandwidth GPS tracking system, instant messaging client, and dispatch program, all in one.
Other Notes about Equipment
If I recall correctly, Lenovo provided over fifty machines plus a variety of accessories like USB memory sticks, encrypting hard disk drives, ThinkStation workstations, ThinkVision displays, and the like to the team. Not all of it was used in the field. Now that this year’s season has ended, the hard part begins. The CSWR team will many of these same machines plus some ThinkStation workstations to start crunching through the mountains of data.
I’ll show two more pictures of the inside of the DOW vehicles. It’s quite interesting that you can call up anyone else’s display from any other display inside the vehicle. I’d like to say that they’re using the latest IP switched video technology, but good ol’ fashioned KVM switches do the trick.
Computer screens in the DOW
One More Thing
And on a final note, no one seems to want to believe me when I say that the only thing I noticed was her IdeaPad S10e netbook. I wanted to compliment her on how well it matched her jacket. Sometimes it’s hard to be a computer geek…
Lenovo Meet the Modder Dean Liou
Lenovo Meet the modder- Chris Blarsky Dairy 2
Lenovo Meet the modder- Chris Blarsky Dairy 1
Lenovo H320 desktop
June 17th, 2009 8:30 pm
[...] original here: ThinkPad T400s and Tornado Chasers Share and [...]
June 17th, 2009 10:19 pm
amazing
June 17th, 2009 10:35 pm
[...] Source SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “Lenovo leaks the ThinkPad T400s”, url: “http://www.thinkpads.com/2009/06/17/lenovo-leaks-the-thinkpad-t400s/” }); Filed under: ThinkPad T Tags: lenovo, thinkpad, thinkpad t400s [...]
June 18th, 2009 12:28 am
Totally want a T400s now, especially since the stripes are back on the Trackpoint buttons. Finally, the T-series is whole again!!!!
June 18th, 2009 1:26 am
I noticed the T400s uses a 1.8″ HDD/SSD as the primary. Can the optical drive be swapped for a standard 2.5″ HDDs with an adapter, or is it too slim?
Because I think a small (32-80GB) 1.8″ SSD for the OS/Applications and a large/cheap 5400RPM HDD for data is the ideal storage solution for people that want both space and speed.
Overall, the T400s looks impressive, although I find some of the keyboard changes (Esc and Ins keys) somewhat odd.
June 18th, 2009 1:32 am
To me, the T400s is what the t400 was supposed to be from the beginning. If would have been the perfect replacement for my T43, except for the Intel graphics.
It looks like if its based on the x300 rather than the t400. Make one with discrete graphics and I’m sold.
June 18th, 2009 2:15 am
The T400s looks to have a 16:9 screen – not a 16:10 screen. If this is the case I won’t be buying one. 16:9 is so terrible, you really notice the difference when you switch between the two.
Bad move, Lenovo. And don’t blame it on the panel manufacturers because plenty of other laptops still come with 16:10 displays.
June 18th, 2009 5:28 am
@Antioch
t400s has 1440×900 resolution
1440/900 = 1.6
16:10
June 18th, 2009 6:10 am
16:9 might seem bad but sooner or later all of the laptops will be like that.
jonlumpkin noticed a smaller hdd, you can also see a smaller battery. So is t400s thinner overall? And until know the batteries were uniform for 15 and 14 inch screens. Does it mean the new T500 will have a different battery or will it have the same one and will be thinner as well?
I find repositioning of the Esc key appealing since in Autodesk software you use Esc a lot and 1 in 10 times I would always hit F1 an open help screen.
About the crash test – does it really matter how big of a vehicle runs over a Thinkpad? I mean is it really that important that so that when they salvage a planewreck that a thinkpad hdd will be intact? I’d like to see a comparison of a rival company business machine.
And instead of improving the strenght of the rollcage wich is good overall, I guess, I’d rather see and improved quality of the parts – these hinges are terrible. I have a T61 from june 08 and W500 from january 09 and the screens wobble like crazy. Could a half year old machine still pass these military tests?
June 18th, 2009 10:11 am
@ariel: T400 have switchable graphics, so there’s chance that T400s has too (but we’ll have to wait to know)
June 18th, 2009 10:19 am
Woah,
I just noticed that the Windows COA sticker is inside the battery compartment. I hope this stays the same when the production models come out! Wasn’t this idea brought up in a previous blog posting? I think the energy star and intel stickers should be placed in the battery compartment as well.
Thanks for listening to our feedback Matt!
June 18th, 2009 10:49 am
Jonathan, you noticed correctly.
The Intel stickers are on the palm rest because all manufacturers get money to put them there. That’s not going to change any time soon.
To the rest of you, we’ll talk hardware specifics once we formally announce.
June 18th, 2009 11:22 am
Wait, so these things use 1.8 inch drives?
June 18th, 2009 4:18 pm
@ Matt
I’m glad that you moved the COA sticker. It’s now the only thing left on the bottom of my x200T (it was too hard too move). All my other stickers have been relocated to the battery bay.
@ Stefan
That was definitely a 1.8″ HDD that was pulled from the broken T400s in the second video. What I’m curious about is the height of the optical drive. If it’s the T400 style, it can be swapped for a 2.5″ HDD/SSD. However, if it’s the slimmer x300 style you are SOL.
June 18th, 2009 7:08 pm
*Now* we’re talking. A sub 4lbs notebook less than 1″ with full speed CPU and updated X300 feel – you’re going to sell a lot of these. Apple/Dell/Sony/HP have nothing like this and probably won’t do for a while.
Don’t be put off about having used the 1.8″ drive, you’re well ahead of the curve here, in fact your timing couldn’t have been better, 128GB SSDs are starting to finally become mainstream and will be all over the place by the end of this year. I just hope you apply the same treatment to the X200 line next cycle too, if anything would benefit from smaller faster SSDs, it’s those.
June 18th, 2009 9:17 pm
2 Things i want change in the T400s 1st i want black hinges like my X301 2nd i want normal Thinkpad Keyboard i really hate the new one
when these things change specially the keyboard i will buy the T400s
June 19th, 2009 1:28 am
[...] This has got to be one of the coolest reviews ever. [...]
June 19th, 2009 9:19 am
It seems to be a recurring theme that new Lenovo notebooks are leaked roughly one month prior to their launch. Up until this post, the official stance seems to be no commenting on unannounced products.
I suppose having video of the darn thing (even with the 2nd video sounding like Mr. Kohut behind the camera) makes it much harder to not talk about it?
Don’t get me wrong, I scour the ‘net for news about upcoming Thinkpads as much as the next enthusiast, and I think it’s a great way of building buzz and anticipation prior to the official launch. (viral marketing, anyone?)
Looks like I’ll be waiting a bit longer to see a refresh of the X-series.
June 19th, 2009 10:17 am
And red stripes on trackpoint buttons are back! Hurray! I was so mad when my T400 appeared without them,
June 21st, 2009 5:25 pm
Forgot to mention – one thing that worries me is the possibility of anemic batteries similar to the X300 series, which even with a 6-cell (around 40WHrs) pales in stamina compared to the lighter, faster X200s (with 6-Cell, but those chunkier cells give 52Whrs charge). You could do something similar to Apple to work around this problem – use internal batteries, and use clip-on or bay batteries for people who still want more.
June 23rd, 2009 4:25 am
I’ve always been hoping for these sizes of laptops (many years ago when PCMag had an article about thin & wide laptops). The X300 and now T400s (and depending on my mood X200) are now really getting closer to my perfect dream laptop.
I love that Lenovo really seems to listen to user feedback, but I really must say I don’t like the changing of the insert/delete keys. (I also thought the old Esc ways fine since it was above and not to the left of the F1 key). ThinkPads have been great in keeping the standard keyboard layout–not the mashed up resemblance of one in almost all other laptop brands (i.e. the random placement of PgUp/PgDn, a shrunken spacebar, etc. etc.) Is there any way possible that this could be a CTO option? Wishful thinking I’m sure but I really hope this doesn’t get pushed to the other Lenovo models. Anyone else with me on this? Can we start up a poll?
Though I’m really glad the Enter key didn’t get giant-sized (displacing the blackslash). That would have been the last straw where I go off the deep end and subsequently retreat into the woods…
June 23rd, 2009 2:20 pm
I just got a chance to see a close up photo of the keyboard. I was wrong about the Esc key–having it separated and to the left of F1 is indeed like a desktop keyboard. So that’s great, though I still feel the larger size is unnecessary (but it doesn’t cause any harm really). I’ve mistakenly hit F1 or ESC when I wanted the other key more times than I can count on my old T42.
I still have my doubts about the delete key, but now that I thought it over it’s not that bad. However, are there any Linux/Unix users out there that would protest? It’s been a while but I believe the insert key is used quite often.
June 23rd, 2009 3:03 pm
I wonder if your research show that people are not using the PC/Express card slots? No slots in x301, T400s. Less (one) in T400/500. I am using smart cards for login and no “in box” reader (in 54mm slot) is no option. I can go for T400 now, but it seems no diferent from 14″ T61.
Also, do you think that 1440×900 is “right” for 14″? I may be old guy with bad vision, but in my book it should be 1650×1050. 1440×900 is for 12″ (seems I’m geting X200s in September)
June 23rd, 2009 4:51 pm
I agree with 21. I am looking to upgrade my T43, but I will not upgrade to a computer with a mangled keyboard. The insert button is extremely useful at times, and I like it just where it is!