OT: Major (25%) savings on Thinkpads (today only)

[Madison Kelly]

Lennart Sorensen wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 04:52:25PM -0400, Madison Kelly wrote:
>> I swore up and down that I'd never buy a /Lenovo/ Thinkpad again, and  
>> today I proved myself a hypocrite.
>>
>> They've got a sale on that ends today where you get 25% off a laptop  
>> over $1,500 and free shipping.
> 
> Yeah I got my SL500 when they were 15% off in the spring, which made it
> come to $950 or so, which is way too cheap to qualify for the 25% off.

I think this deal is like that, too. Less than $1,500 is 15% off. Still 
pretty good.

>> I was going to get an ASUS B50A but I can't seem to find them  
>> anywhere... Even Supercom, whom I have access to through work, stopped  
>> carrying them. The promotion code is "CAP72HOURSALE".
>>
>> I decided that my 3.5yo T43p is due for a replacement, so I got a shiny  
>> new T400s (or rather, will have in 3 weeks). Apparently it's new enough  
>> the Linux support isn't perfect, but I don't suspect it will be too long  
>> before the bugs are ironed out, and none seem to be show-stoppers.
>>
>> I got:
>>
>> ThinkPad T400s (3.9lbs!)
>> - Intel Core 2 Duo SP9400 processor (2.40GHz 1066MHz 6MBL2)
> 
> So low power use.  Good for battery life.

Indeed. Besides, it is my work laptop - I play games on my home desktop. 
All I care about is code and, at most, watching flash videos. I am sure 
anything out there today can do that.

>> - Windows Vista Business 64 (I know...)
>> - 14.1WXGA+ LED B/L (1440x900)
>> - Intel GMA 4500MHD (I didn't want discreet graphics, preferring battery  
>> life)
> 
> I prefer decent video.

If I didn't have a dedicated game machine, I would agree completely. 
However, I don't even let compiz run on my laptop. Whatever buys me more 
coding time while on a battery...

>> - 2 GB PC3-8500 DDR3 (1 DIMM) (has a second DIMM slot, will upgrade later)
>> - T400s UltraNav with Finger Print Reader (doesn't work in Linux atm)
> 
> Actually it might, with a bit of work.

Meh. I've got nothing on my laptop anyone would find very interesting... 
Save for maybe my somewhat unhealthily large collection of mermaid 
pictures. ;)

>> - 120GB Hard Disk drive, 5400rpm 1.8" Low Halogen (will upgrade when  
>> SSDs mature a bit more)
>> - Intel Turbo Memory 1.6, 2GB (not sure about Linux support, but should  
>> improve battery life on platter HDDs)
> 
> Almost certainly not, and I thought on most models turbo memory prevented
> bluetooth support for some reason.  I suspect turbo memory is totally
> useless.

Foo. Oh well, like I said to Jamon, I didn't have a lot of time to 
research it and it was $50... Maybe I'll find a creative way to use 
it... if I can access it at all.

>> - DVD Recordable, Ultrabay Slim
>> ExpressCard 34 Slot
>> T400s 6 cell Prismatic Battery (no 9-cell option [yet])
> 
> Strange.  I thought 9cell was always an option.

Apparently not on this model... They went out of their way to make it as 
small as possible.

>> - Integrated Bluetooth PAN 2
>> - Intel WiFi Link 5300
> 
> Very good linux support for that.

Woots! Another spur-of-the-moment upgrade... I think it was ~$20 over 
the 5100. I'm ashamed to say I don't even know the difference. ^_^;

>> - ThinkPlus 3 Year EasyServ Total for 1 Year EasyServ (I expect my  
>> laptops to last three years!)
>>
>> They have the docking station now, but it's not on the system yet. I had  
>> to order it separately and the CSR was only able to take 10% off of  
>> that, which worked out to an extra ~$210.
>>
>> All in all, this cost me $1,834.72 + the dock, saving me ~$811.35.  
>> That's quite the savings, if you're looking for a business laptop... My  
>> one warning though is; Don't expect even five minutes extension to the  
>> warranty. Lenovo sticks to the end of their warranty period like glue.  
>> My T43p's mainboard died 7 days after it's 3 year warranty expired and  
>> they wouldn't help me. I ended up buying an R-series mainboard to keep  
>> it going until I had the money to replace it.
>>
>> Anyway, hope this might help someone and if not, sorry for the line noise.
> 
> I have managed to tweak the settings on my SL500 down to about 17W idle.
> A small tweak to knotify reduced it by 2.5W by allowing the audio chip
> to go the sleep when nothing was playing (knotify currently keeps the
> audio device open after using it forever preventing sleep mode).

Oooh, did you keep notes?

Anything to improve battery life grabs my attention! :)

Madi
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