More power on the go

Turn off all wireless antennas, have no music, and just do your wordprocessing and you'll be rewarded with nearly six hours of usage on a single charge.

Doing surfing, downloading and playing music while working gives you about three hours of usage which is a more accurate gauge.

Energy conservation is taken a step further by turning off your optical drive within a few minutes of inactivity.

Even the processor, Intel chipset and SSD use less power and generate less heat. All this has enabled the T400s to get a EPEAT (Electronic Products Environmental Assessment Tool) Gold status for low-energy use and minimal impact on the environment.

All work and ...

As there is no dedicated 3D graphics processor, which means you won't be able to play all your favourite 3D games. We tried Dawn of War 2 and the game literally ran at half-speed.

It sounds disappointing but the integrated Intel GMA 4500MHD graphics chip is actually capable of decoding full HD movies smoothly so you can still watch movies without any problems.

There is a VGA port to output videos but you won't find any DVI or HDMI ports. Instead you get a DisplayPort that allows you to output HD quality video to DisplayPort compatible monitors and devices.

Once you connect the T400s to output via a projector or some other screen, you have several choices of displaying the output such as having a shared desktop view with a presenter only view.

You can then showcase your presentation on the projector while doing some additional tasks on the T400s hidden away from the audience's view.

Connectivity

If you open up the Wireless Connectivity manager, you see options for turning on the Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Wireless WAN.

You can turn the wireless antennas on and off with the slide switch at the bottom right-hand side of the T400s. WiFi and Bluetooth are the usual things you get with nearly every notebook nowadays so I won't explain much about them.

The Wireless WAN is the thing that caught our attention.

Wireless WAN allows you to connect via WIMAX and cellular networks such as 3G/HSDPA and GPRS.

This feature is especially useful for the travelling businessman. To insert your SIM card to use your subscribed cellular services, pop off the battery and you'll see a small section jutting out in the battery slot. This is where you slide your SIM card in.

There is an SD card reader that has become sort of a standard in all notebooks nowadays as well as three USB ports. One of the ports is a normal port, another is a combo eSATA / USB port and the final port is a chargeable USB port for charging devices even when the notebook is off.

Conclusion

The Lenovo T400s Thinkpad is a sturdy business notebook for a high-flying executive or businessman that needs the protection and connectivity options that it offers.

The most important thing in a computer is the data and the sturdy casing is capable of protecting this important asset.

The video output and display controls will be handy during a presentation. And the varied connectivity options allows the user to stay connected to the Internet.

The only grouse is, with the high price, it should have included a dedicated graphics chip.

Overall, the Lenovo T400s Thinkpad is a tough machine and it excels at everything an executive would need of it.

Pros: Solid construction; slim and lightweight; above average battery life; nice touchpad; lots of nifty little features

Cons: Pricey; no dedicated graphics processor; no DVD writer.

--The Star/ANN