Lenovo ThinkPad T410: Built for Business
by Jarred Walton on March 26, 2010 4:00 AM ESTThinkPad T410: Fast for Applications
For general applications, the CPU is going to be the biggest determiner of performance. An SSD would also boost performance, particularly in benchmarks like PCMark where storage performance is a major factor. With the fastest i5 dual-core CPU currently available, the T410 is obviously going to churn out some good benchmark results.
General application performance is right where we'd expect given the components. Laptops equipped with i7-720QM processors will typically offer a bit better performance in lightly threaded scenarios and quite a bit more performance in heavily threaded tasks. Cinebench, PCMark Vantage, and Peacekeeper show that the single core performance of the i5-540M can surpass the i7-720QM, thanks to aggressive Turbo Modes (the i7-720QM default clock is 1.6GHz but it can Turbo as high as 2.8GHz; in contrast the i5-540M stock clock is 2.53GHz with up to 3.06GHz Turbo Mode). In tasks like 3D rendering or video encoding, however, there's no beating the eight threads of the 720QM. Cinebench multi-threaded is 25% faster with 720QM and x264 encoding (second pass) is 40% faster than the 540M.
We know that some people like to see 3DMark results, so we've included them as usual. We'll show actual gaming performance next, and even though ThinkPad has never targeted gaming the Quadro NVS 3100M is at least capable of running most games at low detail at the native resolution. The T410 is basically the same graphics performance as the UL50Vf, as we would expect from the GPU specs. Now let's take a quick look at some actual games.
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MrSpadge - Sunday, March 28, 2010 - link
I own a T61 since 2 years and I like it, especially the keyboard. If only I could get something like that for my desktop!However, the machine is far too noisy for my taste (7.2k rpm HDD and/or fan on lowest setting) and the screen is a completely rubbish TN. I love that it's matte (a main reason I chose a Thinkpad), but the viewing angles are so bad that the colors change upon the slightest head movement. If NEC can give us excellent 23" TFTs for 300€ I fail to see why 1000+€ laptops all have to have crappy displays.
Please keep complaining about the display quality!
Belard - Sunday, March 28, 2010 - link
I'd agree about the screen... I would have thought it would have been fixed by now.One of our guys has a T61... and it is very sharp, looks good. But when put an SL-500 or my R61 next to it, then it looks very bland for no good reason.
MrSpadge - Sunday, March 28, 2010 - link
I meant "excellent eIPS 23" TFTs".demonsavatar - Sunday, March 28, 2010 - link
Reviews of some other Thinkpads would be great, especially the X201/201s.Nomgle - Friday, March 26, 2010 - link
Jarred, do you intend to look at the new Alienware M11X anytime soon ? It fills a special kind of niche - CULV with a decent video card - I'm very interested to see what you think !JarredWalton - Friday, March 26, 2010 - link
Just got it this past Tuesday and it's next up for review. This week it will post (i.e. in a few days).beorntheold - Friday, March 26, 2010 - link
I've been working on a ThinkPad T60 for the past two and half years. My experience - the best keyboard and /the/ worst LCD screen anywhere.So my advise - if you value your eyes look elsewhere.
strikeback03 - Friday, March 26, 2010 - link
should have gotten the flexview, my boss has one and it rocks.fiki959 - Friday, March 26, 2010 - link
I understand that PC manufactures have to cut corners somewhere, but 1200+ dollar notebook should have a better screen. My 4 year old Clevo M660 machine has above 400:1 contrast ratio (LG/Philips matrix). It is not very bright around 140 Cd/M2, but is a very nice screen.I bought it for 650 euro (800$), so I think there is room for better screen in 1200 dollar T410.
juampavalverde - Friday, March 26, 2010 - link
From the side of cutting BOM, ¿isnt overkill the gpu for a business laptop? The igp from those intel cpus is fast enough for any business software, it could be weak for a workstation, but this is a laptop for everyday work, light load, quick response. and probably one chip less would give some extra time on battery.