Lenovo's T400s: good value, slim all-rounder notebook

Lenovo has unveiled a new notebook called the ThinkPad T400s. The notebook is very thin at 0.83-inches (2.1cm) , but not quite in Dell Adamo or MacBook Air territory. I would also hesitate to call the Lenovo sexy, the rig is really just a thin ThinkPad. Lenovo isn’t much for styling.

Aside from the svelte profile the notebook weighs less than four pounds and sports a Intel Core 2 Duo processor -- the Australian model gets an impressive 2.8GHz speed. The machine comes with a 120GB HDD, but has storage options that include a 250GB HDD (add $110) or a 128GB SSD (add $399). With a machine this thin you might not be surprised to hear that no optical drive is offered, but Lenovo does integrate a DVD-R optical drive into the thin machine and even offers a Blu-ray option (but at a hefty $1114 premium).



Other features include a multitouch track pad and a 14.1-inch screen with LED backlighting. The machine comes with a 5-in-1 memory card reader but you can trade that for an ExpressCard 34 slot if you'd prefer that for the princely sum of 45c extra (bizarre that Lenovo even bothers to charge for that.)

Wi-Fi is integrated as you'd expect, and inbuilt 3G mobile broadband is a $137.50 option. In the States it's even being offered with WiMax as an option -- though it's not offered here, since there are no broad-scale WiMax networks operating in Australia. The battery that ships with the machine is good for nearly six hours of hypothetical run time. The T400s is available now at $2364.99 (without any extra options of course) which seems to us like a pretty decent deal.