IBM T40 Laptop 

This is meant for users who want good performance from a small and lightweight laptop. With dimensions of 312x31x277 mm, the T40 is very slim, and at 2.4 kg it’s fairly light if not the lightest. Its 14.1’’ display is powered by an ATI mobility Radeon 7500 with 32 MB RAM, which gave us a decent frame rate of 84.6 fps at 1024x768 resolution in Quake III Arena.

This is good enough for most graphics-intensive jobs. Plus, it has a VGA connection and a removable tray for drive modules, which is just 9.5 mm high. The brain is a 1.5 GHz Pentium M processor.

The main attraction of the laptop is of course that it’s a Centrino, based on the Intel 855 chipset and with an Intel 802.11b wireless interface. It performed well and gave us scores of 55 BW units from Business Winstone 2001, which was comparable to an ordinary 2.2 GHz P4 based desktop system. The keyboard is quite comfortable to use, and it has both the Trackpoint and TouchPad with four buttons for operating the screen pointer. Other specs include two PC cards slots, audio connections (no line in connection), modem, two USB 2.0 ports, and an infrared connector. Interestingly this does not have a serial port, and no FireWire port seems surprising for such a powerful system, considering that both are so common these days.

The hardware frills not withstanding, another good feature of the laptop is its software, termed as Thinkvantage by IBM. The T40 has a blue access button, which helps the user restore and configure it with utmost ease. It can be invoked during the boot-up and system restore is just a two-click process. It can directly connect to the Internet and download the latest drivers and patches. It came with Windows XP Professional (with service pack 1). The IBM access connection software tool lets you configure options like network and wireless connections.

In battery life, it’s one up over other laptops. Being a Centrino, which is designed from ground for more battery life, this laptop gave an amazing battery life of nearly five hours in our tests. This is good enough for any mobile user, and for maximizing battery life there’s even a Battery Maximizer tool. This functions over and above the Windows default power management feature, providing many more power saving options.

The Bottom Line This notebook packs quite a punch, has style and is extremely functional. The price may seem a bit high, but given the functionality, it’s definitely a good buy.

S N A P S H O T
Price	:	Rs 189,900 (three-years warranty)
Meant for	:	Mobile professionals
Key specs	:	Centrino technology with 1.5 GHz Pentium M, Thinkvantage software, 2.4 kg weight, 14.1” display
Pros	:	Excellent battery life and IBM access feature
Cons	:	No serial or FireWire ports
Contact	:	IBM India, Bangalore.
Tel	:	2063199.
E-mail	:	sanmenon@in.ibm.com

Ankit Khare