These days you can fairly easily find a notebook to do exactly what you want it to. If you looking for something small and cheap for connecting to the Internet, a netbook may perfectly suit you, or else you can go for overpriced multimedia widescreen powerhouses that have more features than you’ll ever need or use for that matter (i.e., fingerprint scanner). But, if you’re a traditionalist and want something that’s dependable, not to mention functions surprisingly well, you may not want to look any further than the ThinkPad notebooks made by Lenovo.

The Lenovo ThinkPad T400 is a notebook laptop pc with a simple, yet elegant tuxedo black appearance. Its no-frills styling and resilience is typical of a ThinkPad.

Under the hood you have standard, yet high-quality laptop electronics that you can come to expect from a ThinkPad. The base model comes with an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.26 GHz processor, a good ol 14.1 in. very bright TFT display, a Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD graphics card, 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive and a combo CD/DVD drive (no DVD burning support). On this laptop wireless internet connectivity is also supported with an included WiFi card.

Okay, so you’re probably saying to yourself, “Hey, what’s the big deal? Those specs are old school, they were impressive two years back. But now? What’s up with the low standard memory? What about the display it’s not widescreen? It doesn’t even burn DVDs!

Hang on one second, buster. What I just described is in the base model, which is enough of a laptop for most business people. There are five versions of the T400 available, and each one meets different needs. And yes, you can get one with a DVD burner, a 250 GB hard drive, and a faster Core 2 Duo processor (although you’re up to only 2 GB of computer hardware RAM shipped, but thankfully you can max it out at 8GB).

I just want to embellish on the wireless internet capabilities of the T400. It supports the latest standards in wireless connectivity, including Wireless WAN (WWAN), WiMAX and Ultra WideBand, which is only just emerging. So 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi standards are supported, not to mention Bluetooth 2.0 connectivity. When it comes to wireless internet speed, you will be leap years ahead with this ThinkPad.

The T400 ships with a 4-cell or 6-cell battery, depending on the flavor you choose. Or, you can opt for a 9-cell battery accessory, which will give you 10 hours of usage on a single charge! Kevin O’Brien at NotebookReview.com has more:

I don’t think I have ever used the word “insane” to describe battery life before and there is no doubt that the 14″ T400 falls into that category. To get 10 hours of battery life from a notebook this size, most people think you would need a huge battery attached to the bottom of the case, another battery taking the place of the optical drive, and a big battery sticking out the back. With the T400 you can reach 9 hours and 41 minutes with the wireless enabled, screen backlight at 60%, and the laptop in integrated graphics mode using only the 84Wh 9-cell battery. In this situation the notebook is only consuming roughly 8.5 watts of power.

Do yourself a favor. If you need a workhorse laptop, go to your favorite neighborhood computer store and test drive the Lenovo ThinkPad T400. Chances are if you need to work long hours away from your desk far from a power outlet, this is the laptop for you.

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