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Lenovo ThinkPad T400 Laptop Keyboard and Touchpad Review Pictures

Lenovo ThinkPad T400 Laptop Keyboard layout has stayed the same, with only very minor changes in the feel of the key presses. Some of this may be attributed to the differences in keyboard suppliers (NMB, ALPS, and Chicony) though, as my T60 came with the “clickier” Chicony keyboard, whereas the T400 is much quieter. The keyboard strength seems to have changed, with more flex present on the right side of the keyboard. To find the culprit of this flex, I took apart the notebook and inspected the keyboard area.

Lenovo ThinkPad T400 Laptop Keyboard and Touchpad Review Pictures

To my great surprise, I found Lenovo had completely redesigned the keyboard, with weight savings as the primary goal. The old design has a much stronger back-plate, which is removed on the new revision. This cuts weight by 25 percent (6oz to 4.5oz) from the old model, but at the huge disadvantage of tarnishing the long-standing ThinkPad keyboard reputation. For now I am leaning towards weight savings, instead of cost savings as the main redesign reason, but I still don’t like it. Anyone who knows the ThinkPad name knows at least two things; boring business notebook and great keyboard. If you take away the keyboard and make other weight reducing or durability reducing changes to the notebook design, you will no doubt alienate many of your followers. I really hope Lenovo takes notice at this, cause I would take a brick glued to the bottom of the case before over a keyboard change such as this.

Lenovo ThinkPad T400 Laptop Keyboard and Touchpad Review Pictures

Lenovo ThinkPad T400 Laptop Touchpad has grown compared to the Lenovo ThinkPad T61 Laptop , expanding to the width of the lower touchpad buttons. With the ThinkPad touchpads always being the runts compared to other notebook designs, this change was very welcomed (even if they did paint scroll arrows on it). The texture is identical to the older touchpad, and sensitivity is just as good. Compared to my Lenovo ThinkPad T60p , the touchpad buttons feel much firmer, and have more support from edge to edge. On the T60’s touchpad, the far left and right side tend to sag slightly, while the T400’s touchpad buttons have equal support from side to side.

My only disappointment with the touchpad was the lack of red strips. After seeing the X300 and Lenovo ThinkPad X200 that offered “legacy” red strips on the touchpoint buttons, I was upset to see that Lenovo didn’t include that finishing touch on the T-series keyboard.

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