I recently went to Egypt. I did not take the expensive notebook
with me, but instead opted for my old and reliable T400. It had
been manufactured before Lenovo decided to ditch the IBM-esque
look of the iconic series, which is why the model looks way more
dated than it actually is.
The security personnel at the airport decided to analyse it for
traces of explosives. Luckily, I did not carry any explosives with
me.
Back in Germany, I did not have the time to change laptops, so I
brought the T400 to university. That yielded some comedic value;
here is what people said about it.
(regarding the side)
- Is that a telephone jack?
(Yes.)
- Does it connect to a DisplayPort monitor?
(No.)
- So where is the floppy disk drive?
(Haha.)
(regarding the lid)
- Whoa, it still depends on hinges!
(Correct.)
- Does that fluted surface serve any purpose?
(It's great for filing nails!)
(regarding the 4GB of memory)
- Is it able to run Emacs without swapping?
(Yes, if only just.)
- We should use it as a graphics processing server!
(💯)
(regarding the keyboard)
- What does the ThinkVantage button do?
(Nothing.)
- I wish they still mapped media functions onto the arrow keys.
(Never even noticed this!)
(regarding ThinkLight, in a well-lit room)
- It's so bright; I am blinded now!
(...)
Furthermore, it is a lot more fun to use a Linux desktop on this
old device than on the newer T470p, which has a HiDPI display that
is hardly compatible with any piece of software or desktop
environment I would like to run. Sigh.