Minifree T400 Review! If pressed for time, scroll down to SUMMARY for bullet
points.
I've received the basic config model of Minifree's T400 laptop today and
wanted to share some experience on the ordering, receipt, out of box, initial
setup, and performance testing.
First some info on me so you know who had these experiences. :) I've used
GNU/Linux off and on for work or home since about 2000. I'm no pro, but I
know my way around and can install/config most things. My main build at home
is a built-myself-for-the-first-time tower running an i5 quad core with Linux
Mint 18.1 Cinnamon, and dual booting into Windows 10 to play Overwatch and
ESO. I also have a 3 year old Lenovo G505s, one of those $400 intro models
with an AMD A8 APU. It's literally falling apart lol. Entry level things are
so plastic and creaky. It runs Mint 18.1 like a champ too, although better
with XFCE.
I'm new to Libreboot/Free software, having been one of the dullards who used
to confuse OSS for FS. Not anymore. Having woken up and everything to
liberty, security, privacy and wanting to get out from under corporation's
feet, getting a free software machine was a great idea! I used Trisquel 7 in
a VM for a while to make sure I could hit the ground running, and then
ordered from Minifree.
===Ordering===
The web store is easy to use. It's easy to choose a spec and get an order
placed.
===Payment===
Minifree prefers bank transfers/wires, and mine only took 24h. On the
downside, my bank charged a $30 transfer fee. Apparently there were other
services I could have used like Transferwise that would have been cheaper.
===Shipping===
Shipping time was within the policy document despite a big surge of new
orders. Well done! Whenever I had questions about this, responses were quick
and candid.
===Receipt===
The laptop arrived very quickly. It was delivered over the weekend in like 3
days. I'm amazed. I have an order from the UK for a game that is on its
second week and hasn't arrived yet. Minifree sure knows how to pick the best
options!
Sadly, I got hit with a customs charge of $62 CAD. I don't know why given
it's a used machine, but it might be because it came packaged with a document
labeled "commercial invoice" and the box description was listed as "laptop".
I have no idea how these things work. This T400 is from what, 2009? Would I
have escaped the charge if it was listed, "used 2009 laptop" ? Dunno.
===Packaging and contents===
Perfect! Solid box, lots of big bubbles, new power cable. Spiffy.
Status of laptop upon receipt
You know, I didn't do enough homework. I thought the T400s were maybe 3-5
years old, but they're about 8 years old, and the machine showed it. It's not
bad though, just scuffs and scratches.
The cleanliness could have been better. There was dust and crumbs in all
grooves around the touchpad and buttons. There were several short light to
white coloured hairs on or sticking out of the keyboard (maybe a house pet?)
and the surface of everything had a yellowish-brown film according to what
came off onto the Lysol cloth I wiped the surfaces of the computer with. I
got it all cleaned up in 3 minutes with a quick vacuming, some
nails-in-grooves digging, and wiping, but shouldn't that have happened before
shipping?
===T400 build quality===
Fantastic. What a great design. They keyboard is much better than the later
models I've used for work. The 4:3 screen shows the age of the technology in
that you can sometimes catch the dottedness of the refresh rate but it
doesn't bother me at all. Screen is bright and colours are great. No tint
issues.
===Performance===
-Basics
The CPU (dual core), HD (160gb 5400 rpm) and RAM (4gb) are perfectly fine for
Trisquel. Everything is zippy. Boots really fast, apps are responsive, etc.
I'm pleased.
-Wifi
The wifi card is troubled. I'm lucky to get 400 kbyte/s download speeds on my
home wifi network. I don't know what's wrong with it. I plugged in my
ThinkPenguin TPE-N150USB wifi usb dongle
(https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/penguin-wireless-n-usb-adapter-gnu-linux-tpe-n150usb)
as something to compare to, and that little device gets 4 mbyte/s easy on the
same wifi connection.
I turned off the wifi connection for each wlan device in turn and did wget
tests. I did them a dozen times each just to make sure I wasn't happening
upon load balancer antics, and nope, the laptop's wifi solution remains slow,
and the USB dongle remained fast. The internal wifi has the specs listed on
the Minifree store page according to command line hardware lists, so it's the
right config. It doesn't make sense to me. I lack the knowhow to really
troubleshoot it beyond bandwidth tests.
At any rate, I'll leave the ThinkPenguin dongle in and use that until I
figure it out.
-Battery
Do these ship with the original batteries of 2009? I can barely get an hour
out of mine. Disappointed. I have a trip coming up at the end of the month
and I won't be able to use the laptop throughout the 2 hour train ride.
-Keyboard
It's a UK keyboard. Works fine. No broken or unresponsive keys that I can
tell.
===Out of box and initial setup===
Worked perfectly on first boot. Documentation was provided on how to log into
the provided default account, how to change password and even change account
name. I took the easy way out and just created a second admin account and
deleted the first. Done.
The machine came configured with USA english locale, and UK keyboard layout.
I changed that for English Canada locale, and French (Canada) keyboard layout
-- how I roll.
===SUMMARY===
Ordering, shipping, and communication were perfect.
I should have done more homework for the age of the machine. It's older than
I was expecting.
Canadians beware:
-Don't use TD Canada Trust. Heavy service fees on bank transfers.
-Customs will also want more of your money.
The machine could have received a bit more cleaning before shipping.
The wifi internal hardware is having issues with my network, or is inherently
wonky. I don't know yet. I'll have to research it.
Included battery is so poor the laptop is more of a portable desktop.
Overall happy level: smiling but not singing. I love that I have a libre
machine, but I need to get untethered from the power outlet for more than an
hour at a time.
---Post drafted in emacs on the T400.
