T420 or T420s

I have couple of question. Not sure yet whether I should go for the T420 or the T420s (or different manufacturer).

Anyone using the ultra-bay battery for the T420s? I've read there is an issue that this battery is always used up first and in a way it is killed after very few load cycles. Is this resolved? How much additional battery live do I get?

I don't need the optical drive. Also I've read T420s has about 3 hrs of battery life. I don't need 12 hours but like 6 hrs would be desirable. (browsing, development. Nothing too heavy).

How easy is it to replace the HDD in the T420 for an SSD? Is is SATA-III compatible, meaning would I profit from like a intel 520 ssd??

Impact on battery life of nvs4200m? I have exactly 1 model of T420 and T420s I can choose, both have the nvs4200. (It's a shop with rebate for students). Can it be completely disabled? I don't think I will ever need it.

 

Check which screen resolution the T420 you're looking at has. If it's 1366x768 and can't be customized with 1600x900 where you're buying it, then I'd vote going with the T420s. Higher resolutions are really helpful for development.

However, you might want to check out the Dell Latitude E5420/E6420. Same 14" form factor, but the 1600x900 screen has better specs (brigher, better contrast ratio). Some people aren't happy with the T420 display. Be sure you get the 1600x900 screen if you're buying one of the Latitudes. Neither 1600x900 screens are all that special, but I believe the ones on the Latitudes are a bit better.

 

For whatever reason people are quoting tests with heavy use (movies, high brightness, etc.) for the T420s (~2.5-3 hrs on 6 cell) but light use (lower brightness, word documents, etc.) for the T420 (~10 hrs on 9 cell). Not to say that the T420s has spectacular battery life, but better for you to have real facts.

I believe the UltraBay is used first and will die faster. It has 32 Wh.

It should be very easy to swap out for a SSD. It should be SATA III.

 

The T420s internal battery, while being 6 cell, has 2/3rds of the capacity of the T420 6 cell, so it should run for 2/3rd of the time under the same usage conditions. Then there's the T420s bay battery which will give the T420s 15% more capacity than the T420's 6 cell but is still short of the T420 9 cell capacity. It's a trade-off between weight and run time.

John

 

Both have the 1600x900 screen. To be exact, there is a 3rd model with 1366x768, but because of that i did not even mention it. 1366x768 is just not usable for me. I've looked at the dells and they are fine but no rebate on them. And the amount I would save with rebate is pretty big.

 

Anyone using the ultra-bay battery for the T420s? I've read there is an issue that this battery is always used up first and in a way it is killed after very few load cycles. Is this resolved? How much additional battery live do I get?

> I had to make the same decision. Eventually I went with T420S. In order to get more battery life, I got the ultraybay battery, replaced hdd with sdd, and chose the integrated graphics option. I still got the bluetooth, because I can turn it on only when I need it.

Unfortunately I did not have a chance to use the laptop yet. They just shipped it yesterday so it will take another two weeks to arrive here. However, I did some research while making the decision and I think I can answer some of your questions.



I don't need the optical drive. Also I've read T420s has about 3 hrs of battery life. I don't need 12 hours but like 6 hrs would be desirable. (browsing, development. Nothing too heavy).

> I read that we should pay attention to watt hours (wh). The T420s 6 cell has 44 wh and T420 6 cell has 57. So given that the two machines of similar configuration consume same power, T420 will last longer by 30% (=57/44=1.295). The ultrabay battery has 32wh so you will get 76 wh if you combine the 6 cell battery with the ultrabay battery. This is not as good as T420 9 cell battery with 96 wh by 26%, but better than T420 6 cell by 33%.

I read that the ultraybay battery get used before the main battery so it ends up wearing out the ultraybay battery faster. But doesn't this mean that the main battery would get worn out more slowly than in the other way? If that's the case, it does not sound too bad. I can just replace the ultrabay battery to stay in good shape.



How easy is it to replace the HDD in the T420 for an SSD? Is is SATA-III compatible, meaning would I profit from like a intel 520 ssd??

> It should be easy to replace the HDD with SSD. It also supports SATA-3. However, you cannot use Intel 520 in T420s as the main drive, because it takes 7mm SSD, not the common 9mm. I ordered SATA-2 Intel 320. (If you really want to use Intel 520, you can use it in ultrabay via ultrabay adapter. However, in this case you would not be able to use the ultrabay battery.)



Impact on battery life of nvs4200m? I have exactly 1 model of T420 and T420s I can choose, both have the nvs4200. (It's a shop with rebate for students). Can it be completely disabled? I don't think I will ever need it.

> I cannot comment on this since I just went for the integrated option.

 

I believe the NVS4200M can be disabled in the BIOS. In the bios you have 3 options: Optimus(Both GPUS), only the HD3000 is on and only the NVS4200 is on. Its not the exact wording, but you should get an idea of what to do in the bios.

 

Just another question:

What does wwan-ready mean?

I have to buy the modem separatley?

 

yes, thats right, there are already antennas build in, but you need to buy a wwan card to use them

 

One thing to consider if you get the T420s, s series models are harder to source parts if your machine is out of warranty, whereas T420 is a standard model, parts will be readily available.