T440p first impressions

Try "TPFANCONTROL" (Google it)

 

No.
http://i.imgur.com/bEyilq8h.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/WU5tAjfh.jpg

If you look on these pictures from the TS, you can see that the battery does not elevates the T440p even further. The feet are connected with the chassis, which has a slight bump where the battery is, they are not connected with the battery.

Very interessting thank you. This seems to contradict the experince the TS has noted at page 2. Looking forward to more feedback from T440p owners about this.

 

My T440p fan ramps up now and again, depending on what I'm doing, but, while it IS audible in a quiet room, I don't think it's necessarily loud. To measure it, I downloaded a free Android app called Sound Meter. My quiet basement measured 33-34 dB with the phone right next to the idling laptop. When the fan kicked on, it went up to 40-41 dB. Me whispering a foot away produced around 50 dB, and the dog walking on the wood floor above me (nails clicking) registered a 61 dB measurement. The ThinkPad chime when UAC alerted me was about 80 dB.

Download the app if you have Android and see what yours is! Fun.

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Okay, then, let me say it this way: With or without the battery, the (already thick) T440p is elevated in the back by a built-in bump (which is totally ugly).

No way. This is 2013-2014. I refuse to muck around if Lenovo can't do proper engineering.

 

Why the hell does it matter how attractive your workhorse is? Who are you trying to impress?

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If someone want something more "attractive" and thin-and-light, then there is always the option for the T440s, which has a thinner design with smaller bezels. Not even to mention that this is just the bottom of the machine, which you won´t look on very often.

This is nothing new. they already had this on the T430. The only difference is the form of the bump, on the T430 the bump was more cylindric, on the T440p it is more rectangular. This appears to be neccessary, because otherwise they would have to make the battery smaller (use smaller cells). Either this, or make the system uniformly thicker, which is also bad.

@AnakiMana,
thanks for your notes about the fan. Could you use TPFancontrol to get the different fan-speed levels and post them here? Would be very interesting how they are on the T440p.

 

Thanks for pointing this out. I haven't heard other people comment on this. As others noted, it would be interesting to see how TPFANCONTROL can help.

 

So any update report on battery life?

 

I'd be happy to. I'm not with my laptop for a couple hours, but I'll do it when I get back.

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Totally ugly? I guess that's in the eye of the beholder Admittedly the battery bump does add some thickness to an already fairly thick machine, but it's an acceptable tradeoff IMO for having a relatively small/light quad-core machine. If I did not need a quad-core/full voltage CPU or the flexibility that an ultrabay offers then frankly I don't see the point of buying a T440p over the T440s or any number of other ultrabooks out there. For an almost-workstation solution, however, the T440p IMO balances power/size pretty well (though I'm still on the fence about whether to get one)

 

T440p-Pictures

Some nice pictures of the T440p I have found via Google.

Thanks! I am looking forward to it.

 

Your civility is appreciated.

 

What is the preferred battery test? I bought PCmark 8 Advanced recently and will run it tonight. I know it has a battery life test (though I haven't tried it yet). Anything else that would be good for comparisons?

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One thing I'd like to know is what open slots do you have on it... are there any free m.2 slots? (since the cache drive option is gone from the configurator...)

 

I have one free M.2 slot, the HMM suggests that this can be used for either an SSD or a WWAN card.

I doubt there is an alternate mainboard offering both because the HMM does not mention it but only Lenovo knows for sure.

 

Beautiful... thank you! Every time I say I'm done with Lenovo, I take those words back once I see this kind of images )

 

Any idea if the M.2 slot will be able to take double-sided cards? Does it look like there's enough clearance?

I'm baffled why Lenovo would suddenly stop offering cache drives. I highly doubt they'd run out of something that minor, and usually when one component is not available they simply delay shipments until the component's back in stock. I also noticed it's not available on the regular T440, either. I guess we'll never know, but I'm wary after reading about the different main boards used on the Yx10p models depending on whether a cache drive is ordered or not

 

TPFanControl results

0 - 0RPM
1 - 2718
2 - 3053
3 - 3271
4 - 3424
5 - 4010
6 - 4484
7 - 4494

6 & 7 seem to both be at around the same speed. Even under stress tests I don't think I have never hit level 5(or higher) which is noticeably loud. In a short 5 min Prime95 run I hit level 4 fast and stayed there.

Level 1 is really unnoticeable unless it is a really quiet room or you hold it next to your ear.
At all levels you hear the sound of the air more than the whine of the fan if that makes sense.

The fan does not turn on doing office tasks at 70F ambient. That is, as far as I can tell, because Level 1 may be slipping past me occasionally without noticing.

 

couple questions since i am thinking about buying

1. if i wanted to buy and add more memory, can i just PC3-12800 DDR3? i see it comes with a DDR3L, so i'm not exactly sure what is compatible if i wanted to add my own

2. for the ultrabay, do you know what external drive adapter will work with it? will the previous thinkpad serial ATA harddrive bay adapter III work? if not, what will i need to buy?

 

1. You need to use low voltage memory (that's what the L stands for) which is 1.35v.

2. You need a new drive adapter for the Serial UltraBay Enhanced. If you go to the Lenovo store, accessories, and select T440p from the pull down list, you'll find the new part, which is a "IV". I believe it's not shipping yet, though.

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I just took some pictures of my screen prior to packing it up to send back to Lenovo for repair. Hopefully the new panel is better, or I will probably return it.

f5.6, 5s, iso 100 for those who care.





While using the screen, the most noticeable bleeding is on the top right corner, and the three LED spots in the bottom right. This is obvious when the machine boots and shows the Lenovo logo.

The screen is fine if you are just doing office/internet things, and is better than a TN panel because of the viewing angles and color. But I plan on doing photo work, and this isn't going to cut it.

 

Ack... that's some bad light bleed. I hope this is not common. Anyone else with a T440p care to comment on their levels of screen light bleed?

 

What kind of fix would Lenovo( or any other company) do to fix backlight bleed? WHat is your backup computer if they can't fix it?

 

I do see the bleeding effect on the boot screen, as well as the HDD password screen. But once in windows a solid black desktop, and a blank screensaver both seem to not show the effect. I don't really have a good low light camera to take pictures though.

Is it something that is fixed by the display's INF driver?

 

wow that looks a lot thicker than i thought

 

It is possible the display panel I got is below average quality. I hope the replacement panel is much better. I would like to hear from other owners to determine if my experience is normal or not.

I could get a MacBook Pro with the retina display as a replacement (it's not much more money at all). It seems there aren't many other laptop companies that take display quality as serious as Apple does, which is a shame. I would much prefer a ThinkPad to a MacBook (variety of rational and irrational reasons). Or I could upgrade my camera body and/or buy a 27" ips monitor for my desktop.

 

The screen is much thinner than on my T61. The overall thickness seems the same, but you could look up the specs. Its not as thin as an ultrabook or MacBook, but its not that thick or heavy. I like the size and weight, although the screen seems more flimsy than my T61 was.

 

It could be. But with other people saying they see it I am not sure. I have heard of backlight bleed on consumer models so I have never heard of anyone getting it fixed. But this is a business level laptop so not sure what the fix would be thought it was a design flaw.

Would love to get a macbook pro REtina, but I need something that can take bumps and bruises. But if Apple offered Accidental protection I would get one. The price is now right and I am back in school and I have access to alot of free software and IT that will partition for me which makes the Mac have real value.

 

Yeah if its a design flaw or they have extremely lax quality standards, then the replacement screen will not fix the backlight bleeding. If this is the case, I will have to decide if I can live with it, or if I should return it and get my money back. I must say I am disappointed though; I would have thought for $1500 my display would have been of higher quality. I paid a premium for ThinkPad quality, and expect a premium product.

I need a Windows machine to run some special engineering software, plus its what I am most familiar with. I have no desire to have OSX; there is no value for me there. Dual booting or using a virtual machine sounds like too much of a hassle for me. If only I could get a MacBook Pro with native Windows 7, a proper Windows keyboard, and without that giant glowing Apple logo on the back...

 

I'm sitting in front of my T440p right now. How do you want me to test for light bleed?

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If it's any consolation, I've not seen backlight bleed that bad very often even on consumer models so hopefully the replacement screen will better. It looks like the LCD panel itself was just not put together very well or something in the lid is distorting it.

Like you, I'm looking at a T440p mainly for photo/video editing, but will also consider the Dell M3800 if it comes in a configuration that pairs quad-core CPU with a 1080p screen (which the sister XPS15 does not). Although I'll usually be using my 24" IPS monitor for editing, I do want a decent laptop screen for those occasions I have to do some editing on the road.

 

I made a 1920x1080 image that was all black, and displayed it in full-screen. Set up the display brightness to max and turn the lights off. If you have backlight bleed, you will see it. I set up a tripod with my camera, and focused on the screen while the lights are on.

 

Just a quick observation. To run PCMark 8's battery tests, it has me set the brightness as close to 110 cd/m2 (aka lux) as possible. It gives me a white screen, which I used a light sensor app on my phone to measure. I had to turn my brightness to the halfway mark in Windows to achieve 107. When cranking brightness all the way up it showed 410 lux and I nearly went blind! Why does this screen go so bright! I guess it'll be great outdoors. But seriously, someone could pop a retina if not careful!

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@C4RBON,
Interesting that the T440p seems to have some amount of bleeeding. It looks like its definitifly more than on my T440s (both use the same screen). A small amount of bleeding is normal for these screens I think, but thats too much. I am curious if that is the same for all T440p.

 

It's not. I saw a few brighter spots along the bottom and one or two on the right side when booting once, but I have to actually look for it. In Windows I changed my screen to black background and turned brightness up, but can't find bleeding for the life of me now. If I'm wondering what the trick is to see bleeding, I don't have a problem.

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What *is* the best way to see bleeding?

Edit: I rebooted again and could see light bleeding in perhaps 5 places while the Lenovo logo was present. Then the screen went darker just before loading Windows, at which point I suppose the video driver adjusts the output. And when that shift happens on my T440p, I no longer see ANY of it.

 

Line up for panel lottery, you guys should check the new alienware 14 panel quality problem.

 

Haha... yes, Lenovo usually runs lotteries for components even on T-series machines (screens and keyboard in particular), though less so now they've consolidated some of their suppliers.

 

pretty good reason to holding off on buying the newest

 

There is no "part-lottery" this time around compared with the T430 for example. For the T430, there were 3 different HD+ displays, and 3 different keyboard manufacturers. For the T440p there is one FHD display and two keyboard manufacturers.

 

Is screen bleeding covered by warranty?

 

Video drivers cannot fix backlight bleed by its very definition. Backlight bleed is a hardware problem in the crudest sense of the term: It is caused by the LED lights that illuminate the screen being aligned wrongly.

 

I wonder then if the startup screen gets a super-high brightness setting that you cannot reach afterwords because I too see the bleeding at the startup screen but not thereafter.

 

That's possible, although I can't see any reason why they would make the start-up screen turn the LEDs up beyond their normal operating range.

 

Have you played dark videos? Just go on youtube and type a movie trailer of some sort. Usually have dark screens. And let us know of course.

 

Hopefully for you all, the 14" FHD screen isn't experiencing backlight bleed the way it is in the X220/X230 IPS where it is a characteristic of the panel that you cannot avoid. It was annoying at first to have such a 'defect', but the only time it's noticeable is while booting up.

 

Youtube - Backlight Bleed Test

 

I certainly hope excessive bleeding is covered. Lenovo overnighted me a box when I told them what was going on. Hopefully they swap the screen and I get a better one. I'll let y'all know when I get my machine back.

 

In the realm of manufacturing defects, my spacebar which I complained about in the first post is getting progressively worse. It is now occasionally missing button presses (from right side) which is super annoying, it happens often enough that I cannot depend on a space between words.

To be fair to the Lenovo QA, this would have been difficult to catch since it was a single key that was marginally passable when I got it but deteriorated fast. Still this is the most important key on the keyboard! Does not bode well. Warranty services is sending me a new keyboard so I should be back up and running in a couple of days.

 

Thanks, I'm confident that my T440p has absolutely no backlight bleed now.

I think the startup screen bleed may be due to the super-low resolution, (perhaps) different refresh rate, or some sort of lack of instruction to the panel. I remember old monitors that flashed when changing refresh rates or resolutions, with OSD showing connection state/rate. The graphics mode definitely changes then.