T440s Owner´s Thread

Until I write a proper guide, here are some links to help the adventurous along the way. No hand-holding at this stage - you'll need to know what you are doing. Just remember to install from a secure UEFI boot (the default config with a pre-installed win 8 machine)

Generic (non activate-able) 8.1 keys which can be used to install from Retail media. Mods please note the comment in the 2nd answer.
Windows 8.1 fresh install with Windows 8 licence - Super User

Removal of product key after install (from elevated command prompt):

Code:

slmgr /upk

Extraction of the UEFI key:
windows 8 - How to extract Win 8 OEM key embedded in the BIOS? - Super User

Entering a new key - the one you extracted above, from an elevated command prompt again:
Embedded Product Key (8.0) for 8.1 install - Page 2

Mods - although this may superficially look like circumvention, it is 100% legitimate.

 

How useful do you guys think is the touchscreen on this one? Do you use it often?

 

It's not necessary for Windows 8. Besides the extra cost and weight (which are somewhat significant), apparently the screen is worse than regular FHD.

 

It is not necessary but Windows makes sense with a touch screen. I got a non-touch screen version and paid for Windows 7 because if i need to rescue and recover in 2-3 years the $50 is no biggie for the time and stress. I find myself reaching for the screen every time I pick up a windows 8 laptop. It's your call.

 

We're talking about the Rescue and Recovery tool -- the one that lets you create DVDs from the preload -- not about System Update. There is no Rescue and Recovery tool for Windows 8 on that drivers page.

But thanks for the clean-8.1 instructions. I might end up doing that when my T440s arrives.

 

My T440s with the touchscreen has already been ordered, I Just wanted reassurance that I made the right decision or not. Thanks.

 

Lol. Always good to do it before. But okay.

 

If you're doing work, you're going to be in the desktop ui. I just don't see touch being compelling in that environment, esp since it isn't a free lunch. I'm leaving trackpoint as well and switching to a portable mouse.

 

I have used the BT version of this mouse for a year now... its an awesome mouse.



Sent from my Galaxy Note 8.0

 

Hey, guys, I just wonder if this SSD from Amazon will work for the m2 slot in our laptops.
Amazon.com: MyDigitalSSD SC2 Super Cache 2 42mm SATA III 6G M.2 NGFF M2 SSD Solid State Drive (128GB): Computers & Accessories
I want to dualboot windows and linux

 

Agreed; I feel that a mouse is simply far more natural than Trackpoint (which I admittedly am not used to). I'm using an Ideapad one, which is fairly nice.

 

I agree that a BT mouse is my first choice. But I got the touch version because I had an idea about a program or two that I thought would make sense. However, I'm finding the touch access much more useful that I first thought it would be. Although I've used trackpoints for years and still add it to my requirements list, it's really not as needed as I thought. Either the trackpad or the touch is easier now for general scrolling. With multiple windows open, I find I use touch more to just grab a window and drag it out of the way.

I was worried about the added weight and size, but that doesn't really bother me now that I have it. I'm a little less happy about the reflections off the touch surface... it's certainly not glossy, but it does reflect a little more than a true matte screen. As far as I'm concerned, the display quality is great, so I doubt there's much degradation there just because it's behind the touch surface. All in all, I'm quite happy with it.

 

I used a Windows 8 Pro x64 ISO I got off of MSDNAA. I didn't even have to enter a product key as Windows detected the product key.

 

Hey guys.
I love the new design a lot, until I turn it on.
I just received my T440s and I was shocked by how bad the screen and heat is.

1. Yellowish and brownish tint. Serious! The screen even lacks of proper brightness, not too much brighter than my T420. -2 level brightness is about with my 250 nit Dell monitor.
The brownish tint is in comparison to my Dell monitor and my iPhone 5s white. It's ridiculously unacceptable.

2.Serious bleeding on right edge. One patch is about 30mm long and visible under well-lit room on black background.

3. The screen coating is very disappointing, feels like a cheap screen protector.

4. Heat. I have 4300u with HDD, and my palm rest gets warm quickly.

Any suggestion? Did I get a lemon?

 

You obviously aren't using it right.

It appears as you did. The T440s is having quite some teething problems in the early stages of production. The black light bleed should be very minimal as you should only see it mostly on boot screen and nothing else. The only two devices in the palm rest is the HDD and battery. Is the heat on the left (battery) or right (HDD) side? My T440s runs cold and I have never heard the fan until I updated the BIOS which forced the fan to spin at max for a few seconds. Can you show us a picture of the forum on your T440s?

 

Black background dark room



dark room lenovo wallpaper

There is also one significantly visible from bright room but I would rather not upload as it's somewhat reflective.
I have another one showing the color tint and a bright patch on screen. Can't upload somehow from my iPhone.

The heat is more significant on right hand palm rest.

 

FHD or non-IPS screen? Touchscreen or regular screen? Some, but not all, have reported issues with a brownish tint to their screens on the touchscreen model. Hopefully this didn't expand to all models, as I am waiting for mine to arrive.

 

I have the non touch FHD and do not see the issues cited. The screen is really nice on my machine. Colors and contrast are very nice. I am probably going to sell my Retina MacBook Pro (13.3") as a result.

My T440s runs nice and cool with Windows 8.1 and the custom install I did. Samsung 840 Series Pro 256GB SSD. I added a 4GB RAM stick for a total of 8GB.

The only downside I see is the trackpad. It isn't as good as the Mac, but close enough. I also use a Microsoft Wireless Mobile Mouse 4000 with the nano transceiver.

 

Wow, must be a really nice screen. I would've thought that the font rendering would be much better on the 13" rMBP because of the higher resolution on a smaller screen. Any chance you could show some side by side pictures of text rendering on both? Any other thoughts on the two machines (battery life etc)?

 

My 440s has a lot of light bleed as well, though it's unnoticeable unless I'm looking at a black screen. I don't usually do that so it's not a big deal, but it was kind of offputting to see the first time I powered it on

 

There's another user few pages back that's experiencing yellowish whites. That light bleed is really excessive and the heat isn't normal either. Don't bother getting it fixed. Just have them replace it.

 

Well, I got my Crucial 1.35v RAM in and the system picked up the new 8GB. Happily purring along at 12GB now. I opted for the Crucial just because the Kingston site took me to some dealer online that didn't stock the proper SKU so I just went to Crucial and bought their certified RAM.

Just going to assume that all DDR3L will work then, it's a safe bet. If you buy DDR3 make sure it mentions 1.35 SOMEWHERE in the specs

 

Huh, I used a Windows 8 pro iso from something like MSDNAA as well and it kept refusing to start the installer until I put the product key on the USB drive. Do you mean the one that came with your laptop or the key from MSDNAA?

 

Does yours run at 1600mhz? I got some GSkill ram and it's supposed to be 1600mhz but instead it runs at 1333mhz. Not a big deal, just curious if i should have spent a bit more to get matching / certified ram.

 

Where can I go to check?

 

I haven't even owned a Windows 8 touchscreen laptop but I still keep reaching for the screen on my T440s. Though I don't know if I'd consider the weight and cost worth it, but I find that when using your computer lazily in bed it would be nice to have.

 

Somewhat surprisingly, task manager shows it in the performance tab if you look at memory.

 

Hi guys,

Any idea what the difference is between the 3 wireless card options:

Intel Single Band Wireless 7260BN with Bluetooth 4.0
ThinkPad Wireless 2 x 2 BGN with Bluetooth
Intel Dual Band Wireless 7260AC with Bluetooth 4.0

?

Standard selection is the middle one, but the most expensive one is the last.

I had very bad experiences with my Series 9 so am over-cautious now.

Thanks!

ck

 

Huh, weird. I hadn't ever noticed that before. Yup, I'm running 1600MHz all around

 

Anyone who has received a US T440s able to see if their machine has a smart card reader?

This is listed as "standard" on the website, but I received my machine and it does not have a smart card reader--the slot where a smart card would go is plugged up. I called customer service, and initially I was told that a smart card reader is "optional," although I don't see any place where it can be added as an option and it's clearly listed as "standard." After I questioned this, they put me on hold for some time and when they came back they had placed a new order for me and set-up a return for my machine.

The only thing is that I don't see anything about a smart card reader in the new order status either, so I'm a little concerned that the new machine will get here and still not have a smart card reader.

Total memory 4GB PC3-12800 4GBBS+0DIMM
Hard drive 500GB HDD 7200rpm
Battery 3cell LiPolymer 23.2Wh Front
WiFi wireless LAN adapters Intel 7260 BT ACBGN
Wireless WAN accessories MBL BB upgradable, future use
AC Adapter and Power Cord 45W AC Adpt2 US (2pin)
Accessible Optimized Preload NONE
Adobe Acrobat NONE
Adobe Elements NONE
Adobe Lightroom NONE
Assistant Voice Recognition NONE
Battery 2 6cell LiIon 72Wh Cyl HC Rear
Camera 720p HD Camera
Display Panel T440s 14.0FHD MT WWAN
Keyboard Language KYB (Backlit) US English
Keyboard Patch NONE
Language Interface Packs NONE
Microsoft Office NONE
Microsoft Windows 7 XP Mode NONE
Nok Nok Labs client software NONE
Pointing device T440s FPR,dock
Preload Language W8 P64 English
Preload OS Windows 8 Pro 64
Preload Type Standard Image
Processor Intel Core i7-4600U on MB
Protection Services NONE
Publication Language Pub; US English
Recovery Media NONE
Reserved Char #1 J04 NONE
Reserved Char #2 J04 NONE
SIM Card for WWAN 2 NONE
Security Chip 2 Security Chip Enabled
Selectable Warranty 1 Year Depot or Carry-in
Shipping Country USA
Software Application NONE
Storage Adapter 16GB M.2_SSD Single
System Unit T440s Intel i7 vPro1 4GB
System expansion slots 3rd M.2 SSD slot

 

Apart from the obvious differences, I think the ThinkPad Wireless card is based on the Realtek chip. You can see this information on the driver download page for this card:
http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloads/detail.page?DocID=DS037545

 

The machine they have reordered for you doesn't have it either. Smart Card reader would in System Expansion Slot.

You can get it in the non-touch model by selecting an SSD and then switching back to the HDD. The issue is that with a configuration with the M.2 16g cache, the System Expansion defaults to the 3rd M.2 Slot. When you select the SSD and then switch back, the 16gb cache is unselected. However, doing this with the touch model is giving the Smart Card option. What's weird is when I configured on Sunday, Smart Card reader was selected by default on the touch model.

Don't know what to tell you beyond that, but right there doesn't seem to be a way to configure the touch model with smart card.

 

I went through the TA book and all the 20AQ and 20AR models show "none" for Smartcard. Cant tell which models actually have the smartcard reader built into them.

http://www.lenovo.com/psref/pdf/tabook.pdf

 

Hmmm, on the website when configuring the machine...right hand side where it lists "Standard on the T440s" under "Ports" it says "Mini DP, VGA, 3 USB 3.0, Combo jack, 4-in-1 SD card reader, Smart Card Reader," so I was under the impression that it didn't need to be configured! How frustrating...I guess I'll call back.

 

The product key that is built into the UEFI BIOS. I didn't have to enter any product key. It however only installed Windows 8 and not Windows 8 Pro which I don't mind as I needed the key for something else.

 

You can also check the RAM timing by using Speccy.

 

Finally spoke with someone who knew what they were talking about, and the smart card reader listed under "Standard" is an error on the website. Touch models cannot be configured with a SC reader, and only non-touch models w/o the 16gb mSATA can be configured with the SC reader. Ended up setting up a return of this machine and re-ordering a non-touch version, which probably will work out better because I was a little underwhelmed by the FHD touch screen.

 

I just canceled the order after realizing the 7260-BN is single-band, despite it clearly saying that. Thanks anadoc for pointing that out.

I'm oscillating on the battery still. Ideally need the 6-cell but concerned about how much it raises the machine. I had ordered the 3-cell along with a spare battery, but that $110 for the extra 3-cell still leaves me at 25% less battery capacity than the 6-cell.

Could someone kindly post a pic of what it looks like from the back?

 

Hang on, something does not add up here. Upon further research, it seems that the 7260 BN + BT card is infact dual-band as per Intel's documentation:

http://www.intel.com/content/dam/ww...dual-band-wireless-n-7260-bluetooth-brief.pdf

Maybe this is also one of the many Thinkpad webpage snafu that Lenovo is responsible for?

 

What are you folks doing with your smart card readers? Are you using it for authentication on an Active Directory domain, or with something like EIDAuthenticate?

Or something else?

 

There are multiple 7260's. There are bgn and ac/agn that Lenovo is using. And apparently also this agn.

This is the single-band one in the T440s:
ARK | Intel® Wireless-N 7260

 

Damn, you are right. Found the full PDF:

http://www.intel.com/content/dam/ww...ct-briefs/wireless-n-7260-bluetooth-brief.pdf

Why Lenovo...why?

 

A comment on the Windows 8.1 upgrade questions that pop up occasionally on the thread. I received my T440s yesterday and just got done with the usual patching cycle. Included in that is a BIOS update to version 2.14, which Lenovo released on 11/26. The notes for this release say " Added support for Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-bit", which would kind of imply 8.1 isn't (at least technically) supported on earlier BIOSes. I haven't installed 8.1 yet and won't for a bit---I prefer to snag a USB stick and build a recovery drive first---but it'll be interesting to see how an upgrade of the stock image goes with this BIOS version.

 

In my long experience with Thinkpad's, Lenovo does a fair bit of modification to the standard Windows image to produce low power-consumption. Does upgrading to 8.1 make it a fresh equivalent of Windows from a registry pov, or is it still Lenovo Win 8.1.

 

The BIOS upgrade came after the first units shipped out which was in turn after Windows 8.1. I and several others upgraded before the BIOS upgrade and I personally didn't have any problems. I also feel that my battery life has been comparable with the clean install compared to the stock install, though for me anything above 4 hours is great so I don't really pay that much attention. Idle power consumption is really good under Windows 8 though, it almost stops using power if you're not using it (eg. if you just go away for a bit). Under Linux I believe it doesn't reach the same power state unless you have kernel 3.12 or newer which unfortunately is not in Ubuntu yet, but I might try building my own kernel one of these days just to compare.

 

Finally received a T440s - I must say that it was worth the several month wait! The screen is amazing (non-touch FHD set to 125% scaling), AHVA is great. Backlight bleed is noticeable during all-black screens, but that's fine with me. I'll be upgrading SSD and RAM fairly shortly.

 

I'm interested in the T440s with the nVidia GT 730M option (as I'd like to have the ability to run 3840x2160 via Display Port): Do any of the ThinkPad owners here have that version and can comment on how the discrete graphics card affects the overall silence (will the fans run more often than with CPU graphics?) and weight of the product?

Will this laptop even be able to drive an UHD display satisfactorily in terms of sufficient performance (not interested in gaming, just desktop usage)?

 

Let's be clear about one thing. Windows 8.1 was available mid October so Lenovo had time to build an image and ship them with the T440s. I am not sure why the T440s shipped with 8.0.

 

I was under the impression the T440s only came with the integrated Intel HD 4400 GPU. 3840x2160 is listed as the max supported res via mini DP. I don't have a 30" or greater LCD panel to test with, nor do I have the docking station to test three panels. Sorry. I might be able to test a couple of directly connected panels later this week.

 

I live in Europe, where the T440s is available with a discrete graphics card (the nVidia 730m in an Optimus configuration). This configuration supports 3840x2160@60Hz via DP (the HD4400 only allows for this resolution at 30 Hz).

http://www.lenovo.com/psref/pdf/tabook_WE.pdf