ThinkPad Edge S430 Lounge

Are you sure it's a 4 cell battery, the websites that sell the s430 here in Norways, write that it's a 6 cell.. Kinda confused here

 

Go to Lenovo website and check the specs there yourself, I don't think a 6cell battery even exists for that model.

4h20 isn't too bad for those specs \ weight \ thickness, I'd be more worried about the temperatures. 90ºC is bad for the laptop in the long run, the heat will wear the other components out eventually.

If the laptop build quality is as good as you say then it might be ok, although I doubt it's that good since the laptop isn't that expensive anyway. It has a good screen and hardware for the price already, + awesome weight and thickness. Corners have to be cut somewhere besides battery size.

Would be great if you could show some pics \ video of the laptop, but that might be asking too much as it takes time \ patience.

Thanks for the info so far anyway (y)

 

I went to the Lenovo site and found this

 

It's the 48.8Wh battery, doesn't matter how many cells does it have. I don't think it's a 6cell battery due to low capacity, but doesn't matter anyway.

It also shows there's no upgrade option, so you're "stuck" with that one.

 

Sorry guys that it took so long but lenovo decided to bring the S430 late in their own Shop.
I'm going to order a special variation of the S430 (Core i7 without UTMS and without dGPU), I was just wondering if anybody knows which one of the two is the better choice (the Intel one is standard):
- Intel Centrino Wireless-N 2230 (2x2 BGN & BT4)
- ThinkPad a/b/g/n Wireless BT Combo (2x2 ABGN & BT4.0)
The difference would be just arround 7$.

Btw. Would it make sense to order the laptop with the Nvidia graphics because of the Optimus-compression?

 

Ok then, thank you for clearing that up for me

 

The S430 I´ve bought has only 4 cells as advertised:
Lenovo ThinkPad Edge S430 TopSeller N3B3EGE 33643EG Intel Core i5-3210M, GT620M, Thunderbolt bei notebooksbilliger.de
"4 Zellen Akku (48.8 WHr)"

For the temperature issue I think a notebook-cooler can help here to expand the lifetime.
I will turn off the Nvidia card in the bios and check temperatures again later.

Here is a picture comparing old and new laptop:



Eventually I add some more pictures tomorrow. It´s already night here and my camera isn´t that good.

 

I don't think there's gonna be a radio difference between those WiFi cards, the Intel one supports Intel features(like WiDi), the other one supports A type networks (read: probably useless).
I'd go with the cheaper one, as they'll probably behave the same.

I'm not sure what you mean by optimus compression also, do you mean video decoding hardware acceleration? You can just use Intel's QuickSync for that.

 

Playing Diablo 3 about 2h the S430 crashed. Device was running very well but hot - and I mean very hot.
Only a hard reset resolved the issue. Laptop runs @"high performance" mode when chrashed.

 

Switched to HD4000 only by BIOS. Max temp was 78 after another hour.

 

max temp 80C. only with HD 4000.

 

It runs hot indeed, it's too thin for the hardware, can't dissipate well heat from CPU + GPU. A cooler lapping + thermal paste replacement might help, but it should probably have taken the ULV CPU route :x

 

so a cheap piece of crap that overheats and has thunderbolt.
if there were more alternatives to thunderbolt notebooks I would get other notebook. I'm crossing fingers that in the next weeks someone anounces something with thunderbolt otherwise I'll have to get this lava enabled S430.

 

It isn´t that bad. At least it is affordable and has a outstanding build quality for that price.

Today I worked abroad and sometime outside. At least you need about 50% brightness for a readable
view. And with BIOS turned off Nvidia GPU and in "Power saving" mode I got about 5h.
But indeed it has temperature issues - especially when using the GPU excessive.
With just office work and some internet use everything works very fine here.
Also the "Thinklight" is a nice idea I love.

Don´t forget: This is not a gaming monster. So I can live with that.
At least I can switch off the GPU. If my XPS had that possibility, it would eventually not
got burned several times.

I am a little worried about adding more memory. You have to dismantle the keyboard and remove some connectors.
I am not very good with that kind of work. Other devices just have a dam panel.

 

This model have a backlit keyboard?

 

No, the keyboard has no backlight.
Above the display is a small LED which illuminate the keyboard when turned on.

 

Hello... Did you get any confirmation regarding this? No matter if I get a cheaper one from China, I'd still need to know if it's the same model.

Anybody can confirm this?

 

Yes, no ultrabay, no adaptor. The disk drive stays in.



On other notes, do you know if a 9.5 mm ssd will fit. I´m having trouble finding info on the matter.

 

Thanks for your reply bjarkias... But I didn't quite understand what you meant. :S

 

has anybody found a way to import the laptop into the US? I know a lot of German/Australian stores sell it, but I am not sure which ones will ship, if any, to the US. What problems would I be faced with besides exchange rates and what not? If it helps, all I want is the i7 version with TB but no nVidia.

 

Please correct me if I'm wrong, which I hope, but from what I´ve gathered lenovo dropped the 'switch out the optical drive for an extra hard drive' option on the s430.

Now I am interested in knowing what height SSD can replace the 500 gig hd that comes with the I7 version.


ps. By disk drive I ment the optical drive, sorry for the poor choice of words.

 

Didn't find any european or aussi site that would ship overseas...

 

In Australia you can get it when buying the computer. Sadly, I can't seem to find it in Europe. If I'm right, should be 04W3885. I'll keep looking to see what I can get and post here any information related...

Regarding the HD, is 03T8189. I believe is 9.5mm?

 

I believe that in the s430 a standard 12.7mm ODD is built-in (in every case no UltraBay, neither I / II or III) so you can use any "ODD to 2,5" HDD Adapter" on Ebay f.e. Just make sure that you buy one that is working properly.

 

Thanks for your reply!

So, correct me if I'm wrong... What you say is that this adapter should work for the S430 with a 9.5mm 1TB HDD: 2.HDD SATA Festplatten 12,7mm Adapter für Sony VAIO VPC-E/F Acer Aspire Lenovo | eBay...

...and this external case should be able to house the removed DVD burner: USB 2.0 externes 12,7mm Gehäuse Sata-Schnittstelle CD/DVD Laufwerk | eBay

PS: From China are cheaper. But I need it in two weeks top, so...

 

I've Just ordered my thinkpad edge S430 because sony has recently pissed me off.
It's the base model in UK, i5, 620m plus 3 years warranty and the sleeve case.
Total spend £742.04 inc 20% VAT
I did use a cashback site so I'm now waiting on £62.67 to be paid to me.
I'm going to get extra 4GB ram.
Perhaps a samsung 830 256GB ssd and either an usb3 enclosure or the ODD adaptor for the HDD, hopefully I can get the plastic bit of the DVD drive and attach it to the ODD adaptor otherwise there's going to be gaping hole in the side of the chassis.

I hardly use the optical drive now, I used it twice in two years to burn a project onto CD to send off (I'm not attaching a 700MB zip file in an email or expect someone to download that.) I'll just use the one on my desktop.

Personally I can't wait until it arrives, and according to http://www.lenovo.com/psref/pdf/edgebook_WE.pdf, there's a thinklight and a spill resistant keyboard it's nice to know that it's there just in case. Shame it's not backlit though.
The screen is better than most others (comparing price), it's better than the Sony S13premium's 900p screen which is a lot more expensive.

Now I am contemplating whether a 128GB ssd will be enough or stick with the original plan of 256GB, since the 500GB HDD will be for storage of documents, some games .etc That's if I go for the integrated ODD route.

Only criticisms is the smallish battery (at least slightly better than the Sony S13p), and that upgradabiliy is harder than normal, I do not like dealing with zif connectors and zif locks when I want to upgrade the ram and clean out the fan .etc, plus no backlit keyboard.
Plus sides, I'm saving money.

 

Well as I just read I'm actually mistaken. it's a 9.5mm ODD built-in

so you need to get a 9.5mm ODD to HDD Adapter, hope you didn't order it yet.

Edit: The ODD Bus works only with SATA I so I recommend you to put the SSD at the HDD place and the HDD in the ODD.

 

One question, Can I get an mSATA SSD such as this: CT256M4SSD3 - 256GB, mSATA Solid State Drive , from Crucial.com and just stick it in my S430?
I know it has a mSATA slot, but I wonder if I can use it as an actual SSD rather than just cache. Then I can leave my 500GB hdd and ODD in place.

I would phone up lenovo to check but they don't open until monday.

 

Would you be able to make a video review please?

 

I had a Sony and I didn't like it at all. Specially the keyboard. I'm totally in love with the Lenovo chicklet keyboard. And regarding the backlit... In the first information mentioned backlit, yeah, it's a shame. Anyway, screen was THE point in acquiring this notebook. I would have even liked a 1080p for my work on the road.

I'm also waiting to receive it. I will post more information as soon as I break it.

Thanks for your time! Yes, that was what I found before. But since a lot of information regarding this model is wrong, I wanted to double check. Maybe you knew something that wasn't online. I should go with 2nd SATA HDD SSD Hard Drive Bay Caddy for Laptops (9.5mm) | eBay then.

My idea was not to put a SSD, but instead a 1TB HDD. If I find myself in need for speed, I will replace the 500GB primary HDD... But usually I'm in need of storage . For long travels I carry a lot of stuff and the 500GB HDD + 16GBSSD should perform ok.

 

The comment was for voyanger. But I will make a video if I change the ODD (if I'm not doing it in the middle of the airport )

Edit: I misread voyanger comment, now removed.

 

Believe it or not, the Sony machine was perfect for me but then the cretins at Sony Europes management decided to include the 3G modem as standard pushing up the price by £125 and well it was a uneccessary feature, they also made this change quietly hoping no one would notice, Sony pissed me off with their business practice.

Aside that I think I'm going to purchase a 128GB mSATA SSD from crucial (I'd rather have the marvell chip then sandforce) [could anyone suggest better?] use that as my boot drive and the 500GB left over as my data drive, does this sound good? Or is the mSATA bit used for cache? As far as I'm concerned I have a free mSATA slot that needs to be filled.

Don't worry about it, Unfortunately I've changed my mind, I've decided not to go down the ODD route and rather the mSATA route instead.

I'm also going to type up a review on this forum when I receive and upgrade it.

 

Ok... I didn't misread it. The mSATA is actually being used by the 16GB SSD cache. I guess you can replace it with your SSD -- at least that was the way in the E420s I'm using now.

 

I didn't select it in my CTO version, 16GB for £35 is not worth it considering 16GB only should cost around half that. I also did not need the wwan option since my phone does tethering.

I'm wondering if it's just cache or not, Ill talk to lenovo on Monday and see what they say.

However I did find this in the User Guide:
If your computer is equipped with both a hard disk drive and an mSATA solid state drive, you are
not recommended to use the mSATA solid state drive as a bootable device. The mSATA solid state drive is
designed and developed for “cache” function purpose only. If you use the mSATA solid state drive as a
bootable device, its reliability is not guaranteed.

However with the E520 version people had success in what I intend to do, Edge e520 mSATA SSD - Lenovo Community

I figure 128GB should be enough considering my current desktop installation takes up 40GB and then 128GB should provide enough breathing room. All other data will reside on the 500GB HDD.

I can't wait 2-3 business days delivery because I just kept stock config.

 

16GB SSD might be a bit less for the OS or did you plan to put the OS on the HDD?
Then I would understand the benefit of your SSD , because swapping the OS all the time around between HDD/SSD would be pretty annoying.

Btw: You can use the mSATA SDD as it's own partition aswell.

explain what you planned to do ..

 

This is the DVD-RW that comes with the S430: Optiarc DVD RW AD-7940H

So I can confirm is 9.5mm

Will keep you posted...

 

Leave the HDD as it is... Remove the DVD-RW, put an additional 1TB HDD. Just as if you had bought it from Lenovo Australia.

 

To be honest 16GB is not really a usable size for a windows installation, 64GB is stretching it but generally it will suffice for most people, it really depends on what programs you're going to have on top of windows.
Yes at that size a 16GB drive will only be useful as a cache drive, pretty much how seagate's momentus xt works. In theory it should help with boot times.

I am glad to see that it is SATA 3 and also people had success in using OCZ mSATA on the older E520.


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Here's my plan - wait for my S430 to arrive (should be this week or next week), scrutinise it for any quality issues and then review it and point out any issues.
If there's any quality issues the laptop is going straight back for a refund, I will then procede to look for an alternative laptop.

Now I speculate that it uses the exact same screen as the t430 as Lenovo lists both as the 250 nits, 300:1 contrast ratio. Now hearing horror stories about this screen makes me cringe, since this screen is pretty much the same as the Sony S13p screen but viewing angles are worse. However plus sides is that at least it doesn't have flickering.

Now if the screen is crap and if viewing angles are minuscule then this laptop is getting sent straight back (within 7 days so I don't have the ridiculous 15% restock charge). Basically if this screen is worse than my HP G62 then it's going back, (It's crap but viewing angles are surprisingly flexible.) I will then procede to look for an alternative.

I believe that the screen will be worse than my 6 Year old Sharp TFT monitor. But who knows I may be pleasantly shocked.

If the screen is passable, I will then proceed to acquire another 4GB ram and 128GB mSATA drive from crucial.

The only option left for me after the lenovo option is really Dell's latitude and well if that option fails then it's HP elitebook and then if that fails then it's back to Sony and see if they've improved if not then its Mac land which I've been trying to avoid. I need a decent 14'' or below laptop, it's not too much to ask for discrete graphics and a decent screen (1366x768 screens are automatically bad since they don't provide me with enough work space). I've got around 2 Months to play with.

 

There is already a Review of the s430 on a common (german) Testing page ( notebookjournal.de). They tested the brightness aswell, a bit disappointing but alright.



Edit1:
Contrast:
At 100 cd/m2 144,92:1
At max. brightness 142,97:1

Edit2:
The batterylife seems to be pretty good (for a 4-cell modell):
Under load 155 min
Battery Eater 378 min

 

Fair enough but it has to pass my scrutiny. I forgot to mention that I will be calibrating the screen by using a pre calibrated ICC profile or borrow my friend's spyder4 calibration tool (if he still has it) to see if that improves colours, since the t430 screen does not cover sRGB that well (covers less colours than Sony S13p), hmm the display has quite severe uneven backlighting system, though all manufactures suffers from that these days.
However apparently the 14'' display used in the X1 carbon is better in terms of viewing angles, colours, contrast, black and is brighter 300 nits. I might upgrade the screen after a year providing if it is compatible.

This laptop is rarely going to be used outdoors so screen brightness is not really an issue.

What shocks me is the 2.5 hours battery life under load, what is this load? The Sony S13p uses pretty much the same battery 49 Whr vs lenovo's 48.8 Whr and user's report around 4-5 hours usage on the S13p, now it would be interesting to see who does power management better, I wonder if my mSATA is going to help save battery.
My HP G62 has a 47 Whr battery, it has an i3 -330m processor and well only really lasts 2-3 hours doing powerpoint presentations and whatnot (nothing intensive), but then again ivy bridge is supposed to be a major improvement over arandale.
It also had a 15.6'' screen that will use more power than a smaller screen.

Come on Apple managed to squeeze 63.5 Whrs on the 13'' battery (pretty much same size as s430 battery) that like 30% more capacity. Pc manufactures need to step up the game here.

Nice to see speakers are the good old fashioned business ones, all business laptops suffer from this, ti's the same for the Sony S13p.

It seams Sony's thermals are better, the sony is also a little thinner but it never gets hot on one side I guess that's the advantage of sticking the vent in the middle like apple. I wonder if higher quality thermal paste will help since looking at this http://goput.it/v45.jpg makes me cry. Also I have to remember my one will be sporting the 620m gpu (should have been at least 640m LE kepler)
Also the vent is on the right side of the notebook which is strange since it's always been on the left.

The first thing I'm going to do when I receive my S430 is remove the stickers and put tape over the COA and any serial/service tag numbers since manufactures don't laminate those and thus easy to rub off (seen too many laptops with COAs rubbed off)

I want to see notebookcheck review this laptop since they seem to be very thorough.

This will also be the first brown product I will own, can't wait.
There's too many black and silvers out there, time for some other colours now.

 

"under load" means under load of the GPU / CPU. If you would play an older video game of something in that direction you might have this battery life.

48wh / 2.58h (155min) = ~19w

The TDP of the CPU+GPU is at 35w + display + mainbord So the S430 might have a max energy consumption of 50w .

 

Not necessarily, higher TDP doesn't not mean higher power consumption, infact my i3-330m (Arrandale 1st gen) has a TDP of 35w but it clearly uses more power and is less efficient than Ivy bridge. So this is not an accurate way of looking at it.

Yes sure there's "under load" but I specifically need to know how they're measuring this, any reputable reviewer will state how they measured it, I can see they've used battery eater reader's test and well that's just idling the laptop which gives around 6 hours.

Now notebookcheck did a review on the E530, it basically the same spec wise other than the fact that it's sandy bridge and sports a nvidia 630m instead, now the battery used in this machine is 48 Whr which is almost the same as the S430 48.8 Whr battery, now idling with wifi off, lowest brightness the E530 gets about 6.5 hours (Battery Eater reader's test), under full load (Battery Eater classic test) full brightness and wifi on .etc then it only achieves 1 hour runtime.

According to them Wifi Web browsing got them around 4 hours of usage (Display at 150 Nits) and well that doesn't seem very long. Now considering that is is using the 630m as well as Sandy Bridge that's not too bad.

Now taking measurements from Sony S13p which is essentially the same as the lenovo S430 apart from that it uses the 640M LE (Kepler) GPU and it also has a 49 Whr battery (0.2 better than lenovo) and notebook check get around 30 minutes extra battery runtime, which also is not great.
So factoring in this info, The S430 will realistically provide me with 3-5 hrs battery life (assuming half brightness) which to be honest is about what other business notebooks are at, so it's average.

But seriously Apple can't be the only ones providing better batteries I mean they squeezed 63.5 Whr out of their 13'' MBP battery which to my understanding has the same dimensions as the Sony S13 and Lenovo S430 battery both only provide 49 Whr.

Although the nvidia 620m is a POS, it will help me in CAD by providing 2GB vram which is important. Aside from that I advise people to stay away from the 620m since it is only really 1.5 times better than the HD4000 which isn't very noticeable in game play - look for an alternative if you intend to game. It also uses around 20-25 watts which is a waste if you don't intend to use the vram.

However with Lenovo's weird pricing doesn't help; the core i5 with 620m is cheaper than the i7 versions without GPU, it makes sense to purchase the optimus version only because the dual core i7 isn't much faster than the normal i5 (5 -10% faster). I guess you can always disable the 620m in bios and save drastically more power.

Now Sony who used a modicum of sense used nvidia's 640m LE (kepler) in their S series, which ironically uses less power (17 watts) and is vastly more powerful (rivals my GTS250) then the s***ty 620m.

Lenovo should have used Kepler, I would have paid more since it would have been worth the extra money, in fact Lenovo is not the only culprit, Dell and ASUS are just as bad if not worse.

Manufactures need to stop the disgusting 1366x768 resolution, it should really be 1600x900 minimum. Glad in the UK the 900p screen is standard.

Most importantly Manufactures should not use mobilemark 2007, it's essentially just idling the machine hence the ridiculous values that no one achieves.
Either use mobilemark 2012 since it caters better for todays usage of laptops, or run 3d mark until the battery runs out.

 

Here from Notebookcheck.com (in german):

I would recommand not to buy the S430 with dedicated graphics. The battery life is better without aswell (or you just turn it off via BIOS)

 

[-REDACTED-]

I have cancelled my order with Lenovo, this is due to a much better laptop being released in the UK, the GIGABYTE U2442N.

 

The U2442N has a cheap keyboard. The temperatures are even more bad than in the S430. For a laptop that costs 1200€ a bit disappointing.

@Topic my S430 should arrive on monday / tuesday

 

Actually it's not bad, they've improved it since the original press release, it's still better than the Sony keyboard which is better than most.
The screen is also better than the S13p which is better than S430 and the like.

Thermals are actually better for this machine considering it has a full voltage CPU, and a gt640m which would help me immensely in CAD and that the U2442N is slimmer, also the laptop vents out of the back rather than the right side, so my right hand will be kept away from the heat whilst using a mouse.

Battery life is surprisingly similar, I guess this is due to the 28nm kepler vs 40nm fermi.

Another reason I am cancelling my S430 is that no one will be at home to accept the package all week, as the delay at factory meant that I had to wait an extra week so I had no choice but to cancel it. However I did receive the 14'' sleeve case though, but that will be sent back too.

Other than that people shouldn't be put off by what I said, the S430 is an excellent machine, it's well built, good base spec and it's very cost effective.

 

As you said, having GT640m is nice. The U2442N is slimmer and the back vents are always WAY better. The backlit keyboard is a REALLY nice feat. And it has more USB ports, which is great!

Still, [for me] the keyboard is a no-go. I type the whole day and the chicklet keyboard Lenovo is using today, beats the crap out of Gygabyte and specially Sony keyboards any given day...

Will let you know how the S430 behaves in a couple of weeks. I will also probably be able to compare against a Lenovo X1, since I'm buying one for a friend of mine.

 

I was also considering the S430 for 2D graphics work (photoshop, indesign, illustrator etc). But wow that gigabyte looks tasty, what I would like to know though is is it much more expensive than the lenovo? Is the screen better/worse? And where will it be available? I imagine given the thinner profile and if you get a 128SSD and a 750Gb HDD and 8GB Ram this would bring the price way over £1000. Not sure its worth it just for extra storage, a slimmer profile and better dedicated graphics which are essentially useless to me as I don't play games. I suppose the SSD would be great though.

Review here:

Gigabyte U2442N Review

Any info appreciated

 

I really appreciate the extra GPU power though, for CAD and computing purposes (CUDA) not necessarily for gaming, I don't game that much.

Anyway My iphone just died so I need a new phone, Lenovo also can't cancel my order since they've built my laptop, I'm thinking of sticking with it, I took off the 3 years warranty (not concerned about Lenovo's reliability) and I might refund the thinkpad sleeve case, since they billed me more than what I should have paid. The money I saved would get me a nice phone.
I am worried about UPS, their plane broke down in Hong Kong and had to send it 2 days late. My package goes through Germany first so it doesn't get held up at UK customs who are holding all packages from Hong Kong and China for the duration of the Olympics and the Paraolympics. This causes delays of up to a month so UPS gets brownie points there.

Ok I will answer your questions:
1. The S430 is perfectly suited to your needs, there's not need to go for the gigabyte.
2. It is a lot more expensive than the S430, for me it is about £400 more.
3. The screen on the gigabyte is actually worse than the Lenovo in terms of colour gamut, contrast and blacks, The gigabyte is better in terms of brightness.
4. You can add an SSD in the mSATA slot in the S430.

The thing is as well is that the S430 has much better build quality.

 

I still haven't found the caddy adapter... Do you guys think this would fit the S430?
2nd SATA HDD SSD Hard Drive Bay Caddy for Laptops (9.5mm) | eBay