Thinkpad T420 + T420s Owner's Thread

Note that this is not for the Edge 420s.

On the T420:
http://www.tomsick.net/misc/lenovo-thinkpad-t420-review.html
http://www.lenovo.com/shop/americas/content/pdf/notebooks/ThinkPad/t-series/ThinkPad T420-T520.pdf

On the T420s:
Lenovo Thinkpad T420s review from wfu.edu
http://shop.lenovo.com/us/ww/pdf/t420s_datasheet.pdf
http://www.lenovoblogs.com/insidethebox/2011/02/thinkpad-t420s/


Main specs that I was interested in were the 1600x900 screen at less than 4 pounds so that's the T420s: apparently 3.94 with a DVD and 3.68 w/o.

Main benefits of the T420s:
* Lighter and thinner
* can use ultrabay battery (10hrs)
* USB 3
* better sound for dialog in conference calls and movies

Main benefits of the T420:
* cheaper
* can use battery slice (24 hrs!?)
* can use 9mm HDDs (T420s must use 7mm)
* expresscard

 

WOW !

$431.00 more for the (s) model over the T420 for the exact same hardware (My spec's) and the size is just a bit smaller then the T420. Was thinking of this, but not anymore.

Thanks for the links however.

The Windows Experience Index shown should not have been between the T420s and the T410 (Older model) but with the T420 or even T410s instead. Wonder why they would do such a thing ? One has the older cpu and the newer with Sandy Bridge
unless they just wanted to show the difference between old and newer technology

 

vs the regular T420, the T420s has USB 3.0, option of a bay battery and is lighter and thinner. If you don't need those, the T420 may be better for you.

 

The USB3 is a good selling point, but thinner ?. By the looks of it, at least in photos comparison is really not that much thinner.

Lighter ? The weight with all the hardware matching the T420 is not that much to justify the cost either in my opinion, but others may disagree and purchase it.

Tabook shown for both models... (Only about 2/3 of a lb difference)

T420s 3.68 lbs w/6 cell battery / Size 13.5 x 9.1 x . 0.83 - 1.02
T420 4.31 lbs w/6 cell battery / 13.4 x 9.17 x 1.18 - 1.20 inch

I have to look at all the spec's to see paying $431.00 more is worth it for me or others. Not for me. Now the X220 maybe another matter, but have to look at the cost when it is released by Lenovo website.

 

T420s is a bit thinner, take a look at the pictures and decide which is which (found on Picassa)

 

I need to know the real life battery stats. Both with and without the bay battery.

Thanks.

 

Thinner one on left but as you said "A bit thinner" Still cannot justify for me a purchase. Again, the X220 would be the way to go if you are on the road or in school, but the T420s is not. Take the T420 instead would be my advice

 

I am wondering why Lenovo only offers one warranty upgrade option: 3yr onsite+protection at a price of >$300...

 

Can I ask what you are using the machine for, not into specific details but a generalization as to the class of user you are?

 

Once someone gets one, please post battery stats! Thanks

 

Both the laptop and battery are surprisingly light!
Disappointed that the preconfigured topseller comes with a 65W adapter and not a 90W.
It's late, so I don't think I can sit through a full battery discharge, maybe tomorrow then.

 

There's nothing wrong with the 65W adapter on the T420s (integrated). It has more than enough power to charge the battery and power the laptop - typical charging power on my T400 (with the 90W) is only around 30W anyway, and I would expect the T420s to be similar.

 

90W charges the laptop quicker than 65W though.

 

Not on integrated graphics systems to my knowledge. I've tried my T400 (in integrated mode) with both the 65W and the 90W and the charge current is identical.

It's possible that you might see slower charging under extremly high load conditions (which is why Lenovo bundles the 90W with the discrete systems) but in general charge performance should be very similar.

The 65W is a good deal smaller/lighter, too. I have both so I'll let you know about charge performance on the T420s when I get mine.

 

T420s offers "Premium Sound", Dolby Home Theater with virtual surround sound technology. The speakers on T420s are certified for Dolby Home Theater.

 

Still not certain T420s v T420.

Sure the S is slimmer, lighter, has USB3, has better sound, but I'm really concerned its battery life will be rubbish compared to its bigger brother.

I WANT to buy the T420s Lenovo! Just don't make it suck

 

If you can wait a couple of weeks, I might have my eval unit and can tell you for sure what improvement was made to the T420s.

What's your minimum requirement for life?

 

I was installing updates and software set at 100% brightness, occasionally the screen dimmed or blanked during idle. The 66+ battery lasted close to 3.5 hrs during this process.
Personally what I dislike is that I can discern individual pixels on the screen!
Audio volume is great for this laptop.
Screen brightness seems very good, not sure about viewing in direct sunlight, but probably possible.
Screen is typical Lenovo TN supplies and suffers from color distortions viewing it from angles and not directly.
Keyboard seems solid.
Multitouch gestures on the textured trackpad in Windows 7 is still not as smooth as OSX's, I believe it can be resolved if the Synaptics releases a better driver.

 

What exactly do you mean by "discern individual pixels"?

Good to hear that the speakers are better. That's one of my major complaints about the T400 (although the T400 is way better than my T61).

For the touchpad, have you tried:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-envy-hdx/502589-e14-trackpad-discussion-only-56.html#post6870125

 

If I wanted to take the optical drive out of the T420s, is there a bezel available that would cover up the empty hole? I know I could just get the bay battery, but I was wondering if there was a way of just removing it to save a little weight.

 

Yes, you can. The part number is 45M2657, and the official part runs around $20. You can get generic versions on eBay by searching for "T400 travel bezel" for around $10.

Another option is the SATA UltraBay adapter, which you can get on eBay for around $25 (it's also the same one used for the T400). It's pretty light with nothing in it and it gives you the option of adding a second hard drive or SSD later.

 

Thank you!

 

FYI, there are three separate LCD parts for the T420s:
93P5693
93P5689
93P5685

Two of these are shared with the T420:
93P5693
93P5689

I don't know about the third part, 93P5685, but it's likely that many T420s units will have the same LCD as the T420, so you might want to look at reviews on the T420's display to get an idea.

 

2:20 from 100% to hibernate playing DVD fullscreen (WinDVD 8 SD, an older build, Lenovo has not released one for T420s yet), max. performance profile. no battery stretch. WinDVD stopped @15%, I looped a 1920x800 .mov for the last 20 min.

2:19 to fully charge from 3% to 100% using 90W AC adapter. I left the 65W in the box.

see my webpage for ~5-10 min. interval rundown if you need more detail.

 

because we are more interested in how the T420s compare to last year model (2010-2011 T410) we gave out to faculty/staff & students [it won't be good if it is worse], and more importantly, the model (2009-2010 T400) that they are turning in from June-Sept. to get the new one. The users (we purchase over 2000+ units per year) are on two-year cycle. (most of them anyway)

The users won't need to know the difference between T420 and T420s since they are not getting a T420. Those information would be for early internal use/decision making only, hence not on public webpages.

Our software image is the biggest Lenovo manufacturing have seen . It contains close to 200 packages, with 11 languages support. We tested it against probably more like 300+ software against it in 6 weeks. Yes, it is not your typical review, it was not meant to be. We are glad if others find some information in it useful, but it is not written to help people decide whether to buy a certain model. It is test results for a very specific CTO configuration, whether it meets our academic mission. The students/faculty should be able to walk in most classes, ready to do their work, without having to worry loading (or fail to install) software; hardware compatibility with equipment. We reload a machine to fresh state in < 1 hr. if something goes wrong, so the users can go back to work in the shortest possible time.

 

May I ask, why are you testing battery life with "Max Performance"? Choosing that option disables EIST and power saving features for the Intel graphics and wireless, among other things.

Unless you have a specific issue with EIST or the GPU power saving, you should never select "Max Performance". "Balanced" should deliver similar performance with less power consumption, heat, and noise.

 

because we need to know worst case scenario. the machines need to last long enough for film (or other long) classes (normally 2 hr, some are closer to 3 hr., that's rare) w/o power. if it does not, we have to come up with plan (budget/quote/deployment) to buy the 3-cell bay battery for those users. (we used to worry about whether it lasts for the entire 1h15m lectures)

whether it is 3 hr, 4 hr. or 5.5 hr on normal usage make not much differences to us, the students would have to carry the AC adapter any way for 8 hr work day, (it is not a very big deal, their books are way heavier than that) they always fight for seats in cafeteria/library that have power outlets.

Probably would test those scenario when the batteries come close to 6-7 hr.

 

Worst case should mean the most demanding task that students need to do, not the absolute worst case (which is 100% CPU/GPU load, resulting in something like 60 minutes of battery life). Disabling the power saving features just makes the results look worse than they will actually be in practice. Being conservative with the estimate does mean that you won't have students running out of juice, but it might also mean that you will end up buying UltraBay batteries for students who don't really need them.

Since you are pushing custom images to these machines you can select a reasonable profile like "balanced" as default hide/disable the "max performance" profile.

 

Thanks for the info. I saw the part number 45M2657 here , but I couldn't find any further information about it on Lenovo site. Can you give me the link where I can order it from Lenovo?

Thanks

 

The screen is made up of 1600 x 900 pixels. I have the laptop at native resolution and I can see those individual pixels on the screen. Also tried different color backgrounds with the same results. It should be smooth enough where you can't see the individual pixels IMO.
Actually contrary to the title thread, I don't own the laptop. I do appreciate you pointing out potential fixes to improve the trackpad though, but I'm not going to customize it for the user. Thanks.

 

can't get it to 100% yet, have to wait till we got Adobe Premiere Pro, Matlab, Maple, SPSS etc. heavy duty stuff on.

@ 75-95% CPU (2.80-2.90GHz) utilization, 2.04GB RAM used
Adobe Premiere Elements 9.0.1 transcoding of clips (30 min.) to 1920x1080 H.264 QuickTime (est. 70 min. but you can't do that on battery)

3.67-4.26A, 40.81-45.84W 10.32-11.59V
it starts to get warm at the end, 33-48°C

you guess is close, didn't make it to an hour though, 0:53 from 100% to 5% hibernate.

good things our labs don't use exercise clips that long, instructors know the limit from previous years. (and the battery don't last that long after few months.)

BTW 3-cell Bay battery is not really an option if you need the DVD drive for DVD-video, that's just an e.g. on considerations we have to take into account, doesn't look like the T420s can take the slice 9-cell either

 

Exactly how heavy is t420s? 3.94lbs or 3.68lbs?

 

using the 65W AC adapter, 2:13 from 3% to 100%. No significant difference from the 90W.

 

we use the same scale every year, it is not calibrated, absolute weight probably is a bit be off, (and it is a very old one sitting in the library) but is good for our comparison. (people usually don't ask us how much it weighs, but how much it is lighter than their old ones)

T420s - 4.31 lb.
remove the optical drive and 4-in-1 ExpressCard adapter
3.93 lb.

last year - T410 came in 5.38 lb.
the year before - T400 - 5.25 lb.

so, it is at least a pound lighter than the T410.

(our numbers are always higher than tabook.pdf's numbers)

if I got a chance, i will grab one and take it to Post Office, UPS/Fedex store, or chemistry building, and weight it there.

 

Are you going to weigh a t420?

 

Prime95 will take your CPU to 100% utilization, and if you run it with FurMark you can max out the GPU as well. Although unlike on a dedicated graphics machine, FurMark + Prime95 shouldn't be significantly more power than Prime95 alone, since the CPU and GPU share TDP and the clocks will be adjusted to keep the total under 35W.

If you need DVD playback life this isn't the laptop for it. With some power saving features (I believe one of which slows down the DVD drive, although your player might already do that) you might be able to hit 3 hours, but that's still not great. The T420 is a much better choice since you can get the 9-cell and/or the slice for people who need that extra life. With the 9-cell I would estimate at least 5 hours of DVD playback (9-cell is over 2x the capacity of the T420s 6-cell).

What was the configuration of the T400 you measured (4-cell/6-cell/9-cell, optical/no optical/bay battery)?

Also, was the T420s measured with an SSD or a HDD?

Thanks for all of the information! Your report is truly comprehensive!

 

From the review "it seems the pixels are not very tight, sometimes look grid-dy", and from the comment "I can see those individual pixels on the screen" -- I am really worried, this is the only thing holding me off placing the order. Really how bad it is? It is not the same screen as T420? I am using a T60 and I certainly don't see individual pixels. Do you get used to it? I'd appreciate more feedback from the owners.

 

Two of the three panels on the T420s are the same as on the T420. One of them may be different.

 

I am looking at model 417153U at amazon and others, with a good price/feature ratio (for me anyway: i5-2540m, 4Gx1, 128G SSD, 3-year warranty, etc.). Only problem is I don't know how 'bad' the screen is, it's a guessing game. Here's the full spec: Lenovo ThinkPad T420s 4171 (417153U) - Laptops / Notebooks

 

Hi everybody, this is my first post on the forum.

I am planning to buy a 420s, having recently returned a Vaio SB. Could anybody having the 420s give some details on the fan noise. The Vaio SB fan killed me, it was very loud and, worse, always on, even if the laptop was idle. I do not want to be pushed to deafness by a laptop once more.

I would like to know if the fan turns on even with no CPU usage, or if the PC stays quite unless under heavy load. The review linked on page one says it gets quite loud upon using the leonvo turbo boost+ (128 % CPU usage). Is it that bad? Is it quite when idle?

Many thanks and sorry for all the noise

Alessandro

 

My T420 with the 6 cell battery and optical drive weighs 2,29 kg. I can do a conversion in my head to pounds ;-)

 

it is the LEN40A1 HD+ 1600x900 that is in question. haven't taken apart the screen to see what FRU it corresponds to.

i think we only have about six boxes right now, all HD+. i don't know whether they all have the same screen P/N. We don't have any 2011 HD, FHD panels or T420 to compare at this time. Have a FHD W520 on order, no ETA yet.

I posted close up photos (handheld, not perfect straight either, but the subpixel gap is quite a bit larger than previous panel, you can tell easily) of it vs T410 on webpage/twitter(twitpic) if you want to see the difference.

 

Anyone know if it has PCI-E 2.0 on the expresscard slot ? (On elitebook 8460p you have to enable it in bios)

 

Where is the second RAM space? I could only find one yesterday when I installed a 4GB chip myself.

 

^^^ The other RAM slot is under the keyboard.

 

One is placed under the bottom of the computer, and the other one under the keyboard.

 

My order status has been the following for several days:
If no ship date is given above, there may be an issue with your order. If you would like more information on the status, please call 866-426-0013.

Well, I just called Lenovo and they said that my estimated shipping date had been moved from April 8th to April 29th. I ended up canceling my order since I'm leaving for a multi-week trip and obviously UPS isn't going to be able to deliver a laptop when I'm not here.

 

I received my laptop from the Ebay seller I used before (fully authorized through lenovo). Everything seemed good at first but then I discovered a few cosmetic issues that I am not happy about (and won't accept considering what I payed).

At first I thought something was wrong when I noticed the top had a sparkly finish to it. Kind of strange looking but cool nonetheless. The main issues I had were that the laptop was actually pretty dirty/dusty. The box was factory sealed so I know the seller didn't tamper with it. It wasn't like normal dirt but definitely not just plain old dust. I also had some smudges/dirt on the screen. Most of it came off (minus a few marks/smudges that won't budge)and I was willing to just deal with it until I noticed the long scratch right on top of the laptop itself. It isn't deep and definitely looks like it was missed in QC at the factory (but very obvious).

Nit picking or not, I expect the laptop I order to come in mint condition from the factory. I could deal with some nicks on the bottom of course but when it comes dusty/dirty with a nice long scratch on the top, that is unacceptable. I sent an email to the seller so we shall see what happens. He has a great return policy so hopefully I can get this sorted out. Problem is, he is out of stock right now so I don't know how long I will have to wait considering mine was a special config (dedicated graphics, updated screen, processor, etc). I really want another one from this seller because I got a great deal compared to what lenovo wanted (even counting their 10% off coupon at the time) plus I used a coupon via ebay for another $100 off the sale price.

Not counting the cosmetic issues, it's a great laptop. I love the size and the build quality is quite a bit better than my R61. Hopefully I get it sorted out sooner than later. My R61 is still kicking though so I can still use it for the time being.

 

YOTR, its funny you mention the dirt/dust. Mine had smudges on the screen too, they came right off, but it still surprised me to open my brand new laptop and see smudges on the screen. Yeah thats pretty weak QC right there...laptops should never leave dirty.

As for the poster who asked about fan noise, its almost nonexistent, I love it. I can hardly even tell its on, I have to hold my head up to the vent to even hear it. I replaced my HD w/ a SSD and now my laptop is damn near silent.

 

^^^ YOTR: I will never settle with such a "brand new" laptop. Once, there was a big greasy fingerprint on one of our ThinkPads. ( Lenovo QC???!!!) We immediately returned it to the local reseller!

The top has a sparkly finish to it? The lid has definitely been wiped. (I know, because I have cleaned my old ThinkPads.) It is not original, untouched.

Not funny!!!