Thinkpad T420 Owner's Thread

The upgraded Intel cards (e.g., 6205, 6300) can provide improved performance in saturated environments (e.g., a large number of competing wireless devices) and better robustness against interference. However, the 1000-N isn't bad, and is definitely a better choice than the standard a/b/g/n (Realtek-based) wireless.

Bluetooth has three major possible uses that I can think of:
-Wireless mouse
-Syncing with a smartphone
-Headset for Skype, or wireless audio
If none of these are useful to you, you can skip it. If they might be, Bluetooth is only a few bucks.

As for the processor, if the i5-2520M is available in your market, it's less expensive than the 2540M, has all of the extra features mentioned by Colonel O'Neill, and is only 100MHz slower. I would consider it rather than the 2540M if you are thinking of upgrading from the 2410M.

 

To be honest the Core i5-2410M is actually quite a capable processor, I have this on my T420 and it handles tasks of Photoshop and VMWare really well. The lack of VT-d instruction tends to confuse some people about its virtualization capabilities.

VT-d allows VMs to access the I/O buses for direct use of certain peripherals but it isn't mandatory to run VM's on the whole. The VT-x instruction on the other hand is required for virtualization of multiple OS' and the Core i5-2410M has this important instruction.

 

Just FYI.

The bootable media for Acronis True Image Home 2011 does NOT support ethernet for the T420. This means you can't do network backup/restore while booting from a CD, which pretty much renders Acronis useless for me.

This is true for the very latest version of the media as of this date.

Seems like most (all?) Sandy Bridge laptops are in this boat as well. They need to update the Linux kernel in their bootable media.

 

Any former T61 owners...

This is a hard questions to answer, but how would a T420 with an i5 compare?

My T61 grinds pretty slow on 20 mb RAW filed in Lightroom, PS, and Photomatix. Overall it's not very snappy when multitasking either. Data transfer tops out at about 20 mb/s to an external hard drive and Handbrake encoding around 15-25 fps.

 

All of what you say is true. However, the cost difference between the 2410M and 2520M isn't a lot in a number of regions. And, if you're serious about running VMs, why not make sure you have every feature?

I have three VMs on my Mac. XP, Vista, and one OS that is taboo in this forum. They run very nicely on the 2520M.

AES-NI is useful for some, but not everyone. It is for me, so that was the other reason I have a 2520M, and not a 2410M. However, if I didn't use either feature, I'd be great with a 2410M myself.

 

The performance increase should be significant. We're talking about several processor generations ahead, depending on your T61's CPU. You either had a Merom Core 2 Duo, or a first-gen Penryn Core 2 Duo. There has been a second-gen Penryn Core 2, and a first gen Core i-Series, prior to the new Sandy Bridge Core i-Series.

You have two additional threads for Photoshop and Lightroom to work with. Sandy Bridge also adds AVX extensions; there may be minor improvements there, though by my understanding, Adobe isn't optimized for AVX yet.

My T420 is a significant improvement over my T400, which itself was a reasonable improvement over my T61.

 

I am on the verge of ordering a T420. I currently have G460 and had T41 in the past. I am thinking of 1600 x 900 display but not sure whether fonts will be too small. If i order this display and use it for watching movies but downsize to 1366 x 768 for text related work, will it work? Will the display with changed property look same as display of original size 1366 x 768?

 

Don't downsize the resolution, which will decrease sharpness. Upsize the fonts.

I set my fonts to a higher DPI setting via Windows 7. I get the benefits of high-resolution for graphics, and can read text just fine.

 

I just saw the deal for T420i with i5 processor. I am fine with performance of 2410m. Apart from HDMI port, do i compromise any other feature compared to T420? I never had the need for GPU.

 

Nope. The T420i offers fewer CPU options, and only integrated graphics, but otherwise it's the same machine, and if it meets your needs, it's as worthy of purchase as the T420.

 

Yes i'm very sure the i5-2410M can run VMs! (See Attached) Thing is the ThinkPads are rather expensive in Europe compared to their US counterparts, budget will come in a factor so if people want to run VMs on a T420, don't require a dedicated graphics card but want a little boost in performance (Turbo boost) than they can get away quite nicely on the Core i5-2410M which comes on the "budget" T420i.

In my view the T420 is leaps and bounds ahead of the T61 in terms of performance. My T61 had a T9300 Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM and a Intel SSD inside so its no slouch, but the T420 boots much quicker for me and seem less strained when doing certain tasks (such as HD Video decoding).

Temperatures are also on similar levels too given the power and is much quieter than its predecessor. You can have detailed side by side assessment with my early review against my T61 here.

 

This is the reason why I ordered the T420i as I didnt need a dedicated GPU and the intel 3000HD will be plenty fast for HD content and pretty much I wont be doing virtually any gaming. I just built a desktop with a 3.4GHz 2600k i7 + an ASUS P8P67 Pro board for OC to 5GHz for gaming (main computer usage at home).

I just wanted a solid all around laptop with a nice keyboard that is reliable to get work done.

On a side note, anyone watch this video before?

YouTube - ‪Intel Demos New VPro Features On Sandy Bridge ThinkPad Notebooks From Lenovo‬‏

I noticed that the user is using a T420 and when the camera zooms in onto the screen it looks quite good to me. Perhaps it looks better on camera but to me it looks very easy on the eyes as well as a nice matte quality display that I've seen that looks much better than the laptop screens you find at best buy or microcenter with the milky washed out look to it.

 

The difference is huge, with my I7 2620M processor in my T420 I get instant 100% magnification in LR on the raw files from my 5DII.

 

The T420 does not have HMDI either, it has a Displayport, which I also believe the T420i has?

 

Yes the T420i also has the Displayport, chassis wise it is the same as the normal T420.

 

What's the noise like on the T420 after hours of use, including some cpu intensive apps (i.e. not just web/mail/word)?

Lack of noise is very important to me and I hate even the constant low hum that most i5 laptops produce while idling on the desktop.

The reports on T420 on the reviews seem quite conflicting: some say it's very quiet and some claim it to be extremely noisy.

What do the owners here think?

 

My T420 is very quiet, when just browsing, email etc. there fan is off. It's not 100 % silent, but close. When I start to put presure on it, you can hear the fan, but it's still the most quiet Thinkpad I ever had, on max fan it's more quiet than my T410 when its on medium fan.

 

I'm thinking about picking up a T420i w/ the recent deal floating about. Is the i3 -> i5 upgrade really worth it? I was just going to be doing some office stuff and maybe a few molecular graphics visualizations (which already run fine on my Core Duo/MR X1600 laptop). I'm also trying to keep the cost down.

 

If they run well on your Core Duo, the i3 should be even better.

 

I figure as much. I see everyone putting the $50 towards the i5 over the i3, but it doesn't seem like there would be much real-world performance difference.

 

There should be. The jump between the i3 and i5 2410m is much bigger than the jump from i5 2410 to a higher i5 (2520/2540) or i7 because the i3 does not have turbo clock (it's 2.1ghz at most) where as the i5 2410m has turbo clock to 2.9ghz.

 

I did not. This is all part of Intel marketing hype machine and they're good at it, duping people into thinking they need the latest and greatest, when in reality for 99% of people would never be able to discern the difference. Typical notebook usage like Office, media and internet, are not particularly CPU intensive. A good SSD is more likely to make a difference, though I have my issue with those as well.

 

I can see that. For most things, I doubt I would notice a big difference.

I've heard that a lot too. SSD would be nice, but I need the storage space more and SSDs are expensive.

Thanks for the input though. I'll probably go with the i3. I have a few more days to decide if I want to go through with it all (while the free 4GB RAM and 500GB hdd upgrade are still in place).

 

Is there a lag when editing?

Would you think the i5-2540 would be noticeably slower?

Right now import and conversion takes forever. I have to think that any i5 or greater will be a huge difference. The question now is whether or not it's worth the higher end option from Lenovo...

 

Right you are.

In an attempt to solve this, I suggest that perhaps we should start referring to the i3's frequency-stepping as EcoStep.

"Sure you *could* get a CPU with "Turbo Boost", but wouldn't you much rather get a CPU that stays cooler, consumes less power, and offers better battery life in a number of different usage scenarios? Introducing the Core i3 with EcoStep. Efficiency. Delivered. Only from Intel."

 

IMHO I think the bump to an i5 2.3GHz 2410M for $50 is a no brainer. I know these are synthetic benches but the i5 scores a max score of 3,335 and the i3 scores a 2,644 on passmark. On average a difference of 691 points is huge for just $50 more, especially in the long term performance that you get. Also, turbo boost is the feature on the i5 that is worth upgrading to as well.

Just for references:

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_lookup.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i5-2410M+@+2.30GHz (Passmark score for i5 2410M)

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_lookup.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i3-2310M+@+2.10GHz (Passmark score for i3 2310M)

So roughly paying 7% more for the upgrade to the i5 2410M will give you roughly 27% increase in overall performance is a great deal.

Also the debate about the i3 being cooler is moot as both the i5 and i3 runs cool and you cant really tell the difference or noticeable of how hot they are between the two when you use it in real life.

Now a i7 QUAD is something that gets extremely hot, (I've actually owned the 17" highest end model sandy bridge macbook pro before returning it). There is no way I could put that thing on my lap when using dedicated GPU.

 

Anybody run the Passmark on a T420? I would be interested to see how they do here.

I just ran it on my T61 and shows 464 overall with 1157 on the Intel t7300 Duo.

Edit- At least this makes me look forward to tripling my CPU power soon.

 

Y'day i was ordering T420i with 1600x900 display. I hesitated because i am reading mixed responses about font size for this display. I am buying laptop just for basic work; like web browsing, movie watching and very light MS office work. I dont need multiple panes open at same time. In this situation, if i order display with size 1366x768, do i miss much?

I read that i can adjust DPI for 1600x900 display to make fonts bigger. I am not sure how effective that will be for permanent use? ie will fonts look as crips as normal fonts on 1366x768?

 

There's a motherboard FRU for the X220 with the 17w i5-2537. It's 1.4GHz with turbo boost up to 2.3GHz. It'll run cool and offer plenty of battery life, but can kick it high gear when needed, which for me is not often. It's just about the perfect CPU. I'd love to get one, but Lenovo hasn't offered here yet.

 

The DPI settings will make Windows fonts fonts larger, and they will actually appear more crisp. This doesn't affect Web browsers or other programs, but you can set different settings for Web browsers.

If you're worried things will be too small, go into an Apple store and look at the 13" Macbook Air or the 17" Macbook Pro just to see how you like the DPI, because the screens on those laptops have pixel density comparable to a 14" 1600x900 screen.

99% of people, including me, would suggest going for 1600x900. The difference is quite noticeable since you gain an extra 132 pixels of vertical screen space (that's more than we lost in the 1920x1200 -> 1920x1080 transition!).

 

i'm getting a t420 tomorrow (hopefully)...yay!

So i've always been an hp user, and i'm completely new at thinkpads. Just a quick thing...

what is this 7 mm/9mm ultrabay thing anyways? I was reading through the past 20+ pages in the thread, and it seemed to popup often, but i'm not really getting it.

Also, anytips for a brand new thinkpad user? thanks

 

The T420s uses harddrives that have a maximum height of 7mm, which limits the choices and sizes of harddrives quite a bit.

The T420 uses "normal" 9,5mm drives.

 

Anyone know how to enable scrolling with the trackpoint / multi finger gestures in VMWare Workstation? Is there a driver or anything in particular? I googled and I had no luck.

 

I received my T420 laptop earlier today and I like it so far. However, I encountered a problem when I tried to upgrade the memory to 8GB from 4GB. When I opened the back's side center panel, I only see 1 SO-DIMM (2GB module) and the second DIMM is no where to be found. Which other screws/panel am I supposed to open in order to gain access to the second memory SO-DIMM ?

Thanks in advance for your help.

My T420 specs:
---------------

0A68272 SBB 2NDG ICI5-2410M IHD G200
45M3092 VBB GENWIN7HOMEPREM64
0A68394 SBB GW7 HP64 US ENGLISH
0A68252 SBB 14.0 HD+ (1600 X 900) LED
0A68248 SBB INTEL HD GRAPHICS 3000
45M4571 VBB 4GBPC3-10600DDR3 1333SODMM
45M4839 SBB KEYBOARDUS ENGLISH
0A68288 SBB 720P HD CAMERA I MCR
0A68282 SBB 320GB HDD7200RPM
0A68277 SBB DVD RC8XMXDLLRULT E ATA
0A68291 SBB EXPRESS CSL4IN1CR+SCR
45M4815 SBB 6CELLLI-ION BATTERY
41W1787 SBB CPK NORTH AMERICA
0A68261 SBB BLUETOOTH 3.0
0A68264 SBB IEEE 1394A PORT
0A68255 SBB IC ADVN 6205 2X2AGN
44C7950 SBB INT WRLSSWDAREANTWRK UPGR
0A68293 SBB LPUS ENGLISH

 

Congrats on your purchase . The second RAM slot is under your keyboard. Check out this thread for more information. Good luck.

 

How did you do that?

 

To change your font to a higher DPI:

Control Panel (View by: Category) --> Adjust screen resolution --> Select "Make text and other items larger or smaller" --> Select 125% or 150% --> Click "Apply"

You can also select "Set custom text size (DPI)" for other DPI besides 125% or 150%. For me, 125% is just right.

 

The second SO-DIMM is under the keyboard. The hardware maintenance manual will show you how to remove the keyboard to access it.

To iphetamine: What doclife said. I use 125%.

 

Do they always fill the easily accessible memory slot, even if you only ordered with 1 DIMM?

 

They didn't for me. I ordered with one 2GB DIMM, and it was under the keyboard. The easy-access slot was empty.

 

According to Lenovo's memory intallation instructions:

Note: Your computer has two memory slots: one under the keyboard and another on the underside of the computer. If you install a memory in only one of the two slots, install it in the slot located under the keyboard.

Thus, if you ordered your laptop with one 4GB SO_DIMM module, Lenovo will install that module in the slot that is under the keyboard, leaving the easily accessible SO-DIMM slot empty.

 

I think I misread your earlier post. I thought you ordered it 4GB (1 DIMM).

Thanks for clearing that up. I had placed an order through that special floating about last night, but I went i3, Intel 6205 2x2 AGN card, 720p camera. Same price as the i5 no camera with the thinkpad wireless card configuration.

 

I am currently deciding between the T420 and the Dell Vostro 3450.

For the T420i, around how much battery life would I be getting with these specs? And is it worth upgrading to the 9cell battery? Does it stick out too much? Also, is Windows 7 Professional really needed?

Lenovo Thinkpad T420 - Price: $685

Intel Core i5-2410M Processor (2.30GHz, 3MB L3)
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 6412
14.0 HD+ (1600 x 900) LED Backlit Anti-Glare Display
Intel HD Graphics 3000
4 GB DDR3 - 1333MHz (1 DIMM)
UltraNav with TrackPoint & touchpad
500 GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm
DVD recordable multiburner
6 cell Li-Ion Battery
Intel Centrino Wireless-N 1000

 

I got the 9 cell battery on my T420i and it doesn't really stick out that much, it's pretty similar to my T61 with a 6 cell battery shown below.


T420 left, T61 right.

The battery life varies on usage but I manage to squeeze almost 7 hours on my 9 cell with a mix of Youtube music videos, Photoshop work and forum browsing. I would estimate the 6 cell battery life to vary between 3-4 hours at most. As for Windows, unless you need to connect to a corporate domain, require Windows XP mode or need EFS (Encrypting File System) then Windows 7 Home Premium should be sufficient for most users.

 

The Vostro 3450 isn't a bad laptop, but it's not the appropriate comparison to the T420 or T420i; the Latitude E5420 or E6420 is. The Vostro 3450 is a better comparison to the ThinkPad Edge, or possibly the L-series. It doesn't have a keyboard that comes close to the T-Series ThinkPad. No magnesium chassis with a carbon-reinforced roll cage. No Trackpoint. I've gotten the Vostro 3500 (same line, 15" display) for a client. It's a good entry-level business laptop, but it doesn't measure up to a T420.

If you need to join a network domain, you need Windows 7 Pro. Otherwise, you probably don't.

 

I believe Win Pro allows the laptop to be remote desktop-ped into. I don't think Windows Home does. That may be an additional consideration.

 

You can use LogMeIn Free to accomplish this if needs be. It has the benefit of not needing any routing.

 

yeah.. i've been using LogMeIn free since 2007 and it did wat it's suppose to do really well.. another remote software i use a lot recently is teamviewer, which help me to remote in to customer's PC on their own requested to solve their PC problem..

 

Hmmm... only 3-4 with a 6 cell?! Why does Lenovo advertise "up to 30 hours with a slice battery"?

Also, yeah I think I'm just going to keep home premium. Thanks guys!

I may just have to switch to a E420s now that the 6 cell only gives 3-4 hours!! But the E420s has a built in battery, so i could not swap it for another battery thats the problem.

Sooooooooooo I was thinking of buying my Lenovo with a 6 cell, and buying an extra 9 cell and leaving it at my dorm or something. Would anyone recommend that? I just hate the fact that the 9 cell sticks out. Also, should I get the 27++ slice or the 55++ regular 9 cell? Whats the difference? They are both the same price.

 

I strongly disliked the two finger scrolling on the trackpad (unreliable and did not always work) until someone showed me this program. I disabled all of the special multigesture features in Ultranav and downloaded this program. Two Finger Scroll makes it so that your touchpad always registers two finger scrolling. You can also assign a two finger tap as a right click just like how MBPs are set up. I highly recommend this program for people who like using both the TrackPoint and Trackpad on there Thinkpads.