Thinkpad T420s Owners' Thread

As an impending owner of the T420s, I will commence this new thread dedicated to the T420s. Previously, discussion of both the T420 and the T420s were in this thread. Discussion of the T420 is now in this thread.

Here is my review of the T420s.

Other threads relevant to the T420s are:

New T420s - First Impressions
T420 or T420s
Cancel order for T420s and wait for X1?

Post in the thread or send me a PM if you have more suggestions for threads to be listed here.

John

 

Thanks, John. Having read your many posts in the Dell subforum and your product reviews, I'm sure your regular visit to this forum will be welcome.

Too bad, Lenovo does not offer the T420s in red.

 

I'm looking forward to comparing the T420s with the other computers in my collection.

that would be nice. However, I think I'm stuck with Henry Ford's "in any color, so long as it's black".

John

 

You can always get a skin if you want to add some color. I had one for my X200. I thought it looked quite nice.

It's sort of a double edged sword. If you get an older ThinkPad, it might be a little thicker and heavier, and won't have the specs, but it'll look very similar to a new machine. Try that with a Dell or HP. ThinkPad design is simple, elegant and timeless. Form always follows function. You're going to get a notebook that's suited getting things done, but you can't have any of that if you're changing the design every five minutes.

 

Guys,
I m looking fwd to upgrading my HDD to SSD however, apparently mSata 80gb is out of stock. I couldn't find it anywhere. Don't know how long will it be available again. Therefore, i can't help but to considering other option in intel 320 80 gb.
Can anyone give me some reasons why i shouldn't get this 7 mm SSD instead of mSata? Price/ read-write speed is about the same and i could save WWan slot. Any comment??

 

I usually "have" several models in each generation ThinkPad family. It's the luxury and curse of being in the IT department and supporting a billion questions that come in from our employees. I have a T420s sitting right here but frankly haven't used it a hell of a lot. I don't own it. It's owned by my company. I will be happy to answer questions about it, to the best of my abilities.

 

Nice to see you've joined the dark side John...

Keep us updated with those super informative reviews you always do!

 

Where would you put the Intel 320? In the main storage bay to replace the provided storage or into the bay instead of the optical drive? If it's to replace the main storage device then 80GB isn't much capacity. I think that's why people like the mSATA solution: Have a faster boot drive for Windows and programs while keeping the HDD for bulk storage. You alternative is more likely to replace the HDD with a 160GB Intel 320.

John

 

Does anyone know if there is a t420 with a discrete gpu? I heard about it somewhere but I haven't been able to find it.

 

Are you talking about T420 or T420s? Both models have Nvidia 4200M GPU w/Optimus...it's in the tabook.

 

Ok,
let say i put intel 320 160 gb, not 80 gb, in the main storage.
If that's the case, from your answer, i assume that there is not much difference in term of durability, etc between mSata and slim SSD. Only the price issue. Am i correct?
Also, can i put the provided 7 mm HDD in the optical drive slot with HDD bay? Will it fit?

 

There is a performance difference. See The Intel SSD 320 Review: 25nm G3 is Finally Here - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News for a good review. The also did a review of the 80GB mSATA but it was a pre-production unit in a sled. See http://www.intel.com/design/flash/nand/310series/overview.htm for the Series 310 specs.

You can use a variety of SSD and HDD devices in the T420s Ultrabay via the Lenovo - Laptop and desktop - Storage 43N3412 (US) adapter.

See http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167053 for a good hard drive replacement.

 

Meaning that the 320 is faster. However, much of the performance boost from SSDs comes from the near-instant access times which almost every SSD offers. The 320 also has some potentially useful features such as encryption.

I've got this Ultrabay SATA caddy waiting to test with my T420s. It's the previous model so quite cheap on ebay. [I've also got a big Intel 320 waiting to be moved across from my Dell 6410. That SSD wasn't cheap but like to have a lot of onboard storage].

John

 

Hi all, can you post pic of your T420S? I'd like to know how thin it is and how far it's compared to Dell Latitude E6400, which I consider is acceptably thin. What about the weight? Is it really that light? If so, T420S could be my next laptop since I'm looking for 14" thinnest, lightest, and most durable laptop.

By the way, do the top rubber lid cover and keyboard absorb grease that came from our fingers?

 

Sometime on Tuesday I hope to be able to put a T420s on top of my Dell E6410 (which is essentially the same size as the E6400). I am expecting the T420s to be thinner and lighter.

John

 

See the pics at https://picasaweb.google.com/lenovoblogcz/ThinkPadT420s# There's a good shot comparing it to the T420.

The T420s is nearly the lightest ThinkPad made. I think the X1 will be slightly lighter so of that's a key criteria you might want to wait for it to release.

Regarding the 14", I actually prefer the T410s over the T420s due to the 1440x900 resolution screen.

Regarding the grease question, the answer is no. There's no way for the material to actually absorb anything. If it did, it would become a stinky sponge over time. I like the texture of the materials on the ThinkPads. Don't forget you can buy all sorts of cool lid covers and stickers for protection if desired.

 

Could you be so kind as to test for the following:

1. Open a Firefox with 20+ tabs and different content/sites on each (to get some memory usage)

2. Open Word / Powerpoint with some document in it

3. Put the computer to Hibernate (not sleep) and time roughly they time it takes until all the lights have stopped blinking on the HD led (everything is written to disk)

4. Wake up the computer from hibernation and time how long it takes to get back to a useful desktop with input being recognized.

I use this on my comp a lot. Due to longer travel times I can't just put the computer to sleep (kills the battery). Hibernation on my current comp takes ages (2+ minutes) and the same for wake up from hibernation.

It would make my life so much easier if I had even a rough idea how fast this can be done on a modern T420s (assuming 4GB RAM and a 5400 or 7200RPM HD). Then I can more easily estimate the time it takes for a 8GB tweaked setup with an SSD installed.

Thanks in advance!

 

You don't ask for much. I'll see what I can do.

 

So I just received my T420s this morning and I have small annoying issuing with it. It seems that there's something wrong with the right touch pad button, it's a bit flimsy and makes a little crunching noise when it's pressed and it sticks a little. The left button is fine.

Has anyone had a similar issue with their unit?

It's really annoying when you pay ~2k $ for a unit that's supposed to have superior build quality and get something like this. Problem is, I'm not sure I want to go through the hassle of returning it over such a small issue.

*sigh*

 

That's unfortunate. Keep us updated if you do decide to call them.

Mine has finally shipped. Although, according to tracking, it went from Shanghai to Alaska then to Kentucky... I am in Seattle. Freak'n UPS.

Where does one get a cool lid cover?

 

Call support and have them ship you another palm rest. You'll have it overnight and it's easily replaced. You'll be happy in 24 hours. Stuff happens.

 

My T420s has reported for duty. I see that it came from Wistron. The first task was a weigh-in:

Without battery or optical drive: 1.41kg (3lb 1.75oz)
With main battery and without optical drive: 1.70kg (3lb 12oz in old units)
With main battery and optical drive: 1.83kg (4lb 0.5oz)
with main and bay batteries: 1.94kg (4lb 4.5oz)

After all the adverse comments about the display, it looks OK to me. The monitor ID is LEN40A1, whatever that may indicate.

John

 

Glad to see your T420s had arrived safely John. The LEN40A1 tag seem to just indicate its a 1600x900 Lenovo monitor, it doesn't tell you exactly what panel you have though. But numerous applications including HWInfo32 will tell you which one you have.

Tipping the scales under 2 kilos is pretty light for a fully fledged notebook, I look forward to see your trademark review on your latest addition.

 

HWiNFO32 reports the display as LP140WD2-TLB1. I have previously had good experience with the LG displays. If I put my nose close to the screen I can see some griddiness.

I can just read the text on the HWiNFO32 screen at the default settings but I wouldn't want it any smaller. HWiNFO32 is currently showing the CPU power as around 3.5W and Lenovo's Power Manager says 8W, which is a promising start. I see that the CPU's idle speed is 800MHz. The CPU core temperatures are 42 and 43C (on idle) and the fan is running at an almost inaudible ~2,000rpm (it's now gone up to ~4,000rpm which is audible and doesn't want to go back down).

John

PS: A further observation: With a 65W PSU the bay battery only starts charging when the main battery is full charged. That's very conservative power management if the computer is only drawing 10W (even if the computer was using 20W it would leave 45W for battery charging).

 

John, how good is the display? It says that the display is HD+ (which I assumed it'll at least much better than my E6400 Latitude 1440x900 WXGA+).

Now my concern is, the people at HP business notebook forum said that the Lenovo screen is a garbage??? I really don't know how good the HP screen could be, but they said HP screen is much much more superior. They called it HP radiance HD+ or something. Lenovo HD+ and HP HD+, my initial thought was they would be very similar, but the HP people said otherwise.

Please send your feedback. Screen is important to me, the best screen I've ever seen is MBP.

 

After reading all the adverse comments about the display I can safely say that I'm pleasantly surprised by it. The contrast is excellent and the white is very white (and I haven't touched the Windows display calibration tool). The colour properties are similar to the LG display that I had in my E6400 which I reckon was slightly better than the Samsung panel in my E6410 (both WXGA+). The only drawback (which I knew about) is that the 900 vertical pixels are squeezed into 17.5cm instead of 19cm so, at default settings, everything is a bit smaller.

If you are used to a business grade matte display and get this LG panel then you should have no problem with the quality (shame about the pixel size).

And another bit of good news: This UltraBay HDD adaptor appears to work OK in the T420s.

My biggest grumble at the moment is that, having exercised the CPU a bit with wPrime, the fan is running at a noisy 4600rpm while the CPU temperature is down at 42C.

John

PS: Thought I would test the battery: It's suggesting around 4 hours run time on the main battery but the fan is still running at full speed in spite of the CPU temperature being below 40C. That's necessary wasted power considering I'm in the maximum battery life power profile and the cooling is set to passive cooling. Time to check for a newer BIOS. Mine is 1.09 dated 24th March. Another observation is display brightness below about 50% is too dark for normal usage.

PPS: It looks like Tpfancontrol can fix the noisy fan problem. I'm using the smart setting at the moment and wait to see if things get a little warm. The CPU is currently idling at about 55C with the fan off.

 

Which forum and thread are you looking at?

 

But the T420s has 1600x900.
I was looking forward to the X201s successor (hopefully a shift from 1440x900 to 1600x900), but there's no news yet.

 

Hmm... is it that easy to replace? I don't see any "edges" to the palm rest area it seems that the whole are around the keyboard is one big piece (including the speaker bezel thing). But I'll give it a shot and see what they say.

 

So I just ran into another issue, After playing Portal 2 for a while the frame rate suddenly drops to about half or less (unplayable) and the only way to fix it is to restart the game.

Using Core Temp I noticed the cores where at 96 and 94 degrees. I'm not sure about the GPU temp.

I'm going to try to use the Intel HD graphics to run the game (still not sure how to do that) and see if the problem is specific to the Nvidia GPU chip/driver.

 

You should be able to switch the graphics on the BIOS though 94-96c seems rather hot for the CPU. What game settings are you playing on the T420s, high detail?

 

Well also what is your ambient room temperature? That will play a factor in determining if it truly is overheating. Core i series processors run hot. My i3-380M in my E6410 easily hit 70+ running Prime95, even close to 82-83C.

 

ambient room temperature 70-71 degrees F

I was running the game at the default settings (native res 1600x900, settings were medium/high overall).

I called them about the touchpad button and like I thought it's a big piece to replace so they suggested it's better to send it over, I'm getting a box thursday and they said it will take about 6 days. I also mentioned the issue with the frame rate and temperature so they will check that also.

 

Today, I became a T420s owner.
Quick specs: i5, HD+, Win 7 64bits, 4Gb of RAM, 320Gb HDD, Bluetooth, Cam, No FPR

First impressions, coming from a quite satisfied X200 user:
(I've also onwed other thinkpads, such as: 600E, T42, X40...

PROS
-Feels solid when held with a single hand
-Great screen (HD+). I've seen lots of people complaining. Maybe they got a different screen model. Or maybe they come from a Macbook. I come from a X200 and I think that the T420s is a great improvement.
-I like the position of the ports. I don't use a port replicator and I usually have a usb hub and a second screen constantly plugged into the computed. These cable are all going to the back of the machine now, which is GOOD.
-Quite cool and silent operation

CONS
- Battery life is dissapointing
-Will have to get used to the form factor
-Keyboard had to be reinstalled with 4 or 5 small business card pieces below it. This is the first thing I do to every thinkpad I've owned: check the keyboard for flex and weak areas. Keyboard is top notch after my adjustments. The weak spots are at the left and right edges.

Additional comments:
I could not feel any significant difference with the EE and new chipset. My X200 feels as speedy and the T420s.

I have ordered a Intel SSD 320, 160Gb. Still waiting for it to arrive. Let's see if I feel significant differences...

A 4Gb DIM came with my order, so that I could upgrade it to 8Gb. I got a BSOD after installing the DIM. What a terrible luck! The vendor told me that another costumer also had the same problem. Looks like my DIM is incompatible for some reason.

I'm torn between the T420s and my old X200. The new screen will be good for my productivity. Having a DVD drive is good too. But I still think that the X200 looks nicer...

 

My bad. I just looked more closely at mine and the hardware maintenance manual. You are right. It's much more complicated than other ThinkPads. I'd still rather do it myself than ship it.

 

Which model panel? My display is the LP140WD2-TLB1 and it is better than comments had led me to expect. The contrast is excellent but there's not a lot of headroom on the brightness. HWiNFO32 will give you the panel type.

for me, coming from the Dell E6410 which has all the USB ports on the sides (but at the back), having only one USB port on the sides is a major step backwards.

That was my initial impression but after the fan speed stayed on high after running wPrime to test the CPU I have installed TPfancontrol to ensure that the fan only gets noisy when it needs to. [The 2000 rpm fan speed is very quiet, 4000rpm is tolerable and 4500rpm is noisy).

We can expect impressive results from a 44Whr battery. It may be 6 cells, but they are low capacity. In power drain terms, 8W may be achievable but this will give only 5 hours compared to 7.5 hours with the T620's higher capacity 6 cell battery. My impression is that both the main and bay batteries have a solid casing (they feel almost bullet-proof) but not much battery inside.

I've no complaints about the keyboard as provided (except I would prefer a backlit version).

What are the specs of your RAM. I've just installed a 2GB Crucial PC3-10700 module to supplement the installed Samsung 2GB PC3-10700 module (eventually I'll move over 2 x 4GB OCZ modules from my Dell).

John

 

John & syhead2, thanks for your first impressions!
I have some question about battery life.
You said that battey life is disappointing, but with what kind of tasks (web browsing, Office) ?
How many hours did the 6-cells last ?
Have you buy (and try) the ultrabay battery ?

Thanks

 

See below: display on half brightness. Computer almost idle (I'm watching the power drain and using the snipping tool).

Main battery only:


Main and Bay Batteries:


I have a couple of observations on the above: (a) Adding the bay battery increases the projected run time disproportionately to the additional capacity; and (b) The computer discharges the bay battery first (presumably so that when it is empty one can swap it for the next one).

As I have noted somewhere, a power drain of around 8W is fairly typical of light usage. I'm now playing a DVD at half brightness and that's in the range of 14 to 20 W so a 2 hour DVD will almost drain the main battery.

Half brightness is as low as one can reasonably go unless in a gloomy room. Full brightness will add another 2W to the power drain.

Battery time depends a lot on what is happening. If one is consciously trying to maximise the run time and is only working on a document then 5 hours should be achievable on the main battery alone.

John

 

Thank you for the detailed answer! One last question:
Are you playing a DVD in the DVD burner or a video files (DivX, .mkv) ? DVD burner should drain the battery a bit faster than playing video files, I guess.

 

That was in the DVD drive. However, the supplied DVD player (WinDVD) uses all spare RAM to cache the data so the drive only runs up occasionally. It looks as if I could get to about 2.5 hours of playback at half brightness.

John

 

How? The best I've seen on mine is a little over 2.5 hours. If you have managed 5 hours on the 6 cell main battery, could you provide some details on the settings you are using and what is being used in those 5 hours?

I am considering the Ultrabay battery, but if i can get 4-5 hours with normal use, I think I might not buy it. I'm just looking to understand how you are achieving this.

Thanks

 

The key to eeking out the battery is to understand what uses the power.

What's the minimum power consumption that you are getting at the moment? More questions are (a) What is your CPU usage on idle? (b) What power profile are you using (Power Manager has many options)? (c) What is the minimum CPU power consumption reported by HWiNFO32?

You can see a lot about the CPU usage by restarting the computer, opening Task Manager, adding the CPU Time column and then sorting the processes by CPU Time.

John

 

I realize you've only had your machine a couple of days. You made it sound like you already had a couple of solid 5 hour tests under your belt. If that's true, I was hoping you'd export your power profile and post for comparison. Or at least provide more detail on YOUR settings.

I guess I'll look into the theory more closely tomorrow or this weekend but frankly if it becomes rocket science for end customers, it's a #FAIL.

And for the record, I already did pretty extensive testing of the T420s with the Lenovo factory image and the supplied power plans. I got nowhere near 5 hours with them. More like 2. Big difference.

 

I'm still in the process of setting up the machine. However, seeing the power consumption drop below 8W is a good indicator of potential. Also, HWiNFO32 is showing minimum CPU package power of around 4W which suggests that, for a change, that I haven't got a CPU that leaks power.

My target of 5 hours would be to represent the situation of being stuck in an airport with no power socket in sight when one would consciously try to economise (eg turn down display brightness, turn off wireless, etc). This is not typical everyday usage.

John

 

It is for some of us.

 

Thank you to everyone who posted thoughts, reviews, info and pictures -- especially Thors.Hammer, Syhead2, and the detailed reviews from John Ratsey. I finally gave in and ordered one of these for myself, giving in to the dark side of my gadget lust.

I went with Integrated Graphics even though I primarily upgraded from my X301 for gaming, because I game on Linux. (Don't judge. ._.)

I'm still not sure what I will do for SSDs -- looking around, reusing my X301's 1.8" like I thought I could doesn't seem possible, so I will probably do Msata or 7mm. The thread for the X220 drives is very useful for that.

Once it arrives, I'll try to do some comparison pictures with my X301 pre-ebay and work Macbook 15 in case anyone is interested, although by then there will probably be a lot more info on the internet about it.

 

As far as i know the T420s doesnt support a Ultrabay Battery! So no chance to boost the batterytime.

one question to the fan. i also have full-on fanspeed with 0% CPU Load. Will try to set it up with fancontrol but this cant be a final solution. i bought the t420s to get more performance with a silent notebook. but yet its much more noisy than my T400.

 

Yes it does: I've got one. It's battery 42.

I have also seen this problem and installed TPfancontrol. I suspect there is a bug somewhere in the thermal tables and await the next BIOS update with interest. The 4000 rpm fan speed is acceptable but it is the 4500 rpm top speed is very noisy and, once that speed is reached, the fan is reluctant to go to a slower speed.

John

 

Hey guys, thanks for all the info.

Order a 4170CTO directly from Lenovo, i7 and Optimus. Order date was on 04/24/11, and the scheduled ship date was 05/13/11, but it was shipped on 05/03/2011 from Shanghai China, and it arrived in the US 05/04/2011 so I'll be getting it in a couple of days I supposed.

Bought these parts to pimp my T420s,

02 x Patriot Signature 4GB 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Laptop Memory Model PSD34G13332S
Newegg.com - Patriot Signature 4GB 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Laptop Memory Model PSD34G13332S

01 x BYTECC AP-DPHDMI-005 DisplayPort to HDMI Cable Adapter 0.5ft (6") w/IC
Newegg.com - BYTECC AP-DPHDMI-005 DisplayPort to HDMI Cable Adapter 0.5ft (6") w/IC

01 x Lenovo Display Port to Single-Link DVI-D Monitor Cable
Lenovo Display Port to Single-Link DVI-D Monitor Cable | eBay

01 x Ultrabay SATA 2nd Hdd Lenovo ThinkPad T410s T510 DV13
Ultrabay SATA 2nd Hdd Lenovo ThinkPad T410s T510 DV13 | eBay

01 x Crucial 128GB M4 2.5IN SATA 6GB/S (praying that the unit arrives without pesky warranty stickers on the spacer)
Crucial Technology CT128M4SSD2 128GB M4 2.5IN SATA 6GB / S - BLT Catalog!

Will let you guys know how it goes. I pray everything works alright!

 

I just got my T420s this morning. Only had a few hours actually using it, but a few thoughts...

I really like the weight and thinness. Perhaps it's because my previous laptop is a Insipron 640m which is 5.5 lbs and 1.3in thick. It's light, but doesn't feel cheap.

Even though I got the crappy 5400rpm drive (planning on getting an ssd sometime in the future), it feels like boots up and loads things quickly. That may change as I install more things...

The screen is average (I have the 1600x900 matte). It is bright enough, but the contrast is meh. I didn't really notice the grainyness that has been commented on. The viewing angles are bad. It's bad enough that I feel like even if your head is centered, the colors on the edges of the screen are on the verge of being distorted.

In general the build quality is good. But, there is a scratch 1mm long, but deep enough that some plastic is gouged up, on the bezel under the display. And also one of the screws on the memory panel looked like it was almost stripped. I had an annoying time gentling trying to unscrew it so I could replace my memory. I'm annoyed... but not enough that I want to call them up and demand something.

Some of touchpad features are just broken. Specifically things related to scrolling. Sometimes I put two figures on and swipe absolutely nothing happens. I hope this is something that can be fixed with drivers.

It has a thinklight keyboard light. Seriously. In 2011.