Lenovo ThinkPad T420s User Review Discussion

If you're looking for a thin and light 14-inch business notebook, what better person to ask about it than someone who owns several? Keep reading to find out what one of our regular contributors has to say about the ThinkPad T420s.

Read the full content of this Article: Lenovo ThinkPad T420s User Review

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Nice review, John!

 

I always like the user reviews from mods. They always follow the same standards as the NBR reviews, but always seem to go that extra mile. Thanks for the review John, very well done.

 

Thank you, it's nice to see user review for a change

 

We still accept submissions for user reviews. All you have to do is send me a PM via the forums or send me an email (in the "about us" section on the home page).

Let me know what notebook you have that you want to review and we can discuss publishing it on the NBR home page. The only "rule" we have now is that if you publish the review here in the forums by yourself then we can't republish it on the home page (it's a search engine indexing issue).

So, if you want the NBR editorial team to consider publishing your user review (we pay for user reviews, btw) please contact us before you publish it in the forums yourself.

We don't accept all submissions, but if you have good writing skills your review has a good chance of being accepted if the notebook is relatively new (released within the last 6 months) and we don't already have both an "official" review and a user review.

 

The pro for classic looks and con for ports on the back are subjective and depend on the person, since for example, I would list the opposite. Under the specs, it says the HD 3000 is an extra cost option, but that should be the base configuration as it's built into the CPU. The SD card reader as an extra is also an annoyance since most laptops have this for free. Otherwise, a good, thorough review and I hope we can get periodic updates on how things are running over the months/years!

 

Yeah. Thanks for the detailed review.

I'm going through the motions of configuring a T420s before this Memorial Day sale ends (got a pretty good deal by speaking personally with sales). The T420 looks almost perfect for me for all my business related stuff. The only reason I've been so hesitant, is I do like the occasional PC game. Still, looking at reviews and videos of the T420s with a ViDock, this may be a good option for me, especially since I don't care to game when I'm "mobile."

The only hang up I keep worrying about are basically i5 vs i7. From what I've read, the i7 is a great case of diminishing returns. All that extra money offers minimal benefit. It's just that I use DICOM viewers for work (medical imaging - multiplanar reformats/volume rendering), and I am wondering if the i7 may be better in that respect.

Any thoughts or advice would be great.

 

The performance of the Intel HD3000 graphics is well into what was last year's dedicated GPU territory. You can get an idea of the gaming performance here. I would note that, since the GPU uses system memory, graphics performance is improved if you use full dual channel RAM, ie two modules of the same size (Lenovo's pricing means that it is usually less expensive to buy any extra memory elsewhere).

You can compare CPU features at Intel (basically the i7 can run a bit faster and has a bigger cache) and compare the performance at notebookcheck. Basically, the i7 is a little faster. However, other factors such as whether you have an SSD or even the RAM configuration can have a bigger impact on performance. I suspect that other parts of the system will be the performance constraint when using DICOM.

John

 

Thanks a lot John. That pretty much solidified my decision to go ahead with the system.

Just like your review said, I think I'm willing to give up some features (like a suboptimal screen with respect to others available, port placement), for the portability of the system.

 

Nice detailed review,
I am just wondering, what happens to your old laptops when you buy a new one almost every 6-7 months... !!?

 

How's the Thinklight?

 

Notebooks usually sit on standby for a few months in case a big problem arises with the successor and then gets rehomed among family or friends.

The ThinkLight is better than nothing but it is no match for a backlit keyboard. The Lenovo X1 has a backlit keyboard so perhaps other ThinkPads will follow the trend.

John

 

Thank you for the review.

Shame about the screen and keyboard, though....

 

Good to hear that build quality is excellent.

Speaking of which, the lid flex when closed may be intentional -- it was on some of the previous models (the slight bowing was confirmed to be intentional so as to improve resistance to compression when closed.)

 

He said that the minimum brightness is "unsuitable for normal use." I found with my T400 that the minimum brightness was PERFECT for dark conditions up to pitch black (like a darkened airplane) without causing eyestrain.

 

The T420s display on minimum brightness is just about usable in a darkened room. It's not usable for power saving if there's reasonable lighting. Brightness 5 (out of 15) is as low as I can go without getting eyestrain.

John

 

I am a university student and i bought this laptop as lenovo talked about reliability!
After my purchase, and only using the laptop for 15 mins. the Lenovo update utility asked me to install bios updates (along with many other updates). The bios update failed to install and the lenovo update centre asked me to reboot my laptop. - After this the laptop never booted!
so as a consumer who thought maybe they just had one bad apple in the whole bunch i decided to give lenovo the benefit of the doubt and called them for troubleshooting. They told me that i would need to send them the laptop and i will receive it in 7-10 business days. Happy with their service i sent them the laptop (keep in mind this was a local address). I received my laptop after 3 weeks and 3 days from the same LOCAL address - I DID NOT COMPLAIN!

2 weeks later for the first time when i needed to use the card reader, IT FAILED to recognize the mere existence of the card reader! so I called lenovo again and to my surprise they want me to send them the laptop BACK for another 4 weeks!!!
MY LAPTOP HAS BEEN WITH CUSTOMER CARE FOR LONGER THAN I HAVE BEEN ABLE TO USE IT, ON TOP OF THIS I AM JUST WASTING MY TIME ON WARRANTY WITH THIS LAPTOP NOW!!

Whats more the customer service confronts/shouts at me when I ask them i cannot send it back as i am handicapped without a computer and cant finish my assignments with a 4 week delay. -completely unsympathetic!
More they tell me to buy more service from them!!! -completely unsympathetic!

LENOVO DOES NOT CARE ABOUT THEIR CUSTOMERS, AND FORCES U TO BUY MORE PRODUCT FROM THEM - MAYBE EVEN ON PURPOSE!!!!

 

Lenovo's service seems to be variable depending on the country. I paid extra for the next business day on site service. So far I haven't needed to use it but, if the need arises and Lenovo are not able to honour their obligations then I will complaining.

John