Lenovo ThinkPad T420 Review

No one ever got fired for buying a ThinkPad, as the saying goes, and without a doubt no one will get fired for buying the latest Lenovo T420(lenovo thinkpad t420 battery). This scintillatingly fast Sandy Bridge refresh of the familiar business-black, boxy-but-impressive, all-purpose laptop remains a reliable 4-pound workhorse, and you won’t find a better keyboard anywhere. It’s not pretty, as members of the IdeaPad series are, but it can do the job and then some.

Normally, Lenovo laptops(lenovo battery) earn an A+ for their ergonomics. The T420 comes close, but the rough surface of the T420′s touchpad might be off-putting to some users. Nevertheless, the touchpad’s texture makes it easy to locate by feel, and the placement and feel of the buttons are excellent.

The T420 scored a 124 on our WorldBench 6 test suite–an impressive score for an all-purpose laptop, even with an Intel Core i5-2520M, 4GB of DDR3 memory, and a 500GB, 7200-rpm hard drive on board. The frame rates sustained by the unit’s Nvidia NVS 4200M GPU in our gaming tests were less impressive: The T420 is playable at low detail in resolutions up to 1024 by 768, but it’s a near miss at higher detail settings.

At Lenovo’s default power settings, we noticed a slight stuttering in high-bitrate video when the unit ran off of its battery. The stuttering didn’t occur when the unit was plugged into the wall, or when we switched to less miserly power settings. On the other hand, choosing a different power profile means that–if you watch movies without the plug–you probably won’t get the outstanding 8 hours, 37 minutes of run time that we recorded in our battery test.

The T420′s audio is loud and clear, but lacking in bass through the speakers. The picture from the 720p webcam is outstanding, but while 720p is fine for taking photos or recording, unless you’re on a local network, you should use a lower resolution for smooth video conferencing or calls.

The port selection on the T420 has a slight legacy bent. You get four USB 2.0 ports–one of them a combo eSATA/USB, and another always-on–but no USB 3.0 port. There’s VGA and DisplayPort video output, along with SD/MMC and ExpressCard slots. Connectivity includes 2.4GHz and 5GHz (optional) wireless, plus gigabit ethernet. Bluetooth and WLAN antennas are integrated , but neither technology was on board our test unit.

The T420 is available with either a 1366-by-768-resolution or a 1600-by-900-resolution 14.0-inch display. Our $1249 test configuration came with the latter display, which proved crisp, bright, and flawlessly backlit. A DVD-RW burner comes standard, but there’s no Blu-ray option to show off the screen to best effect.

Also available are a plethora of docking stations and accessories, a fingerprint scanner, and Smart Card reader. The many T420 configurations all seem to be on sale, all of the time. A barebones unit costs $799 (as of August 25, 2011) while one with the full panoply of extras, including an SSD, runs about $1600.

The T420 is available with Windows 7 Home Premium or Professional; a number of other software packages are available. Our test unit shipped without antimalware software, but Microsoft’s Security Essentials is free for the download.

The T420 is solidly constructed and offers racehorse performance. It’s highly configurable with multiple warranty options, as befits a business laptop(lenovo laptop batteries). Just about every IT person we know swears by the T series–for their clients and themselves. That should tell you everything you need to know about the long-term reliability of these laptops.

Lenovo ThinkPad T410 Review, lenovo-batteries.us

Pros
Very fast
Increased battery capacities
Excellent port selection

Cons
Screen shows some distortion when flexing
High pitched fan could be annoying

The ThinkPad T410 is the latest revision of the popular T-series ThinkPad from Lenovo. This model brings a new line of dedicated and integrated graphics cards, the Intel Core-series processor line, and a completely redesigned chassis. We took an in-depth look at the highly anticipated T410 to see how well it stacks up against all the prior T-series ThinkPads. Does it live up to our expectations? Read on to find out.

Lenovo slimmed down and jazzed up the traditional ThinkPad T Series design when it released the slimmer ThinkPad T400s. Now some of the most attractive elements of the T400s have made their way unto the T410, including the more angular shape of the sides, and the new keyboard / LCD light layout. This new look is more evolutionary than revolutionary, but it makes the system look much more modern and attractive.

The materials used in the T410′s chassis make it more durable and stylish at the same time. The chassis features a lid made from ABS plastic and a strong carbon-fiber reinforced plastic bottom. An internal roll cage helps protect the notebook from damage.

The T410 measures in at 13.1 x 9.4 x 1.3 inches, weighs 5.2 pounds with its standard 6-cell battery (the 9-cell extended lenovo t410 battery will add 0.4 pounds), and is nearly equivalent in size and weight to the Lenovo ThinkPad T400. However, when we held the original ThinkPad T400 and then the new T410 in our hands, the T410 felt more compact and easier to carry. Perhaps the plastic bottom and more tapered edges gave us that impression.

The good: Sturdy design; stellar keyboard; bright display; Core i5 processor delivers excellent application performance; outstanding battery life.
The bad: Pricey; a bit bulky and heavy; integrated graphics limit gaming.
The bottom line: It costs a bit more than competing models, but the Lenovo ThinkPad T410 2522 offers a modern Core i5-based configuration inside a typical, rock-solid ThinkPad design.

You have to hand it to Lenovo. While other vendors chase the latest laptop tastes and trends–Imprint finishes! Chrome edges! Brushed aluminum! A rainbow of color options!–Lenovo has kept the venerable ThinkPad’s visage largely unchanged from the days of IBM. With its chunky but sturdy chassis, matte black finish, stellar keyboard (complete with blue Enter key), and the touch pad and red pointing stick duo, the 14-inch ThinkPad T410 looks only a little different than the ThinkPad your father (or you) lugged to work a decade or more ago. Underneath, however, the ThinkPad T410 is a very modern laptop.

The Lenovo ThinkPad T410 2522 features a dual-core Intel Core i5 processor and 4GB of memory, which supplies competitive application performance. And with its extended-cell lenovo battery, the ThinkPad T410 runs for nearly 6 hours on a single charge. Though the youth set may still view the ThinkPad as a father’s laptop, the ThinkPad T410 makes a great laptop for both home and office. It may not be the flashiest laptop in the coffee shop, but it’s one of the best designed.

Features

Smaller business laptops dump features in order to lighten their load. The T410, in contrast, piles them on so that users don’t have to look for docking solutions, external hubs, or expansion cards. It’s equipped with 4 USB ports, one of which powers external peripherals when the laptop is shut down. A SmartCard reader, multi-card reader, and ExpressCard slot are all onboard, while the DisplayPort and VGA-Out give you two options for presenting on an external monitor or projector. It’s one of the few remaining business laptops that come with a FireWire port, for legacy camcorders (though these may not work with Windows 7 64-bit) and external storage drives. For the latest storage technologies, the T410 has a dedicated E-SATA port as well. The T410 ships with a wealth of wireless connections, including mobile broadband (Gobi 2000), Intel 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS.

Screen and Speakers

The screens offered on the ThinkPad T410 have changed very little compared to ones offered on the T400. The biggest difference is all T410 models come standard with LED-backlighting. With that said we didn’t notice any decrease or increase for that matter in the quality of the displays. The WXGA+ screen on the T410 with dedicated graphics offers good color reproduction with better than average contrast. The WXGA screen on the T410 with integrated graphics also has good color reproduction and contrast but it has a slight blue tint compared to a neutral white on the WXGA+ panel. Backlight levels are stronger on the WXGA panel when both panels are set to the same brightness level. Viewing angles were similar for each notebook with most colors starting to distort and invert when tilted 15-20 degrees back. Horizontal viewing angles were better with colors staying accurate even from steep angles.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The T410 has the same redesigned keyboard that we saw debut on the T400s. It has a new function key layout with keys such as the Escape and Delete buttons increased in size while also added a backlit power button and microphone mute button. Another new feature which is located in the BIOS is Lenovo allows you to swap the function and control keys through software if you happen to be one of those people that enjoy the control key being the last key in the row.

The ThinkPad keyboard is still comfortable to type on for hours without creating too much hand strain. The redesigned keyboard has a few tweaks compared to previous models; narrower spacing between keys to lessen the chance of crumbs getting in and a softer typing feel. The softer and quieter typing feedback actually caused some typing troubles since I would type lighter on the keyboard and not fully activate keys. Once you got used to the difference it wasn’t a problem but for those first mistyped passwords it was really annoying.

The touchpad is a textured Synaptics model that is very spacious to handle multi-finger gestures. The T410 supports two-finger scrolling, rotating, and zooming, as well as three-finger press and flick. In general use the touchpad is easy to use with no discernible lag and a very fast refresh rate. The acceleration speeds on both axes were equal… so drawing a fast circle didn’t result in an oval shape. The textured surface was easy to slide across in daily use even if your fingers were slightly damp. The touchpad buttons were easy to use and very comfortable to click. They offered a long throw with a soft clicking action that didn’t emit any noise when fully pressed.