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Lenovo ThinkPad T420 Review

Lenovo ThinkPad T420 Review

Review Summary:

Bottom line, the ThinkPad T420(lenovo t420 battery) is an excellent choice for business, home, and student use.

Pros

Good build quality

Excellent keyboard and trackpad/touchpad

High-resolution 900p anti-glare screen

10 hours of battery life!

Cons

Weak speakers

Design might not appeal to all

Our Lenovo ThinkPad T420 review unit has the following specification:

14-inch anti-glare 900p display (1600x900 resolution, 320 nits brightness)

Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

Intel Core i5-2520M dual-core processor (2.5GHz, up to 3.2GHz Turbo Boost, 3MB cache, 35W TDP)

Intel QM67 chipset

Nvidia NVS 4200M 1GB dedicated graphics card

Automatically switchable to integrated Intel HD graphics via Nvidia Optimus graphics-switching technology

4GB DDR3-1333 RAM (1x 4GB; supports up to 8GB - 2x 4GB)

500GB 7200RPM Hitachi hard drive (HTS725050A9A364)

Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6205 wireless card

No internal Bluetooth

Integrated 720p HD webcam

Modular DVD burner

One-year limited warranty

9-cell battery (11.1V, 94Wh, 8.4Ah)

Weight: 5.34 lbs. w/ 9-cell battery (4.84 w/ 6-cell)

Dimensions: 13.4 x 9.05 x 1.18~1.20 inches.

Our review unit has a few options, most notably the high-resolution 900p screen, slightly faster Core i5-2520M dual-core processor, a dedicated Nvidia graphics card, 500GB 7200RPM hard drive, and the beefy 9-cell battery. Overall this configuration is more than powerful enough for office productivity and is a good value.

The hard drive in our test sample of the T420 is a fast Hitachi Travelstar model which greatly helps performance - the hard drive/storage system is the slowest part of any modern computer. To that end, the main reason that other business notebooks(lenovo thinkpad t61 battery , lenovo thinkpad t60 battery) such as the Dell Latitude E6420 ATG and HP EliteBook 8560p produced significantly higher PCMark scores is because those review units each came equipped with a faster solid state drive (SSD) ... which is also an option on the T420.

Lenovo ThinkPad T420 Full Review: The Best Business Laptop?

The 14-inch ThinkPad T420 business notebook has an excellent screen, keyboard, and battery life. We explain why this "business rugged" notebook is a great choice for hard-working customers.

Lenovo's Thinkpad T series notebooks have long been the gold standard for mainstream business systems because of their strong performance, superior build quality, and best-in-class keyboards. With the 14-inch ThinkPad T420, Lenovo has made a couple of changes, switching the screen to the now-standard 16:9 aspect ratio and giving it the latest Intel 2nd Generation Core series CPU. Is the T420, $1,179 as configured, the business notebook(lenovo thinkpad t400 battery , lenovo thinkpad t410 battery) to beat?

Change comes slowly to the venerable ThinkPad T series, but when it does, it's usually worth waiting for. The Lenovo ThinkPad T420-the bread and butter of the ThinkPad line-may look the same as the T410 it replaces, but important changes under the hood make this system even better. You get improved performance, thanks to Intel's Sandy Bridge CPU platform, stellar battery life, enhanced Lenovo utilities, and unique videoconferencing abilities. Those changes are all on top of the already-excellent ThinkPad T architecture.

For business users in search of a 14-inch laptop to flog as a daily workhorse, there's a lot to recommend in the ThinkPad T420. And while the $1,264 for our tested configuration certainly isn't cheap when compared against consumer machines with similar base components, you get your money's worth in other ways. We should note that if you configure this particular system on Lenovo's site, you'll see it has an "original" price of a whopping $2,005, with the much lower price presented "after discounts." Lenovo(lenovo thinkpad t420 battery , lenovo thinkpad t420s battery) assures us, however, that the price for this particular model will not exceed $1,264. This is a common practice among notebook manufacturers, and the higher price was never an actual price for the system.

Base models of the ThinkPad T420 start at prices much lower than our test unit, at "original" prices of around $1,300 and "after discount" prices below $800. With these cheaper models, though, you miss out on a lot of performance and business-focused features. With the entry-point ThinkPad T420 model, you get a 2.3GHz Core i3-2350M processor, a lower-resolution screen (1,366x768), integrated graphics, no fingerprint reader, a smaller hard drive (320GB), a smaller battery, and no Bluetooth. Lenovo leaves the Webcam in by default, but if you're really watching your pennies, you can save $30 there and go without.

For a real business PC workhorse, though-one that balances weight, screen size, performance, premium security features, and price exceptionally well-the test configuration we looked at, or one close to it, is where the real value lies in this line.

Design

With the ThinkPad T420, the name has changed(lenovo thinkpad t510s battery , lenovo thinkpad t520 battery), but the design remains the same: It's the same squared-off, matte-black ThinkPad chassis you'd expect. We understand that you don't mess with a classic, but we can't help but steal furtive glances at the more au courant laser-etched metal chassis of the HP Envy 14 and others, and wonder what a ThinkPad might achieve given an extreme makeover.

What the ThinkPad T420 lacks in curb appeal is more than compensated for in the internal design. That basic-black chassis is mostly made out of a magnesium alloy for added strength with minimal weight. As with other T-series ThinkPads before it, the T420 features Lenovo's roll cage: an internal carbon-fiber skeleton that protects the components within from flex. The T420 has also passed eight U.S. military testing specifications ("Mil-Spec," for short), including those for humidity extremes (up to 98 percent), low/high temperature, sand resistance, high-altitude operation, vibration, and mechanical shock. And as before, the keyboard is spill-resistant, with drainage holes on the bottom of the chassis to quickly route spills-up to 4 ounces of fluid, according to Lenovo-out of the machine.

At 4.8 pounds and 1.2 inches thick, the ThinkPad T420 is on the bulky side for a machine at this weight(lenovo thinkpad x60 battery , lenovo thinkpad x61 battery), but it's still easy to tote around the office and zip into a laptop bag for travel. That said, if you need a 14-inch-screened machine for frequent road trips, you might want to pay the premium for the lighter (3.9-pound) and thinner (0.9-inch-thick) ThinkPad T420s.

While the ThinkPad T420 looks nearly identical to the T410 it replaces, it is not a carbon copy. With the T420, Lenovo has moved to an imperceptibly smaller 14-inch screen, versus the 14.1-inch LCD on the older model. The new panel has an aspect ratio of 16-to-9 (versus 16-to-10 for the 14.1-inch panel), which means the screen resolution matches common HD-resolution specifications, at the expense of a bit of vertical height.

The edges of the machine contain a good selection of ports. VGA and DisplayPort connectors, for exporting the onscreen image to an external display, are on the laptop's left edge, accompanied by a USB 2.0 port and an Ethernet jack. The right edge houses a headset jack, another USB 2.0 port, an eSATA/USB combo port for connecting external high-speed drives, a memory-card reader, and an ExpressCard/34 slot for popping in expansion devices(lenovo thinkpad x300 battery , lenovo thinkpad w420 battery).

The right edge is also home to a modular-device swappable bay (an "UltraBay," in Lenovo-speak). Most of the time, this bay will hold your laptop's optical drive, but it can also accept a second hard drive or battery. These swap-in accessories are added-cost options.

Hiding around back is a FireWire connector and a third USB 2.0 port. This USB port is the "always on" type, which you can use for charging smartphones and other USB-connected devices when the laptop is off or in sleep mode. Note that the ThinkPad T420 lacks the faster USB 3.0 ports that are becoming common on high-end notebooks. Also, if you need to connect to an external display via HDMI (many HDTVs rely on these, for example), you'll need to use a DisplayPort-to-HDMI adapter.

Ports and Features

The T420 has a solid array of input and output ports(lenovo thinkpad l412 battery , lenovo thinkpad sl500 battery). It's also worth noting the T420 has a docking station port on its underside - Lenovo sells several different models, all offering plug-and-play compatibility and connections to many more ports. This functionality is a feature of a true business notebook; lower-end "business" notebooks do not have them, nor do consumer models. All picture descriptions are left to right.

With mainstream notebooks having moved to 15.6-inch screens and ultraportables largely sporting 13.3-inch ones, the ThinkPad T420 is one of the few laptops left to use the once-ubiquitous 14-inch variety. (That said, back in the day, 14-inch panels were typically 4-to-3 panels, not wide-screens). Our test unit came with Lenovo's high-res version of this panel, which costs extra and sports a 1,600x900 native resolution.

At this resolution, the 14-inch screen makes efficient use of its spread by letting you have a couple of application windows open side-by-side. That's handy for multitasking, but default text at that resolution is tiny-crisp, but tiny. To work more comfortably, we used Windows' DPI Scaling function to increase text size and set our browser and application zoom levels to 150 percent. For the over-40 crowd (and those configuring their own machines - lenovo thinkpad sl510 battery , lenovo thinkpad w510 battery), Lenovo offers a 1,366x768 panel on some configurations. Think carefully about which you choose if your eyes will mind.

The panel has an anti-glare coating that effectively eliminates annoying glare and reflections without sacrificing image clarity. Also, the panel is LED-backlit and very bright. (Lenovo rates it at 230 nits.) Colors in photos and Windows apps looked terrific throughout our testing, and the panel did a good job with video, delivering smooth playback with no motion blur. The screen's viewing angle is very wide in Windows apps, letting you use the ThinkPad T420 to present to a small group around a conference table. When watching video, though, the viewing sweet spot is decidedly narrower.

On the audio front, the ThinkPad T420's stereo speakers deliver better audio quality than most business laptops. We noted enough volume for presenting to a small group. That said, music playback had the tinny quality typical of most notebooks(lenovo thinkpad w701 battery , lenovo 3000 n200 battery). There's not much you can do to enhance it without plugging in external speakers; the ThinkPad T420, oddly, does not include the audio-enhancing Dolby Home Theatre technology found on the ThinkPad T420s.

The keyboard is the same generation that debuted in 2009 with the ThinkPad T410. That redesign introduced tighter spacing between the keys (one nice benefit of that: it keeps the crumbs out) while maintaining the full-size 19mm key pitch. That said, to our fingers, the keyboard on our particular T420 felt different than those on past T-series laptops. The key plunge (the distance of the keys' up/down travel) was still spot on, but the audible and tactile feedback seemed a bit off; it just wasn't the same crisp "click" and weighty key feel we've grown accustomed to. A Lenovo product manager assured us there have been no changes, so we'll chalk it up to manufacturing differences from one lot to the next.

To illuminate the keyboard in darkened rooms, the ThinkPad T420 has a handy white LED positioned above the screen. Hit Function+PgUp, and the keyboard is bathed in a soft white light. Novel when it debuted a decade or so ago, the ThinkLight seems a little quaint in this era of backlit keyboards, which deliver illumination that's more even(lenovo 3000 y510 battery , lenovo ideapad u450 battery). But we found ourselves reaching for the ThinkLight key combination plenty nonetheless.

For mousing, the ThinkPad T420 comes with both a touch pad and Lenovo's signature pointing stick. The TrackPoint stick is still the best of its kind, delivering precise control over cursor movements and large mouse buttons for effortless left/right clicks. Those oversize mouse buttons, however, steal precious room from the touch pad. The pad's pebbled surface makes for friction-free movement, but the 3x1.75-inch surface is tight. On the plus side, the slender mouse buttons for the pad are on the edge of the chassis, which makes them easy to locate without looking. We also appreciate the dedicated volume and mute keys above the Function-key row, as well as the unique-to-ThinkPad (as far as we've seen) microphone mute button.

That microphone mute is just one of several features that make the ThinkPad T420 a good videoconferencing platform. The dual digital mics capture better audio than your typical single-mic arrangement, while the bundled Lenovo Communication Utility offers two microphone settings. The first, Private Chat, focuses the mic pickup in front of the laptop and suppresses background noise, so your party can hear your voice over the din of, say, an airport waiting area(lenovo ideapad y530 battery , lenovo ideapad y560 battery). The second, Conference Call mode, opens the audio capture field to a full 360 degrees around the machine, which is ideal for a group of participants around a table. In our trials, with the microphone setting on "one voice," the voice of the speaker directly facing the screen was pronounced, while noise off to the side was much diminished. With the utility set to multiple voices, we were able to walk around the laptop in a complete circle, and at all points the voice pickup was nearly the same.

The Lenovo Communications Utility also includes an option to suppress keystroke noise during a VoIP call, but in our Skyping we noticed only a slight difference with this activated. And speaking of Skype, it's the only preloaded way to make use of the Webcam; we would prefer a dedicated utility to grab stills and video. And while Lenovo touts the camera's 720p resolution, that sounds more impressive than it is. The resolution is 1,280x720-less than a full megapixel (0.92, to be exact), when 2-megapixel cameras are now the norm. Sure enough, the image was a bit grainy, with the low resolution lending a "soft focus" effect. On the plus side, it captures video at a full 30 frames per second, so the image stream showed no jerkiness.

One unexpected surprise for a business portable was the inclusion, in our test model, of a discrete graphics processor (GPU) and Nvidia's Optimus technology. When graphics horsepower is not needed, the integrated Intel HD 3000 graphics engine (it's part of the CPU, actually) handles the graphics processing, which helps extend battery life(lenovo thinkpad x60 tablet pc battery , lenovo thinkpad x61 tablet pc battery). For more demanding tasks, Optimus tells the Nvidia NVS 4200M GPU to kick in.

Another plus: The ThinkPad T420 includes Lenovo's Enhanced Experience 2.0 features, which work with the Windows 7 operating system to speed up such tasks as booting up, resuming from sleep/hibernate mode, and reconnecting to Wi-Fi networks. On the security front, the T420 includes a fingerprint reader, as well as Trusted Platform Module (TPM) circuitry and utilities. TPM solutions allow a company's IT department to manage log-ins and passwords, communications access, platform integrity, and drive encryption.

As for other features, the ThinkPad T420 we tested came with a DVD burner, but organizations worried about casual data theft can opt for a read-only DVD-ROM drive. There is no Blu-ray option for the UltraBay, which is a shame, since the high-res screen makes the ThinkPad T420 an ideal personal movie player for those long business flights(Lenovo 42T4651 , Lenovo 40y7659 Charger , Lenovo Adapter).

As with other ThinkPad models, hard drive options are plentiful. Our configuration came with a 500GB 7,200rpm drive, the sweet spot for laptops right now. Other configurations and configure-to-order versions can be had with a 160GB, 250GB, or 320GB hard drive instead, or one of three solid-state drives (80GB, 128GB, 160GB) that deliver the peace of mind of impact-resistance. If you do opt for a traditional spinning drive, there's still a line of defense against shock, by way of Lenovo's active-protection technology. With this, an accelerometer senses bumps or falls, signaling the drive to park the read/write heads to protect against data loss.

On the wireless front, our configuration included Bluetooth and the Intel Centrino Advanced-N+ WiMAX chipset, which delivers 802.11a/g/n Wi-Fi connectivity plus WiMAX wireless-broadband support for use on the growing number of wide-area wireless LANs (WLANs). There is plenty of flexibility here(FRU 92P1141 , Lenovo 42T4235 , Lenovo 42T4545), though-corporations can choose among four other WLAN chipsets, if they prefer. Also, for connect-nearly-anywhere wireless, the T420 machines support the optional Gobi 3000 Sierra Wireless EV-DO/HSPA WWAN Minicard, or Ericsson's HSPA+ WWAN Minicard, each a $125 option. If there's a way to wirelessly connect, you can probably manage it from the T420 with careful configuring.

Keyboard, Pointing Stick, TouchPad

The classic, spill-resistant keyboard on the ThinkPad T420 features 7 rows with a full range of keys, even rarely used ones such as scroll lock and pause. Enlarged Esc and Delete keys make it easy to perform these frequent functions. The combination of strong tactile feedback and a smile-shaped key surface allowed us to achieve an 86 word-per-minute score with a 1-percent error rate on the Ten Thumbs Typing Tutor test, well above our 80 wpm average. However, the typing experience on the 13-inch ThinkPad X1 remains the industry's best because of that notebook's soft-touch palm rest and even more responsive keys.

Like other ThinkPads, the T420 has both a TrackPoint pointing stick and a touchpad. We're huge fans of the TrackPoint because it provides the most accurate way to navigate around the desktop short of using a mouse, and it allows you to move the pointer without lifting your fingers off of the home row. If you don't like pointing sticks, the 3 x 1.75-inch textured touchpad provides accurate navigation around the desktop, and its two discrete mouse buttons provide just the right amount of feedback. However, multitouch gestures such as pinch-to-zoom are not smooth at all(40Y6797 , 40Y6799 , FRU 92P1089 , FRU 92P1137).

Like the design, the T420 has a keyboard ... pretty much like ThinkPads have always had - a great one. Although Lenovo is controversially introducing "Chiclet" or "island" style keyboards on some more consumer-esque ThinkPad(40Y6795) lines, the T-series stays true to form with a standard keyboard (maybe it should be called an "old school" keyboard since apparently "keyboard" isn't sufficient anymore).

Tactile feedback - what it feels like to press the keys - starts with the key travel, or the distance between pressed and not pressed positions. The T420's keys have precisely the right amount of travel to allow time for your finger muscles to realize a key is fully depressed; this is essential for fast and accurate typing. Additionally the spring mechanism (it's not actually a spring, but a scissor switch/rubber dome, but that's for another article) pops the keys back up immediately yet is stiff enough to let you rest your fingers on the keys.

I could talk about the keyboard all day but will restrain myself to two more points. First, the layout of the keyboard is fantastic; it has the [Fx] keys at the top separated into groups of four as they should be and the home/end/pgup/pgdn/delete keys separated into cluster. Lastly, the keyboard is quiet and subdued for use in meetings and classrooms alike - no clacking or clicking, just a nice low octave sound.

The T420 has an "UltraNav" solution which consists of the touchpad and the red rubber trackpoint in the center of the keyboard(Lenovo Ideapad Y560 battery , Lenovo Ideapad Y710 battery , Lenovo Ideapad Y730 battery). The touchpad sports an anti-glare textured surface which is actually a bit too bumpy for my tastes, coming from a smooth touchpad. On the plus side, the rougher surface makes it highly accurate. The trackpoint is the best in the business, responsive and with an excellent dome shape. I prefer using this since it's not necessary to remove hands from the keyboard while doing so. Finally, the buttons are quiet and have enough depth to provide solid feedback. They are easy to find by feel.

Overall there are not enough good things I can say about the input devices, they are the gold standard. If you want to buy a notebook with a good keyboard/touchpad and can't see it in person, a ThinkPad might be your best bet.

Heat

The ThinkPad T420 stayed pleasantly cool throughout our testing. After streaming video for 15 minutes, the touchpad measured a frigid 82 degrees, the keyboard an icy 81 degrees, and the bottom a cool 87 degrees Fahrenheit. We consider temperatures below 95 degrees comfortable.

There is a single fan exhausting air out the back left corner of the chassis. At idle it's nearly silent; under load it develops a slight whine but remains quiet enough to be ignored (even in a quiet office). It's nice that the fan is located towards the rear; this way it won't blow hot air on left-handers. The notebook itself remains cool all over even during intense benchmarking sessions.

The battery(Lenovo Ideapad Y550 battery , Lenovo Ideapad Y460 battery , Lenovo Ideapad Y510 battery) life is definitely helped by the Nvidia Optimus technology which automatically turns off the dedicated Nvidia graphics card when 3D processing power is not required (95%+ of the time for "typical" business users).

Display and Audio

The 230-nit, 14.1-inch matte display provided sharp images and plenty of desktop real estate thanks to its optional 1600 x 900 panel. When we watched a 1080p QuickTime trailer for the movie Point Blank, images were sharp and motion smooth with viewing angles solid up to 45 degrees to the left or right. However, when we streamed a 720p Flash episode of Fringe from Fox.com, the edges of objects seemed a little pixelated, perhaps because the screen had a higher resolution than the video. We highly recommend the 1600 x 900 panel, a $50 option, because it shows a lot more of your favorite web pages and documents without forcing you to scroll.

While not as high fidelity as audio-focused consumer notebooks such as the Dell XPS and the HP Envy series, the Lenovo ThinkPad T420 provides surprisingly good music playback. Whether we were playing Kool and the Gang's jazz-oriented "Summer Madness," the bass-heavy "Between the Sheets" by the Isley Brothers, or Motley Crue's guitar-laden "Looks that Kill," sound was accurate and loud enough to fill a medium-sized room(Lenovo Ideapad Y330 battery , Lenovo IdeaPad Y430 battery , Lenovo Ideapad Y450 battery). We could even make out a solid separation of sound between the speakers, which sit on either side of the keyboard.

Screen and Speakers

The T420 features a 14-inch screen with an anti-glare coating. It is available in two resolutions: 720p (1366x768) and 900p (1600x900); ours has the latter and it's a good thing it does, otherwise I would complain. A 1600x900 screen has almost 30% more space compared to 1366x768 - that means less scrolling since more lines of text can be shown at once (or more detail in a high-resolution picture). It also makes it possible to use two windows side-by-side.

The screen has 15 levels of brightness and ample contrast; the infamous Command Prompt window looks black with barely a hint of gray. Viewing angles are typical for a TN-type panel like this one; fine horizontally but with significant color distortion vertically. Nearly all notebooks come with TN-type panels. The anti-glare screen coating is more evidence this notebook is designed for productivity - it's not a mirror like a glossy display and thus does not have annoying reflections. It is easy to clean as a bonus.

The T420 sports two stereo speakers on either side of the keyboard(Lenovo Ideapad U450p battery , Lenovo Ideapad U550 battery , Lenovo Ideapad V350 battery , Lenovo Ideapad V460 battery). They suffice for watching occasional audio clips but lack the volume and bass to enjoy music. I appreciate the dedicated volume control (up/down/mute) buttons above the keyboard - they're convenient.

Performance



As with other laptops based on Intel's Sandy Bridge architecture, the ThinkPad T420 delivers plenty of performance for productivity and multimedia applications. Our unit came with a 2.5GHz Intel Core i5-2520M processor-the midlevel mobile CPU in a line that includes a Core i3 CPU at the low end, three Core i5 chips in the middle, and a smoking Core i7 quad-core processor at the top end. We had 4GB of 1,333MHz DDR3 RAM in our test machine, and the T420 platform supports up to 8GB.

The ThinkPad T420 delivered a very good score of 8,058 on the 64-bit version of PCMark Vantage, which measures overall system performance. That score edges out the 7,779 we saw from the ThinkPad T420s earlier this year, and it's well ahead of the 6,900 or so that is the average in the thin-and-light laptop class. Likewise, in our 64-bit Cinebench 10 test, which stresses all CPU cores to gauge raw processing potential, the T420 scored a very impressive 10,391-a bit behind the 10,823 we saw from the ThinkPad T420s, but still nearly 2,500 points ahead of the average for this class of laptop.

The ThinkPad T420 also was a strong performer on our media-file-crunching tests. It converted the 11 standard test tracks on our custom iTunes Conversion Test in 3 minutes flat; again, that's a little behind what we saw from the ThinkPad T420s (2:47), but still near the front of the pack(Lenovo IdeaPad S12 battery , Lenovo Ideapad U110 battery , Lenovo Ideapad U330 battery , Lenovo Ideapad U350 battery , Lenovo Ideapad U350W battery). The story was similar on our Windows Media Encoder test, in which we encode a standard 3-minute-and-15-second video clip: The T420 took just 3 minutes and 18 seconds to perform the test task, versus 3:08 for the ThinkPad T420s and the 5:01 average for the class.

These numbers mean you get fast processor performance overall, which is what you'll likely need most as a business user. You should have no problem running multiple applications at once, as well as crunching through large Excel spreadsheets with formulas, converting files to different formats in large batches, and browsing the Web with lots of tabs open at once.

Thanks to the dedicated GPU, the ThinkPad T420 proved to be better at 3D chores than most business portables. At 1,024x768 resolution on 3DMark06, which measures DirectX 9 (DX9) graphics performance, the T420 scored 6,061. That's almost 2,000 points better than the 4,079 we saw from the T420s, which employs integrated graphics. But while we welcome the dedicated GPU and Optimus technology, the Nvidia NVS 4200M GPU shouldn't be confused with the company's gaming-oriented GeForce chips. For example, on our demanding Just Cause 2 test, which measures DirectX 10 gaming performance, the T420 delivered a disappointing 15.3 frames per second at 1,366x768 resolution. That essentially doubles the rate we saw from the ThinkPad T420s, but it's still unplayable, at that not even at the native resolution of the laptop(Lenovo IdeaPad S9 battery , Lenovo IdeaPad S9E battery , Lenovo IdeaPad S10 battery , Lenovo IdeaPad S10E battery , Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3T battery). Overall, consider 3D acceleration in the T420 good for daily Windows chores and low-impact DX9 3D gaming, but not more demanding DX10 games.

More impressive was the battery life we saw from the ThinkPad T420's nine-cell battery. (Lenovo included this in our test configuration, a $50 upsell from the standard six-cell battery.) On our DVD Battery-Rundown Test, in which we set the screen brightness to 50 percent and watch a DVD movie (using the onboard optical drive) until the machine shuts down, the machine ran for 7 hours and 32 minutes on a full charge. Lenovo rates the battery for nine hours of life under more typical usage scenarios, and based on our experience, we'd say that's a conservative estimate. By comparison, the average laptop in this class lasted only 3:38 on this test, and the ThinkPad T420s lasted 3:39 with its six-cell battery.

Battery Life

Our T420 has the optional 9-cell battery with a whopping 94Wh rating. I measured 10 hours on the dot, from 100% to 0% on our standard battery rundown test (Windows 7 Balanced power profile, 70% screen brightness, wireless on and refreshing a web page every one minute). This makes the T420 one of the longest-lasting notebooks out there, even compared to netbooks. Realistically expect a range between 8 and 10 hours for everyday usage, possibly longer if you have a Solid State Drive (SSD) and turn the screen brightness down to a minimum.

Conclusion

The Lenovo ThinkPad T420 is a well-engineered 14" business notebook(Lenovo Ideapad B460 battery , Lenovo IdeaPad G460 battery , Lenovo IdeaPad G560 battery). It has the hallmark ThinkPad qualities including great build quality and a superior keyboard. I liked almost everything about it. The anti-glare screen prevents reflections and with a 1600x900 resolution, provides a lot of working space. The keyboard has a highly functional layout and the trackpoint and touchpad are easy to use. All this functionality can be taken to the road thanks to the 10 hours of battery from the optional 9-cell.

Other pros of the notebook include a good selection of input/output ports, dedicated volume control buttons, a docking station port, and a swappable modular bay (ours was occupied by a DVD burner).

Complaints? Yes - the speakers are lackluster, the design might not appeal to people looking for something noticeable, and ... that's it. Oh, it's a bit thick and heavy for a 14" model, but Lenovo also offers the T420s model which is thinner.

Bottom line, the ThinkPad T420 isn't just a good business laptop(Lenovo 3000 Y510A battery).

As with other ThinkPad models, business customers can specify the Windows operating system that comes preloaded on their machines, ranging from Windows Vista (the Home Basic or Business editions) through to the 64-bit Windows 7 Professional that was on our test unit. Also, enterprise customers can specify Windows XP Professional or Windows 7 Ultimate through special bid.

Whichever OS you choose, you get Lenovo's own excellent software tools, accessible via the blue ThinkVantage button. In this suite, you'll find applets for rescue and recovery, managing connections, a password manager, system health and diagnostic tools, a communication utility to assist with Web conferencing, and more. We especially like Lenovo's Access Connections utility, which eases the tweaking and enabling/disabling of your Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and (if present) wireless-broadband connections.

The price of our ThinkPad T420 includes a typical one-year warranty, with 24/7 tech support and onsite service. As with other business portables, a wide range of warranty upgrades and insurance/protection plans is available.

For past ThinkPad T-series owners looking to return to the fold, as well as current owners looking for a newer model, the new ThinkPad T420 is an easy decision. In the model we looked at, it delivers cracking performance, and even some 3D abilities, in a time-tested platform. For business buyers and demanding consumers who want a no-nonsense workhorse they can carry, it doesn't get much better.

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Post je objavljen 08.11.2011. u 10:05 sati.