Lenovo ThinkPad T420

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Our verdict

A 14-inch powerhouse, the Lenovo ThinkPad T420 offers all-day endurance at an affordable price.

To the

Epic battery life

Great keyboard

Solid sound

Great job

High definition screen

Against

No USB 3.0

Webcam not standard

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Lenovo's

ThinkPad

T-series notebooks have long been the gold standard for mainstream business systems due to their strong performance, superior build quality, and top-of-the-line keyboards. With the 14-inch ThinkPad T420, Lenovo made a few changes, changing the screen to the now-standard 16:9 aspect ratio -Switched the aspect ratio and gave it the latest 2nd Gen Intel Core series CPU. As configured, $1179, can the T420 beat the business notebook?

To update

: Read our review of the

ThinkPad T460

, the latest version of this computer.

draft

The ThinkPad T420 follows the classic ThinkPad aesthetic that business users have come to know and love over the years. The matte black rubberized lid with its simple silver logo and jet black sides, bottom and interior are all longtime ThinkPad staples, as well like the little red TrackPoint pointer stick that sits between the G and H keys. Like previous ThinkPad T-series notebooks, the T420 is built to last. The rubberized ABS plastic lid, carbon-reinforced base and internal roll cage protect against bumps and drops .

At 13.4 x 10 x 1 inches and 5.2 pounds with the powerful nine-cell battery, the ThinkPad T420 is slightly larger and heavier than the Toshiba Tecra R840 (13.4 x 9.4 x 1.1 inches, 4 .6 pounds), but it's still lighter than that

HP EliteBook 8460p

(13 x 9.1 x 1.3 in, 5.4 lb) and the

Dell Latitude E6420

(13.9 x 10.25 x 1.25 inches, 6.2 pounds) with its extended battery. Using the standard six-cell battery shortens the T420's length to 9 inches and its weight to 4.8 pounds.

Lenovo ThinkPad T420s

, designed as a lighter alternative, weighs just 4 pounds and measures just 13.5 x 9.1 x 0.8-1 inches.

[

Which ThinkPad is right for you?

]

Lenovo ThinkPad T420 (14-inch 320GB) at Amazon for $259

Keyboard, pointing stick, touchpad

The classic, spill-resistant ThinkPad T420 keyboard has 7 rows with all keys, including rarely used ones like scroll lock and pause. Enlarged Esc and Del keys make it easier to perform these common functions. The combination of strong tactile feedback and a smiling key surface allowed us to achieve a score of 86 words per minute with a 1 percent error rate on the Ten Thumbs Typing Tutor test, well above our average of 80 wpm. The typing feel on the 13-inch

ThinkPad X1

remains the best in the business thanks to the soft-touch palm rest and even more responsive buttons.

Like other ThinkPads, the T420 has a TrackPoint pointing stick and touchpad. We're big fans of the TrackPoint because it offers the most accurate way to navigate the desktop without using a mouse and allows you to use the Move pointers without taking your fingers off the home row. If you don't like pointing sticks, the 3 x 1.75-inch textured touchpad provides accurate desktop navigation, and its two discrete mouse buttons provide accurate the right feedback. However, multi-touch gestures like pinch-to-zoom are not smooth at all.

heat

The ThinkPad T420 remained pleasantly cool during our test. After 15 minutes of video streaming, the touchpad measured a cool 82 degrees, the keyboard an icy 81 degrees and the bottom a cool 87 degrees Fahrenheit. We found temperatures below 95 degrees to be pleasant.

display and audio

The 14.1-inch, 230-nit, matte display delivered 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 film

point empty

, images were sharp and smooth with viewing angles up to 45 degrees left or right. However, when we watched a 720p Flash episode of

edge area

from Fox.com, the edges of objects appeared a bit pixelated, perhaps because the screen was a higher resolution than the video. We highly recommend the 1600 x 900 panel, a $50 option, as it shows a lot more of your favorite websites and documents without forcing you to scroll.

While the Lenovo ThinkPad T420 doesn't offer the fidelity of audio-oriented consumer notebooks like the Dell XPS and HP Envy series, it does offer surprisingly good music reproduction. Whether we're listening to the jazz-oriented "Summer Madness" of Kool and the Gang, the Played bass-heavy "Between the Sheets" by the Isley Brothers or Motley Crue's guitar-heavy "Looks that Kill," the sound was precise and loud enough to fill a medium-sized room. We could even detect solid tonal separation between the speakers, which were on sit on either side of the keyboard.

Connections and webcam

The ThinkPad T420 offers plenty of connectivity options, but it's missing some of the obvious ones. On the right are an Express Card 34 slot, a 4-in-1 memory card reader, a USB port, and a USB/eSATA port. On the back are located There is a FireWire port and a powered USB port, which you can use to charge devices when the system is off. The left side houses VGA, DisplayPort, Ethernet and another USB port (four total). USB 3.0 are conspicuously absent ports and HDMI out, both of which aren't even optional. Considering we've been seeing USB 3.0 notebooks for well over a year now, and Lenovo has been offering USB 3.0 on many other ThinkPads (e.g. X1 and W520), this is one quite a glaring omission.

The 720p webcam delivered sharp images, even in low light. In our dark living room, fine details of our face were visible as we snapped a 1280 x 720 image and chatted on Skype in standard definition. However, like many other webcams, our face appeared shadowy, when there was a bright light source directly behind it; This happened when we were trying to take a photo while sitting in front of a window that was getting sunlight.

Lenovo's conferencing software has a unique keyboard noise cancellation feature that, in our tests, completely muted the typing sound while chatting on Skype. The software also lets you use the dual-array microphones for a single voice or group chat configure.

perfomance

With its 2.5GHz Core i5 CPU, 4GB of RAM, an Nvidia NVS 4200M graphics chip, and a 7,200RPM hard drive, the ThinkPad T420 was strong enough to handle whatever we threw at it from playing 1080p videos to spreadsheets to light gaming. On PCMarkVantage, which measures overall performance, the T420 scored a strong 8197, much better than the average of the 5596 thin and light notebooks, the 7728 of the Toshiba Tecra R840 and the HP EliteBook 8460p (both have the same Core i5-2520M CPU).

The 500GB, 7200rpm hard drive booted into Windows 7 Professional in a fast 48 seconds, much faster than the 65 second category average. The drive took a modest 3 minutes and 5 seconds to complete the LAPTOP file transfer test, copying 4.97 GB of mixed media files. That's a rate of 27.5 Mbps, slightly faster than the average for the 26 Mbps category, but well behind the Dell Latitude's 34.6 Mbps E6420 and its 7200 rpm hard drive.

Lenovo ThinkPad T420

Using the Oxelon Media Encoder, the T420 transcoded a 114MB MPEG4 to AVI in 43 seconds, 15 seconds shy of the thin-and-light average and on par with the Toshiba R840 (41 seconds) and the HP 8460p (42 seconds).

graphic

Our ThinkPad T420 review unit came with Nvidia NVS 4200M and Intel HD 3000 GPUs and Nvidia's Optimus graphics switching technology to switch between the two for the best combination of battery life and performance. In 3DMark06, which measures overall graphics performance, the ThinkPad T420 scored strong 5,583 points, well above the 4,006 category average, the 5,060 points of the Dell Latitude E6420 with its integrated Intel HD 3000 graphics and the 5,032 points of the HP EliteBook 8460p with its AMD Radeon HD 6470M GPU.

The ThinkPad T420 isn't a gaming system, but its discrete graphics chip is good enough to get decent frame rates on some popular titles. On the auto-detect settings, the T420 delivered a solid 61 frames per second when playing

World of Warcraft

, slightly below the category average of 86 fps, but much higher than the Dell Latitude E6420's 41 fps and the HP EliteBook 8460p's 52 fps, and impressive since most notebooks in this category have lower-resolution screens. With cranked up Special effects dropped the rate to a still solid 32 fps.

In the more demanding

Far Cry 2

, the ThinkPad T420 hit a solid 37 fps at 1024 x 768 resolution, which is the category average of 36.6 fps. When we bumped the resolution to 1600 x 900, that rate dropped to a modest 25 fps, which is comfortable above the average of the 20 fps category.

battery life

With its nine-cell extended battery, the ThinkPad T420 lasts the whole day and even more. In the LAPTOP Battery Test, in which surfing is uninterrupted via WLAN, the notebook lasts a whopping 10 hours and 36 minutes, more than double the 5:15 -class average and the battery life of the T420s (5 hours). Again, this time is significantly longer than the HP EliteBook 8460p (6:01) and the Toshiba Tecra R840 (6:34). Only the 6.2 pound Dell Latitude E6420 with its extended battery came close and lasted 8:59.

setting options

Although our review unit has an MSRP of $1,179, the ThinkPad T420 starts at just $789. For that price, you're getting a 2.1 GHz Core i3 CPU, integrated graphics, a 1366 x 768 display , but the same 500GB hard drive and 4GB of RAM as our review unit. If you want discrete graphics, you'll have to buy the $1,089 model, which comes with a Core i5 CPU and a 1600x900 display equipped with its Nvidia NVS 4200 GPU. Configuration options include a choice of memory (320/500 GB HDD or 128/160 GB SSD), up to 8 GB RAM, a choice of Core i3, i5 or i7 and several different ones Wi-Fi cards. Oddly enough, the webcam and fingerprint reader are non-standard, costing $20 and $30, respectively.

Whatever other options you choose, both the 1600 x 900 screen ($50) and 9-cell battery ($50) are must-haves to maximize your productivity and portability.

Software, fingerprint reader and warranty

Lenovo bundles the ThinkPad T420 with standard ThinkVantage utilities. This includes the ThinkVantage Power Manager, which gives you fine control over the system's power profile. We particularly like the Instant Resume feature, which uses the Wi-Fi card for 10 or stays active for more minutes after you put the notebook to sleep, so you don't have to wait for the system to reconnect after waking it up.

Other utilities include Access Connections for managing your wireless connections, Password Manager and Rescue and Recovery for backups. The T420 also comes with Corel DVD Movie Factory for disc burning.

The ThinkPad T420 has an active fingerprint reader that can read your fingers even when the system is off. Using the included security software, we were able to enroll our index finger in just a few minutes register with just one swipe.

Lenovo backs the ThinkPad T420 with a standard one-year parts and labor warranty. Extended warranties of up to three years and accidental damage protection are available for an additional fee. See how Lenovo works in our

Technical support showdown

and

Best & Worst Brands

Report.

Verdict

With its epic battery life, great keyboard, solid sound, sturdy design and high-resolution screen, the ThinkPad T420 offers almost everything you could want in a 14-inch business system at a good price. If you're looking for something lighter , consider the ThinkPad T420s, which weighs 1.2 pounds less but lasts half as long on a charge. However, if you're looking for the ultimate slim and light productivity powerhouse, the ThinkPad T420 should be high on your list.

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