Publisher's Note:
In general, we do not recommend laptops older than 2 years. See our top picks below
Best Laptops
, or answer a few simple questions in our
Laptop Finder
to receive personalized recommendations
Our verdict
The ThinkPad T420s packs fast performance, a great keyboard, and a high-resolution screen into the lightest 14-inch laptop money can buy.
To the
Lightweight and durable design
High definition screen
Great job
Great keyboard
Against
Modest battery life
Mediocre sound
Lenovo ThinkPad T420s Deals
Show similar Amazon USA
Amazon
No price information
Check Amazon
We check over 250 million products daily for the best prices
supported by
Lenovo's ThinkPad T420s is the ultimate Goldilocks notebook for business users. At 14.1 inches and 4 pounds, the laptop is extremely light and portable, yet large enough to accommodate a generous high-resolution screen, a powerful processor, and a full-size keyboard and touchpad However, at $1,349 (as configured), the ThinkPad T420s costs more than heavier 14-inch systems like the ThinkPad T420 and the
HP EliteBook 8460p
.Spoiler alert: This lightweight notebook is worth the investment.
draft
From the raven black soft-touch lid to the strong chrome hinges to the elegantly simple black interior, the Lenovo ThinkPad T420s offers traditional
ThinkPad
down to the bright red trackpoint in the center of the keyboard. Although the system offers some new riffs on this tried and tested theme, users will appreciate the T420's clean underside and smooth sides, as well as the large, textured touchpad and dedicated volume and mic buttons above the appreciate the keyboard.
At 13.5 x 9.1 x 0.8-1 inches and 4 pounds, the ThinkPad T420s is significantly thinner and lighter than competitors like the HP EliteBook 8460p (1.3 inches thick and 5.4 pounds) and
Dell Latitude E6420
(1.3-inch profile, 6.2 pounds with a 9-cell battery).The
Toshiba Tecra R840
is just as thin but weighs a heavier 4.6 pounds. The ThinkPad T420s is just a tad wider and taller than the previous generation ThinkPad T410s, as Lenovo has opted to downgrade from the older 16 x 10 standard to a wider 16 x 9 -Switch screen.
click to enlarge
Klutzes will appreciate the T420's tough ABS plastic top and carbon fiber reinforced base. An internal roll cage protects internal components in the event of a fall. The keyboard features a drainage system that drains spills through two drainage holes in the base.
keyboard and touchpad
The Lenovo ThinkPad T420s uses the same classic keyboard that we know and love from many other ThinkPads. With a full set of legacy keys - including the old pause and scroll lock keys - and enlarged Esc and Del keys, the T420s- Keyboard a superior typing experience with strong tactile feedback and smiling keys that make it easy to avoid typos.
click to enlarge
The T420s' long palm rest also offers more than enough room to support adult-sized wrists. These factors combined led us to a score of 86 words per minute on the Ten Thumbs Typing Test, slightly above our average of 80 wpm.
We've long been fans of Lenovo's TrackPoint pointing stick, and the ThinkPad T420s' red knob continues that proud tradition by offering ultra-accurate navigation. The 3.2 x 2-inch textured touchpad was also very accurate, multi-touch However, gestures like pinch-to-zoom weren't smooth. The two discrete mouse buttons provide just the right amount of feedback.
heat
The ThinkPad T420s stayed cool during our use thanks in part to its dual exhaust vents. After steaming a video in full-screen mode for 15 minutes, we measured the touchpad at a cool 84 degrees, the keyboard at just 90 degrees, and the bottom at just 91 degrees .We find temperatures below 95 degrees to be pleasant.
display and audio
The T420s' 1600 x 900, 14.1-inch matte display offers sharp images and significantly more desktop real estate than the 1366 x 768 panels we see on most other notebooks of this size. The difference between 768 and 900 Pixels in vertical space is a key advantage, as it can show you multiple extra lines of text on your favorite web pages, emails, and documents without requiring you to scroll.
click to enlarge
With 250 nits and a contrast ratio of 300:1, the ThinkPad T420s' screen isn't particularly bright or colorful, but its anti-glare surface allows for reasonable viewing angles. Tilting up to 90 degrees left or right, we could get a decent, if slightly white achieve a whitewashed view of the desktop, but videos became completely washed out at angles over 45 degrees.
While the ThinkPad T420s' speakers are accurate enough for conferencing and movie viewing, they sounded a bit tinny when playing music. The included Dobly Home Theater v4 software didn't help much. Disabling this enhancement technology resulted in higher volumes, but even raspier Audio.
Connections and webcam
The ThinkPad T420s has a Kensington lock slot and a WiFi on/off button on the right side. On the back there is an Ethernet port, VGA, DisplayPort out and two USB ports. The first is a yellow USB port for charging gadgets while the notebook is idle and a light blue one for connecting superspeed USB 3.0 devices. On the left side there is a memory card reader, a headset port and a third USB port.
click to enlarge
click to enlarge
click to enlarge
click to enlarge
The 720p webcam captured sharp and accurate images, even in low light. When we chatted via Skype in a room with a fluorescent skylight, our interlocutor reported that fine details of our face were visible, albeit a bit too bright. When photographing in our shaded office cubicle, our face was a bit darker but still sharp, although on a sunny day we got the best color quality when sitting in front of a window.
click to enlarge
Lenovo's dual-array microphone provides excellent conference audio capture on the T420s. We particularly like the keyboard noise-cancellation filter. When the filter was on, our interviewee said she could barely hear the sound of our keystrokes while typing.
perfomance
The combination of a 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5 CPU of 2. In PCMark Vantage, which measures overall performance, the T420s scored a strong 7,169 points, which is well above the average of 5,584 thin and light notebooks. This score beats also the HP EliteBook 8460p with Core i5 (6449), but it lags behind the Dell Latitude E6420 (Core i5-2540M; 8242).
The 320GB, 7200rpm hard drive booted Windows 7 Professional (64-bit) in a reasonable 60 seconds, just 5 seconds faster than the category average. The drive took 3 minutes and 9 seconds to complete the LAPTOP file transfer test , which copied 4.97 GB of mixed media files. That's a rate of 26.9 Mbps, just above the category average of 25.7 Mbps.
When it came to video editing, the ThinkPad T420s was no slouch. It took just 42 seconds to convert 114MB MP4 to AVI format with Oxelon Media Encoder. That's 16 seconds faster than the class average, but roughly on par with the EliteBook 8460p (0:42), the Dell Latitude E6420 ( 0:40) and the Toshiba Tecra R840 (0:41).
graphic
The integrated Intel HD 3000 graphics chip of the ThinkPad T420s is more than powerful enough to play high-resolution videos. Both a Full HD Flash trailer from
cowboys and aliens
and a 1080p QuickTime trailer by
Captain America
were smooth and sharp. In 3DMark06, which measures overall graphics performance, the T420s scored a respectable 3714, about on par with the category average but well behind the discrete GPUs in the Dell Latitude E6420 (5060) and Toshiba Tecra R840 (4369).
You can order the T420s with Nvidia NVS 4200M discrete graphics if you opt for the model, which starts at $1,274; If the notebook is configured similar to our system, the premium for the GPU is $107.
While playing
World of Warcraft
, the integrated graphics of the ThinkPad T420s reached a barely playable frame rate of 24 fps. However, when we cranked up the special effects, this rate dropped to an unplayable 11 fps.
battery life and WiFi
click to enlarge
The ThinkPad T420s lasted exactly 5 hours in the LAPTOP battery test, which is about continuous surfing the Internet via WLAN. This is exactly the average for the thin and light notebook category and is far ahead of last year's ThinkPad T410s, which only lasted 3 Hours and 47 minutes on one charge. However, the Dell Latitude E6420 with nine-cell battery lasts 4 hours longer (8:59), as does the HP Elitebook 8460p (6:01) and Toshiba Tecra R840 (6:34 ).Fortunately, Lenovo sells a 3-cell bay battery ($119) that can be swapped out for the optical drive for extra juice.
The ThinkPage 802.11 b/g/n wireless card delivered reasonable transfer rates of 35.7 and 20.9 Mbps at distances of 4.5 to 15 feet from our router. These numbers are roughly in line with the category averages of 35 .4 and 21.7 Mbps.
setting options
click to enlarge
Our review configuration of the ThinkPad T420s has an MSRP of $1,399. For that price, you get a 2.5GHz Core i5-2520M CPU, 4GB of RAM, a 320GB hard drive, and Windows 7 Professional.For a starting price of $1,249 gets you the same processor and hard drive but only 2GB of RAM and Windows 7 Home Premium instead of Professional and no webcam.
You can get the T420s with up to a 2.7GHz Core i7-2620M CPU, with Nvidia NVS 4200M discrete graphics, up to 8GB of RAM, and with a 128GB or 160GB SSD instead of the Configure 7200 RPM hard drive. We recommend investing in the Ultrabay battery ($119) which should provide an additional 2 or 3 hours of endurance. Security-conscious users will pay an extra $20 for the fingerprint reader want.
software and warranty
Lenovo bundles the ThinkPad T420s with its standard offering of ThinkVantage utilities. Our favorite is the ThinkVantage Power Manager, which gives you fine control over power consumption. The Power Manager even has a unique feature called Instant Resume, which uses your Wi-Fi card for the first 10 minutes after the notebook goes to sleep. If you wake the laptop again during this window, you don't have to wait for the system to reconnect.
click to enlarge
Other utilities include a password manager, Access Connections for controlling your wireless connections, and Rescue and Recovery for backups. The system also features Corel Burn Now for creating discs and Corel WinDVD SD for playing movies.
click to enlarge
Lenovo backs the ThinkPad T420s with a standard one-year parts and labor warranty. See how Lenovo fared in our latest release
Best & Worst Brands
Feature and our annual
Technical support showdown
.
Verdict
As the lightest 14-inch notebook on the market, the Lenovo ThinkPad T420s remains a really compelling choice for business users looking for the optimal combination of performance and mobility. The HP EliteBook 8460p has a more attractive design and the Dell Latitude E6420 offers longer battery life. However, if you want the best keyboard, high-resolution screen, and solid performance, this is the business laptop to beat.
Prices - Lenovo ThinkPad T420s:
▼
Lenovo ThinkPad T420s specifications
brand
Lenovo
CPU
2.5GHz Intel Core i5-2520M
card slots
SD memory reader
corporate website
http://www.lenovo.com
screen size
14.1
graphic card
Intel HD Graphics 3000
disk size
320GB
hard drive speed
7,200 rpm
disk type
SATA hard drive
native resolution
1600x900
operating system
Windows 7 Professional (64-bit)
optical drive
DVD+/-RW DL
Optical drive speed
8X
Connections (except USB)
VGA, USB 3.0, Ethernet, DisplayPort
R.A.M.
4GB
RAM upgradeable to
4GB
size
13.5 x 9.1 x 0.8-1 inch
touchpad size
3.25x2 inches
USB ports
3
video memory
64MB
Warranty/Support
One year standard parts and labor
Weight
4 pounds
Wireless Internet access
802.11a/g/n
WiFi model
Thinkpad b/g/n wireless
Fewer
Avram Piltch
As the official Geeks Geek, as his weekly column is called, Avram Piltch has led the editing and production of Laptopmag.com since 2007. With his technical knowledge and passion for testing, Avram programmed several of LAPTOP's real-world benchmarks, including the LAPTOP Battery Check. He holds a master's degree in English from NYU.
