Ibm t420 laptop upgrade#
Ibm t420 laptop full#
Ibm t420 laptop series#

Streaming Netflix movies looked a little washed-out. The stereo speakers are fine for videoconferencing or office functions, but this isn't a wonderful movie-watching laptop.

Ibm t420 laptop full#

The T420's hinges open the screen up a full 180 degrees from the base for extra flexibility.

Ibm t420 laptop upgrade#

It also costs $50 as an upgrade over the standard 1,366x768-pixel display. The 1,600x900-pixel resolution is a step up from the standard, offering finer text resolution and more screen real estate, without shrinking icons or menus too much. ThinkPads have always boasted good displays, and the matte-finish 14-inch display on this model was crisp and bright and easy to read. At least the T420's extra vertical thickness has been well-used to stack ports-a DisplayPort sits above a USB 2.0 port on one side, while USB ports and SD card/ExpressCard slots are stacked on the other. I have to admit, there's something to appreciate in the trackpoint's simple efficiency, even its accuracy, but it's not for everyone, and the rubber point can throw off a hunt-and-peck touch-typer such as myself.ДЄgain, this is clearly a laptop made for those who don't want change, who want a laptop that looks the same on the outside as a product from several years ago. Out of curiosity, I gave that red rubber trackpoint another try. Multitouch gestures are tough to pull off. Too many buttons above and below the pad may be good for accuracy in tight quarters like on planes, but they cramp the pad's real estate. The touch pad isn't very wide for multitouch, but its stippled surface has great traction and sensitivity. Overall, it feels like a command center, and clearly was meant to be thought of as such. That's odd, too, but not if you use ThinkPads. The Esc and Delete keys are large, vertical, and elevated above the rest of the keyboard. However, the plethora of additional and strangely laid-out function and teleconferencing buttons can overwhelm. It may not be sexy, but damned if it isn't a great keyboard for writing. The battery life topped 7 hours in our CNET tests, besting the Apple MacBook Pro.ДЄs you'd expect, the ThinkPad T420's keyboard is very comfortable: it's the Lincoln Town Car of keyboards, or a comfy orthotic shoe. With its slightly faster-than-average Core i5-2520M CPU, the T420 rivaled Core i5 competitors in our benchmark tests, and the included Nvidia graphics are good enough to play a game like Street Fighter IV at medium settings. What you gain here is durability, port selection, and a surprisingly good mix of speed and battery life. Even so, the T420 isn't as hard to heft as you'd expect based on how it looks. The ThinkPad T420 is heavy, at 5.2 pounds for a 14-inch laptop, and its body is nearly 1.2-inch thick. In terms of design, nothing's really changed.

Ibm t420 laptop series#

The last time we reviewed a ThinkPad T series was the ThinkPad T410 back in December 2010. Nvidia NVS 4200M / Intel HD 3000 (Optimus) However, we can ding the T420 a little on price: our configuration's priced climbed above $1,000, although the ThinkPad T420 starts as low as $749 on Lenovo's Web site for an entry-level version with a Core i3 processor and fewer bells and whistles. It feels unfair to attack the design of the ThinkPad T420 too much, because it's clearly not meant for the average consumer-this vPro-equipped laptop is all business. And, obviously, there's an optical drive (another feature frequently missing from laptops nowadays). Older ports are also here in force: everything from eSATA to ExpressCard, and even FireWire, is included. You can light your keyboard with a top-mounted LED light next to the Webcam, thank you very much-no backlit keyboard here. Lovers of older laptop tech won't be disappointed: a rubberized trackpoint sits in the middle of a set of thick, tapered keyboard keys, while large extra trackpoint-controlling buttons sit above the touch pad. The ThinkPad T420 is the laptop that escaped from your IT department, and might even be sitting on your desk as we speak.