Although not all laptops look as sleek and attractive as a Macbook, that doesn’t make them any less powerful. The Lenovo ThinkPad T420s doesn’t skimp on screen size, a 14-inch beauty with an impressive native resolution of 1,600×900. It features an anti-glare coating that does mute colors a bit, but video playback looks excellent, nonetheless.

The T420s is encased in a super-slim, classic matte-black chassis that may be a bit bare-bones. The nonslip paint treatment is easy to grasp and hides fingerprints effectively. However, it’s what’s on the inside that really makes the T420s shine: an internal carbon-fiber skeleton that protects internal components from flex and a bottom cover and keyboard bezel fashioned from a magnesium alloy that adds strength but not weight. The icing on the cake? It’s spill-resistant and has also passed eight U.S. military testing specifications for low/high temperature, sand, altitude, vibration, and mechanical shock. So it’s pretty much an armored tank in laptop form.

Here are some highlights of our review of the Lenovo ThinkPad T420s:

“The T420s uses the same super-slim chassis as the T410s, and that’s a good thing. It costs more than the non-“s” T420, but averages a scant nine-tenths of an inch thick (compared to 1.25 inches for the T420) and weighs 3.9 pounds (compared with 4.8 pounds for the T420). To put that weight in perspective: The T420s weighs just 3.2 ounces more than the 13.3-inch ThinkPad X1 we reviewed recently, and we would happily carry an extra few ounces to gain the larger screen.”

“The only area where we were a little disappointed in the T410s was in battery life, and that carries over to the T420s. The slim six-cell battery lasted just 2 hours 29 minutes on our DVD battery-rundown test, where we watch a DVD movie until the machine shuts down.”

“With the ThinkPad T420s, Lenovo has updated its ultraportable and thin-and-light lines to have a fast Sandy Bridge offering at every screen size—12-inch (X220), 13-inch (X1), and 14-inch (T420s). Given the noticeable bump in convenience of the larger screen and swappable bay and the not-so-noticeable weight penalty, we’ll take the T420s all day long. It is arguably the best business thin-and-light money can buy.”

Similar Posts:

Share