Processor: Core i7 2620M @ 2.70 GHz

The T420s is designed to use 7mm thick drives. This thickness PLUS the two rubber caps (rails) will fit easily into the slot. No forcing should needed. If you have a 9mm drive, omit the rubber caps (rails) and it should fit. *** warning *** Doing so however, is not to the design specs. Without any r...

I read somewhere that you can do so; but performance will be reduced.

If you use a lot of memory intensive apps like Chrome 64bit, illustrator 64bit then more ram is definitely good. You can really load up multiple windows, tabs and files. I have an SSD. A Samsung 840pro. About 60% full. It was one of the first upgrades. I have not changed any of my page file settings...

I have used TruImage Home successfully to clone and backup hard drives. HDD to HDD and HDD to SSD. On both Windows XP and Windows 7.

You'll love the extra space!

I have driven a 1920x1200 external display successfully with my T60p.
Have not tried anything larger.

Added 2x 8Gb SoDIMMs to my T420s. Posting here to add to the confirmation that this machine does take 16Gb. I got a pair of Kingston 8Gb DDR3-SDRAM 1333MHz 1.5V Working flawlessly. The machine works noticeably better too. With 8Gb installed I was getting memory usage at 7.5Gb or so. With 16Gb instal...

I had thought about the thermal grease but didn't have any replacement at hand. I did check that the screws holding the heat pipes in place are still snug. thermal grease will be something to do next year... Yes if you have a cat, make sure it is well fed and sleeping before beginning this task! :D

I just successfully disassembled and cleaned my 3 year old T420s. Here are some thoughts and observations that may be useful to someone. MyT420s has been running burning hot and sluggish lately. It is in daily heavy use. Idle temps around 80C, quickly spiking up to 98C without much loading. I'm gues...

Have you tried disabling or changing the color profile associated with the screen? In the last update cycle my T420s downloaded an update for one of the external monitors which cause white to display as a shade of diluted curry (mmmmm). Deleting the profile in Windows fixed it.

FWIW I find the T420s 14" screen more than good enough for professional design/graphics work. Noticeably better than the (non-IPS) T60p screen. Then again my work does not demand frequently colour-calibrated or high-gamut displays. IMHO The 14" form factor is a nice balance of power, resolution and ...

wow. thanks for sharing the pic.
glad yours is all fixed now.

I'm sorry it didn't work out for you.
Better luck with the replacement!!!

You can define your own hot key combination in the Intel Graphics Properties panel under Options & Support.

You also need to click the checkbox to enable hotkeys.

I bet your heart stopped when that happened!!! Which corner did you drop it on? Back or front? Hope it's all fixed now. One thought that occurred to me was that you could have unluckily dropped it on a particular weak point at a specific angle. Like a glass object that survived multiple drops only t...

Try this to get the Nvidia control panel settings to be recognised: 1. right-click on the app (photoshop and/or breeze browser) and choose Run with Graphics Processor. This should force the Nvidia circuitry to kick in. If you dont see this option in the right-click context menu, you can turn it on i...

Annoying though the bezel issue is, maybe it is one of those "I guess we have to live with it till the next upgrade" issue?? Not dismissing your annoyance of course - I would be annoyed too. X230 must be around the corner? Weren't there leaked pics recently? Perhaps for the sake of your "mental well...

I have never had to use screws. Slide the drive into the caddy and flip down the spacer flap on the front of the caddy. I usually add a small piece of foam between the spacer flap and the front edge of the drive to wedge it in tightly.

As with the post above, I too have found that the fit and finish are somewhat wanting. One would be a tad tight, and the next one a tad loose. And (if this sort of thing bothers you) they also come with different coloured and shaped LEDs. One would be rectangular blue, and another round red.

If the X220 had a high res IPS screen I would sacrifice the Optimus in the 420s and go for the X220.
Such is life - always a trade-off somewhere.

Now if the X1 hybrid had a high res IPS matt screen...

FWIW I was tossing up between the X220, T420 and T420s about 6 months ago. I went with the T420s. The higher res over the 1366x768 of the X220 plus the Optimus discrete graphics swung me in the end. With the 1600x900 I can easily run two windows side by side (and Win7's bump window management featur...

Just prior to ordering my T420s I too was concerned about the display. I use it for photo editing, illustration, publication design, and 3D work. I have been working constantly on my T420s now for close to 6 months now. The screen is more than good enough. The brightness is great. Most of the time I...

Yellow USB = USB 2 that is powered even when the thinkpad is off. Blue USB = USB 3, and it is backwards compatible so you can plug USB 2 devices to it. It wont make USB 2 devices faster though. An external eSATA drive is definitely faster than USB 2. But you need to use up a USB port to power it as ...

You'll love the speed increase. Rejuvenate your thinkpad it will.

I had an intel x-25m in my t60p with xp for a couple of years. Non aligned it still provided a nice 30% or so speed boost. Plus power savings.

I used the intel ssd management tool top do the trim function weekly.

Here are my random thoughts after living with a T420s since Sep 2011. Specs: i7, Optimus, 8Gb RAM, 160Gb SSD, Fingerprint reader, Bluetooth, camera. It’s surprisingly smaller than I expected. The photos showing the speaker grills on either side of the keyboard made it look larger than it actually is...

For what it's worth - Optimus in my T420s works beautifully with Photoshop 5.5, as does the Intel HD graphics. I have my Photoshop set to open with Optimus. Zooming, rotating and panning is "live" - where the action is immediate without manipulating a proxy region first - even with very large images...

Hmmm. Not plug and play could shed like on this. Maybe it didn't like the cable being removed without first disabling the external display? (The cable was removed when the unit was in hibernation, not powered up - but the external display was not disabled in Windows). Weirder and weirder The externa...

I bought a Displayport to DVI adaptor from Lenovo with my T420s. Worked on the first day. External display detected and running. Now the display is not detected anymore. Is this supposed to be hot plug and play? I have tried plugging in the display with the thinkpad on - no luck. Put thinkpad to sle...

T420s

Order Date: 29 Aug 2011
Delivery Date: 06 Sep 2011

Less than the quoted 8 days to ship + 5 days shipping!
Caught me completely by surprise.

Will post first impressions in a separate post.