Buying advice on refurbed Thinkpad *PICS*

[McDonnell]

Hi guys

So having used a Thinkpad T410 for a long time it seems its time for me to upgrade. However after reading on several forums that the display on the T420 is bad I feel scared that going from T410 to T420 will be a downgrade display wise? Can anyone comment on that?

I also had a look at the T520 but it seems a bit to big for me when on the road.

I would really like to get some suggestions on what 14" laptop to buy for business use. Will the screen on T420 be worse that T410 or are they in the same category?

Looking forward to some answers

Admin edit: Added PIC warning

[rkawakami]

The main difference between T410 and T420 screens is the overall pixel ratio. The T410 offered screens of 1280x800 (WXGA) or 1440x900 (WXGA+). Both are 16:10 ratio and were rated at 220 nits and 300:1 contrast. The T420 came with 1366x768 (HD; 200 nits) or 1600x900 (HD+; 250 nits); those are 16:9 ratio and 300:1 contrast ratio. As I only have the T410 WXGA+ and T420 HD+ screens, all I can say is that they both have fairly poor off-axis viewing angles. I haven't noticed any brightness difference between them (the T420 is supposed to be brighter). Although I generally dislike widescreen displays on laptops, these aren't too bad.

So I guess it really depends upon what T410 screen you have now, and what you can find in a T420. Assuming you have the WXGA, I think a T420 with the HD+ screen would be a step up.

No personal experience with the T5xx series, sorry.

Click on thumbnails below for full-sized images (2048x1536 ~500KB each; T410 WXGA+ is on left, T420 HD+ on right):

1 2 3
4 5

#1 is Windows 7 desktop. You should notice right away that the T420 has a "shorter" screen.
#2 is Firefox browser. Both of these screens have 900 vertical pixels but the T420 is shorter than the T410. This means that the type and icons on the T420 will be a little bit smaller than the T410.
#3 is a closeup of the Firefox browser.
#4 is an offaxis view from above the screens. The T420 screen may be washed out compared to the T410 due to it being slightly brighter.
#5 is a similar view to #4 but I've adjusted the camera's exposure. Both screens were set at maximum brightness. The difference here I believe is due to the smaller aperture ("f-stop") I set on the camera.

Note that the brightness of the screens will not be uniform across the range of laptops. Variations due to age or factory processing will occur.