Thinkpads Forum

I currently have an old faithful T60p (used daily) with the 1400x1050 display and am thinking of getting a newer Thinkpad for the more powerful processors. Narrowing down to a T420 (I like the older-style keyboard layout). There are loads of these on Ebay with 1366x768 screens at reasonable prices. Is it worth holding out for one with a 1600x900 display as these are thin on the ground?

I just acquired a new T420 (NIB) and it has the 1366x768 screen. I am going from a T40 so I am having to get used to the new screen and aspect ratio. Looks fine to me.

IMO, definitely hunt for the 1600x900, or buy one with 1366x768 and replace the screen yourself.

Going down from 1400x1050 to 1366x768, on a machine that is supposed to be the daily driver, is not what you want to do, believe me.

Having done more research I'm now thinking of going for a T420 with an i7 processor as there appear to be more of these about with 1600x900 graphics than the i5 processor and the extra performance would come in handy. Cost a bit more but there are several on Ebay. I already have an SSD to fit so should make a nice machine.

I've now bought a little-used excorporate T420 with a 1600x900 screen, i7 processor, 8Gb memory and Windows 10 Pro. It hums along very nicely and really fits the bill. It has a 500 Gb mechanical HD and will go even better when I install my spare SSD and put the 500 Gb HD in the Ultrabay. Worth hunting down on Ebay. Only problem so far is that the SD slot isn't recognised but I guess that this is a driver issue as it doesn't have any Lenovo-specific drivers installed.

^ Get an mSATA SSD so you don't have to put the hard drive on the Ultrabay.

axur-delmeria wrote:^ Get an mSATA SSD so you don't have to put the hard drive on the Ultrabay.

So where does this fit? Any restrictions on capacity? I/O same speed as Ultrabay? Prresumably you can boot from this?

The mSATA slot is beside the RAM slot on the underside of the laptop. This also doubles as a Wireless WAN (WWAN) slot, so if your T420 has built-in 3G/UMTS modem, you'll have to remove it to make way for the mSATA SSD.

The mSATA slot is limited to SATA 2 (3Gbps) speed in contrast to the HDD's SATA 3 (6Gbps).

ABSOLUTLY GET THE I7 HD MODEL... us 420 users drool over them.... , but desire more horsepower and glossier screen in our nightly dreams..lol you wont be dissapointed.. something ive discovered about the 420 is that it loves win 8.1 , its about 40% faster
than win 7... the difference is amazing..and instantly noticed first time 8.1 is installed... I was going to go for a processor upgrade
to a I7 until i tried win8.. now i just need those display upgrades to come in here at the forum.. lol