Lenovo T420s Questions

[BNHabs]

Ordered my new T420s but have a couple of questions....

Should I be worried about the battery life? I heard it wasn't so good and I ordered the one with the nVidia graphics. Does the new Ultrabay Battery III get used before or after the main battery? I remember the one for the T61 got used before the main battery therefore had severe degrading issues.

What RAM should I buy? Crucial, G.Skill, Corsair, Kingston? Price differences are that much.

I ordered the standard HDD however want to migrate to a SSD. How do I go about doing this? I want to keep the Experience 2.0 features installed etc because I heard that it helps boot your computer quickly etc.

What software should should I use for this? What SSD should I consider for the T420s considering it can only use ones that are 7.5mm high?

[ZaZ]

There is no bay battery for the T420s. Lenovo removed the connector with the T410 et al. Perhaps the 9 cell is worth a look if you need a lot of battery life.

Some older Thinkpads could be picky about memory, but the new machines are not. As long as you're buying a decent brand, you should be fine. You can always RMA it if need be.

I don't know much about EE. Perhaps if you install it with the recovery discs you'll get it. The T420s can use a msata drive. It's a SSD that plugs into one of the mini PCIe slots. You can't use WWAN with a msata drive if you need it, but it would allow you to keep the existing hard drive for extra storage. That's what I got for my X220i. The 320GB 5400RPM drive and a 80GB Intel msata drive. The speeds aren't quite as good as existing drive, but it's still a SSD.

Yes, it's a 7mm drive. Some Intel and Crucial drives are 7mm drives with the spacer removed if you want to use the bay.

[BNHabs]

The T420s has the ability to use the 3-cell bay battery.

Lenovo website: "Bring along the 3-cell battery for 10 hours of computing". It's also mentioned in reviews etc and sold with the laptop as an available accessory. I don't think they offer a 9-cell either for the T420s?

I heard something about alignment when installing an OS onto a SSD? Would I have any problems when using the recovery disks?

There is no bay battery for the T420s. Lenovo removed the connector with the T410 et al. Perhaps the 9 cell is worth a look if you need a lot of battery life.

Some older Thinkpads could be picky about memory, but the new machines are not. As long as you're buying a decent brand, you should be fine. You can always RMA it if need be.

I don't know much about EE. Perhaps if you install it with the recovery discs you'll get it. The T420s can use a msata drive. It's a SSD that plugs into one of the mini PCIe slots. You can't use WWAN with a msata drive if you need it, but it would allow you to keep the existing hard drive for extra storage. That's what I got for my X220i. The 320GB 5400RPM drive and a 80GB Intel msata drive. The speeds aren't quite as good as existing drive, but it's still a SSD.

Yes, it's a 7mm drive. Some Intel and Crucial drives are 7mm drives with the spacer removed if you want to use the bay.

[Colonel O'Neill]

There is no 9-cell for the T420s. It continues to support the UltraBay battery whereas the non -s ones don't.

[ZaZ]

Brain fart on my part. It seems you're right on both counts. I don't know much about the recovery discs as I never use them.