T420 screen resolution

[Garth]

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?

[jwjensen356]

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.

[dr_st]

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.

[Garth]

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.

[Garth]

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.

[axur-delmeria]

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

[Garth]

^ 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?

[axur-delmeria]

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).

[yankeesamurai]

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