Lenovo ThinkPad T420s review

We weren’t quite so impressed with the keyboard. The keys themselves were relatively springy, but there wasn’t much in the way of tactile feedback to let you know your presses have registered. You’ll also have to get used to the Ctrl and Fn keys being swapped round, so Fn is the key at the bottom-left edge of the keyboard. It all felt rather cramped, partly because the whole keyboard has been compressed to make room for the mediocre-sounding speakers positioned at either side of the tray. There’s no backlight – instead, a small spotlight built into the display bezel can illuminate the keyboard tray for night-time working.

The touchpad also felt rather constrictive, which was mainly caused by the buttons for the secondary touchstick taking up more room than we would like. If you’re used to using a touchstick this will be a welcome inclusion, but we preferred to use the touchpad, which was reasonably responsive.

As you might expect from a business laptop, there are plenty of connectivity options, including two USB ports, a faster USB3 port and an ExpressCard/34 slot filled with a multi-format card reader. There’s also a DVD re-writer, which automatically switches itself off when not in use to save battery power – although as we mentioned above this didn’t seem to make much difference in our tests.

Considering the high-powered components inside and the type of person it’s aimed at, there’s no surprise that the T420S is an incredibly expensive laptop – for over £1,600, you could buy an Ultrabook and still have change to buy a second machine. If you want something portable, powerful and need the certified graphics hardware to run specific applications, this may be a good investment, but for most people the £1,000 Samsung Series 7 Chronos would be a better choice.