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APPLE MACBOOK AIR (13-INCH, SUMMER 2011)

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 10:25:35 GMT

Apple MacBook Air (13-inch, Summer 2011) is the compendium of some of the appealing functionalities, exclusively with its backlit keyboard as well as latest version than its predecessor Apple MacBook Air series. This series is produced with a very modern part – the Intel CPU – that is aimed to provide the good performance as well as the better battery life, comparatively to its past series.

The glitch with this series is that, it is supporting a smaller size of HDD like 128GB SSD – very smaller relatively to new comer laptops which add a bigger storage capacity like 3TB plus (means 3000GB plus). Despite its low profile in the case of its storage capacity, it’s still a good recourse relatively to its past series.

This latest Apple MacBook Air (13-inch, summer 2011) series has leaped into a modern stage, comparatively to many past series, thus this is a good laptop series produced by Apple. The different series being produced by Apple so far, is spanned over three generations, has sufficiently advanced its laptop line, by adding new models and new mechanisms that helped it, to incorporate its laptops in the mainstream series.

This series is offered on the listed price of USD1,299.00 that is offered on USD1,249.99 by MAC Connection, on USD1,234.99 by Best Buy, thus one vendor is offering a discount of around USD50, second is offering a discount of USD64, may be some other vendors might be giving a little bit more, it can be known after a massive research over the net.

Amazingly this MacBook Air (13-inch, Summer 2011) series is quite smartly adding an advanced processing power – a powerful processor that is called as Core i5 Processor 1.7GHz (Dual Core), having 4GB/4GB maximum RAM memory.

Although it looks like the past series, yet it has some specific additions which give it a unique niche as compared to its past progression. This series has the dimensions like width 12.8in, depth 8.94in, and height 0.68in, whilst its weight is 2.96lbs, means remarkably a light weight notebook, can easily be taken along during the travel to any far off places.

Dell Latitude E6220

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 14:51:42 GMT

I have (absolutely) no idea where they came up with the $,2016 price, since I built one up with the EXACT same spec's and it came up to $1,644. It should also be worth mentioning that this laptop comes with a 3 year warranty. The 256GB MBA that they are comparing (above), will be about $1850 with a 3 year warranty. Toss in the Ethernet, HDMI, VGA ports that this comes standard with and what accessories you would need to buy with that MBA, you're looking at about $1950. Slap that 256GB SSD into the laptop that was mentioned above, and your still under $2000 ($1994 to be exact) with the Dell Latitude.

A MBA is a toy, simply put, to this laptop. You don't get the durability and reliability that you find in these laptops. You don't get the security features, battery life, performance with a MBA.

This laptop starts at $1329, and that comes with i5, 2.5GHz dual core CPU, Home premium 7, 3 year warranty, 4GB memory and 250GB harddrive. Yes, you can pick up a 13 inch MBA for $30 less, but it won't have that power, storage capacity or the 3 years warranty standard. Matter of fact, your bare bones basic 11 inch MBA with a three year warranty slots in at $1250. Toss in that 4GB option, your looking at the exact same price as this laptop.

Overall, your looking at a very good laptop. Great durability and reliability. Great performance, security and battery life. In reality? Unless you go with one with all the extras, you will find it's the same price as the MBA, if not cheaper.

HP Envy 15 (2012)

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:15:48 GMT

It's easy to be charmed by the design, audio and features of the Envy 15. Sadly, its selling feature, the optional high-resolution display, has the glaring fault of displaying red as orange. Starting life as a MacBook Pro competitor, the Envy is even more so in its latest incarnation. This doesn't mean that it doesn't have its own identity; red trims, a beautiful screen, a volume jog dial and HP's continued relationship with Beats Audio bring it uniqueness. The semi-matte laptop lid will also ensure that no one ever confuses it with a MacBook.

The Envy 15 tends to fall into the prosumer category, which is aimed a little more at content creators than the average laptop is. None of this is emphasised more than in the IPS (although HP locally would only commit to "IPS-equivalent") "Radiance" screen, using an LGD0323 panel. At 1920x1080, its colours are richer and its viewing angles wider than the vast majority of the pantheon of laptops.

Unfortunately, it also has a rather vexing flaw: it displays pure red as orange, something rather problematic for those working on colour-sensitive projects. This is a widely reported issue, and one that appears to be a design fault with the display rather than the occasional faulty panel.

With this display and a 1TB hard drive, the Envy will cost you AU$1999. You can choose to purchase the Envy 15 without the Radiance display, however, for AU$1699, dropping the resolution to 1366x768 and hard-drive capacity to 750GB, although speed increases from 5400RPM to 7200RPM.

At the bottom left of the display are two flickering, red, extremely annoying lights. These are used to sense whether a user is sitting nearby, and, if not, will dim the keyboard backlight. It's a great idea, but the red lights are so annoying that you'll end up turning the feature off through HP's Proximity Sensor program.

Both models come with the Radeon HD 7690M, a reasonably powered mobile graphics chip. When the system is under light load, it uses Intel's HD Graphics to save on battery, and it seems that AMD has done a lot of work here on its switchable graphics. Gone are the vexatious graphics-switching prompts, and the system successfully switched to the AMD card for our gaming tests without fuss.

The Beats Audio system is rather impressive, offering a significant volume increase, a superior sound stage and a richer tonal tapestry. In a complete about-face, we found that we actually had to ramp the bass up using the included EQ software — Beats Audio is usually far too bass heavy. Similarly, we had to bring the top end down slightly to dull the harsh trebles. Playing with EQ can be problematic, and an exercise in trade-offs; while we got our desired tone, we had to keep playing to avoid clipping and distortion.

HP bundles Microsoft Office Starter Edition, Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements. Each of these provides a significant subset of its parent programs completely for free, and is honestly one of the best bundle solutions we've seen — and it will surely help curb casual piracy.

The aforementioned jog dial, found at the top right, can be spun to adjust volume, or the button can be pressed to load the Beats Audio control panel. The backlit keyboard is very much appreciated, although the response is mushier than we'd like, especially for a premium laptop.

The touch pad could be better, if only it were a little lower friction. Function is fine, but as a click pad (that is, the buttons are integrated into the touch pad, rather than being separate), the whole thing can get a little confused if you're someone who leaves one finger resting on the left click button while you navigate with another. As has become common on HP laptops, double tapping the icon at the top left of the touch pad will disable it.

Expandability is bang on for a laptop of this stature, with two USB 3.0 ports, one USB 2.0 port, dual headphone jacks, a microphone jack, an SD card reader, gigabit Ethernet, HDMI and DisplayPort out and a DVD drive (although, given the screen, we would have thought that Blu-ray would be a more appropriate pairing). Wireless networking is achieved by Bluetooth and 802.11n, with the latter capable of connecting to 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequencies.

HP G62-340US 15.6-INCH LAPTOP PC - UP TO 4 HOURS OF BATTERY LIFE (CHARCOAL)

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 09:19:36 GMT

Are you interested in a best seller notebook, then see ahead and read this review, in which we would aptly update you about a notebook that is having an increased battery support up to four hours, which is it? That notebook is called, HP G62-340us 15.6-Inch Laptop PC - Up to 4 Hours of Battery Life (Charcoal).

This best seller Laptop PC - Up to 4 Hours of Battery Life series is designed by HP, and offered on the listed price of USD524.99. This series is offered by Amazon.com on USD445.87, a smart saving of USD79.12 (a discount of 15 percent on the overall cost of the product).

From the reviews of the reviewers and commentators reveal that this is truly a sought after gizmo, as mostly reviewers have given 4 or 5 stars, showing its popularity among its users and reviewers. 53 more new series are being offered on USD410.00, 3 used would be given on USD450.00, yet 1 refurbished system would be offered on USD399.99.

It has been noted that HP G62-340us 15.6-Inch Laptop series is in great demand along with its very smart casing - Logic VNA-216 16-Inch Laptop Attache (Black) that is offered in black color with the price tag of USD20.94. These both gizmos can also be got from many other sellers including Amazon.com site.

This series has the functionalities, like AMD Athlon II Dual-Core Processor, with its cash memory of 2.20GHz, 1MB L2. This series will fully gratify you with its truly reasonable RAM memory like, 3GB DDR3 SDRAM memory that can be additionally expanded to 8GB. Its HDD size is 320GB with (5400 RPM) Serial ATA type, aptly using the platform, like, Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit – a finer operating system for the laptops.

Microsoft Kinect Motion-Sensing Technology Coming to Laptops, Sources Say

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 16:51:14 GMT

Microsoft is working on implanting its Kinect technology into laptops, so you may soon be able to control programs with the wave of your hand.

The Daily got a look at some prototype laptops with integrated Kinect sensors and described the devices as Asus netbook lookalikes running Windows 8, with an array of small sensors at the top of the screen where the webcam is normally placed.

If you’re familiar with Microsoft Kinect’s voice and motion controls on the Xbox 360, you know its potential for gaming on the laptop. Other applications come to mind, however: Imagine swiping your finger in the air to switch between windows or applications or using other motions to control your song playlist without having to be right at the keyboard. These laptops would also offer additional control for disabled users.

A Kinect-enable laptop won’t be built in-house by Microsoft (no surprise there), but instead licensed to manufacturers, according to the speculation. While these devices are probably not coming anytime soon, get ready for potential new ways to interact with your laptop.

Asus Zenbook UX31 Review

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 16:02:45 GMT

The UX31 is more than just a flagship in Asus’ notebook lineup; it’s a flagship among Ultrabooks in general. It was one of the first products to hit the market, and also one of the most expensive. You’ll still have to spend about $1,049 to acquire a base model, but if you want some upgrades, you could end up spending up to $1,700.

That’s a lot of money for a 13.3-inch laptop that doesn’t have an Apple logo on the back. In return for your coin, you receive typical, but strong, Ultrabook hardware. Our review unit arrived with a Core i5-2557M processor clocked at 1.7GHz with a maximum Turbo Boost of 2.7GHz. This is paired with 4GB of RAM and a 128GB solid state hard drive.

In other words, the hardware is basically the same as most other Ultrabooks. Which isn’t a surprise — Intel’s put down some fairly right specifications, and there’s not any way to meet them without a combination of parts similar to this.

There’s more to the Ultrabook then a specific collection of hardware, however. It’s all about being sexy, portable and cool. If this Asus laptop is going to justify its high price, it will do so because of its aesthetics. Let’s see how looks next to its competition.

Slim, but not that sexy
From afar, the UX31’s silver aluminum body looks very similar to the MacBook Air. Upon closer inspection, however, the display lid sets this laptop apart. It has a spiral pattern etched in to the aluminum that radiates out from the Asus brand logo. This is the exact same aesthetic touch that is used on the Transformer Prime tablet, and it works just as well here, serving to break up the monotony of metal surfaces.

Unfortunately the interior is not as distinct. Brushed aluminum is the order of the day here, and unlike the lid, there aren’t any neat textures to quell the tedium. We’re calling it right now — bare aluminum is over. The parade of metal-clad Ultrabooks has taken all the rarity and excitement out of the material.

We’re not saying the UX31 is ugly. If you’ve never laid eyes on an Ultrabook before, it will probably look downright striking. But this is basically the way all similar laptops are being designed. It’s becoming common at the speed of light.

The use of aluminum doesn’t automatically guarantee rigidity. While the display lid is exceptionally sturdy, the lower chassis has some flex to it. Press anywhere on or around the keyboard and you’ll see flex span from the point of contact to the corners. Picking up the laptop from the corners has an unfortunate tendency to elicit groans of protest, as well. In these areas, this laptop clearly falls short of the rock-solid MacBook Air.

Connectivity is provided by two USB ports, mini-DisplayPort, mini-HDMI, a combo headphone-microphone jack, and a card reader. Ethernet and VGA are provided by adapters that ship with the laptop, but they’ll eat up your ports. Limited connectivity is a common issue of Ultrabooks, so the UX31 is not bad for its class. You’ll simply need to decide if buying a thin-and-light laptop is worth putting up with this downside.

Keyboard troubles
The keyboard on the UX31 could be better. The primary problem is a lack of key travel. With so little vertical height to work with, there’s not much room for keys to move. As a result you don’t receive much feedback when you are touch-typing. It’s easy to miss a key and not even realize it until you see that you’re missing a letter.

Some minor build quality issues reared their heads while I was using the keyboard. The flex, although disappointing, is not annoying. What is annoying is the tendency for the longer keys (such as Shift and Enter) to not sit entirely level. You can actually move them back and forth if you press on their ends. We also noticed that the far right corners of the right-side Enter and Shift keys do not work. It’s possible to depress one end of the key without the laptop registering any input.

The touchpad does help save the situation somewhat. Based on the glass trackpads found on the MacBooks (of course), it offers a large surface that is responsive and handles multi-touch scrolling well (for a Windows) laptop.

Instead of physical keys, the touchpad integrates the left and right mouse buttons into the surface. Some Windows laptops fudge this a bit, but I had no problem with the setup used here. The spring used to provide feedback when you “click” the touchpad is not overly stiff and there aren’t any dead zones that fail to register.

Surprisingly solid entertainment
Our review unit came with the standard 1600 x 900 display, and the difference in sharpness between it and the 1366 x 768 resolution you’ll normally find on a laptop of this size is instantly noticeable. Text is extremely crisp, and video content looks razor sharp if you’re viewing a 1080p source (720p isn’t bad, either).

Black levels are low for a laptop display, though when they do cut out, they seem to do so abruptly. Display brightness is fairly high at maximum, but you will need it to cut through the glossy display. It’s happy to reflect anything and everything placed in front of it. Though not without its flaws, this display is better than average and usable in most situations.

One major surprise is the audio quality, which is strong. Though there is a predictable lack of bass, volume is high at maximum and there’s not much distortion. You could easily watch a movie on this laptop and not feel annoyed at the results, or you could jam out to your favorite tunes in a pinch. Some thicker laptops like the HP Envy 15 are better overall, but given the size of the UX31, you end up with more than you’d expect.

HP Envy 15 Review: A Great Laptop Marred by Serious Flaws

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 14:33:09 GMT

Last year’s Envy laptops were a bit of a disappointment. The design that wowed me in 2010 had grown stale by 2011; at that point, the rest of the world had caught up to and surpassed the Envy’s design, while HP was content to update only the system’s internal components. The new Envy 15 and 17, which HP released right at the end of 2011, finally feature a whole new design. For the most part, it’s great, but a few nagging issues keep the system from being an easy recommendation.

First, know that the new Envy laptops come in 15.6-inch and 17-inch sizes, with the 14-inch version transitioning to the new Spectre Ultrabook. Our review concerns the 15.6-inch Envy 15, which is pretty big as all-purpose laptops go. It’s 15 inches wide, 9.6 inches deep, and 1.2 inches thick. With a weight of 5.8 pounds, it’s not a back-breaker, but it certainly doesn’t qualify as “lightweight.” The silver-toned aluminum inside deck and edges are reminiscent of a MacBook Pro, but Apple’s 15-inch laptop is smaller in every dimension and just a tad lighter.

Our $1250 review configuration (price as of January 25, 2012) is the base model with a single upgrade (more on that later). It features a Core i5-2430M processor, 6GB of RAM, a Radeon HD 7690M discrete graphics card, and a 500GB hard drive. Bear in mind that although the Radeon HD 7690 may carry 7000-series branding, it doesn't actually use the new architecture, and it isn't a product of the 28nm manufacturing process that AMD is using for the 7000 series of desktop graphics cards. Instead, it’s a “rebrand” of the previous 40nm generation, equivalent to the Radeon HD 6730M. Overall, this selection of hardware was enough to power the system to a decent WorldBench 6 score of 119, as well as to reasonable gaming frame rates, though you won’t be able to play at the highest resolutions and detail settings.

The aluminum keyboard deck looks and feels all right, but the lid, supposedly also made of aluminum, feels like cheap plastic, and the bottom is plastic. Overall the aesthetic isn't bad, but it pales in comparison to, say, the upcoming Envy 14 Spectre. The full-size backlit keyboard is quite easy to type on, but I’m not as enamored of the touchpad. It is large and smooth, and it tracks movement well. It supports all the common modern multifinger gestures, too. But the bottom quarter or so, where one would click to activate the left or right buttons, is quite stiff. Worse, the palm rejection is horrible: No matter how I tweaked the touchpad settings, I couldn’t type more than a couple sentences without seeing the cursor jump around.

Our review unit does have one upgrade, and it’s a genuine deal-breaker. For $150 more than the base $1099 price, you can upgrade the Envy 15’s 1366-by-768-pixel “BrightView” display to a full HD “Radiance” display with a resolution of 1920 by 1080. This upgrade not only increases resolution, but also greatly improves the panel technology from TN (Twisted Nematic) to IPS (In-Plane Switching). The upgraded technology gives the display bright and brilliant color, plus very wide viewing angles. Normally this is the kind of thing I would consider a must-have, so what’s the problem? It turns out that most users with the IPS panel upgrade have reported a color-calibration issue, in which red shades have an orange hue. And that's certainly true of our review unit. You can find a lengthy forum thread about this problem at Notebook Review, as well as a thread on HP’s support forum. The high-res, bright IPS display upgrade is a major selling point for the Envy 15, and this color problem is very real and very disconcerting. HP is “looking into it,” but until the company comes up with a satisfactory solution, I would steer clear of the display upgrade.

Ports and connectivity are real highlights. The left side of the Envy 15 features a slot-loading DVD-RW drive, but the system has no Blu-ray option. That omission is pretty odd, given that the machine’s thickness should be able to accommodate a Blu-ray drive, and the laptop is directly aimed at entertainment enthusiasts. Next to the optical drive are two USB 3.0 ports, a microphone jack, and two headphone jacks. The right side houses the gigabit ethernet jack, full-size HDMI and DisplayPort connections, a USB 2.0 port, and a multifunction memory card slot. Wireless support is excellent, with 802.11a/b/g/n, Bluetooth, WiDi wireless display support, and even HP’s own wireless audio (compatible with KleerNet devices).

HP is proud of its Beats audio integration, and rightfully so. The analog volume knob at the right edge is a delight, and far easier to use than mashing a volume button up or down. The Envy 15 has a dedicated mute button, too, plus a Beats button that brings up the rich audio tools. You get full control over audio features such as volumes on various inputs and outputs, equalization, and echo and noise cancellation for the microphone. Play a movie or listen to music, and you’ll be pleased by the volume and clarity of the built-in speakers.

HP’s built-in software is improving, but still manages to annoy a little. All the custom menus and stuff are thankfully gone, and the included software is pretty good: You get Adobe Photoshop and Premiere Elements 9, CyberLink PowerDVD and YouCam, Skype, and lots of Windows Live items (Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, Messenger, and the like). Unfortunately, you’ll see nag notes from Norton Internet Security, which seems to go out of its way to wreck the user experience on new PCs. You’ll also encounter both the Bing Bar and the Norton Bar when you fire up the Web browser--that's two bars too many. Overall, though, the Envy 15 has a lot less “cruft” than HP’s laptops used to carry, and it's nothing that a couple minutes in the Add/Remove Programs control panel can’t fix.

The new HP Envy 15 is a fairly slick all-purpose laptop, if a little on the bulky side. It has lots of great wireless and wired connectivity options, fantastic audio, a very useful analog volume dial, and a good keyboard. HP has two major issues to work out before I can recommend it, though. The first is the color-calibration problem on the otherwise very desirable display upgrade option, and the other is the terrible palm detection and stiff clicking on the touchpad. If the company can address those two sticking points, it will be easy to give the Envy 15 a thumbs-up.

$100 stackable coupon on Lenovo ThinkPad T420

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:04:37 GMT

Yesterday we gave readers a review of the Lenovo ThinkPad T420 with Intel’s Core 2nd-generation processors. Although we felt it was bulky we were impressed with the performance and battery life. If you were thinking of purchasing this laptop, either as standard or with configurations we have now heard of a $100 stackable coupon for the ThinkPad T420, which could save you a lot of money.

Using the savings deal the 14-inch T420 with Core i3 processor will cost you $719 or with the Core i5 processor it will set you back $769. If you opt for a Core i5 processor and Nvidia Optimus graphics the price will work out at $919 or with a Core i7 processor $1014. These are excellent savings and what’s more you can also get a free upgrade to 6GB of RAM on most models.

To take advantage of these offers you need to head here where you will find 4 sections of step-by-step instructions for each of the above options. Simply follow these instructions for the model you require and remember to apply the coupon code in the shopping cart but the offers expire today so you have to be quick.

As a brief reminder of other specs and features the ThinkPad T420 can be configured with various options such as memory up to 8GB of RAM. The 14-inch display has a resolution of 1366×768 as standard or you can opt for an HD+ screen with resolution of 1600×900. There are also dual-HD microphones and a 720p HD webcam. Dimensions are 13.4 x 9.05 x 1.2 inches so it’s a very solid laptop.

If you want to see more of the ThinkPad T420 to help you make up your mind check out the Cnet video below this story for a first look. Can you be tempted to the ThinkPad T420, especially with these money-saving deals?

APPLE IMAC MC508LL/A 21.5-INCH DESKTOP

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:02:29 GMT

In case you are ready to stave off the clutter of PCs and bring one classic iMac desktop that is aka all-in-one that would aptly prove a vibrant addition in your professional and social life, then see ahead and check out our current review. The review we are going to present here is related to – Apple iMac MC508LL/A 21.5-Inch Desktop.

This series is brought forth by Apple on the listed price of USD1099.00 whilst the rate offered by DataVision Computer Video is USD1039.99 (a glaring saving of USD59.01 – that makes around 5 percent out of the total value of the product).

This iMac MC508LL/A 21.5-Inch Desktop series is adding Intel Core i3 processor with 3.06GHz speed, its processor is substantially slower than other high speed Core i5 or Core i7. The HDD of this series is offering substantially bigger, like 500GB storage capacity, and its RAM capacity is good, comparatively to many other systems, like, 4GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM.

This series is again offering a DVD SuperDrive with 21.5in LED-backlit screen with a broader screen, having 16:9 aspect ratios with its screen’s high quality resolution, like 1920 by 1080p. This series is employing the platform of Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard.

This series of Apple has the product dimensions, like; 22.2in by 9.3in by 25.5in, whilst its weight is 27.6pnd (its shipping weight is 28.3pnd – see for shipping policies for rate and other details). This gadget can be delivered to the vendors and end-users within US only.

The popularity of this gadget can be measured from this fact that many users and commentators have granted it 5 stars. This series is adding a broader size monitor that is aptly fit for a very classic video.
It has a high standard Keyboard and a Mouse that aptly enhances its working capability. Then what are your waiting for. Go ahead and get one, it is extremely important for all your professional workings.

Lenovo ThinkPad T420

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 10:57:01 GMT

The good: The ThinkPad T420 has several things going for it: performance, plenty of ports, excellent battery life, and a very comfortable keyboard. The bad: The design of the bulky, business-oriented T420 is positively Stone Age. It's also priced well above similar consumer laptops. No HDMI, no USB 3.0. The bottom line: The Lenovo ThinkPad T420 is as straight-up and unassuming as a business laptop can be on the surface, souped up with faster performance, long battery life, and a flexible selection of ports under the hood.

Compared with laptops seen at CES 2012--ultrabooks and other sleekly designed variations--the ThinkPad T420 is a dinosaur, from the outside, at least. Thick and bulky, with a keyboard studded with enough auxiliary buttons to look like a space shuttle control panel, the T420 is as old-school as a laptop can be. It's also solid as a tank; not a rugged laptop per se, but outfitted with a spill-resistant keyboard and magnesium roll-cage chassis that most laptops don't have. And it's got more ports and features than most laptops, fighting the currently popular minimalist style.

The ThinkPad T420 is the laptop that escaped from your IT department, and might even be sitting on your desk as we speak. Lovers of older laptop tech won't be disappointed: a rubberized trackpoint sits in the middle of a set of thick, tapered keyboard keys, while large extra trackpoint-controlling buttons sit above the touch pad. You can light your keyboard with a top-mounted LED light next to the Webcam, thank you very much--no backlit keyboard here. Older ports are also here in force: everything from eSATA to ExpressCard, and even FireWire, is included. And, obviously, there's an optical drive (another feature frequently missing from laptops nowadays).

It feels unfair to attack the design of the ThinkPad T420 too much, because it's clearly not meant for the average consumer--this vPro-equipped laptop is all business. However, we can ding the T420 a little on price: our configuration's priced climbed above $1,000, although the ThinkPad T420 starts as low as $749 on Lenovo's Web site for an entry-level version with a Core i3 processor and fewer bells and whistles.

The last time we reviewed a ThinkPad T series was the ThinkPad T410 back in December 2010. In terms of design, nothing's really changed. The ThinkPad T420 is heavy, at 5.2 pounds for a 14-inch laptop, and its body is nearly 1.2-inch thick. Even so, the T420 isn't as hard to heft as you'd expect based on how it looks. What you gain here is durability, port selection, and a surprisingly good mix of speed and battery life. With its slightly faster-than-average Core i5-2520M CPU, the T420 rivaled Core i5 competitors in our benchmark tests, and the included Nvidia graphics are good enough to play a game like Street Fighter IV at medium settings. The battery life topped 7 hours in our CNET tests, besting the Apple MacBook Pro.

As you'd expect, the ThinkPad T420's keyboard is very comfortable: it's the Lincoln Town Car of keyboards, or a comfy orthotic shoe. It may not be sexy, but damned if it isn't a great keyboard for writing. However, the plethora of additional and strangely laid-out function and teleconferencing buttons can overwhelm. The Esc and Delete keys are large, vertical, and elevated above the rest of the keyboard. That's odd, too, but not if you use ThinkPads. Overall, it feels like a command center, and clearly was meant to be thought of as such.

The touch pad isn't very wide for multitouch, but its stippled surface has great traction and sensitivity. Too many buttons above and below the pad may be good for accuracy in tight quarters like on planes, but they cramp the pad's real estate. Multitouch gestures are tough to pull off. Out of curiosity, I gave that red rubber trackpoint another try. I have to admit, there's something to appreciate in the trackpoint's simple efficiency, even its accuracy, but it's not for everyone, and the rubber point can throw off a hunt-and-peck touch-typer such as myself.

Again, this is clearly a laptop made for those who don't want change, who want a laptop that looks the same on the outside as a product from several years ago. If you want change, get a ThinkPad Edge. At least the T420's extra vertical thickness has been well-used to stack ports--a DisplayPort sits above a USB 2.0 port on one side, while USB ports and SD card/ExpressCard slots are stacked on the other.
ThinkPads have always boasted good displays, and the matte-finish 14-inch display on this model was crisp and bright and easy to read. The 1,600x900-pixel resolution is a step up from the standard, offering finer text resolution and more screen real estate, without shrinking icons or menus too much. It also costs $50 as an upgrade over the standard 1,366x768-pixel display. The T420's hinges open the screen up a full 180 degrees from the base for extra flexibility.

The stereo speakers are fine for videoconferencing or office functions, but this isn't a wonderful movie-watching laptop. Streaming Netflix movies looked a little washed-out. Then again, you're not supposed to be using a work laptop like this for movies and games, are you? (In case you're curious, Street Fighter IV did play astonishingly well using the T420's Nvidia Optimus NVS 4200M graphics, running at 39.8 frames per second at native 1,600x900 resolution.)

A high-def 1,280x720 Webcam and included audio optimization settings give the ThinkPad T420 a better-than-average set of teleconferencing tools, although most laptops these days are more than capable of some basic Skype, especially if you wear a headset with a mike. That 720p Webcam, however, is a $30 upgrade that came standard in our configuration.

The ThinkPad T420 is flush with ports that would make any owner of older legacy equipment gleam: three USB 2.0 ports (one of them powered), one USB 2.0/eSATA combo, VGA, DisplayPort, mini FireWire, and even an ExpressCard slot. However, it lacks USB 3.0 and HDMI, both of which are more useful in modern work environments.

The ThinkPad T420 offers a number of upgrade options, including some nickel-and-dime upgrades ($20 extra for Bluetooth, $20 for a fingerprint reader, $30 for an HD Webcam, $55 extra for WiMax, $50 for a 1,600x900-pixel display as opposed to 1,366x768 pixels) that can add up quickly. The base T420 comes with a second-gen Intel Core i3 processor, but can be upgraded to our version's Core i5, and even higher to a 2.8GHz Core i7-2640M, which will cost an extra $190 over our midrange model. RAM can be upgraded to 8GB, and you can choose a 500GB hard drive of 5,400rpm or 7,200rpm, or a solid-state drive (SSD) of 128GB for an extra $170, or 160GB for $200.

For the T420, the inside is what counts, and its specs and performance live up to what you'd expect in a mainstream laptop. Its performance closely matched the Dell XPS 14z with a Core i7 CPU, despite our version of the T420 only having a 2.5GHz Core i5-2520M processor. This is a second-generation Sandy Bridge CPU, not one of the upcoming Ivy Bridge processors. It would be more than enough for anyone looking to do some office multitasking. The included Nvidia Optimus graphics aren't earth-shattering, but provide a nice boost over integrated Intel graphics. They're enough for moderate graphics work and even some gaming.