I have read so many posts and reviews and I'm still unsure if to buy the Thinkpad T420s or not. And all of this due to poor(?) quality of the screen. I never had a Flexview model and I'm not very pretentious, my 14" SXGA+ T60 TN LCD it's good enough for me, though it's not a great screen (not so good vertical viewing angles, not so bright). Anyway, it's ok to me.

A lot of people say T420s has a terrible screen, some say it's fine.
I did some research over the web and this is what I found (measured data):


T420s
Maximum: 270 cd/m²
Average: 258.7 cd/m²
Brightness Distribution: 92 %
Black: 1.75 cd/m²
Contrast: 154:1


T420
Maximum: 223 cd/m²
Average: 206.7 cd/m²
Brightness Distribution: 85 %
Black: 1.38 cd/m²
Contrast: 162:1


T410
Maximum: 202 cd/m²
Average: 183.4 cd/m²
Brightness Distribution: 79 %
Black: 1.37 cd/m²
Contrast: 136:1


T61
Maximum: 159.8 cd/m²
Average: 139.7 cd/m²
Brightness Distribution: 78 %
Black: 1.1 cd/m²
Contrast: 144:1


It looks like T420s has a better display than T61 and T410, about on par with T420, and probably (much?) better than my T60 has.


So, what is your personal experience? What is you advice? Thanks!

My experience comes down to this: There are certainly better looking TN panels I have seen on other laptops (like Apple's), but it's not the worst I have seen either. I don't have any problems with it.

I think you could make an arguement the new displays are better as they're at least brighter than older ones. Calibrating the screen can help some.

This has been covered in other threads. I've seen/used at least four T420s machines, all had very nice LCDs. I was pleasantly surprised, but it could be a little luck of the draw.

Other than that, a T420s with an SSD is a great, all-around machine.

I also have a T410i, with a 1280 x 800 LCD, as does my wife. The LCD on mine is slightly better, as good as the T420s LCDs that I have seen. The LCD on the other T410i, is the same resolution, but with poorer contrast and colors. Again, luck of the draw.

The LCD on my T400s is very good, like the T420s models that I've seen. I've also worked on two T410s machines, they had good LCDs, too.

None are IPS quality, but all are as good as the better T60 panels used on the 14" models.

(With the models you listed as options, I'd be more concerned about staying away from any HD resolution T420.)

I received my T420s last Friday, and coming from an X301, I have to say the screen seems to be slightly better than that of the X301, though I'm sure there are better screens. I use the T420s for general use and photo editing, and the colours seems to be fine. Before I bought it I read a lot of mixed reviews too, but so far, I've been very impressed with the machine.

..and now, this:

T420s not Booting

"Lenovo has identified an issue which affects a portion of Think and Idea systems that were manufactured between September and December 2011. The issue manifests as early life failures of the EEPROM chip and results in the system failing to power on or boot up. Not all of the systems manufactured during this period of time are affected. This is an industry component issue and is not limited to Lenovo.

The solution is to replace the system board, Lenovo has been working through an unanticipated increase in demand for system boards and some repair times have been longer than desired. Lenovo's parts logistics teams have worked closely with suppliers to accelerate availability of replacement boards and service part stocks have been updated with the latest level parts.

Service times are beginning to recover. Where possible, Lenovo is proactively escalating aged customer repairs to ensure resolution as quickly as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience these delays may have caused."

The poor contrast ratio around 150:1 is just ridiculous for a top model notebook. I don't think you could even get such horrible component ten years ago. I think at least 500:1 is reasonable value.

This is a very great tip for enhancing the percieved contast and colours of the Thinkpad-screens:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=85851

I finally took the plunge and bought a T420s; it has the Samsung screen (supposed the best among T420s' screens), Panasonic battery and Chicony keyboard. It's snappy, the i5, 8GB RAM and SSD make together a good combination. I don't really like the keyboard but it's a little better than the Chicony kbd of my T60. And now the screen: I can't call it better or worse than T60' screen. It's different, a little sharper, clearly brighter, but.. colder and somehow grainier, even it has a higher pixel density. I don't think it's terrible, it's just.. ok.

My biggest gripe with T420s' screen is that it's not 16x10 with large bezels all around which makes it look much cheaper than it is. The LCD itself is ok but no more than that. Imho Macbook Pro screens are far better sans the glossy part.

The large bezels don't bother me at all, but 16:9 format is wrong. 16:10 is acceptable. The laptop is slim but I'd like it more if it would be a little more boxy, like T60 is.

Just prior to ordering my T420s I too was concerned about the display. I use it for photo editing, illustration, publication design, and 3D work.

I have been working constantly on my T420s now for close to 6 months now. The screen is more than good enough.

The brightness is great. Most of the time I have it set at halfway. Full brightness is actually good when in a very bright room or outdoors under shade.

There were some graininess at the beginning but after using the Windows ClearType tweak utility I dont notice this any more (and I am finicky with visual stuff.) The pixel density is nice too.

Though more vertical pixels would be good as everyone is pointing out. I ended up changing the Windows task bar (and the button bars in Office 2003) into a vertical orientation which freed up a few extra vertical pixels.