Review Lenovo ThinkPad T530 2429-5XG Notebook

[Redaktion]

Old acquaintance? Lenovo makes one major change in its new ThinkPad: It turns away from the classic ThinkPad keyboard and installs a chiclet-style input. The familiar ThinkPad quality has otherwise been mostly maintained. The hardware has naturally been updated and is now based on Intel's Ivy Bridge.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Lenovo-ThinkPad-T530-2429-5XG-Notebook.78027.0.html

[Soens]

That is quite a nice and thorough review.
I would love to read some details about Intels AMT feature though. What are the BIOS-options, does the KVM-remote access work flawlessly?

[thinkdiff]

would the quad core option increase the temp? and did you say that the full hd screen use here is the same one being use in the w530?

[mike a]

Thanks for the review.  One thing to note is that you can actually fit a 9.5mm hard drive, the only issue is the rubber bumpers which would need to be modified.  This is what I did to fit a 9.5mm Crucial M4 SSD.

[jj]

please guys never ever look at prices from these review websites lenovo always has some great discounts and they had a 3 day sale on the new t530
i got a base model but the ive bridge upgrade 720p camera 1080p screen 9 cell 500GB harddrive for 1190 dollars

[tellmewhy]

Wait please explain why the w530 don't run hot but the t530 do? I mean they are very similarly spec and have the same chassis so what gives?

[deletethis]

I don't think "notebookcheck.net" ever answer or comments on anything writtn here--- and i'll test that out by say NOTEBOOKCHECK, your  all A-holes!!!! if you see this than comment and erase this message!!! bwahahahahah

[DRL]

The New Keyboard Sucks for anyone who uses the ESC and Delete or Page up and Page Down keys.  In my opinion (Being a Thinkpad user for over 12 years) every year they get a bit worse.  In the old days the engineers would make sure every inch of available keyboard space was leveraged.  Now it is mostly speakers and touchpad.  Either way probably my last thinkpad.  A decade of tradition finally killed when the new keyboard layout was presented.  (The new key Styles are fine but the layout sucks)  Here is an idea, why not offer different keyboard layouts, honestly, why can't we have options here, it is just a part that slides in or out.

[joseph]

I have a T530 and i like it all. The keyboard is great and PgDn and PgUp are very well placed, a matter of taste.
Screen is great and battery life is excellent (yeah, it over-sizes the laptop, not appealing but it worth for these 8 hours of battery life).

[Adam Prancz]

I want to choose the old style keyboard. Why did it change?

[George]

The new keyboard is cool. I prefer the new one over the old one - it feels more solid to me personally. The layout was a little bit unusual compared to the previous thinkpads, but I got used to it after one week. I'm a software developer and doing lots of typing, and the keyboard works.

As for the 'hollow speaker sound' - the speakers indeed sound tiny, but I could fix it to some extent by some digital sound processing magic. If you are not satisfied with the tiny hollow sound, please check the driver at my web site: http://yohng.com/software/speakerfix.html

Thanks,
George.

[banda]

fantastic review that's the way to do it...keep t up

[JL]

Very good review. ThinkPad T series is the best.

I am still using T61. I would like to wait for coming T540S. More slim than T530.

[Dennis Barrett]

Where is the Screen Print button?

[Andy H]

I have this laptop at work, considering it's price, it's poor.

The quality of construction is well below something I would expect at this price point, the plastics feel cheap and tacky.

The chassis squeaks and creaks, the battery is not a snug fit and rattles when carried.

I've had a variety of business grade machines over the years and this is the worst keyboard I have ever used, the swapped fn and ctrl keys is stupid, 99% of users will use the ctrl key more than the fn key, so why make the fn key dominant?????

The separation of the pgup, pgdwn and home and end keys defies logic.

Performance is good considering it has no dedicated graphics.

The screen is the full hd version has the worst colour reproduction of any I've used, not even close to the Dell and HP units i've used.

The textured touchpad is precise, but I don't like it in use, the texture adds nothing and is very uncomfortable in use. I end up switching to a mouse where I can.

The installed manufacturer software is also buggy and prone to crashing.

My review is 3.5/10, if this was a budget laptop i'd probably forgive some of it's shortcomings, but this is a premium product and given the options from other manufacturers, it's well behind the quality scales.