Lenovo ThinkPad T450s Broadwell Preview
The Design: I've handled and repaired plenty of T61's in my time, but never actually -owned- a Lenovo T-series for myself. I knew a baseline of what to expect, but I really wasn't sure how it was going to feel to be holding this for much longer than however long it takes me to swap out a screen or replace a hard drive. The T61's of yesterday always felt too blocky and hard to really be comfortable. They were durable as can-be, aside from Toughbooks and similar, but I never got the impression that they were -enjoyable- to use. To an extent this is much the same.
This is a business class machine and it is all-business, but it has been refined a bit. The palm rest for example is made of a soft-touch material that feels very durable and sturdy, but without being hard on your wrists, nor attracting too many fingerprints. The screen hinges seem to be that perfect balance between "Give me the jaws of life to get this thing open", and "Hinges so loose that the screen shakes when you type".
One thing I do have to point out, and it is the only 'ugly' bullet point on the list… In order to access the HDD, m.2 slots, WiFi Card, RAM slots, or internal battery one must unscrew 8 captive screws on the battery of the laptop. Except not all of them are captured… I personally was missing 2 washers that should have kept screws from coming out-- according to Lenovo. The other problem is that not only is the base plate kept on by screws, its also kept on by small clips along the edge of the laptop… clips that break very easily. This author broke one within the first hour as he tried to insert the extra after-market RAM, and he is expecting to break another when he replaces the HDD with the SSD. A quick Googling reveals that costumers breaking the clips is very common and that it is considered a disaster design-wise.
The edges of the system house the many ports. On the right side we have, in order: Kensington lock, VGA with screws, RJ45, USB3.0, SIMcard for those who need cellular access, and an SDCard reader. On the left side we have: the charging port, USB3.0, the thermal exhaust port, mini-DisplayPort, and another USB3.0-- this one supporting sleep-and-charge. Optionally it comes with a smartcard reader, as well as a fingerprint scanner.
One small note not appreciation on Lenovo's part: on my old XPS 13z the charging cable would always wiggle itself free because there was no locking mechanism. I'm not sure if its simply because the system is new or by design, but the charging cable does not 'wiggle free' on the T450s. In fact the first time I unplugged it I had to pull pretty hard to get it out.
The speakers on this machine are nothing to rave about, but nor are they particularly bad. I would call their sound quality average, and their loudness above average. I could quite happily watch movies, music, or YouTube videos on this without once complaining about the sound quality, though audiophiles will probably want to look elsewhere.