The best just got worse – Notebook Review

ThinkPad T430

Unlike ThinkPad T420, the T430 has a superb build quality when compared to any other brand notebooks. Thanks to the metal roll cage which makes the chassis impossible to flex. The notebook maintains the traditional ThinkPad design and many consider it has a true business class notebook. However, the T430 is just a refreshed version of T420.

Apart from all good things, there are few drawbacks which can be determined from reviews across the web. The first and foremost is the base screen resolution of ThinkPad T430 at 1366 x 768 which most reviewers think that it is very low and may not be suitable for business uses, mostly for multi-tasking between two windows. It also demands for too much of scrolling while surfing the web or any other document for that matter. The low resolution reproduced poor color and looked very dull as well.

With the higher resolution (1600 x 900 available) the T430 will be a perfect business notebook. Reviewers from The Wire Cutter stated that the T430 is “The Workhorse Laptop”. It has got the best combination of performance, value, durability and usability of anything else in the market.

According to Notebook Check, the T430 has everything a business user could want – durability, performance, longevity and security in a well designed package!

Nice to read all those great comments but does that holds good for T430 with base resolution? Even the reviews in Notebook Check opined that the 1366 x 768 is too little a resolution to get quality multi-tasking work done.

T430 Speakers

Just like any other ThinkPad’s the speakers, located on the sides of the keyboard, are good to produce basic sounds but distorts easily at higher volumes. Just like mobile phones, the T430 has a single headphone/microphone combo jack.

T430 Battery Life

I should accept that the ThinkPad T430 battery life should be amazing. In almost all the reviews I have read, the fully charged T430 lasted for 15 hours with a standard battery test. Note that the test was conducted with 9-cell battery with Windows 7 balanced power profile with 70% screen brightness. The wireless was active and the web pages were refreshed every 60 seconds. Without doubt, I would surely bet on its battery life.

Consumer Complaints

Just like any other notebook, there have been un-happy T430 users who have faced issues with display, fan etc.

Display

One of the user posted complain in the Lenovo Community portal about the screen blinking and having vertical stripes of while lines. The issue was not solved after rebooting multiple times.

Fan

Multiple users were facing issues with the T430 fan and many complaints were posted in Lenovo Community as well. One of the user complained that fan was “on” always and the noise was annoying. However, a small troubleshooting may help get rid of this issue.