Lenovo ThinkPad T450s Broadwell Preview

The Screen: The system comes preloaded with Windows 8.1 x64. Given that it was Windows 8.1 I was honestly a little disappointed. It didn't take more than a little playing for a couple dialog boxes and popup windows to come up rather blurry. Now, I'm not sure if that was the lighting, the angle I was looking at them, or from the fact that its a 1080p screen in a 14.1inch form factor. Whatever the reason it left a bad first impression.

I will say however: when things are good they are very good. For the most part text, images, and videos are clear and look beautiful on the screen. Running two windows side by side is a little cramped (I've currently got Firefox and LibreOffice running side by side) but not so much as to be a detriment.

The Keyboard: I'm going to jump ahead and say the one bad thing about the keyboard. The fn-key is on the far left, outer-most key, with ctrl being one in. Every other laptop I've ever had has had that reversed, with ctrl being on the outside and fn being on the inside. Apparently Lenovo realizes that this could be frustrating to some and has taken it upon themselves to include a bios switch that swaps them. Now, with that out of the way lets move on to the good.

This keyboard is an absolute pleasure to write on. It can take a little getting used to, mostly because I am used to so much worse keyboards, but once you do get used to it you can't go back. The keyboard is also backlit which is one of those things that once you have it you can't live without it. It has three brightness levels: Off, Bright, and Blinding.

The keyboard is a spill resistant design with drain holes coming out the bottom of the machine just in case you have an accident with a drink.

The Battery: I just want to knock this out really quickly. With a 3cell internal battery and a 6cell external battery the highest "Estimated time remaining" battery life I got from Windows was 16:28. That was with skype open (but not call ongoing), typing this review in LibreOffice, having Firefox being up with about 8 tabs open, and brightness at about 40%-- plenty high enough to type on in the dark. Having the 6cell external battery in raises the laptop by half-inch or so in the rear, an angle that actually makes typing on it even nicer than having it lay flat with the external 3cell battery.

Trackpad: Lenovo took a lot of flak last year when it removed all of the buttons from the trackpad. This year they brought back the top buttons to be used with the trackpoint at the top. Personally, this author prefers having tap-to-click AND physical buttons, but this is a fairly good compromise. The buttons are there when you need them, tapping the trackpad simulates a left click, two-finger-tap simulates right click. You can also apply pressure on the bottom left and bottom right of the trackpad in order to execute the respective clicks as well. Pinch to zoom and natural scrolling worked fine under Windows. Linux review is coming.

Its not perfect though, and sometimes jumps around or doesn't register clicks, or thinks you did a left click when you meant to do a right, and vice versa.

Conclusion: Overall, I don't think I could have gotten a better laptop for myself. The machine feels solid and trust worthy, the anti-glare screen will definitely come in handy over the summer months, the wonderful battery life is a literal god-send on the days when I have classes for 11hrs straight. At a little under 4lbs the system is not too heavy to be carried around one-handed and has no problem competing with the 3lb'ers for portability.

I'll be in the forums all weekend, treat it like a Reddit AMA!