ThinkPad t431s Evaluation

The Lenovo ThinkPad T series has been a very popular business notebook with an excellent keyboard, long endurance and rugged fuselage design. And in this year, Lenovo launched the latest Lenovo ThinkPad T431s, not only the upgrading of hardware configuration, but also in the design style of a certain innovation, access to the user's attention. The 1.5-kilogram 14-inch ultra-polar one is more lightweight than its predecessors, and also has a comprehensive interface design to ensure business application needs. At the same time, Lenovo ThinkPad T431s not because of the thin fuselage and discard the durability of the series logo features, but also integrates 1600*900 resolution screen, Windows 8 system and other new elements. This notebook has a lot of advantages, but there are some deficiencies, then it is worth the user to upgrade it? Let's take a look at the evaluation experience below.

Lenovo ThinkPad t431s main parameter information:

Core components: Intel Core™ i5-3437u processor with 1.9 GHz, 4GB RAM (maximum upgradeable to 12GB), integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000 graphics

Screen: 14-inch 1600*900 resolution

Hard drive: 500GB 7200 turn SATA Hard Drive

Network connection: Support 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0

Interface: Ethernet, headset, microphone, secure lock slot, two USB 3.0,VGA, mini display interface, Quad card reader

Operating system: Windows 8 Professional Edition

Fuselage size and Weight: 330.9*225.8*20.3 mm, weighing 1.5 kg

Price: Up to USD 1049 (RMB 6443)

Exterior design

Lenovo ThinkPad T431s is the lightest T-series notebook in history, with a fuselage weight of only 1.5 kg, about 0.2 kilograms lighter than before. In addition, although the machine is a 14-inch model, but more than the HP EliteBook Folio 9470M and other 13.3-inch models are lighter. Fuselage dimensions, 330.9*225.8*20.3 mm is also a very desirable size, the design of the ultra narrow frame makes Lenovo ThinkPad T431s compared to the 13.3-inch model is not much larger.

Although the fuselage is more frivolous, but Lenovo ThinkPad T431s also continued the series of the usual rugged features, the bottom of the fuselage using carbon fiber material, and designed a roll-proof frame, the top cover also uses aluminum-magnesium alloy material and use ABS plastic cover, screen hinge design is also very strong, and support to bend backwards 180 degrees, It is basically the most solid super pole of the present. Lenovo ThinkPad T431s also passed a series of military tests, including high humidity, high temperature, dust, vibration and mechanical impact.

Although Lenovo ThinkPad T431s has tried some new designs, it does not have to jump out of the design style, the body top cover color from the usual "graphite black" into gray-black, with matte texture, not susceptible to contamination fingerprints, but feel harder. By contrast, we prefer the soft feel of the ThinkPad X1 carbon, but it is acceptable to have different positioning. Generally speaking, the modelling aspect Association ThinkPad T431s does not have the special freshness feeling, after all "the small black" has always been the product which pays attention to the practicality, the low-key steady also is enough.

In detail, the 20.3 mm thick Lenovo ThinkPad T431s integrates most of the commonly used interfaces except the optical drive. The right side of the fuselage is designed with a secure latch slot, a mini DisplayPort output and a USB 3.0 connector that can recharge the mobile device during sleep. The left side of the fuselage has an Ethernet interface, a four-in-one card reader, a smart card reader, an audio input/output jack, a second USB 3.0 connector, and a VGA output. Considering the extra space on the right side and back of the fuselage, we would have seen a third USB interface.

In addition, Lenovo ThinkPad T431s also has a front 720P resolution camera, in the dimly lit conference room can also take a brighter picture, but the dark part of the picture is still unavoidable.

Display effects

Lenovo's t431s screen has a higher 1600*900 resolution than most of the 14-inch notebooks with 1366*768 resolutions, and the display is definitely more nuanced. Unfortunately, this screen has a lower visual angle, the color effect is mediocre, and has a larger room for improvement.

We tried to use Lenovo ThinkPad T431s to play The Avengers and Iron Man 3 fragments, found that the screen color is more serious, Iron Man's candy red armor often appear light orange shadow, while Thor's red cloak, The Green Giant's skin and the United States captain's blue uniforms, and other colors in bright colors, are very dull. In addition, we have to tilt the notebook's screen about 15 degrees to achieve a clearer image effect. If you deviate from the center of the screen to the sides, you will find that the dark color begins to appear suffused with white phenomenon.

Lenovo ThinkPad t431s screen brightness of 202 lux, this is not an ideal result, even compared to the previous T430 249 Lux is also dim some, naturally less than the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, but compared to other brands of similar models or to slightly.

Audio effects

Lenovo will be the ThinkPad T431s speaker design at the bottom of the fuselage, providing a loud and accurate sound effect, basically to meet the needs of listening to music. After the playback test, the machine to the bass reduction effect is good, the overall volume can be filled with the entire room. Like other ThinkPad notebooks, t431s is also equipped with the Dolby Home theater V4 software to improve audio quality and provide rich sound setting capabilities. When we disable Dolby Enhancement software, the sound effects become bland and the effect is obvious. In addition, we like Dolby Software built-in various preset mode, and found that the song mode is better than the movie mode effect.

Keyboard design

Lenovo ThinkPad T431s uses an island splash-Splash keyboard layout that was common in last year's ThinkPad laptops, including t430s,t430 and W530. The key design is slightly curved, providing a good feel and strong tactile feedback. Because of these characteristics, we encountered only 1% error rate in the typing test, achieved 90 letters per minute input speed, better than the average of 86 letters per minute results.

Unfortunately, while the machine has a good keyboard layout, the uncomfortable palmrest design still affects the overall input experience. The ABS-encased aluminum-magnesium material deck is so hard that it feels like the wrist is resting on a rock and the right temperature is high, reaching 33 degrees Celsius. In fact, we didn't do anything complicated, just doing basic tasks like surfing the web or watching videos.

The top row button is the ThinkPad t431s function key for adjusting the normal operation of screen brightness, silence, and volume. If you want to use the F-key feature, you also need to press FN at the same time, it is not particularly convenient, especially if you want to close Windows 8 applications via ALT + F4 or F5 refresh the Web page. The keyboard backlight provides two kinds of brightness adjustment, basically low brightness can meet the demand of all environment, high brightness will be slightly dazzling.