The matte high-resolution screen is pleasant to look at and at the higher backlight settings is quite usable in sunlight. The vertical viewing angles are awful, as is to be expected from a TN panel. The top left and (to a lesser extent) top right corners of the screen are noticeably darker than the rest of the screen. I'm not sure if this is a defect or a design flaw. I got no dead pixels.
The machine doesn't come with a color calibrator even though the default software asks you to calibrate your display. The thing on the palmrest is merely a slot for the calibrator in case you want to install one later.
The nVidia graphics card runs games well on moderate settings and resolutions. The resolution upscaling works pretty well so lower resolutions don't look excessively blocky. To my surprise, the bumblebee project allows me to use the nVidia card selectively under Linux without a hitch, and it automatically powers the card down when not in use. External displays don't yet work seamlessly under Linux though, apparently because the DP and VGA ports are wired through the nVidia card.
The new ThinkPad keyboard has a different feel compared to the old ones. I'd say it's slightly better. The new layout will likely take you a few weeks to adjust to. I dislike that PgUp/PgDown are now so far from Home/End, even though I can kind of see why one would want PgUp/PgDown to be close to the arrow keys.
The trackpoint is as good as ever, but the touchpad feels terrible with its default configuration in Windows. Linux had much better default settings, but Apple still has the best touchpads.
Under Linux the touchpad is by default so sensitive that it sometimes even misinterprets typing for taps. Setting FingerLow to 35 and FingerHigh to 40 seems to fix it or at least make it much more rare.
I got a 6 cell battery. I contacted the seller about the listing advertising a 9 cell battery and I assume they'll either fix the listing soon or start delivering 9 cell batteries. In any case they were very helpful.
The 6 cell battery yields a somewhat disappointing 2-4 hours on both OSes under light to moderate load with about 50% screen brightness. I imagine a 9 cell battery adds about 50% to that. Apparently a slice battery can also be purchased.
The fan is not as quiet as on my T60, and its sound has a higher pitch. It still doesn't sound nearly as bad as most cheap laptops though, and it's almost always silent or near-silent when idling. The machine stays very cool under light load and gets only moderately warm during gaming.
The speakers are serviceable but not good by any stretch, as is the case with most laptops.
Overall the machine feels solidly built, as a ThinkPad should. It's (intentionally) a little heavy but definitely still portable.
The battery locking mechanism looks like you could easily detach it by mistake, but the same was true for my previous ThinkPad and I accidentally detached it at most once in 7 years of use, so I'm not terribly concerned.
Other than the external display problem, Kubuntu LTS 12.04 has supported the hardware flawlessly so far.
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im really happy about this productit really met my expectations!im using this computer for 3d animation and its amazing
