T430s owners'/would-be owners' thread.

[species5618w]

Battery life seems to be decent. After 2 hours of wifi surfing, the battery is down to 62%. So 5-6 hrs shouldn't be impossible.

[CausticRain11]

Battery life seems to be decent. After 2 hours of wifi surfing, the battery is down to 62%. So 5-6 hrs shouldn't be impossible.

Did you buy the ultrabay battery? I neglected to but I think I might soon. All in all though, I'm not getting terrible battery life from the stock battery.

[russhw]

Did you buy the ultrabay battery? I neglected to but I think I might soon. All in all though, I'm not getting terrible battery life from the stock battery.

batteries need to to be conditioned anyways if you never use it and keep it plugged in all the time your not going to get the full potential out of it

[species5618w]

Did you buy the ultrabay battery? I neglected to but I think I might soon. All in all though, I'm not getting terrible battery life from the stock battery.

No, I didn't. This is from the 6 cell 44wh battery (44.35 right now, already lost .01wh after 1 charge). Every 10 minutes, the battery lost 3-4%, which makes the total running hour to be 4-5.5hrs. Mostly surfing engadget, slashgear, google news, etc... Fair amount of javascript, but not a lot of video. Display at 8. Power plan energy saver. Haven't spent time fine tuning the power plan yet.

[XX55XX]

Returned mine. Although I liked the build quality in general, the screen and battery life were both horrible; I was able to avoid the restocking fee by complaining about the display to tech support.

I think I might splurge for the MacBook Air - I need a laptop for college that is portable, has good battery life, and has a nice screen, and the T430s barely satisfies that first criterion while failing the others, unfortunately.

I would recommend any of the new Asus ultrabooks - most of them come with a 1080p IPS display standard. Not sure about battery life, however.

[species5618w]

I would recommend any of the new Asus ultrabooks - most of them come with a 1080p IPS display standard. Not sure about battery life, however.

The 13 inch ones should have better battery life since their battery is slightly larger and SSD has lower battery usage. Although it's also significantly more expensive. Also, unlike the 16x10 MBA, the Asus book's screen is also somewhat smaller.

[XX55XX]

Hey guys,

I want to upgrade my wireless card from the stock Centrino Wireless-N 2200 to the Ultimate-N 6300. I know Lenovo employs whitelisting of wireless cards in the BIOS, but will purchasing something like this be fine?

Intel IBM lenovo thinkpad 6300 Wifi Wireless Card t410 W700 L412 L512 60Y3193 | eBay

[Ole man]

Hey guys,

I want to upgrade my wireless card from the stock Centrino Wireless-N 2200 to the Ultimate-N 6300. I know Lenovo employs whitelisting of wireless cards in the BIOS, but will purchasing something like this be fine?

Intel IBM lenovo thinkpad 6300 Wifi Wireless Card t410 W700 L412 L512 60Y3193 | eBay

Why do you want to upgrade? Personally, I get absolutely terrible speeds over wireless, but I'm not sure if I have driver/configuration issues.

[XX55XX]

Why do you want to upgrade? Personally, I get absolutely terrible speeds over wireless, but I'm not sure if I have driver/configuration issues.

I can get an additional antenna and perhaps get greater range. Plus, for file transfers over my personal network, the speed boost could prove useful.

[Thors.Hammer]

I can get an additional antenna and perhaps get greater range. Plus, for file transfers over my personal network, the speed boost could prove useful.

If your T430s is already pre-wired and has the three antennas, I don't see why not. It looks like the part you linked to is a whitelisted Lenovo part.