Lenovo ThinkPad T440s Pro Reviews

At the end of the day, the $1,309 Lenovo ThinkPad T440s delivers everything we would expect from a premium business notebook: a lightweight and durable design, an industry-leading keyboard, a crisp 1,920x1,080-pixel touch display, and ample battery life. The fact that you can swap batteries while the laptop is still running will be a major plus for frequent travelers.Multimedia mavens may wish that the T440s offered faster image and video editing benchmark scores, but we expect that most business users will be more than happy with the notebook's solid overall performance. And while the staid ThinkPad design might not be as flashy as some similarly priced consumer laptops, the T440s delivers where it counts.

The Lenovo ThinkPad T440s is a very well-made business ultrabook, but even great battery life, decent performance, and a few unique features aren't enough to make it stand out above the rest.

The ThinkPad T440s might disappoint you if you're in the market for a very thin, sleek ultrabook, as this model is neither of those things. It is a black-colored, no-nonsense ultrabook with a bit of heft behind it and the durability necessary to handle some pretty rigorous usage. The notebook doesn't stand out too much among other comparable Lenovo laptops, such as the aforementioned X240, but it does stand out among nearly all laptops in terms of battery life.

There’s no doubt that the T440s represents a new direction for the ThinkPad line, but whether it’s a better direction is harder to say. In some areas, such as size, weight and display quality, this new ThinkPad is clearly superior to its older siblings. Other aspects, such as the touchpad and material quality, are a step back. But there’s more to compare the T440s to than itself. The base price for this laptop starts just south of $1,000 and, when equipped like our review unit, that figure rises to about $1,300 ($1,180 if you don’t buy the 6-cell and 3-cell batteries). That puts the ThinkPad in a league which includes the Dell XPS 13 and MacBook Pro 13 with Retina, two excellent choices for consumers and business travelers alike. Unfortunately, when compared to these kings of the ultrabook market, Lenovo’s latest and greatest falls a bit short. The display, though better than past ThinkPads, still lags behind the best, and both the XPS 13 and MacBook Pro 13 offer a clearly superior touchpad. The Lenovo ThinkPad T440s does have strengths though. The keyboard is excellent, performance is competitive, and battery life is good with the 3-cell battery and record-breaking with the bulbous 6-cell. These traits should make it popular with road warriors and frequent fliers, but the average consumer has better options to choose from.