Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E420s 14in Core i5 laptop

Suits more than suits

Core values

If you choose to customise your purchase, you can add an extra 4GB of RAM for £56.40 or a 128GB SSD for £240, not really a lot of options here. Of course, you could also opt to downgrade to a 2.1GHz 2310M i3 CPU which will also force you to ditch the Radeon card for Intel HD Graphics.

Sim card option available for mobile use

Also an option is an Ericsson F5521GW 3G modem, but this appears to only be available on the models with Intel HD Graphics, even though there is a (non-functional) Sim slot in this ATI Radeon model.

Adorning the sides of the ThinkPad you'll find two USB 2.0 ports, one USB/eSata hybrid port, HDMI, VGA, gigabit Ethernet, slot-loading DVD±RW and an SD reader. Certainly enough to satisfy most, but I would have liked to see the inclusion of USB 3.0.

While I’m quite impressed by the hardware Lenovo has packed into the E420s, I'm not overly thrilled with the 14in 1366 x 768 16:9 screen. Personally, I don't usually confine myself to such small displays, but I feel that the ThinkPad could benefit greatly from a 1440 x 900 16:10 panel. Don't despair though, if you can live with the limited screen real-estate then you'll be pleased to know that the picture quality is certainly good enough to justify the Radeon GPU.