Battery Life, Software and Warranty

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Battery Life

If all of this low-voltage chipset, conservative power management, and dual-battery design stuff points to something, it’s undoubtedly hope for a strong battery life result.  And that’s precisely what our range of T440s battery tests revealed: some of the best battery life on any business ultraportable to date.

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We actually received not one, but two external batteries for use with our T440s test unit: specifically, a 3-cell 23.5 Wh and a 6-cell 72 Wh counterpart.  In addition to these two traditional batteries, the unit also includes an internal battery of 23.5 Wh capacity which it intelligently manages akin to how the older ThinkPads managed the comingling of a standard and slice battery.  Thanks to the inclusion of an additional integrated battery, the external batteries can be easily swapped without needing to shut the system down first.  The terminology Lenovo uses to describe this process is Power Bridge, and we found that it worked mostly seamlessly and was quite convenient.  (We did have one instance where the secondary battery, after having being swapped in, was not recognized by the system.  Rebooting the machine solved the problem.)

The real story, then, is what this buys you in terms of longevity.  47 Wh (23.5 + 23.5 with the 3-cell external) is not a lot of battery capacity—but due to the low-voltage chipset, it should last for quite a while.

As always, we use Battery Eater Pro for our battery tests; the Readers and Classic Tests are built-in, whereas the web surfing test involves refreshing a static web page at regular intervals.  All tests are performed on medium brightness (approximately 200 cd/m2) and with all wireless radios on.  Power profiles are either Balanced (Reader's and Web Surfing tests) or High Performance (Classic Test).

Reader’s Test (3-cell external):

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Classic Test (3-cell external):

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Web Surfing (3-cell external):

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On the other hand, 95.5 Wh is a lot of battery for a unit with a 15 W TDP, and so we shouldn’t be surprised if we see literally all-day battery life when using the 6-cell external.

And that’s precisely what we see:

Reader’s Test (6-cell external):

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Classic Test (6-cell external):

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Web Surfing (6-cell external):

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Battery Comparison:

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Yes, it’s impressive.  But is it excessive?  We think so.  There comes a point where additional battery life really doesn’t buy you much actual practical use.  In our opinion, as great as it is, the T440s crosses that threshold and then keep on running full-speed ahead—which is unfortunately at low-voltage speed… and that’s precisely our gripe. 

Software and Warranty

The preloaded software packages on our T440s review unit were pretty numerous, though most of the items are unobtrusive Windows 8 apps or other innocuous applications which can be easily and quickly removed if desired.  Here’s the (nearly) complete list:

  • Norton™ Internet Security
  • Lenovo Solution Center
  • Lenovo Support
  • Lenovo Companion
  • ThinkVantage System Update
  • Lenovo Cloud Storage
  • by SugarSync – Metro
  • Lenovo Cloud Storage by SugarSync
  • Intel AppUp®
  • PC Device Stage
  • AccuWeather
  • Amazon Kindle
  • Nitro Pro
  • Evernote®
  • Skype™
  • Rara Streaming
  • Norton Studio
  • Microsoft® Office

With regard to warranty, our review unit features a 3-year depot warranty—though units can be acquired from Lenovo directly for a lower price and a 1-year warranty instead.  As always, it’s also possible to extend the warranty, of course.

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