T440s - one year after

Question

Since it's back to school/college time a friend asked me what laptop to
buy and my opinion of the T440s I'm using now for one year. I wrote him
back the following, which may also be interesting for some of you:
*** the good ***
- The formfactor.
  ~1.5kg is IMHO the upper limit for a laptop and this is fine.
  I really don't care about thickness. And I like the "sharp" edges.
- The snug fit of the battery, nothing sticks out.
  I like it when protection sleeves "just fit".
- The HD screen.
  The picture is great - but maybe I was just lucky to get an AUO panel.
- The keyboard.
  I like it overall. There appear to be different versions, the keys on
  mine feel just fine. I like the position of PageUp/Down on the side of
  the cursor keys. I would like to have "delete" also somewhere near... hmmm.
- Integrated WWAN.
  Best money ever spent.
- Integrated smartcard reader.
  Thank you for supporting easy security on the go!
  This is a thing I miss in smaller laptops the most and I don't want
  to carry around a USB reader.
- During low/medium CPU loads fan does not run. So when one just does e.g.
  text editing work you can easily do this in bed and not worry that the fan
  sucks up dust fast.
*** the meh ***
- Only one light, on the power button.
  Can I have please at least another to indicate current (de-)charging status?
- I miss the thinklight, but the backlit keyboard does its job.
- The speakers/headphones are noisy. When audio is off you don't hear anything,
  but if one hears audio you constantly hear a background hiss. I'm aware that
  with such tight integration some electric interference is possible, however
  I'm still disappointed compared to my previous laptops.
- The keyboard.
  Who had the glorious idea to combine two rows of keys into one and to make media
  keys the default instead of F-keys?
  So I set F-keys as default. Now my keyboard has 3 lights always on:
  F-lock, audio mute and microphone mute. This is annoying.
- The keyboard wears out over time. Now, after about one years, the keys begin
  to feel a bit mushy. Its still ok, but... well, ask me in a year again.
- The keyboard. It gets greasy very fast and in summer it is impossible not
  to sweat. So one has to clean it very often, or the screen gets dirty
  from the keys also fast. Unfortunately, cleaning the keyboard is delicate
  as wiping sideways one has to be careful to not apply too much force.
- Battery length.
  I would prefer a longer battery runtime. I would accept more weight and
  a thicker machine - however, no batteries which stick out at the back.
  Maybe a thin battery slice at the bottom?
- Bottom cover.
  Removing the bottom cover and servicing the machine is painful. The plastic
  latches break too easily. My machine had the HDD replaced with a SDD, then
  the WWAN was installed, then the clickpad broke and had to be serviced.
  Every time another latch broke (yes, also by the Lenovo serviceman...) and
  now it does not close properly on one side.
  Ok, one seldom opens the machine, but still.... this can be done better,
  see other brands.
- My screen has developed a white dot.
  I very much care for my machine and always transport it in a neoprene sleeve,
  so I'm quite sure no force was applied. But it's in a corner of the screen,
  so I don't care much.
- My Samsung 840 Pro almost got killed (only half-erased, haha...). It's the
  SSD's firmware fault, but still, such a thing should not happen with such a
  popular device on the market.
- I was just lucky to not trip on any of the other BIOS suicide bugs, like
  booting an UEFI Linux... no one in quality control tried Linux before shipping?
- Lenovo service hotline is very friendly. However in Europe they appear to
  be far away in an Eastern country. The phone line is always noisy and even
  spelling one's own Email address does not assure that it is recorded
  correctly. The service line works, but is a pain.
- Replacing the back battery while the machine is on sometimes works, sometimes
  not. If not, a workaround is to hibernate to ram, wake up again and then it
  gets detected. Again, why are machines shipping with such a basic bug?
*** the bad ***
- Build quality.
  We bought several machines end of 2013/beginning of 2014.
  Three quarters of them developed a hardware problem (screen bezel, mainboard
  faulty, palm rest broken, etc.) and had to be serviced (one was nearly half
  a year in depot for repair!)
  In early 2014 our sysadmins blacklisted Lenovos of the *40 series as they
  produced just too much work for them. Now no one gets a Lenovo unless one
  has a _very good_ reason and personally speaks to admins.
  We now buy all our laptops from a different brand.
  Many years ago a friend proudly showed me his IBM Thinkpad. He deliberately
  shoved it off the table on the floor. I was shocked, but he shrugged his
  shoulders and said "they are built to survive that". Today, IMHO the
  Thinkpads are no longer better than other brands.
- Screen.
  My screen has the known production defect that the right bezel comes off.
  I have on-site service so this should be fixable under warranty easily,
  however I'm too afraid to call Lenovo for a replacement because I might
  get a LG panel. Lenovo is earning money because customers are afraid to
  call service they paid for.
- The clickpad. And no hardware mouse buttons.
  Seriously, what are/were they thinking?
  If you just need to left-click from time to time stationary at a desk it is
  fine. All other uses are a constant pain. Right clicks, middle clicks,
  combination of clicks, click and drag, in the train, in a plane, anywhere
  mobile.... essentially every mobility use case a work laptop is intended for.
  Also, by design, a huge pad which one has to mechanically click down is
  just a stupid idea. You never get any good precision with that in the long
  run, and the resulting noise in a conference meeting - embarrassing.
  Also, the constant software driver issues.... seriously?
  Make it smaller, no pressing down of whole pad, silent, 3 hardware buttons...
  ...make it "just work"!
....ok I stop now...
Overall, this will probably be my last Thinkpad (after many years).
As soon as the new Broadwell generation comes I will get rid of this thing.
Thinkpads are no more premium build quality than any other brand and the
clickpad was the last issue which essentially makes buying another Thinkpad
impossible.
Hope this rant helps someone...
...and everything is IMHO of course, your views may differ and I respect that.

Answer 1

Are you asking how much the Creative Cloud Photography Plan will cost after the initial year? AFAIK, it'll still be $9.99 USD/month (or $119.88/year), minus inflation.