I use a T440s as my main laptop and have done for almost 2 years. I love it! I can easily get 10 hours of battery out of it, the Full HD screen is a joy to work on, it's really light and portable and despite that is still very well made, last Monday it went flying off my lap and bounced across a wooden floor (long story), still absolutely fine!
My machine is the touch model (albeit with the touchscreen disabled) with 8gb RAM, 250gb SSD (factory installed Samsung), Full HD IPS display, 72Wh rear battery and 3 cell internal battery. i5 4300U. Backlit keyboard and fingerprint reader.
Definitely get an SSD and a RAM upgrade if 4gb won't cut it. Just remember that it takes 1.35v DDR3L RAM instead of the more standard 1.5v memory so bear this in mind when buying the RAM.
As far as the touchpad, as a trackpoint user coming from an x230, I hated it, even as a touchpad it was so loud I felt awkward using it in lectures! It's not something I could just get over, used it for over a year and never got used to it! I'm talking in the past tense as I purchased the touchpad for a t450s and fitted it myself, I now have a much better touchpad (which I keep disabled) and more importantly for me, physical trackpoint buttons! The hardware is a direct replacement, drivers under Windows are fiddly but supposedly can be done however I run Linux on mine (Debian Sid) which it worked with with only slight config changes to enable middle button scrolling. The part was under $50, well worth it for me!
I wrote about my experience with the new touchpad here:
http://camerongray.me/2015/02/fitting-physical-trackpoint-buttons-to-a-lenovo-thinkpad-t440s/
