Lenovo’s ThinkPad laptops have very long been well known with small business end users, and the organization carries on to increase the assortment. A new addition is the ThinkPad T495s, which is dependent on AMD’s 2nd-generation Ryzen Professional processors. It is intended to deliver a much more very affordable substitute to the company’s current Intel-dependent designs.
Lenovo Thin-Pad
You want to hold a near eye on Lenovo’s product numbers, as there are two fourteen-inch AMD-dependent ThinkPad laptops — the T495s reviewed below, and the very identical T495. The T495s expenses about £100/$one hundred much more than the T495, but small business travellers may nicely contemplate the excess cost to be a very worthwhile expense. That ‘s’ flags up the fact that the T495s is slimmer and lighter: it measures 16.1mm thick and weighs one.28kg, as opposed to 18mm and one.54kg for the T495.
That is a superior fat for a fourteen-inch laptop — it is really only a few grams heavier than Apple’s 13-inch MacBook Air, which weighs one.25kg — and the ThinkPad’s modern profile will surely charm to small business end users who like a greater screen for viewing documents.
That claimed, it is really a minor disappointing that Lenovo has limited the IPS screen to FHD (one,920 x one,080) resolution (157.35dpi), simply because a increased resolution possibility would make greater use of the screen room. Even so, the graphic top quality is very superior: the four hundred-nits anti-glare screen is not the brightest we’ve ever arrive throughout, but its powerful distinction makes a crisp, in-depth graphic with a great colour stability that is effective nicely when seeing online video. And, of training course, the fourteen-inch screen will do the job nicely for small business shows, or simply amount-crunching in spreadsheets. For an excess £84 you can specify a variant of the screen with a PrivacyGuard filter.
Our overview sample of the fourteen-inch ThinkPad T495s ran on a quad-main AMD Ryzen five Professional 3500U processor running at 2.1GHz (up to three.7GHz with Max Increase) with 16GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD and integrated Radeon Vega eight graphics.
Visuals: Lenovo
Design & capabilities
The T495 has the traditional ThinkPad search — a matte-black chassis and a crimson trackpoint in the middle of the keyboard, furthermore 3 chunky buttons at the prime of the trackpad. Trackpoint units are earning some thing of a comeback at the second, and they can surely arrive in helpful for small business travellers who are trying to do the job even though sitting down in a cramped airline seat.
Though this laptop’s layout is fairly conservative, we cannot fault its establish top quality. The T495s is very sturdily designed, and the slender screen panel — just 6mm thick — however feels organization adequate to shield the glass screen from the occasional bump when you happen to be travelling. In accordance to Lenovo “the T495s is examined in opposition to 12 army-grade requirements and much more than two hundred top quality checks to ensure it runs in excessive circumstances”.
The keyboard will be a delight for rapid typists way too, with a great, organization travelling motion on the keys, and a moulded, curved floor on every single essential that feels very comfortable and helps to guidebook your fingers in the direction of the centre of the essential.
It is nicely related way too, with two USB-C and two USB-A (three.one) ports, HDMI for an exterior show, and a three.5mm microphone/headphone jack. There is a fingerprint reader for excess stability, and a proprietary Ethernet port for wired networks that will need an more adapter costing £20/$30. The T495s also contains a 3-year pieces-and-labour warranty, which must hold your IT section content.
Ports on the T495s contain whole-size HDMI and a proprietary Ethernet connector that involves an RJ-45 dongle.
Image: Lenovo
Rate & possibilities
Lenovo’s AMD-dependent ThinkPads are significantly much more very affordable than their Intel-dependent stablemates, and you will find an entry-amount configuration for the T495s running Home windows ten House for just £716.sixty six (ex.VAT, £859.ninety nine inc. VAT, or $one,154.30).
We examined the mid-assortment product that techniques up to Home windows ten Professional 64. and expenses £1,033.32 (ex. VAT, £1,239.ninety nine inc. VAT). It is dependent all around a quad-main AMD Ryzen five Professional 3500U processor running at 2.1GHz (up to three.7GHz with Max Increase) with 16GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD and integrated Radeon Vega eight graphics.
SEE: 20 pro ideas to make Home windows ten do the job the way you want (no cost PDF)
There are also a amount of customisation possibilities, like a prime-of-the-assortment Ryzen 7 Professional 3700U processor, a 512GB SSD and Vega ten graphics, which brings the full price tag to £1,333.32 (ex. VAT, £1,599.ninety nine inc. VAT). The possibilities on Lenovo’s US web site are much more limited, although a customised configuration that matches our overview unit arrives in at $one,407.70.
As described, the screen for all configurations is limited to just one,920 by one,080 resolution. If you want a increased-resolution show, you’ll want to search elsewhere.
General performance
The serious energy of the T495s lies in affordability and portability, instead than uncooked general performance. Its Ryzen five Professional achieves scores of 887 (solitary main) and 2958 (multi-main) when running the Geekbench five CPU take a look at, and 9980 in the Geekbench five Compute take a look at for graphics general performance. All those are fairly modest scores, although the integrated Vega eight graphics delivers much more respectable scores of 35.4fps in Cinebench R15, and 8fps in the graphically intensive Unigine Valley benchmark. The SSD cruises along easily way too, with study and generate speeds of 3Gbps and one.6Gbps respectively.
This form of general performance will be much more than suitable for mainstream workloads involving productivity program this kind of as Microsoft Business. You are going to get a good deal of do the job performed way too, as the laptop’s battery-conserving method authorized it to edge just past nine several hours of wi-fi streaming on BBC iPlayer. For the record, Lenovo promises up to fourteen hours’ life for the 57Wh battery.
Image: Lenovo
Conclusions
The ThinkPad T495s is not heading to win any awards for uncooked computing horsepower, but it must demonstrate a reputable platform for business office program, e mail and internet browsing when you happen to be on the street. With a trim but strong layout and all-working day battery life, it also has a much more aggressive price tag tag than a lot of of its Intel-dependent rivals.
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