Lenovo ThinkPad T480s - Review 2022

If your boss or office manager shoots downwardly your request for a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon, here'due south a boomerang solution: Brand an firsthand case for the powerful, rugged, and still sparse-and-low-cal ThinkPad T480s. This more affordable ThinkPad (starts at $one,007; $1,659 as tested) is nigh a half-pound heavier than the Editors' Choice-winning X1 Carbon, the slimmest and sleekest ThinkPad in Lenovo's stable. The chassis is the same durable carbon fiber, admitting a bit bulkier, simply equally a advantage for the added heft you become a few things that go missing on the X1 Carbon, among them an Ethernet jack and the selection for a graphics upgrade. The question thus becomes: Does the ThinkPad T480s offering enough of a price interruption from the X1 Carbon to make information technology worth the weight? It depends on only how tight your budget is. Spoiler: In near cases, we'd say concur out for the X1 Carbon.

A ThinkPad, in Nigh of the Right Means

If you squint, yous might mistake the ThinkPad T480s for the X1 Carbon. It's much more of a thin-slice modern ThinkPad than the thick, boxy ones of yore. Information technology measures 0.72 by 13.03 by 8.92 inches (HWD) and weighs 3.07 pounds, which makes information technology most identical in size and weight to its predecessor, the ThinkPad T470s. By comparison, the X1 Carbon measures 0.63 by 12.74 by 8.55 inches (HWD) and weighs 2.49 pounds. Given the added half-pound or so on the ThinkPad T480s, yous lose out on the "Wow, this thing is so light!" rush that you feel when you pick up the X1 Carbon. That'southward non to say the ThinkPad T480s is heavy. It but doesn't feel lighter than it should.

Like other ThinkPads, the ThinkPad T480s goes through a battery of MIL-SPEC tests for reliability and immovability. The rugged carbon-cobweb chassis and spill-resistant keyboard will help route warriors sleep at night and continue to piece of work during the day across a diversity of challenging conditions in the field. The tests cover weathering humidity and temperature extremes; keeping out dust, dirt, and sand; and surviving sudden shocks and harsh vibrations.

Lenovo did not shorten the fundamental travel or otherwise change the typing experience on the ThinkPad T480s, despite a thin chassis design that otherwise might have forced such a design compromise. The keys are roomy and offer that specific springy feel with the perfect amount of travel that makes a ThinkPad keyboard so distinctive. And fear non, pointing-stick fans: The ThinkPad T480s features both a touchpad and the venerable red nubbin, with dedicated mouse buttons for each. With its touch-sensitive screen giving you all the same another input pick, you could make a compelling case that the 24-hour interval of the pointing stick has come up and gone, just the postal service-pointing-stick era has still to begin.

The 14-inch bear upon display is adequate. The model I take for testing has an in-aeroplane switching (IPS) panel with a Full HD (one,920-by-i,080-pixel) native resolution. Despite its IPS engineering allowing for wider viewing angles, the screen image quickly degrades when y'all view it from much off the center axis. Part of the reason for its limited viewing angles, to my eyes, is its mediocre effulgence. It'southward far from the brightest display I've encountered, which should give pause to anyone who spends most of the workday in the field, every bit opposed to in the role.

Lenovo does offer a higher-resolution display option, though I did not go the opportunity to set eyes on it. You can upgrade to a WQHD (ii,560-past-1,440-pixel) brandish, which should evangelize a crisper prototype but one that'south, perhaps, not any brighter. (The WQHD option, it should be noted, does not include touch-input support.) To my optics, the FHD resolution suffices for its 14-inch size, and is the right match for that console measure out; images and text wait sharp, without any obvious pixelation.

Similar the display, the organisation's stereo speakers are adequate, but nothing more. They reach a fairly impressive level at maximum volume without too much loss of clarity, but the bass response is predictably lacking. The audio output will suffice for YouTube videos and video calls, but music playback will require headphones or an external speaker.

Here's Looking at You lot (or Not)

A 720p webcam sits above the display. No need hither for a slice of electric tape to ensure your privacy when it'southward not in apply, as the ThinkPad T480s features the selection for Lenovo's new ThinkShutter privacy filter. Just slide the encompass over the lens when you aren't video chatting for peace of mind.

Note, though, that you are given an either/or proposition with the webcam at the fourth dimension of purchase: The options are the cam with the ThinkShutter cover, or a shutter-less IR webcam that works with Windows Hello facial recognition. The test configuration I have in paw offers a compromise: the ThinkShutter photographic camera, plus a fingerprint reader for logging in without a password. The fingerprint reader is the same kind as on last twelvemonth's ThinkPad T470s. It's a "Match-in-Sensor" reader, which is more than secure because information technology uses a dedicated system-on-a-chip to shop your biometric data, rather than stashing it on the ThinkPad's hard drive itself.

Another change to this year's ThinkPad T480s is actually an improver by subtraction. Lenovo replaced the proprietary charging port of the ThinkPad T470s with a USB Type-C port for charging. Too, this port supports non just charging, but rapid charging. Lenovo claims that a 60-infinitesimal charging session will get you dorsum to 80 percent battery life. I put that claim to the test and got shut to that figure, going from a 5 percent bombardment-accuse level to 76 percent in an hour. Besides, should yous opt to utilise a 3rd-party charger, you can rest piece of cake while the laptop charges because it features anti-fry protection to prevent an off-brand charger from, well, frying your system.

The balance of the port choice is stiff. On the left side, the laptop offers another USB Type-C port, this one supporting Thunderbolt three for speedy data transfers or connecting to an external display...

Too on the left edge is a USB iii.0 port, an HDMI output, a headphone/mic combo jack, a total-size flash-memory-carte du jour reader (supporting four formats), and an Ethernet jack. The Thunderbolt port also doubles as the docking connector, which allows Lenovo to erase the docking connector that marred the lesser panel of by models.

On the correct side, yous'll notice another USB 3.0 port, a SmartCard reader, and a Kensington-fashion cable-lock slot.

For storage, our examination system features a 256GB PCI Limited/NVMe SSD, and you can find 512GB or 1TB upgrade options if y'all configure a system on Lenovo's site. If y'all took this ThinkPad T480s model and added the 512GB drive, it would toll out roughly the same as the last ThinkPad X1 Carbon configuration reviewed on PCMag, with the main trade-off for lightness being the ThinkPad X1 Carbon'due south Cadre i5 CPU versus the Core i7 in the ThinkPad T480s. These processors, however, are similar; both are quad-cadre parts that permit for eight processing threads. The Core i7-8550U has slightly faster cadre and turbo frequencies and offers a larger enshroud. As you'll presently see in the benchmark-testing breakup, little separates the two.

Lenovo includes a ane-twelvemonth warranty with postal service-in hardware support for the ThinkPad T480s.

A Capable i7 Performer

The $i,659 ThinkPad T480s tester I have in paw came configured with the eighth-generation Intel Core i7-8550U I just mentioned, equally well equally 8GB of RAM and integrated Intel graphics. It provides ample ability for the usual office workloads and for calorie-free to moderate multitasking. The organisation felt speedy and responsive in anecdotal tests, even with multiple apps running and more than a dozen browser tabs open at in one case. And it's not all about raw functioning: The 8th-gen Core i7 office is efficient, likewise, with a TDP of only fifteen watts. The organization's cooling fan rarely engaged and was whisper-quiet when information technology did.

In benchmark testing, the ThinkPad T480s performed well, merely its Core i7 didn't put too much distance between it and the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, with its eighth-gen Cadre i5...

Its score of three,455 on PCMark 8 was less than a hundred points (and simply a few percent points) ameliorate than the X1 Carbon's showing. The two ThinkPads were also close on multimedia tests, with the X1 Carbon really ekeing out a win on the Photoshop image-editing trial. The ThinkPad T480s was faster than Apple's 2022 MacBook Pro on the Handbrake video-encoding test, the Cinebench R15 3D-rendering criterion, and a series of Photoshop editing tasks.

See How We Test Laptops

The ThinkPad T480s uses a three-cell, 57-watt-hour battery and lasted for 13 hours and 22 minutes on PCMag Labs' battery rundown exam. That'll become you through the longest of workdays, and it looks like an impressive figure until y'all expect at the runtime of its competitors, among them the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, the Dell XPS 13, and the MacBook Pro.

As with any system that relies on Intel integrated graphics, gaming and overall 3D acceleration performance is limited...

The ThinkPad T480s failed to smash frame rates college than 30 frames per second, the minimum threshold for enjoyable gaming, even on medium-quality tests at 1,366 by 768. With its slightly superior Intel Iris Plus integrated graphics, the MacBook Pro delivered amend frame rates, but that added graphics oomph didn't translate into better times on photograph- and video-editing trials.

A graphics detail worth noting, though: You are stuck with integrated Intel graphics in the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, simply if you configure a ThinkPad T480s on Lenovo's site, you can opt for the Nvidia GeForce MX150 graphics processor. Now, the MX150 is a mild-mannered, entry-level GPU; information technology won't magically plow the ThinkPad T480s into a gaming monster. But information technology does provide 2GB of dedicated VRAM for a bump in graphics power, and it'due south a definite step upwards from Intel Hard disk Graphics, if other iterations of the MX150 tested in the lab are any guide.

Solid, merely Not Quite the Carbon Copy

The ThinkPad T480s is a capable, modern, and slim laptop with a host of attractions: a rugged chassis, an inimitable and stellar ThinkPad keyboard, and an efficient, powerful CPU from Intel'due south latest generation. The port selection and its long-running, quick-charging bombardment are too strong points.

The only feature-level drawback we tin can't quite forgive the ThinkPad T480s? The somewhat dim FHD brandish in this test unit. A larger quibble has nix to practice with the system proper, but with Lenovo'south pricing scheme. Specifically: There simply isn't enough pricing daylight betwixt it and the ThinkPad X1 Carbon to justify lugging the extra half-pound of the ThinkPad T480s, unless you rely on wired Ethernet and admittedly refuse to pack a dongle. As a result, we run into a ThinkPad T480s as an ideal buy only after that killjoy in bookkeeping has quashed your request for a ThinkPad X1 Carbon.

Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/laptops/26857/lenovo-thinkpad-t480s

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