The Lenovo ThinkPad T450s Review: Bridging The Ultrabook
by Brett Howse on September 15, 2015 8:00 AM ESTWireless
Lenovo has leveraged the Intel Wireless AC-7265 solution for wireless connectivity, and this has been a very popular M.2 card in many notebooks this year. It has 802.11ac capabilities with 2x2:2 which means it has a maximum connection speed of 866 Mbps. We have seen it not being able to deliver much more than about 400 Mbps transfer speeds in other notebooks.
On the T450s, I was only able to get 346 Mbps which is below average in transfer speed even with this wireless card. It is not a fantastic result. For those that need faster connections, The T450s does have a Gigabit Ethernet port which is the Intel I218-LM controller. For many businesses, Ethernet is still the only way to go so it’s great to have a built in port. It of course also supports Ethernet with the optional Docking station.
Speakers
Like many Ultrabooks, The T450s has stereo speakers which are downward firing at the front of the notebook. It’s not ideal for frequency response to have the speakers fire downward.
The speakers on the T450s are adequate but not overly loud. I measured a maximum SPL of just 83 dB(A) which is certainly middle of the road compared to most notebooks. Sound quality was ok though even at maximum volume, but as usual with speakers this small the T450s lacked any low end at all.
Temperatures and Noise
As a notebook gets thinner, cooling it becomes more difficult. Because this notebook has a Broadwell-U series processor, it needs to be actively cooled unlike some devices with Core M. There is 15 watts of TDP to account for, and as devices get thinner it gets more difficult to expel that heat. The T450s, being slightly thicker than most Ultrabooks, has one of the better cooling systems I have seen on this class of system.
At idle and low impact workloads, the cooling fan is either not running or not audible. I was unable to detect any noise at all with a sound meter at idle, which to me is a great feature. This isn’t the only device to do this at idle though. What is even more impressive is how the T450s responds under load. In order to stress the system to the full 15 watt TDP, I ran our DOTA 2 benchmark for an hour. During that time, the maximum temperature of the SoC peaked at just 67°C, which is pretty cool for an Ultrabook. But perhaps the most interesting part of that is the cooling fan slowly ramped up in speed, peaking at close to 4000 rpm but the sound pressure was just over 39 dB(A) measured just over the trackpad. Many notebooks can be well over this, hitting 41-44 dB(A) in the same workload. For those that like a quiet notebook but don’t want to compromise performance with a fanless model, The T450s is one of the best around.
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kspirit - Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - link
Folio 1040 is the excellent. It blew everything else away in durability for size and weight when it launched last year. The G2 refresh is underwhelming though. It offers the same battery life as Haswell, which could have been better. I love my 1040 G1 though. Everyone needs to start using the forcepad now.stefstef - Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - link
despite the details of the clients of different brands i believe the main specs of these business pcs are not the technical details anymore but the salesmodels behind it. this is described as a 1500 config but for a company buying a couple of thousands this might be a value of maybe 750. same as in the automobile business: buy a 50.000 car for business, use it for say three years (leasing) and after that times it reappears in the market with say about 35.000 miles on it. and ypou already might be able to pick it up at 30% of the price it was purchased. sure after 35.000 miles the cars nowhere new any more but many a miles away from end of usability. i am really waiting for a pc company calculating a price of such a unit including the after business life services like taking the unit back, refurbishing and selling it again. due to the crisis in pc sales they took a lot of privileges and profits backs from resellers. wouldnt wonder if they, just like the car industry, would try to the grip back on the used pc buisness as well.extide - Wednesday, September 30, 2015 - link
Nah dude, cars and PC's are a totally different market. A 2015 PC is WAY better than a 2011 PC, but you can't say the same about a 2015 car vs a 2011 car.Frenetic Pony - Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - link
Not to mention you might get free malware! Yay LenopevoCSMR - Wednesday, September 16, 2015 - link
The thin ultrabooks don't have 2.5" hard drive support, and if they do it's 7mm. This one takes a 9.5mm hard drive as well as an SSD. You can only get 1TB 7mm HDDs at present but you can get 2TB 9mm ones. Getting to 1TB+ or 2TB+ storage with only an SSD is expensive.extide - Wednesday, September 30, 2015 - link
Yeah, expensive, but doable, Samsung has a 4TB SSD in 7mm now. (850 EVO)pjcamp - Thursday, September 17, 2015 - link
I've read that the external battery is interchangeable with the high capacity battery from the previous generation T440s, which you can find on line for ~$70. On the T440s, that gave me about 14 hours battery life and it is probably comparable here.milkod2001 - Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - link
What is up with DELL's infinity display presented in XPS13? Is there something special that only Dell can use it? I'd love to see other vendors to use to. Once you see it, all other laptops look like they were designed 10 years ago :) Could at least Dell use it in all its laptop range?To this laptop:it would be great laptop if sold for $700 max. $950 base model feels like a little too much to ask.
shadarlo - Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - link
That display on the XPS13 really is revolutionary. I've never been more impressed with any laptop I've ever used than that one. It was so tiny and light and yet still had a huge screen given the minute size of the frame. Everything about the XPS13 is awesome... and it's insane no one else has found a way to use a similar screen yet.I'm shocked Dell hasn't released XPS11 and 14/15 versions as well.
Zertzable - Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - link
The fact that a year after release, the XPS13 is still the arguably the best Windows Ultrabook is rather impressive. The battery life and size are, AFAIK, unmatched.