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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DanNeely - Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - link
Dell did get an initial exclusivity period for the display. That period was supposed to run out last month, so hopefully we'll see similar designs from other vendors in the near future. Although hopefully those vendors will accept a slightly larger top bezel to avoid the neckbeard/nosehair camera problem on the XPS13.http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/01/hands-on-de...
nerd1 - Wednesday, September 16, 2015 - link
This is business laptop with MIL STD certification... and still way cheaper than consumer apple laptops.bug77 - Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - link
No Skylake? Why bother with the review?retrospooty - Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - link
Yeah, we have been ordering T450S's since February. Seems alot late on the review with Skylake models (T460?) to be released soon.bug77 - Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - link
Or maybe that's the catch and Skylake will be as rare as Broadwell was last year. Thus new models may still be a long way off.retrospooty - Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - link
Possibly... Buts its really not an issue with their enterprise sales. The T450s is still an amazing laptop for corporate use. They are tough, reliable and perform well. Perfect for their design and that is why ThinkPads are the # corp purchase year after year after year, going back long before Lenovo even bought the line from IBM. I found this on their site... {The T450 and T550 series] - Ultra-durable and tested to US military specifications that validate the ruggedness, durability, and quality of this laptop by testing against 11 parameters: High pressure, humidity, vibration, high temperature, temperature shock, low pressure (15,000 ft), low temperature, solar radiation, fungus, salt fog, and dust. In addition, innovative roll-cage technology and carbon-fiber reinforced casing adds extra strength and rigidity.Brett Howse - Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - link
As I mentioned in the review, Lenovo sent this to me a while ago but it's been a busy time. But regardless, there are no Skylake devices out yet in this form factor.When they are, we'll review them. If Lenovo does an upgrade to Skylake it will likely be a similar device with a new processor so this review would be useful even for that.
retrospooty - Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - link
Gotcha... It would have been great if Lenovo sent a major site like Anandtech a unit in March when they started shipping in the US. It's a great laptop though, I see them daily and want one bad... But I got a new one last year, so I really dont "need" one yet. :(bug77 - Wednesday, September 16, 2015 - link
Is the SSD replaceable on these? Is it soldered in place? Because you didn't mention it in the review and I don't see pictures of the back either. And also, Lenovo charges $300 for an upgrade from 256 to 512MB :DI expect Skylake to show a whole different performance level from the iGPU (which I don't particularly care about) and probably put those batteries to better use (which I relay, really care about).
AlphaCluster - Wednesday, September 16, 2015 - link
The ssd is replacable as its a 2.5 inch or m.2 card (don't know for sure the Lenovo provided one) but either would be replacable cause the only soldered that one might expect to replace is the first 4gb of ram. So there is a 2.5 bay, m.2 slot and a single ram slot all accessible via the bottom panel. You can even get the maintenance manual off lenovos site which explains how to replace all of these.