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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lilmoe - Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - link
Thanks for the review.Would be nice if you'd include the battery capacity of each device in the comparison chart.
lilmoe - Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - link
*All the devices* that is, not just the one being reviewed.Gigaplex - Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - link
"Durability is something that business wants too, since these devices are going to be used as long as they can be before replacement."Most businesses I've seen that get mobile workstations like this tend to operate on a 3 to 5 year cycle. Once the warranty expires, the machine is retired. It's generally home computers that limp along for as long as possible.
DanNeely - Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - link
Or shifted to 2ndary duty anyway. If you need a 2nd computer with something other than the standard configuration where I work; odds are you're going to get an older laptop that was lifecycled back to IT by its original user.jbwhite99 - Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - link
First off, warranty can be extended to up to 5 years - sometimes in the base, sometimes as a warranty upgrade.The PC is a small part of TCO (total cost of ownership); keep in mind all of the other pieces - licensing software (Office will cost you $250 per machine, etc), the customization you do when you get a new PC, transferring files over, etc. So for companies, if you keep your PC longer, you will save in the long run. The other thing you get with this is unsealed batteries - so if the battery conks out, you can replace it (not so sure about the built in battery). This is why I don't like sealed batteries - it makes the machines thinner, but you can't replace parts.
To the first page of the article, the T20 (first T-series, followon to the ThinkPad 600) came out in July of 2000. The first lettered ThinkPad was the A20, and it came out in April 2000.
nico_mach - Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - link
All the pictures have this curvature that I find distracting. Was that taken with a smartphone?Brett Howse - Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - link
All pictures were with a Canon DSLR.flashbacck - Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - link
How does the clickpad compare to the one in the t440?Brett Howse - Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - link
I've never used the T440 sorry.GeorgeH - Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - link
Any chance of sourcing the T450s with a dGPU for review? Curious what the American market is missing.