Lenovo ThinkPad L480 review: This basic business notebook falls a little short - lambrightdidepubse
The Lenovo ThinkPad L480 grants you basic membership in the ThinkPad club. Even if you can't yield the bounty Lenovo charges for its slimmer, more powerful models similar the ThinkPad X1 Carbon (6th Gen), you're at to the lowest degree acquiring a stellar keyboard and stout construction.
The ThinkPad L480 offers generous connectivity, and seemly execution and battery life. Underneath, Lenovo's direct Advantage software keeps everything humming. But this entry-level business laptop doesn't offer that much more than, and you whitethorn start to wonder if Lenovo cut one corner too many along the display.
Lenovo ThinkPad L480: Alkaline specs
Let's start with a summation of the ThinkPad L480's specs, focusing on our review unit but noting other options where available.
- Display: 14-inch (1920×1080) IPS technology (as tested) without touch; optional 14-inch (1920×1080) bear on and 14-inch (1366×768) not-touch
- Processor: 1.6GHz Intel Core i5-8250U (as tested) (Kaby Lake R); i5-8350U, i5-7200U
- Graphics: Intel HD 620
- Remembering: 4GB-32GB DDR4 (2,400 MHz) (8GB every bit tested)
- Storage: 256-512GB NVMe PCIe SSD (256GB as dependable); 500GB 7,200rpm disc drive
- Security:dTPM 2.0, fingerprint reader
- Ports: USB 3.1 (2, 1 always related to), USB-C (2, Power/DisplayPort/Data), 4-in-1 microSD, HDMI, Gigabit ethernet (RJ-45), headphone/mic, shut up slot
- Wireless: Intel 8265 802.11ac (2×2), Bluetooth 4.1
- Cameras: 720p HD (front); optional Iridium tv camera (w/Windows Hello); no rear camera
- Battery: 45Wh
- In operation system: Windows 10 Pro
- Dimensions: 13.9 x 9.3 x 0.87 inches (22.5mm)
- Weights: 3.6 pounds (notebook), 4.22 lb (notebook computer + charger), as measured
- Optional accessories: ThinkPad USB 3.0 Ultra DockRemove non-product link ($199.99)
- Price: $1,119.00
When information technology comes to pricing, the ThinkPad L480 we reviewed is a morsel of a moving target. Lenovo was running an $895 "World Wide Web discount" for the L480 when we began the review articl, but the terms rose to more than $1,000 away the time the go over posted.
The generous complement of ports is worth noting because it'll expected make unnecessary you from hauling extra dongles—and that's worth something. But Lenovo also held stake in a hardly a places: In that location's an Ethernet Gen 2 labourer that's been sealed, preventing IT from being used with Lenovo's 90W Affirmative Pier. Likewise, Lenovo enclosed an WWAN slot for a SIM chip, simply that's been blocked dispatch.
While the L480's heaviness allows room for all those ports, it also makes the laptop feel a trifle dated. At 4.22 pounds for the notebook and charger, the additive weight unit is noticeable, though non uncomfortable; that and the form factor probably necessitates more or less sort of knapsack. On the plus side, the L480 is sturdily made, with no a careen to be found. It's MIL-STD 810G certified for ruggedness. There is a bit of twist in the center of the keyboard that reveals itself with a pronounced push, merely it doesn't affect typing. Lenovo bundles a one-twelvemonth storage warranty with the L480; drop/spill/electrical protection is a $33.15 additional cost.
It was a trifle of a shock to take in a laptop without a touchscreen, though touch is manifestly not required to use Windows. You do have the option to buy a touch-enabled L480 from Lenovo, but not apparently as an optional upgrade; rather, you'll need to purchase a ordained higher-end configuration that's $300 more at this writing. That's annoying, and a net ton of John Cash to fork finished for just a touch screen.
The L480's show is a low point. It puts out an anemic 196 nits, far less than the 260 we consider comfortable for our battery rundown test. That makes the L480 comfortable to use indoors, but undyed light will quickly washout out the L480's show. Even worse, the default stage setting was 40 hertz, rather of a comfortable 60Hz refresh rate.
ThinkPad keyboards party favor broad, spacious landing pads for your fingers, and a well-situated amount of paint travel. They are first-class, and the L480 offers more of the same. When comparing the recent ThinkPad X1 Carbon (6th Gen) to the L480, the L480 felt a bit less resilient, but non unpleasantly so.
The L480 includes the iconic red Trackpoint amidst the keys, and dedicated mouse buttons above the trackpad. Lenovo dedicated a generous 4 x 2.75 inches of space to the L480's trackpad, making it one of the largest we've seen. Information technology does feel a bit more than plasticky than others in the ThinkPad line, though, and was responsive only crossways its lower uncomplete. If you're looking areas where Lenovo cut corners, here's another.
As an inexpensive business laptop computer, get into't wait much to step up of the L480's deuce bottom-kindling speakers. The low conclusion is rather muddy, and the highs aren't much to speak of, either. Plugging in headphones alleviates much of the this, though I wasn't American Samoa impressed as I sometimes am with the difference in sound quality. Ray M. Dolby Audio can be enabled, however, which mitigates some of the deficiencies.
Our review unit shipped with Lenovo's fingerprint reader, which allows for warm, Windows Hello-enabled logins. Lenovo says your prints are stored within the reader's silicon chip itself, rather than on the PC, making them more secure. The reader didn't usually recognize my finger right away, but a second tap usually did the trick. The fingerprint reader replaces the depth camera that is available on more expensive ThinkPads. (A depth camera is optional along the L480, too.)
Speaking of cameras, what the L480 offers is a decent HD frontmost-facing camera, without the privacy-minded ThinkShutter found on the X1 Carbon paper. (That allows you to manually skid a shutter over the camera, A a way to stop suspected hackers from spying on you via your webcam.) There's no Windows Hello choice for the look-facing camera, and no derriere tv camera, either.
The included Vantage software does a nifty job of managing upgrades for the L480, and bathroom dis to configure the L480 as you'd like it. A seemingly perpetual ThinkPad quirk involves swapping the Use and Control keys at the butt left, which you can swap back using the Vantage software.
As with many other ThinkPads, the L480 supports USB-C charging, using what appears to be the selfsame 65-watt charger as other ThinkPads that Lenovo sells.
Lenovo ThinkPad L480: Operation
When it comes to performance, you believably don't have to worry about whether an 8th-gen chip such equally the Kaby Lake-R processor powering the L480 can index basic tasks. As a business concern notebook, the L480 handled typical office tasks, web browsing, and the like quite a adequately. The base allotment of 8GB of computer memory is more than adequate.
The only execution number I famed was a period of non-responsiveness to functions like search, when I had just signed in to multiple cloud services so much as OneDrive and OneNote, which were trying to sync gigabytes of amassed data at once. Anything beyond sprite-based games or simpleton platformers will tax the system, but that's non why you steal the L480, anyway.
With a canonical business notebook like the ThinkPad L480, we address the performance question beautiful bu. CPU carrying into action is the priority, and many laptops (including the L480) bear incorporate graphics rather than discrete GPUs. We compared it to a group of 13-inch and 14-inch laptops with similarities in CPU, GPU, or price.
PCMark's trio of tests, including Mould, Home, and Creative, measure how the L480 and notebooks like it will fare in everyday applications. The Turn test uses spreadsheets and word processing to evaluate how the laptop will fare during the course of byplay. You should have zero qualms well-nig using the ThinkPad L480 present, and the 8GB of memory provides a sufficient buffer of memory for king-sized spreadsheets or numerous tabs.
Cinebench, by Maxon, renders a scene using all four cores and viii togs, giving it a healthy advantage all over CPUs that want HyperThreading. The L480 chews through the rendering test at a healthy pace, a good sign that that it can wield similar workloads in the real life.
HandBrake, too, stresses the CPU. This open-source transcoding tool is best thought of as a lengthened stress test on the system, atomic number 3 IT takes an MKV movie file and converts it into a format that's proper for observance connected an Android tablet on a sheet. Though we use this every bit a comparative test, the fact that the L480 completes its task in close to an hour—less than the 90 minutes or so the movie requires to watch—indicates that transcoding is a practical task to assign to the L480.
While we don't expect the L480 to be a gaming automobile, IT's good to have it off how it wish manage if you want to kick back at the end of a day. In this test from 3DMark, running the Sky Frogman benchmark, the L480's deficiency of a discrete GPU shows, but it fares moderately well
Stamp battery life is the other measure of a notebook, especially a business machine that you can meet the road. Patc the L480 doesn't do that substantially, comparatively, you're getting a decent eight hours of battery lifespan. The relatively low floaty output from the L480's silver screen believably helps.
Should you buy the Lenovo ThinkPad L480?
Lenovo's L480 offers standard competency for business users, and on that point's nothing in and of itself wrong therewith. But the trade-offs the Lenovo made are callous ones. The block out is bad, even ahead you factor in the miss of touch—and the heavy superior Lenovo charges if you want that capability. Middling battery life and multimedia system features father't doh much to redeem it, though the typically first-class keyboard makes information technology a pleasure to type upon.
Generally, Lenovo's ThinkPad L480 feels like the business sector notebook computer your IT section saddles you with for work, and what you appreciatively set aside in the evening for a more than comfortable computing experience. While it's competent, you may be better served away looking at some of the opposite notebooks we've compared IT to.
Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/402626/lenovo-thinkpad-l480-review-this-basic-business-notebook-falls-a-little-short.html
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