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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deontologist - Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - link
"spll-resistant keyboard"¯\_(ツ)_/¯
overzealot - Wednesday, September 16, 2015 - link
Brett: Did you test the audio jack?I recently bought a Thinkpad Yoga 14 and the amount of background hiss out of the 3.5mm jack is just terrible. It's practically unusable, even with my least sensitive headphones.
I'm hoping that it's just this model that sucks, but given a lack of testing in reviews I'm assuming they just don't even bother to get decent audio any more.
nerd1 - Wednesday, September 16, 2015 - link
I have used (now old) TPY 12 and was positively surprised at the audio quality. It was very clean with zero white noise, and I can say it was on par with macbooks and surface 3 pro.Brett Howse - Wednesday, September 16, 2015 - link
I definitely used the headphone jack and didn't notice any issues. I'll try and make a note to point this out in reviews going forward.overzealot - Thursday, September 17, 2015 - link
Thanks, I appreciate the responses.And I'm glad that it isn't a problem in all modern laptops.
Morawka - Wednesday, September 16, 2015 - link
great all around powerhouse of a notebook. Sure it doesnt get as much battery life as the Dell XPS 13" but then again, this thinkpad has 3x the connectors, and i/o. no doubt the difference in battery efficiency.I love the true pro features such as integrated LTE, Ethernet, Display Port, Dual Battery for swap without power down, and fingerprint sensor.
this is a true business class notebook that hardly anyone can match. Now i just wish they would have waited a month for skylake, but no doubt they will refresh the line once those mobile chips are out.
Clap Clap for LTE and IPS display
GekkePrutser - Wednesday, September 16, 2015 - link
I really wish Lenovo would make the trackpoint optional.. I personally hate them, and a trackpad is just fine for me. The track point is really in the way when I'm typing and it gives an annoying bounce when I hit it by mistake. I usually remove the rubber cap to minimize this but it would be much better for me not to have it at all.mscommerce - Monday, September 28, 2015 - link
Ok, you don't get the point.[Sorry, nothing personal. I just couldn't pass up on the obvious pun :p ]
jasperjones - Wednesday, September 16, 2015 - link
I realize you guys are primarily interested in the hardware. Nevertheless, I feel this review is incomplete, as it doesn't address the software side of things. With scandals such as Superfish and the Lenovo Service Engine (which is implemented at the BIOS level and survives even clean installs), I'm very hesitant to buy Lenovo at this point.Brett Howse - Wednesday, September 16, 2015 - link
Those were never part of ThinkPads. I'm not going to claim Lenovo is innocent because clearly they made some bad decisions but it never affected this device.