Thinkpad Goes Ryzen! Lenovo Adds Ryzen Pro To The Main Thinkpad Lineup

[Mr.Meerkat]

7 minutes ago, suicidalfranco said:

give me a way to plug in an eGPU equipped model and a 15 or 17 inch option and you got yourself a deal

You'll probably get that wish in the near future  

We just need to wait for royalty free TB3 to be completely finalised (unless I've missed the news and it already has) and give time for AMD/vendors to implement it. 

[Tribalinius]

Really cool to see AMD processors in T models. I'm was already entertaining the idea to swap my T460s for an X1 Carbon 7th gen at launch next month. I'll give the T495s some consideration.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

3 hours ago, iamdarkyoshi said:

I love seeing people complain about the new keyboard when most other people will be using this thing:

(...)

Yeah, the sandy bridge and below thinkpad keyboards were better, but the new one's really not that bad. I'd sure rather use it than a macbook

 

I'll say it: what people refer to as "the new keyboard" is the best typing keyboard ever made, laptop or not.

Thus why I'm glad Dell Latitudes are just Lenovos painted blue these days, because that's all we get at work

[MoonSpot]

On 5/8/2019 at 12:48 PM, Sauron said:

You can't fit a numpad on a 14" laptop without compromising the usability of the rest of the keyboard. Also I loathe off center trackpads (and trackpads in general but that's another discussion entirely).

I don't use laptops with screens that small.  hate having to hunch over and frack my back and scrape my nose across a screen in order to see whats on it(slight exaggeration).  I opt for using a capable tablet if I need/want to go that small. 

 

23 hours ago, DrMacintosh said:

NumPads are terrible for ergonomics. It offsets the keyboard so much to the left. Massive lunar deviation hazard. 

Yup.  However if you want to be proficient in most work environments, many need a numpad to get shit done without making every day aggravatingly slow.

 

Personally would like to see the number row be substituted by the 2 punctuation and brackets rows.  That would center things more, though not enough, while keeping a numpad.

[ ] { } ; : ' " < > / \ | - _ = + are all keys that can be moved to the numbers part of the number row or integrated into and around a numpad via shift and/or func ops. Primary punctuation keys (period, comma & question mark) are harder to move radically without causing riots.

The notion probably needs good deal more refinement, but I think the number row is completely useless and could stand to see it and the 2 punctuation rows supplanted when there is a numpad present.

[Sauron]

18 minutes ago, MoonSpot said:

I don't use laptops with screens that small.  hate having to hunch over and frack my back and scrape my nose across a screen in order to see whats on it(slight exaggeration).  I opt for using a capable tablet if I need/want to go that small. 

 

Yup.  However if you want to be proficient in most work environments, many need a numpad to get shit done without making every day aggravatingly slow.

 

Personally would like to see the number row be substituted by the 2 punctuation and brackets rows.  That would center things more, though not enough, while keeping a numpad.

[ ] { } ; : ' " < > / \ | - _ = + are all keys that can be moved to the numbers part of the number row or integrated into and around a numpad via shift and/or func ops. Primary punctuation keys (period, comma & question mark) are harder to move radically without causing riots.

Probably a needs good deal more refinement, but I think the number row is completely useless and could stand to see it and the 2 punctuation rows supplanted when there is a numpad present.

On laptops like this you can usually toggle an area of the keyboard on the right to act as a numpad. You can on my x220, I'm not sure about the t495 but I don't see why that shouldn't be the case. On some laptops you can even use the trackpad as a numpad.

[MoonSpot]

36 minutes ago, Sauron said:

On laptops like this you can usually toggle an area of the keyboard on the right to act as a numpad. You can on my x220, I'm not sure about the t495 but I don't see why that shouldn't be the case. On some laptops you can even use the trackpad as a numpad. 

Yeah, I had an old dell lattitude with that while in college.  Might've just been me, but I couldn't get used to the keys not being aligned straight(up & down), kinking my wrist and hitting up the func key was just another step.  Pretty much would only use it when completely shifting my position so I wouldn't bend my wrist so much.  Actually ended up buying a usb numpad peripheral for that laptop some time later and have never bought another laptop without a keypad since because I know I want and need one having gone without one before.

 

Have not tried a trackpad/numpad as of yet.  Might not be bad, but missing tactile feedback when crunching a bunch of numbers I can see being a bridge too far for many.

[Sauron]

14 minutes ago, MoonSpot said:

Yeah, I had an old dell lattitude with that while in college.  Might've just been me, but I couldn't get used to the keys not being aligned straight(up & down), kinking my wrist and hitting up the func key was just another step.  Pretty much would only use it when completely shifting my position so I wouldn't bend my wrist so much.  Actually ended up buying a usb numpad peripheral for that laptop some time later and have never bought another laptop without a keypad since because I know I want and need one having gone without one before.

 

Have not tried a trackpad/numpad as of yet.  Might not be bad, but missing tactile feedback when crunching a bunch of numbers I can see being a bridge too far for many.

I guess if you really need the numpad the trackpad is no substitute, personally I hardly ever need one though.

[Scheer]

5 hours ago, dizmo said:

Interesting. I wonder how they'll perform battery life wise compared to their Intel counterparts. Always been the weak point for AMD mobile. 

 

No 15" version though, so unfortunately it doesn't meet my needs for a new machine. 

Not sure which CPU it was (assuming R5 2500U as we usually just go mid tier), and far from scientific... but just trained a new guy today who was given an E585 and in 2 hours it was down to 50% battery without doing much on it. Might be worse than my E531 with a i5-3230m that is almost 6 years old...

 

It also could have been syncing a ton in the background eating away at the battery.

[iamdarkyoshi]

19 minutes ago, Scheer said:

Not sure which CPU it was (assuming R5 2500U as we usually just go mid tier), and far from scientific... but just trained a new guy today who was given an E585 and in 2 hours it was down to 50% battery without doing much on it. Might be worse than my E531 with a i5-3230m that is almost 6 years old...

 

It also could have been syncing a ton in the background eating away at the battery.

My brother has a ryzen 2 in 1 and the battery life is quite impressive. I think the chip only has like a 25w TDP

[AlTech]

As my report seemed to be completely ignored I'm going to repeat it here.

 

This title is misleading. Thinkpad Ryzen launched a year ago.

 

I would know because I made the post.

 

There are changes as the Ryzen CPUs are now in the T and X series as well but to say that Thinkpad goes Ryzen is insulting. The E485, E585, A285, A485 and other thinkpads launched with Ryzen after my topic was created and a long time before this topic was made.

 

Please update your title to not be clickbait and misleading. Thanks.

[AlTech]

6 hours ago, dizmo said:

Interesting. I wonder how they'll perform battery life wise compared to their Intel counterparts. Always been the weak point for AMD mobile. 

 

No 15" version though, so unfortunately it doesn't meet my needs for a new machine. 

The T590 exists.

[SenKa]

6 hours ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

Took them long enough.

ALSO DON'T CAPITALIZE LITERALLY EVERY FIRST LETTER IN THE TITLE REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

But its correct english grammar for titles 

[SenKa]

Lenovo has been making cheaper AMD based thinkpads for ages now. The fact that those (likely still cheaper) AMD thinkpads now have performance worth actually existing? I see many businesses going AMD in the future...

[Nowak]

@iamdarkyoshi Ryzen ThinkPads already exist.

[iamdarkyoshi]

3 minutes ago, Nowak said:

@iamdarkyoshi Ryzen ThinkPads already exist.

 

I've never heard of the A series though. I wonder what the difference is...

 

The ones in this article seem to be based off the intel variants, while that one's a from the ground up? idfk, their naming scheme is so confusing now

[Nowak]

1 minute ago, iamdarkyoshi said:

 

I've never heard of the A series though. I wonder what the difference is...

 

The ones in this article seem to be based off the intel variants, while that one's a from the ground up? idfk, their naming scheme is so confusing now

The A series was basically just Intel ThinkPads with AMD hardware instead, and also apparently thermal throttling. Seems that Lenovo just merged the T and A series instead of keeping separate product lines.

[AlTech]

2 minutes ago, iamdarkyoshi said:

 

I've never heard of the A series though. I wonder what the difference is...

 

The ones in this article seem to be based off the intel variants, while that one's a from the ground up? idfk, their naming scheme is so confusing now

 

As @Nowak said. the A series was basically the T series with AMD CPUs instead of Intel ones.

[AlTech]

5 hours ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

That's pretty nice, I might go back to wanting a ThinkPad for my next laptop.

I should warn you though that Thinkpads seem to be getting continually worse. The Whiskey lake and Ryzen thinkpads don't even have upgradable RAM, a hallmark of traditional Thinkpads.

 

The kaby lake refresh Thinkpads were the last real thinkpads imho although they've certainly gone down in quality even before then.

[GDRRiley]

Ugh thinking about my new laptop for college its so far between one of these and an HP 445 G6 machine powered by ryzen. 

[AlTech]

@iamdarkyoshi

 

So, is the title going to be changed considering Ryzen Thinkpads came out in 2018? This is just a minor change to the lineup but nothing serious or major like the original.

[iamdarkyoshi]

50 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

@iamdarkyoshi

 

So, is the title going to be changed considering Ryzen Thinkpads came out in 2018? This is just a minor change to the lineup but nothing serious or major like the original.

Done. Finally got some free time to edit the title lmao

[AlTech]

49 minutes ago, iamdarkyoshi said:

Done. Finally got some free time to edit the title lmao

I still think the "Thinkpad goes Ryzen" part is somewhat misleading but this is a much better title than before.

[Trixanity]

8 hours ago, Scheer said:

Not sure which CPU it was (assuming R5 2500U as we usually just go mid tier), and far from scientific... but just trained a new guy today who was given an E585 and in 2 hours it was down to 50% battery without doing much on it. Might be worse than my E531 with a i5-3230m that is almost 6 years old...

 

It also could have been syncing a ton in the background eating away at the battery.

The first 2000 series APUs did have issues with increased battery drain and generally the OEM implementations were pretty bad to boot.

 

Personally, unless heavily discounted, I'd only buy 3000 series as AMD have fixed some of the battery issues and OEMs have had time to figure out what to do with the chips instead of just stuffing them into cast-off Intel laptop designs.

 

Of course, we all know 7nm is when the real magic happens but if you're in the market for a laptop now then you probably can't wait that long.

[williamcll]

How much performance difference is this 3700U compared to the 2700 or 2700X in other ryzen latops?

[Trixanity]

45 minutes ago, williamcll said:

How much performance difference is this 3700U compared to the 2700 or 2700X in other ryzen latops?

AMD says up to 8% better performance (accomplished through slightly higher clock speed, better boost algorithms and bigger L3 cache). Will probably vary from design to design.