ThinkPad W540 - a 'review' 2022 perspective on a 2013 laptop

SleepDeprivationTheITGuy · November 12, 2022

I needed a cheap laptop I could use for school and work, and every option I came across just seemed like a ripoff. Most people here are probably familiar with laptops like the HP Stream, lower-end Lenovo IdeaPads (yuck, AMD A6), and the like. Everyone's covered them, they've got terrible build quality, keyboard/trackpad feel, lack any real upgrade or expansion options, and of course are very slow. Slower than business laptops from a decade ago or more. This meant basically accepting from the beginning that I would not be buying something new.

After scrolling through hundreds of cheap Skylake/Kaby Lake dual-core i5 laptops that I knew would be slow from experience, I came across this: the W540. I'd seen ThinkPads before but had never seen a W-series one before, seems like it's a portable workstation. It was $190 (around $215 after shipping & taxes) and for the specs I felt like I had to buy it. Though I will consider this to be a ~$300 laptop since I did upgrade the screen to an IPS one for $50 and grabbed a proper 3-button trackpad from a T450 for $20. It was absolutely usable with the original display and trackpad, I just wanted it to be a little nicer.

Specs in full:

CPU: i7-4900MQ
RAM: 16GB (4x4) DDR3L-1600
GPU: Quadro K2100M

Performance

This is the reason someone would buy a laptop like this in 2014 when the W540 was brand new, and it's really still the case today if you're on this tight of a budget. The i7-4900MQ in my machine (after a repaste) was able to deliver 3,658 points in Geekbench 5 multi-core with sustained loads keeping the CPU at a fairly comfortable 88 degrees. Compared to the A6-9220e found commonly in cheap new laptops, it delivered about 7 times the multi-core performance, as on average the 9220e got around 500 points depending on the machine. The Celeron CPUs (like the N4000 and N4020) found in the Stream and similar machines didn't fare much better against the old 4900MQ, delivering around 700-800 points. This puts the 4900MQ around 4.5x faster.

The 4900MQ is pretty high clocking for a mobile CPU of the time with tons of cache and 4c/8t, so as expected, desktop usage is very fast. Absolutely no hesitation to open from pretty much any app on Linux.

The GPU is nothing to write home about. While my example does have the K2100M (the top option for this machine), it has very little use for my workload and so most of the time I just have it disabled. When it's enabled for light gaming, it runs older games very well though. I ran Minecraft 1.16.5 with over 200 mods at a fairly consistent 60fps with 10 chunk render distance. Both Portal games run great (duh), Celeste and Hollow Knight run very well, and even Phasmophobia is playable (40-50fps) on the W540 with the lowest settings.

Battery Life

It's surprisingly okay all things considered, but definitely not good.

With web browsing usage, I get around 4 hours of constant usage on the 100Wh 9-cell battery. With some sleep/idle time, this goes to around 5 or 6 hours.

I wanted a little bit of reassurance so I bought a Kingsener spare battery for this machine with the same 100Wh capacity as the original.

Build, Fit & Finish

It's not a MacBook, that's for sure...

The positives: The keyboard has zero flex whatsoever, the hinges are extremely strong but yet open easily, and all plastics have a nice textured feel to them. The lid makes a very nice flat work surface for when you need something to set paper on as well. Key feel on the keyboard is fantastic. Not the best, but definitely at the point where I can't ask for more. Good key travel, very tactile, and the keycaps are lightly textured and comfortable.

Negatives: The left palmrest gets hot during use as it basically sits right above the CPU, my hand was sweating after a couple hours. Definitely not the type of laptop I would want to use on my lap. The palmrest also has some flex to it, to the point where it is somewhat noticeable but not bothersome. Also, this laptop is absolutely huge. With the AC adapter, 9-cell battery, and laptop all together, this tips the scale at about 8.5 pounds. And at just over an inch thick, you'll struggle to fit this machine into a small book bag or carrying case comfortably. It really needs to be put into a backpack.

Display

It's bad.

Exactly what I would expect from a 1080p TN panel. Bad viewing angles, "eh" colors, pretty awful contrast, and overall just not very nice to look at. Absolutely usable, but I decided that the $50 was worth it for an aftermarket IPS screen.

Ports & Expandability

This is another place where the W540 really shines. The previous owner of this machine installed an ExpressCard into the slot in the machine from the factory that adds 2 USB 3.0 ports, a card that can be found for around $12 online. This makes for a mind-boggling 6 total USB ports, 4 of which are USB 3.0. Apart from the gigabit ethernet port, the rest of the port selection on this machine helps date it a bit. VGA, Thunderbolt 1, SD card slot, DVD drive, and even a smart card slot. Thunderbolt, USB, and ethernet are really the only ones used by me on a daily basis but having options is always nice.

The W540 is very easy to upgrade for most things. The RAM and SATA SSD are behind a door secured by 2 screws, where you'll find a 2.5" SATA III drive slot (currently occupied by the SSD, and 4 DDR3 slots. Behind the other door and one screw is the WiFi card, CMOS battery, and an M.2 2242 slot. This can be used for SSDs (as tried by others with this machine), but it was only intended to be used as cache for mechanical disks, so take that with what you will. The display can be swapped by snapping off the plastic bezel and simply removing 4 Phillip's head screws and disconnecting the old one to reconnect the new one.

Conclusion

Definitely an interesting used laptop choice. Of course it's not for everyone due to its immense weight and size as well as the mediocre battery life, but I would certainly put it firmly ahead of anything you could buy used at the same price. At almost 9 years old it's still better in almost every way than lots of brand new laptops, and that's fairly impressive due to the nature of consumer electronics.

LloydLynx · November 12, 2022

Hows the trackpoint feel? Wondering if yours stutters badly since you've also got a 40 series Thinkpad.

SleepDeprivationTheITGuy · November 12, 2022

9 hours ago, LloydLynx said:

Hows the trackpoint feel? Wondering if yours stutters badly since you've also got a 40 series Thinkpad.

I rarely use the trackpoint, but mine feels smooth personally. I used it a lot more before I had swapped the strange single-piece trackpad. Maybe try taking the trackpoint nub off and blasting that part of the keyboard with some compressed air.

LloydLynx · November 12, 2022

2 hours ago, SleepDeprivationTheITGuy said:

Maybe try taking the trackpoint nub off and blasting that part of the keyboard with some compressed air.

I've tried replacing the keyboard and touchpad, ribon cables and slots seems in good condition. Also, the touchpad has a movement speed deadzone making it impossible to make precise movements. I just stick to using my Latitude for personal use, since the Thinkpad T440p feels like a first revision product to me. Not to derail your thread sorry. But thank you for your input.

SleepDeprivationTheITGuy · November 12, 2022

10 minutes ago, LloydLynx said:

I've tried replacing the keyboard and touchpad, ribon cables and slots seems in good condition. Also, the touchpad has a movement speed deadzone making it impossible to make precise movements. I just stick to using my Latitude for personal use, since the Thinkpad T440p feels like a first revision product to me. Not to derail your thread sorry. But thank you for your input.

Oh I don't mind at all. The 40 series was absolutely a first revision product that ultimately ended in Lenovo just reverting change in the next iteration, the W541 and T450. Everyone hated the touchpad so much, but the keyboard and trackpoint aren't things I often hear people have problems with. It's interesting to know.