Lenovo quietly introduces new affordable ThinkPads with AMD Ryzen Mobile and Up To 9 Hours of Battery Life

[potoooooooo]

2 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

These are 15w Chips with low res screens so I don't see why not.

Because my experience with laptops with low res 15" screens and 15W chips is that they'll be getting 6 to 7.

[AlTech]

Just now, potoooooooo said:

Because my experience with laptops with low res 15" screens and 15W chips is that they'll be getting 6 to 7.

The 15" definitely won't get the full 9 hours for sure. But i'd hope that the 14" gets at least 8.

[descendency]

They claim 9 hours on this, but for a similar product (Thinkpad T480) you get a more powerful (Intel) CPU and a better screen... with a claimed battery life of 14 hours (expandable to 27)

 

Intel may be falling behind in Desktop CPUs but they are still a generation ahead in laptop CPUs. 

[AlTech]

2 minutes ago, descendency said:

They claim 9 hours on this, but for a similar product (Thinkpad T480) you get a more powerful (Intel) CPU and a better screen... with a claimed battery life of 14 hours (expandable to 27)

 

Intel may be falling behind in Desktop CPUs but they are still a generation ahead in laptop CPUs. 

Ummm no.

 

On the T480 they most likely have a much larger battery. The E485 and E585 have a very small battery for their size. Ryzen Mobile is slightly less efficient but not by that much.

[Jito463]

9 hours ago, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

>1366x768

 

It was terrible on my old IdeaPad Y410P in 2013 and it's beyond unacceptable in 2018

My HP laptop I use while on my lunch breaks at work runs 1366x768, and I think it's just fine.  Not everything needs to be 4k, 2k or even 1080p.

[Jito463]

1 minute ago, AluminiumTech said:

Ummm no.

 

On the T480 they most likely have a much larger battery. The E485 and E585 have a very small battery for their size. Ryzen Mobile is slightly less efficient but not by that much.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/ThinkPad-T480s-ThinkPad-T480-ThinkPad-T580-Quad-Core-CPUs-and-the-GeForce-MX150-are-coming-to-the-traditional-T-series.273172.0.html

@descendency AT is right, they have a 57Wh battery on the T480, as opposed to the 45Wh battery in this model.

[DeScruff]

6 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

My HP laptop I use while on my lunch breaks at work runs 1366x768, and I think it's just fine.  Not everything needs to be 4k, 2k or even 1080p.

Its depends on the use case I know using Game Maker Studio 2 at 768 feels so cramped its practically unusable. (And a lot of other programs are going the same way with flashier and larger UIs to accommodate touch screen laptops.)
Im honestly surprised 1600x900 only exsts in 17" screens. The difference it makes in 17" laptops is like night and day.
- Ive always noted how much the extra 120 pixels in height helps with productivity in 1200p vs 1080p. And going from 768 to 900 is an even larger difference.
 

[leadeater]

4 hours ago, Trixanity said:

My reference to empty space is a brand new Dell Inspiron - I mean look at the damn internals:

https://imgur.com/gallery/bNHRG#1fWTC1y

It's horrifying. It's the 2016 design I was talking about. At least it has an SSD but god damn it - it pisses me off.

Yea, I've seen the same thing for Intel laptops though. Current HP EliteBooks aren't design master pieces either heh. They just put a lot of plastic over the component areas to hide that fact.

 

4 hours ago, Trixanity said:

And it doesn't even have to be XPS. It could be a HP system, an Acer system, Asus system, Lenovo system or whatever the case may be. I just don't want to pay the same or more while they cut corners compared to the Intel system and push out an AMD system that has received no attention to detail or any QA work.

Well I'd put these Lenovo laptops in with that unless testing shows otherwise, 1080p screen models of course though.

 

Then you do have other good options like HP Envy x360 Ryzen models.

https://store.hp.com/us/en/pdp/hp-envy-x360-convertible-laptop-15z-touch-1za07av-1

https://store.hp.com/us/en/pdp/hp-envy-x360-convertible-laptop-15t-1za23av-1

 

Base price is more than the Intel i5 base model but maybe the Ryzen 2500U just costs more?

 

There are also HP EliteBooks coming in very soon.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-ryzen-vega-laptops-hp-elitebook,36613.html

http://technologynews.site/2018/03/05/hp-elitebook-735-745-and-755-g5-with-amd-ryzen-more-than-a-dozen-models-planned/ (better pictures, worse info)

 

Acer Swift 3 looks to have decent options too but I know nothing about those laptops at all.

[AlTech]

5 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

https://www.notebookcheck.net/ThinkPad-T480s-ThinkPad-T480-ThinkPad-T580-Quad-Core-CPUs-and-the-GeForce-MX150-are-coming-to-the-traditional-T-series.273172.0.html

@descendency AT is right, they have a 57Wh battery on the T480, as opposed to the 45Wh battery in this model.

You can't really compare the efficiency of laptops with totally different battery capacities and totally different CPUs together.

[leadeater]

52 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

My HP laptop I use while on my lunch breaks at work runs 1366x768, and I think it's just fine.  Not everything needs to be 4k, 2k or even 1080p.

I'd rather a laptop with a sensible screen resolution that the components inside can run properly than have the thing max out on simple tasks due to having a 4k screen it can't actually drive decently. And I don't think I've ever used a laptop and gone "I wish this was 4k" but I have used a laptop and gone "I wish this wasn't 4k" lol. Leave 4k to large size dedicated monitors, has no place on 14" screens, not until UI scaling is sorted out on everything so I can seen what's on the screen at all times.

[AlTech]

20 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Yea, I've seen the same thing for Intel laptops though. Current HP EliteBooks aren't design master pieces either heh. They just put a lot of plastic over the component areas to hide that fact.

 

Well I'd put these Lenovo laptops in with that unless testing shows otherwise, 1080p screen models of course though.

 

Then you do have other good options like HP Envy x360 Ryzen models.

https://store.hp.com/us/en/pdp/hp-envy-x360-convertible-laptop-15z-touch-1za07av-1

https://store.hp.com/us/en/pdp/hp-envy-x360-convertible-laptop-15t-1za23av-1

 

Base price is more than the Intel i5 base model but maybe the Ryzen 2500U just costs more?

Nope. quite the opposite.

 

The i5 you linked is on sale for $699.99 but it's regular base price is $869.99 which is higher than the Ryzen model's $749.99

[Trixanity]

30 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Yea, I've seen the same thing for Intel laptops though. Current HP EliteBooks aren't design master pieces either heh. They just put a lot of plastic over the component areas to hide that fact.

 

Well I'd put these Lenovo laptops in with that unless testing shows otherwise, 1080p screen models of course though.

 

Then you do have other good options like HP Envy x360 Ryzen models.

https://store.hp.com/us/en/pdp/hp-envy-x360-convertible-laptop-15z-touch-1za07av-1

https://store.hp.com/us/en/pdp/hp-envy-x360-convertible-laptop-15t-1za23av-1

 

Base price is more than the Intel i5 base model but maybe the Ryzen 2500U just costs more?

 

There are also HP EliteBooks coming in very soon.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-ryzen-vega-laptops-hp-elitebook,36613.html

http://technologynews.site/2018/03/05/hp-elitebook-735-745-and-755-g5-with-amd-ryzen-more-than-a-dozen-models-planned/ (better pictures, worse info)

 

Acer Swift 3 looks to have decent options too but I know nothing about those laptops at all.

Notebookcheck on the HP Envy x360 15 and its performance:

Quote

Our HP system is also fatally buggy in addition to being very slow. We experienced multiple freezes and "white out" screens seemingly at random intervals throughout the entirety of our testing despite having updated both Windows and AMD's graphical drivers to the latest at the time of writing. Most of the crashes would occur during benchmarks involving FurMark or system monitors not unlike on the desktop Ryzen CPUs, but some would even occur whilst browsing or word processing

It may have been fixed later but I've seen these descriptions a few times now and it's a damn shame.

 

They also still don't have unified drivers for APUs. So sometimes you'll get better performance by running standard graphics drivers instead and sometimes with APU drivers. It's silly.

 

So many big and small problems that I wonder why AMD don't start enforcing better designs. Of course it goes without saying that they need to step up their software game too.

[leadeater]

4 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Nope. quite the opposite.

 

The i5 you linked is on sale for $699.99 but it's regular base price is $869.99 which is higher than the Ryzen model's $749.99

I doubt it will go back up to that price, putting something "on sale" is a great marketing tactic to make people think they are getting a good deal.

[79wjd]

13 minutes ago, leadeater said:

I'd rather a laptop with a sensible screen resolution that the components inside can run properly than have the thing max out on simple tasks due to having a 4k screen it can't actually drive decently. And I don't think I've ever used a laptop and gone "I wish this was 4k" but I have used a laptop and gone "I wish this wasn't 4k" lol. Leave 4k to large size dedicated monitors, has no place on 14" screens, not until UI scaling is sorted out on everything so I can seen what's on the screen at all times.

Agreed, although I don't personally find 1080p to offer enough screen space at >13". I like QHD on laptops. 

[descendency]

1 hour ago, Jito463 said:

https://www.notebookcheck.net/ThinkPad-T480s-ThinkPad-T480-ThinkPad-T580-Quad-Core-CPUs-and-the-GeForce-MX150-are-coming-to-the-traditional-T-series.273172.0.html

@descendency AT is right, they have a 57Wh battery on the T480, as opposed to the 45Wh battery in this model.

45/57 * 14 = 11. That also ignores the fact that the T480 has a 1080p screen vs the 1366x768. 

 

That's a substantial difference in CPU efficiency. 

[dalekphalm]

2 hours ago, Jito463 said:

My HP laptop I use while on my lunch breaks at work runs 1366x768, and I think it's just fine.  Not everything needs to be 4k, 2k or even 1080p.

*eye twitches uncontrollably*

 

Please don't use the term 2K when referring to monitor resolutions. I assume by "2K", you actually meant 1440p?

 

2K means* "approximately 2000 pixels of horizontal resolution" (*note: the official DCI 2K spec is 2048 x 1080). 1440p can at best be described as "2.5K". At least when people bitch about calling UHD (2160p) "4K", 3840 pixels is almost 4000, so using "4K" to refer to UHD informally is very close. The closest PC Resolution to 2K is 1080p - they're only off by 128 horizontal pixels (2048 vs 1920).

 

And yes, I know some phone manufacturers started calling 1440p "2K", but that doesn't make it right lol.

 

/end rant

[Silentprototipe]

Ay, Finally more Ryzen laptops . I want more people to experience this glorious chip dammit! We need more Ryzen laptops! 

 

[D13H4RD]

9 hours ago, Jito463 said:

My HP laptop I use while on my lunch breaks at work runs 1366x768, and I think it's just fine.  Not everything needs to be 4k, 2k or even 1080p.

It's not the resolution. It's the scaling.

 

1366x768 just looks so big due to the scaling and there's barely any room for me to do stuff. 1600x900 will be fine. Not everyone needs 1080p, sure, but this is 2018, and 1366x768 honestly should have been relegated to super budget options a long while ago.

[Jito463]

2 hours ago, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

there's barely any room for me to do stuff.

There's the key words.  For you it's a problem.  It's not an issue for everyone, though.

[D13H4RD]

5 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

There's the key words.  For you it's a problem.  It's not an issue for everyone, though.

I know it's not an issue for everyone, but surely, a 1600x900 display isn't pricey, no?

 

I know it's $600, but like I said, it's 2018. Cheap laptops are already having 1600x900 displays. I know resolution isn't everything and it does get some points for being IPS, but it's just odd that this is the number that I'm still seeing on a laptop that isn't super-budget.

[IgorM]

5 minutes ago, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

I know it's not an issue for everyone, but surely, a 1600x900 display isn't pricey, no?

 

I know it's $600, but like I said, it's 2018. Cheap laptops are already having 1600x900 displays. I know resolution isn't everything and it does get some points for being IPS, but it's just odd that this is the number that I'm still seeing on a laptop that isn't super-budget.

For $600 in 2018, a laptop must have a 1080p screen 

[leadeater]

32 minutes ago, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

I know it's not an issue for everyone, but surely, a 1600x900 display isn't pricey, no?

 

I know it's $600, but like I said, it's 2018. Cheap laptops are already having 1600x900 displays. I know resolution isn't everything and it does get some points for being IPS, but it's just odd that this is the number that I'm still seeing on a laptop that isn't super-budget.

Just buy the 1080p model then, you're not forced to have the low res screen. Should just be the one 1080p screen though.

[D13H4RD]

39 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Just buy the 1080p model then, you're not forced to have the low res screen. Should just be the one 1080p screen though.

Yeah, I'm glad the option is there.

 

But really, that should have been the only option. Unless you're really penny pinching, I'm not really willing to sacrifice scaling.

[Guest]

On 4/21/2018 at 4:47 AM, WhisperingKnickers said:

I am happy to see some quality amd chips in laptops. It seems like for the longest time the only amd cpus in laptops were really poopy ones. I am excited to see how more amd laptop cpus influences the laptop market

I'd love to see AMD FX in a laptop tbh. 

[Sniperfox47]

14 hours ago, descendency said:

45/57 * 14 = 11. That also ignores the fact that the T480 has a 1080p screen vs the 1366x768. 

 

That's a substantial difference in CPU efficiency. 

Just want to point out that that's also ignoring all the other components that may contribute to a lower battery life such as radios, the screen's backlight tech, audio, and other high power use components.

 

They're not really comparable in any meaningful way.