Lenovo ThinkPad T490s (i5, Low Power FHD) Laptop Review

[Redaktion]

It is a bit surprising that the ThinkPad T490s gets a new chassis since the manufacturer already redesigned the model last year. There are more changes, but not all of the are positive. We have reviewed the new ThinkPad T490s with the Low Power 1080p screen.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-T490s-i5-Low-Power-FHD-Laptop-Review.420689.0.html

[Woburg]

Let us see if people will be receptive to soldered ram and wifi on a thinkpad.

[ngazi]

X1 Carbon must have been extremely popular with corporate to result in this cannibal. Even the CPU performance is about the same. The progression from Carbon to T490s to X390 is pretty much how much does your company care about you.

T480s and T490s can't really be compared. Will be great to see T490 compared to T480s.

[Meeeeeee]

I would still prefer the t480s over the t490s. It has much better CPU performance under sustained load, full sized SD card for photographers, mx150 GPU, all for the same price of around $1300, including the wqhd screen which is similar to the one on the x1 carbon with better response time and similar color accuracy.
I would be interested to see if the t495s with Vega or t490 with mx230 performs differently.

[splus]

Why is this laptop so highly rated? It doesn't really deserve it.

[william0722takeshi]

What's happening to Lenovo this year, The Thinkpad T590 is also sharing the same motherboard with the T490.

[sticky]

"competitors are not perfect, either"

Bravo NBC, what a brilliant rationale that is. Now you guys better make it your motto.

[nobodyinparticular]

This is insane. The previous T480s had faster performance, better connectivity, more upgradability, only marginally inferior battery life-- yet got a 90%. This dumpster fire got a 92%. Until I hear a better explanation I'm assuming Notebookcheck is letting Lenovo buy good reviews; last article I read here.

[Benjamin Herzig]

For anyone who is questioning the rating, please read: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Our-Rating-Criteria.16002.0.html

Notebookcheck has a standardized rating that is weighted for each laptop class – the T490s is an office laptop, which means sub-ratings like input devices, the build quality and the system noise are extremely important. These are all categories where the T490s excels.

Also, the the ThinkPad T480s achieved a rating of 91 %, not 90 %: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-T480s-i5-WQHD-Laptop-Review.284832.0.html

[Konstantinos]

Not long ago (2014), on Thinkpad T440p you could upgrade literaly everything:
CPU & iGPU, RAM memory, SSD, WiFi card, dual battery, etc...

How did we ended up to this crap! Nothing to upgrade on a professional notebook!!!

NO THANKS

[JustLooking]

Is the screen on par with that of Razer Blade Stealth? (I don't mind slow response tho.)

[Liz]

I'm mostly intrigued with two things: whether the 250 nit screen is as good as the 400 nits, despite the lower brightness (the 400 nits includes the obligatory IR camera, which raises the price substantially).
And also the fixed battery. I'm still working with the t440s and even though the single battery of the t490s is supposed to have a better runtime than both t440s batteries combined, it was good to be able to remove one battery and save it while the computer was on mains.
Personally, what would interest me in that computer is the weight, the better keyboard (I type a lot) and the very long runtime. But I totally get why people are mad about the low maintenance capability. I only changed the SSD on my T440s but yeah, having soldered RAM is really pushing to get more RAM "just in case", even if we don't necessarily need it for office work.

[Talisker]

Is there a good place to look for numerical information on key travel and related keyboard information? the qualitative judgements are helpful, but it would also also be great to see quantitative comparisons of the T490, T490s, and X1 Carbon.

[Andrea]

I'm a professional IT consultant.
No RJ45 connector is NOT a professional notebook.
Very, very few company allow to connect via WiFi
Soldered RAM, mean no expansion. Which company would consider a non upgradeable laptop for their resouces ?
This  one shouldn't either be named Thinkpad T.

[t490]

The second SSD is still not supported in the WWAN module. Works on T480 but not T490 & T490s