Lenovo ThinkPad T495 Review: business laptop with AMD processor, long battery life, and good display

[Redaktion]

Lenovo's ThinkPad T495 is finally a full-fledged AMD business notebook with almost no compromises compared to its T490 sibling with Intel CPU. It might even be the better choice for many office users thanks to its lower price.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-T495-Review-business-laptop-with-AMD-processor-long-battery-life-and-good-display.434716.0.html

[DavidC1]

Andreas Osthoff,

How are you guys measuring power consumption? I've seen quite a few times where the power use numbers do not correspond to battery life numbers.

I'm thinking its because power numbers are measuring plugged-in power numbers and the whole power profile changes once the battery is being used.

It seems that's the most plausible explanation as the meter will have to be in line with the battery, and doing that with every laptop will be exceedingly difficult.

But it also means you can't connect the power numbers to battery life numbers.

[fmyhr]

Shame Lenovo continues to miss the opportunity for using ECC RAM in these AMD systems. The Ryzen Pro CPU supports it:
https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/amd/ryzen_5/pro_3500u
But T495 almost certainly does not, especially with 1 stick of (almost certainly) non-ECC RAM soldered onboard. Lenovo's PSREF is silent on this question:
https://psref.lenovo.com/
I understand that many buyers may not care or even know about ECC, but it would be nice if at least *one* AMD laptop made its use possible. Guess Lenovo will not be leading the way.  :(

[JL55]

The review mentioned the M.2 2242 WWAN slot can be used for SSD, but have you tried to install one and test whether it works? Someone from Reddit tries that on T490 and it didn't work. Really want to know if T495 has that working.

[william blake]

this for 1k euro? look like a total steal. no flaws for that price.
but where are the pics? only 2, really?

[NikoB]

My Lenovo S340-15API with 3500U, have TDP 11-12W in "sustained" mode by AIDA V6 stress test and in CBR15 in cycle with 615+.

580 in CBR15 in sustained mode for T490 with is shame with 22W TDP!

Testers, you are clearly measuring TDP incorrectly!

This, in turn, begs the question why the Intel CPU in the T490 is allowed to consume a full 25 W of power...

Everything is simple - Intel brings Lenovo a suitcase of money ;), so that they do not make the best decisions on AMD from the 3xxx series. Not only that, Lenovo deliberately worsens memory optimization for AMD - when tested in AIDA64, the memory controller gives a monstrous delay of 115-120 ns! While Intel has 50-70ns, i.e. twice as fast (Notebookcheck not measure memory delay!)! Moreover, Command Rate = 2T, instead of fast 1T, the memory delays themselves are braking, despite the fact that the memory runs at a frequency of 2400 MHz and the memory themselves at 2666 from fabric, i.e. can much faster ...

Obviously, Lenovo does not want to make fast really fast decisions on AMD, although their processors can run at much higher TDP in impulse load (above 60W TDP). She deliberately underestimates TDP below normal, although people buy laptops, thinking that they take them with 15W processors ...

and with all this, the Ryzen Master utility refuses to work with mobile processors and ThrottleStop also does not work with AMD processors, which makes it impossible to carry out undervolting, as with AMD processors and normally unlock TDP.

Plus, as AMD found out in mobile processors, a non-working VP9 decoder for 4k@60fps on YouTube. Despite the 5-10% load on cpu and 75-80% load on gpu, the video comes with friezes and at a lower frequency than 60fps, this is clearly visible by eye.

[Andreas Osthoff]

@NikoB

I'm not sure what tool you use to determine the power consumption of the CPU, but I guess it is HWiNFO. Unfortunately, the tool does not show correct values for AMD processors.

I recommend you use AMD's own tool uProf, which will show the actual values.

[Max T]

The T495 devices I tested so far had TDP limits at 25W and STAPM limit at 22W. Non of the devices were able to draw more than 25W even for a short duration by default. But these limits can easily be removed to unlock the CPUs full performance.

But there is a serious decrease of the performance in battery mode. Half of the cores are limited to the minimal clock speed (around 1.3GHz which is way under the base clock) while the other half is able to boost up over 3GHz.
Every T495 owner I talked to share this experience on both Windows and Linux as well as both available CPUs. Are you sure that you get the same performance on battery?

And yes, you have to use a tool like AMD uProf to get the actual power consumption. Most tools falsely report a power consumption around 12W.

[Daxo]

The T495 devices I tested so far had TDP limits at 25W and STAPM limit at 22W. Non of the devices were able to draw more than 25W even for a short duration by default. But these limits can easily be removed to unlock the CPUs full performance.

But there is a serious decrease of the performance in battery mode. Half of the cores are limited to the minimal clock speed (around 1.3GHz which is way under the base clock) while the other half is able to boost up over 3GHz.
Every T495 owner I talked to share this experience on both Windows and Linux as well as both available CPUs. Are you sure that you get the same performance on battery?

And yes, you have to use a tool like AMD uProf to get the actual power consumption. Most tools falsely report a power consumption around 12W.

You need to change the power settings in the BIOS, by default the battery mode is in battery optimized whereas on AC power it is in max performance.

check this post:

forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-T400-T500-and-newer-T/T495-Heavy-Throttling-on-Battery/td-p/4526828

[Max T]

You need to change the power settings in the BIOS, by default the battery mode is in battery optimized whereas on AC power it is in max performance.

check this post:

forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-T400-T500-and-newer-T/T495-Heavy-Throttling-on-Battery/td-p/4526828

According to the posts you linked, this issue is not entirely solved by changing BIOS settings. Apparently it resets on AC power.

[A]

@Andreas Osthoff - Can you test the power consumption with a single ram stick instead of 2?

It seems AMD has fixed many of the power consumption issues, but idle power usage seems quite a bit higher. So I wonder does AMD still have more work to do with idle performance or is that extra ram chip making some of that difference.

[Sim]

Is the max memory 40GB? The datasheet says 32GB.

[Mokujin]

The review mentioned the M.2 2242 WWAN slot can be used for SSD, but have you tried to install one and test whether it works? Someone from Reddit tries that on T490 and it didn't work. Really want to know if T495 has that working.

The reviewer is incorrect. I can confirm that the WWAN slot does NOT accept a SSD. I upgraded my own T495 with a 2TB SSD and installed the stock 128GB SSD in the WWAN slot. It physically fits, but the machine doesn't recognize it.

Lenovo could of course enable it in a future BIOS update, but I wouldn't count on it. They will likely only make it possible to unstall 2 SSDs in their performance/workstation models.

[sebastianb88]

You need to change the power settings in the BIOS, by default the battery mode is in battery optimized whereas on AC power it is in max performance.

check this post:

forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-T400-T500-and-newer-T/T495-Heavy-Throttling-on-Battery/td-p/4526828

According to the posts you linked, this issue is not entirely solved by changing BIOS settings. Apparently it resets on AC power.

Correct, I have the same issue.

[João]

It would be cool if you guys reviewed the Lenovo ThinkPad T495 with the AMD Ryzen™ 7 PRO 3700U.