ThinkPad E480 (i5-8250U, RX 550) Notebook Review

[Redaktion]

Too hot stuff The first 2018 ThinkPad is a real price-performance winner - a potential bestseller for Lenovo. Find out in our comprehensive review why the notebook is not recommendable in this configuration.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/ThinkPad-E480-i5-8250U-RX-550-Notebook-Review.280524.0.html

[Miroslav Kravec]

Also annoying is that the two USB 3.0 ports are located on the left, leaving the lonely USB 2.0 port on the right. So if you want fast transfer rates, you have to connect the peripheral device on the left.

Makes perfect sense. Mouse is usually on the right side. For good user experience, you don't want external drives to occupy mouse area.

So, extra stuff on the left, mouse on the right. Good design!

[Dude]

Wow, those temperatures are pretty insane.  Don't have to worry about contraceptives using this thing on my lap.

[Yohanes]

Dell XPS 13 9370 with their new GORE cooling solution is much faster although the size is smaller. I am waiting for Thinkpad T480. If T480 performance is not better than E480, then I might be went with Dell dispate their sub-par keyboard.

[Stefanie Noelle]

I've ordered this laptop and it should arrive next week. Luckily I have chosen 128Gb m2 ssd so I can save money and then buy myself a pcie m2 ssd of my choice. And I am from Switzerland I was surprised to find out about the 1 year warranty since over here this is illegal and all companies have to give you 2 years.

[Mikkel]

Are you going to make a review of the Thinkpad E580 at any point?
I'm curios to see if it has the same temperature problems..

-m

[MSS]

Hi there!

I was thinking of buying a ThinkPad E580 because of it's good customisable options. After reading this review of the E480, I'm quite confused now. Nowhere in the Internet is a detailed review on the E580. Do post one soon! I had way too many hopes on this machine, hope it doesn't get heated up as much as the E480 :(

Another question - How does the HP Probook 450 G5 compare with the ThinkPad E580? Again, both offer very good customisable options and no reviews found on the Internet!!

Do reply soon, have to place the order for a laptop ASAP!

[Malke]

Great review. Thanks for the insights.

Did I read that right that the USB Type C Port must be used for charging -
there is no dedicated charging port? Which means I cant use 2 monitors at the same time while charging the device?

[robnananana]

@Malke/ Multiple Monitors/ USB C:
Some external monitors can charge the laptop.
The USB C cable will be used for image on the external monitor and power on the notebook, all in one.

[Saad Chehade]

Hey, i recently purchased one of these, the e480 with the i7 processor, rx 550 gpu and a harddrive, and decided to add my own ssd. but i cant seem to get it to recognise my sata based m.2 ssd. you guys should mention this in the review as it is an important Piece of information that i cant find any where on the internet. This version of laptop seems to only support pcie m.2 ssd's.

[Abboud]

Hey, i recently purchased one of these, the e480 with the i7 processor, rx 550 gpu and a harddrive, and decided to add my own ssd. but i cant seem to get it to recognise my sata based m.2 ssd. you guys should mention this in the review as it is an important Piece of information that i cant find any where on the internet. This version of laptop seems to only support pcie m.2 ssd's.

If you google the PSREF for the Thinkpad e480 you'll find that they only mention NMVe and not SATA SSD.

[Tweaker]

What the crap Lenovo?  BIOS 1.4 totally obliterates the dGPU.  Whatever happened to your thermal and chassis engineers?  This isn't even all that much heat in a 14-inch laptop. I consider this to be nearly switch-and-bait tactics.

[ruimanalmeida]

If you want a Thinkpad E with some graphics power, without heat problems of a dGPU, probably you should wait for the Thinkpad E485, available this month.

[Tim Elliott]

It would be interesting to see if BIOS update 1.15 has made any difference to the heat v performance problem. Could the use of BIOS 1.12 and Radeon Adrenalin do a better job of performance / heat management ?

[Adrian]

I bought one recently with the i5 8250u and RX550. Took about 7 business days from Shanghai to Sydney. Thank goodness it's come preinstalled with bios 1.12 but now I'm reluctant to update to 1.15 because it's most likely going to gimp my performance. Can't adjust manually with normal gpu software with these unfortunately - it's a 'hybrid' gpu, only turns on when gaming.

I love this thing, it's beautiful yet professional, perfect size, nice screen, keyboard, trackpad, and the performance is great (even the NVMe, coming from Sata ssd this things flies!). It was the best for money proposition and I'm glad I took the punt.

Anyway, I think the heat issues described here are a massive over exaggeration. I had a Toshiba Kira previously, also a beautiful laptop, but man that thing got hot with only integrated graphics. The E480 does get warm, but not crazy hot or anything...who uses Furmark or Prime 95 on a regular basis? Those benches are extreme I believe.

As a result of this review it seems Lenovo has really throttled the RX 550, which is really disappointing because it runs great as it is now, on bios 1.12 and tweaking in Radeon software. It's great to be able to game while I'm away from home. Unfortunately I won't be able to receive any other benefits from the updated bios though.

Ultimately, if anyone is considering it and does not use extreme benchmarks or graphically intensive software above games, then go for it and don't be swayed by supposed heat issues. Sure it gets warm, but not many laptops don't when used on a lap. Keep the fan holes uncovered as best you can.