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

[unnilennium]

i think that the problem of overheating is plaguing every configuration of intel 8xxx series, either U or HQ, throttling is always present. It's bad engineering. With this model lenovo has done worse, because heat from dedicated graphics sum up with cpu heat, and the result is nearly fire... and the solution is a bad choiche. I imagine that the ryzen version of lenovo thinkpad, e485, must be better for lenovo,s sake, even if i suspect they will recycle the same chassis and heat spreader, so no luck, but hoping is not bad...

[Pramod Nimkar]

Dear Lenovo,

I have bought E480 for one of my director and facing abuse due to this on daily basis. I replace the first laptop with same model another laptop but this one worst that 1st one.
Now he is shouting at me like anything. His old i3 laptop is working very much better than this.. Please advise me for replacement.

Pramod Nimkar
9619644475

[Marko]

Is it possible to revert the BIOS settings to the older versions to avoid the performance downgrade?

[Darius]

"Most of the time the system is fast, but sometimes short hangs occur"

So how about this? 6 months passed, can you check if they occur, are there new drivers? You did not mention those in the verdict, so maybe they not felt? Or can you try with another ssd if that was the problem?

[Rumblebuffin]

Well, this is disappointing... 1.8mm travel in the keys? Equal to the quality of the T-series? Sounds like they nerfed the T-series keyboard to the level of the E-series. Lenovo was my last hope for finding a decent laptop keyboard... I guess they don't exist any more. Big-time bummer.

Btw, 1.8mm travel is sufficient for a proficient writer in the same way a well-sharpened kitchen knife is sufficient for a proficient surgeon. It may get the job done if it's all you have available, but that doesn't make it the right tool for the job. Around 2.3 is what you're looking for if you want something decent, though it's only one factor of many. Indented keys, tactile and audio feedback, and key spacing are all factors that work together with travel distance. Good luck finding a keyboard with even one of these things right, let alone all of them.
I have an aging T420, the last of the decent keyboards. That's the standard for a "sufficient" laptop keyboard if you want a good writing experience. This modern stuff is garbage.
Apologies for the rant. It's not the existence of chiclet keyboards that makes me mad... It's the journalists, reviewers, and bloggers who praise it like it's as good or better than what we've lost. Please, please, for the sake of the future, stop calling the barely acceptable "good."

[sticky]

Keyboard is always subjective. For instance, I prefer Surface and Elitebook keyboards to any Thinkpad or mechanical keyboard because I can type faster and more comfortably without making much noise.

Some people including myself actually prefer shorter key travel as it makes it easier for fast typing around 130 wpm. What's more important is the focus on the tactile response and spring action. I've often found Thinkpad keyboards to have comparably more travel but mushy feeling, or tactile enough but lacking in good and even spring action across all keys.

I also prefer smaller sized keys with larger spacing due to my small hands. With the exception of 12", Thinkpads are usually the opposite with large keys and small spacing, making it difficult to move fingers around. And the U shape and a slight concave didn't make much difference for me.

[Alexj4x]

Well, on up-to-date BIOS (BIOS 1.28) my E480 with i7 8550U and RX550 achieved (CPU undervolt proportional -0.108V, no thermal paste replacement/upgrade) in 3Dmark 11:
run 1: 4 771 (3Dmark11 result no 13175941) (Windows 10, power setting "Balanced, Best performance")
run 2: 4 746 (3Dmark11 result no 13175982) (Windows 10, power setting "High performance" [keeps CPU freq on max Turbo Boost even when idling, but probably decreases GPU thermal performance that way or maybe the laptop was just still warm, accumulated heat], TPFanControl with custom "smart 1" mode that goes to "64" fan level when CPU reaches that is faster than BIOS goes up to, judging by ear)

Normal hardware/BIOS fan control is also fixed and rational: lets the CPU achieve normal working temperatures like 45degC up to 50/48 maybe without turning on at all while doing web-browsing and other CPU non-intensive tasks in "Balanced, Better performance" Windows power-management mode (which is most of the time), unless you disable Radeon GPU which causes this embedded fan management algo to go crazy and try to keep your CPU under 40 degC quite aggressively.

That's all on IA offset -0.108V which I advise everyone to try to use [of course appropriate for your CPU), why would you want to produce more heat and waste more energy while your system can be perfectly stable running on much lower voltage (e.g. during max Turbo Boost load it'll stay closer to 1.05V then rather than going up to around 1.28V, makes quite a difference for both performance and battery life I presume).

I'm happy with the purchase, except the quite dark Innolux screen (thanks for both the calibration profiles in your reviews - funny how both models you tested apparently came with the same screen model while being so different judging by the calibration files' difference) and apparently inexplicably used only 2-channel  M.2 PCI-e (NVMe) connector for the SSD (same even on T480 reportedly; only T480s reportedly has PCIe 3.0x4) I haven't confirmed that yet as my upgraded SSD goes up to ~1000MB/s which is sufficient for me either way, random access won't get much better than this SSD anyway). I did some testing and there likely isn't the keyboard firmware problem present that is a culprit on many ThinkPads, e.g. on above-mentioned T480.

[Fernando Pena]

Well, on up-to-date BIOS (BIOS 1.28) my E480 with i7 8550U and RX550 achieved (CPU undervolt proportional -0.108V, no thermal paste replacement/upgrade) in 3Dmark 11:
run 1: 4 771 (3Dmark11 result no 13175941) (Windows 10, power setting "Balanced, Best performance")
run 2: 4 746 (3Dmark11 result no 13175982) (Windows 10, power setting "High performance" [keeps CPU freq on max Turbo Boost even when idling, but probably decreases GPU thermal performance that way or maybe the laptop was just still warm, accumulated heat], TPFanControl with custom "smart 1" mode that goes to "64" fan level when CPU reaches that is faster than BIOS goes up to, judging by ear)

Normal hardware/BIOS fan control is also fixed and rational: lets the CPU achieve normal working temperatures like 45degC up to 50/48 maybe without turning on at all while doing web-browsing and other CPU non-intensive tasks in "Balanced, Better performance" Windows power-management mode (which is most of the time), unless you disable Radeon GPU which causes this embedded fan management algo to go crazy and try to keep your CPU under 40 degC quite aggressively.

Hi man, I'm also undervolting my machine. I use an offset of -0.105 in both cpu core and cache. I'm using Balanced, which alternates from Balanced [Better Performance] (on battery) to Balanced [Best Performance] (when it's plugged in). As of my tests, I couldn't see any difference between High Performance and Balanced [Best Performance], while plugged in. High Performance runs always at full speed regardless you're plugged in or not. Balanced otherwise automatically change modes depending on your energy mode.

About the fan, do you think it run faster with TPFanControl? Can this software help on lowering temperatures or just manages when the system kicks in the fan?

Last but not least, I see you're running bios 1.28. I'm still on 1.13 because of the agressive dGPU throttling Lenovo introduced on 1.14. How is your experience with the latest bios? Do you see any throtting on the RX550? The last time I tested on bios 1.24 it was still there... gpu clock goes from 900mhz to 200mhz after a few minutes of gameplay.

[Alexj4x]

Well, on up-to-date BIOS (BIOS 1.28) my E480 with i7 8550U and RX550 achieved (CPU undervolt proportional -0.108V, no thermal paste replacement/upgrade) in 3Dmark 11:
run 1: 4 771 (3Dmark11 result no 13175941) (Windows 10, power setting "Balanced, Best performance")
run 2: 4 746 (3Dmark11 result no 13175982) (Windows 10, power setting "High performance" [keeps CPU freq on max Turbo Boost even when idling, but probably decreases GPU thermal performance that way or maybe the laptop was just still warm, accumulated heat], TPFanControl with custom "smart 1" mode that goes to "64" fan level when CPU reaches that is faster than BIOS goes up to, judging by ear)

Normal hardware/BIOS fan control is also fixed and rational: lets the CPU achieve normal working temperatures like 45degC up to 50/48 maybe without turning on at all while doing web-browsing and other CPU non-intensive tasks in "Balanced, Better performance" Windows power-management mode (which is most of the time), unless you disable Radeon GPU which causes this embedded fan management algo to go crazy and try to keep your CPU under 40 degC quite aggressively.

Hi man, I'm also undervolting my machine. I use an offset of -0.105 in both cpu core and cache. I'm using Balanced, which alternates from Balanced [Better Performance] (on battery) to Balanced [Best Performance] (when it's plugged in). As of my tests, I couldn't see any difference between High Performance and Balanced [Best Performance], while plugged in. High Performance runs always at full speed regardless you're plugged in or not. Balanced otherwise automatically change modes depending on your energy mode.

About the fan, do you think it run faster with TPFanControl? Can this software help on lowering temperatures or just manages when the system kicks in the fan?

Last but not least, I see you're running bios 1.28. I'm still on 1.13 because of the agressive dGPU throttling Lenovo introduced on 1.14. How is your experience with the latest bios? Do you see any throtting on the RX550? The last time I tested on bios 1.24 it was still there... gpu clock goes from 900mhz to 200mhz after a few minutes of gameplay.

Hi again,
I haven't tried playing any games yet, but this 3Dmark11 test takes quite a while and I think the results are comparable to the reviewed unit with BIOS < 1.13?
Regarding TPFanControl: yes, it is just a custom way to control the fan speed, but you can set your own "smart 1" (which can be active by default) and "smart 2" profiles in the INI file (I can provide my presets if you want, but would probably be best to work out what you prefer) and you can make some profile(s) that are more aggresive than the default stock BIOS behavior, and that way you can improve under-load performance.
In practice, I only run TPFanControl with aggresive fan profile when I need to do some longer, processing-intensive tasks.

[Fernando Pena]

Well, on up-to-date BIOS (BIOS 1.28) my E480 with i7 8550U and RX550 achieved (CPU undervolt proportional -0.108V, no thermal paste replacement/upgrade) in 3Dmark 11:
run 1: 4 771 (3Dmark11 result no 13175941) (Windows 10, power setting "Balanced, Best performance")
run 2: 4 746 (3Dmark11 result no 13175982) (Windows 10, power setting "High performance" [keeps CPU freq on max Turbo Boost even when idling, but probably decreases GPU thermal performance that way or maybe the laptop was just still warm, accumulated heat], TPFanControl with custom "smart 1" mode that goes to "64" fan level when CPU reaches that is faster than BIOS goes up to, judging by ear)

Normal hardware/BIOS fan control is also fixed and rational: lets the CPU achieve normal working temperatures like 45degC up to 50/48 maybe without turning on at all while doing web-browsing and other CPU non-intensive tasks in "Balanced, Better performance" Windows power-management mode (which is most of the time), unless you disable Radeon GPU which causes this embedded fan management algo to go crazy and try to keep your CPU under 40 degC quite aggressively.

Hi man, I'm also undervolting my machine. I use an offset of -0.105 in both cpu core and cache. I'm using Balanced, which alternates from Balanced [Better Performance] (on battery) to Balanced [Best Performance] (when it's plugged in). As of my tests, I couldn't see any difference between High Performance and Balanced [Best Performance], while plugged in. High Performance runs always at full speed regardless you're plugged in or not. Balanced otherwise automatically change modes depending on your energy mode.

About the fan, do you think it run faster with TPFanControl? Can this software help on lowering temperatures or just manages when the system kicks in the fan?

Last but not least, I see you're running bios 1.28. I'm still on 1.13 because of the agressive dGPU throttling Lenovo introduced on 1.14. How is your experience with the latest bios? Do you see any throtting on the RX550? The last time I tested on bios 1.24 it was still there... gpu clock goes from 900mhz to 200mhz after a few minutes of gameplay.

Hi again,
I haven't tried playing any games yet, but this 3Dmark11 test takes quite a while and I think the results are comparable to the reviewed unit with BIOS < 1.13?
Regarding TPFanControl: yes, it is just a custom way to control the fan speed, but you can set your own "smart 1" (which can be active by default) and "smart 2" profiles in the INI file (I can provide my presets if you want, but would probably be best to work out what you prefer) and you can make some profile(s) that are more aggresive than the default stock BIOS behavior, and that way you can improve under-load performance.
In practice, I only run TPFanControl with aggresive fan profile when I need to do some longer, processing-intensive tasks.

What settings in TPFanControl do you suggest me to improve temperatures on heavy load?

[Fernando Pena]

Nevermind...
I changed the value of "Level 75" to 64 in Smart Mode 1. Default is 7.
If I understood this right, 64 is the maximum speed, it forces the fan above its limit (7). The fan gets noticeble LOUDER when I do this.

I ran a TS benchmark to see if does make any difference in temperatures but unfortunately it doesn't. Probably because the fan in bios 1.13 works at its best. Lenovo changed the fan behavior in newer bios versions to make the machine less noisy, so TPFC may be more useful for you at version 1.28.

Maybe I should test another time while gaming, benchmarks not always tell the truth.

[Alexj4x]

Well, I never tried 1.13 - did not do any gaming yet, so I can't really tell if the cooling system sucks or is acceptable. Definitely the sound of the fan sucks, maybe some upgrade is possible (to a higher quality fan itself - better blade design and better electric motor maybe?).

The benchmark looked acceptable on 1.28 and generally the laptop works quite well and the screen is not that bad (the contrast is excellent, matte surface is very good and brightness is acceptable for normal usage - albeit I did not try it outside yet), though applying the calibration profile is a neccesity though - on my screen the colours are really yellowish and gamma is 'overexposing' bright colors, but both profiles from both Notebookcheck profiles work very well.

Now I installed Ubuntu 18.10 and it works quite well out-of-the-box, no issues with cooling etc. I'm going to play around with undervolting and power saving config and it should make a decent system for development usage.

[Yoav]

Which WiFi card is compatible? Can the Intel AC 9560NGW or AX200NGW  or better be installed?