An online forum member Aurora over at German Thinkpad-Forum.de has posted the first available in-depth review of the Lenovo ThinkPad T540p, the PC maker’s current flagship 15.6-inch business notebook.
User reactions on the latest ThinkPad models are specially important because Lenovo has adopted some significant changes in the ThinkPad series which previously had been updated very gradually in more than 20 years of brand’s existence.
Adoption of the new Precision isle-style keyboard and break-up with the old school keys happened in 2012, whereas in last year’s model they ditched physical click buttons which had been accompanying ThinkPad’s recognizable TrackPoint navigation stick in the middle of the keyboard. Instead, the buttons are now integrated into the trackpad surface. The lack of physical isolation from the rest of the trackpad is one of the main complaints of the reviewer, besides degraded quality of materials used for the chassis, an overly bland design, and disappointing speakers and audio output. True, the laptop retains MIL-SPEC durability test compliance, but overall feel of the chassis doesn’t upholds high standards set by the previous ThinkPad generations.
On the positive side, the reviewed unit with the new 2880×1620-pixel display with IPS technology delivered a great picture quality with “breathtaking” details and sharpness, wide viewing angles and high contrast, as well as a great brightness of 300 nits.
Also, the laptop runs very cool and the fans are quiet even under heavy computing load. The reviewed system felt very speedy thanks to its quad core Intel Core i7 processor option from the latest “Haswell” generation and a fast solid state drive. Another good thing is its full array of ports and slots.
According to the review, the standard battery lasts solid 4 hours of everyday use on a single charge.
The T540p starts at about $830, but the options of ultra high-def IPS screen, quad-core CPU, dedicated graphics, and an SSD instead of HDD easily bump the price to above $1,700.
Source: ThinkPad-Forum.de
I have a thinkpad 540 p . 4 months after buying it the screen failed. 3 weeks later I am still waiting ‘ for the part to come in’. Lenovo are not communicating at all with me, I have to keep hounding them.
I was enjoying my computer before, especially that screen. Now I am distinctly unimpressed