The Lenovo ThinkPad T15p surprises us with a plastic case

[Redaktion]

Lenovo ThinkPads are among the laptops that defy the trend of all-metal cases. Usually, a mix of different high-performance plastics with magnesium and aluminum is used. Magnesium is also used in the Lenovo ThinkPad T15p, but surprisingly, Lenovo has made most of the case of this 2,000-Euro (~$2,424) laptop out of simple ABS plastic.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/The-Lenovo-ThinkPad-T15p-surprises-us-with-a-plastic-case.520141.0.html

[Thinkpad Fan]

Plastic on the T14/T15 feels like garbage. Glad to hear that they didn't put that terrible coated junk on this machine, might actually consider buying it.

[Krist]

Plastic on the T14/T15 feels like garbage. Glad to hear that they didn't put that terrible coated junk on this machine, might actually consider buying it.

That's Lenovo. That coating is toxic and contains a lot of plasticizers, all of which are hormone disrupters and potential carcinogens. The plastic on this unit and the T14/15 are terrible. It makes my kitchen garbage can feel like a premium unit.

[vertigo]

Lenovo is just cheapening their products as much as they can, and it's showing. My T14s is extremely buggy, and I've had tons of issues with the keyboard and TrackPoint. The drivers and software are complete junk. So it makes sense they'd use the cheapest build materials they can as well.

[LeNOTvo]

Lenovo is just cheapening their products as much as they can, and it's showing. My T14s is extremely buggy, and I've had tons of issues with the keyboard and TrackPoint. The drivers and software are complete junk. So it makes sense they'd use the cheapest build materials they can as well.

Lenovo's software always sucked. So much bloat and security issues in the past. You basically have to do a fresh reinstall as soon as you get a modern Lenovo. I have had trackpad issues with new Thinkpads from the last 2 years where the click would stick or stop clicking. I had 5 failures in a row on a single unit. What a joke and a total waste of my time.

[vertigo]

Lenovo is just cheapening their products as much as they can, and it's showing. My T14s is extremely buggy, and I've had tons of issues with the keyboard and TrackPoint. The drivers and software are complete junk. So it makes sense they'd use the cheapest build materials they can as well.

Lenovo's software always sucked. So much bloat and security issues in the past. You basically have to do a fresh reinstall as soon as you get a modern Lenovo. I have had trackpad issues with new Thinkpads from the last 2 years where the click would stick or stop clicking. I had 5 failures in a row on a single unit. What a joke and a total waste of my time.

Bloat's not the issue. In fact, it (lack of bloat) is one of the good things I can say about it. There's less preinstalled garbage on their image than on Microsoft's. Basically the only additional stuff is Lenovo stuff, like Vantage. And while I'm normally a big proponent of doing a clean install, I didn't see the point with this and didn't bother. My issue isn't with what's on there, it's with the quality of it. There's just so many bugs and glitches with the keyboard and TrackPoint, not to mention they removed the ability to use the middle button for both middle-clicking and scrolling, which is (or was, I guess) one of the main selling points of ThinkPads. I got the functionality back with a third-party program, but it's not perfect and it's ridiculous that should even be necessary. I can't even fathom what the hell they were thinking.

I don't use the trackpad much, since the TrackPoint is the main reason to even get a Lenovo IMO, but I haven't noticed any issues with it other than the fact it's cheaply made, and the super-cheap IdeaPad I used temporarily before this, which cost 1/4 of the price, had a far superior one, which is just pathetic.

[Benjamin Herzig]

@vertigo,
If I remember from your posts correctly, you have a T14s, which should have an ELAN TrackPoint - my X1 Carbon Gen 7 has one, too, and it still offers the middle click functionality. It is just set standard to scroll. It can be changed in the settings app with the "ELAN TrackPoint for ThinkPad" settings.

[vertigo]

@vertigo,
If I remember from your posts correctly, you have a T14s, which should have an ELAN TrackPoint - my X1 Carbon Gen 7 has one, too, and it still offers the middle click functionality. It is just set standard to scroll. It can be changed in the settings app with the "ELAN TrackPoint for ThinkPad" settings.

Correct, but it can't be set to do both, unlike older ThinkPads and even the separate keyboard, which I also have. You have to pick one or the other. And the main program that people use for adding the functionality back doesn't work with ELAN versions, so I had to find a different program, W10Wheel.NET, which works well, but as I said, it's not perfect and it shouldn't be necessary.

And that's just the lack of functionality issue I have, but there's also all the issues I have with it just flat out not working right. Activating the keyboard backlight via the Fn+spacebar often causes it to turn on in bright mode, skipping dim mode, so I have to cycle it off then back on. Other times when turning it on it will turn off again after a second or two. And that's to say nothing about the fact that the lower brightness level, much like the lowest level of the display, is still too bright for use in total darkness, especially since there's a significant amount of bleeding from under the keys. The other keyboard issue I've experienced was that a few keys (s, Fn, and Win IIRC) completely stopped working after using the Lenovo Quick Clean utility, and the only way I could get them back working again was to hibernate (I hate shutting down, so fortunately that wasn't required) and wake it back up. Locking and sleeping weren't enough. I've also had other random issues, like for example this morning when I woke it I couldn't adjust the screen brightness with the Fn keys, even though I tested and the Fn key itself as well as the function keys that adjust the brightness worked individually, but using them together to control it (I use the top-row functions keys as function keys by default and for the other functions when the Fn key is pressed) didn't work. I had to adjust it via the Windows side panel. A few minutes later, I tried again and it was magically working again. I've had similar issues with the volume keys.

As for the TrackPoint, where to begin. While overall drift seems better than in the past, it's really, really bad in the upward direction (odd that it's so specific, but it is, though it does happen downward as well). And I mean bad. It happens all the time, where it will drift and even after I take my finger off of it and wait for it to stop, then wait a few seconds longer, as soon as I move it the drift returns, in the same exact direction regardless of how I move it. And it happens over and over until I give it at least probably ~5 seconds to recover. It's terrible. It also occasionally has bad days where it will just suddenly stop like it hit a wall, and I have to let off of it then start moving it again to get the cursor going again. This has happened at least twice, and once it happens it happens repeatedly throughout the day until. I assume sleeping the computer fixes that problem, since when it happens it seems to go away hours later or the next day. I've also had the mouse (TrackPoint and trackpad) completely stop responding out of the blue at least a couple times, which again required either locking/unlocking or sleeping or hibernating then waking the computer (don't remember which).

At least these are infrequent issues and they can be fixed relatively easily, and when they're not occurring it's a pleasure to use aside from the annoying drift, but they're all signs of extremely crappy drivers. And that's just the human-interface-related issues this thing has. There's also the fact it runs hot (currently bouncing between mid-50s to mid-90s just idling, and the keyboard, especially the right-half, is often warm enough to be uncomfortable) and the battery life is terrible. There are a LOT of good things about it, but the bad things are just really bad, and just inexcusable, especially for a ThinkPad.

[Bo Lundmark]

The screen of my Lenovo Thinkpad broke during my first business trip with the laptop after only receiving it a couple weeks before. No notable knocks to the computer (happened to my previous steel-cased laptop but was not an issue). IT department says it is not covered by warranty. Buyer beware if you are thinking of travelling with the laptop.