Lenovo ThinkPad T470s (Core i7, WQHD) Laptop Review

[JanM]

Does is work with Ubuntu 16:04 LTS (on another distro) out of the box?

Regards, Jan

To answer my own question. I bought the T470s ((20HF004QMH). I works like charm with Ubuntu 16:04.2 LTS, without any need for modifications.

[dthrp]

As I always ended up with 3/4 of NBC's measured battery life, the runtimes are pretty disappointing. See here's what I don't understand.

Lenovo's own consumer flagship Yoga 910 packs a 4-cell 78 Whr battery in a chassis that practically weighs the same as the T470s. LG's Gram 13" has a smaller display, weighs only 0.94 kg, and yet still packs a 60 Whr battery, all the while, keeping a non-soldered ram slot. Build quality is no longer an excuse for the T470s, especially since both the Yoga and the Gram have both dramatically improved their build quality and battery capacity, while simultaneously not gaining additional weight.

There's more. IME, the T460s' keyboard was significantly mushier and shallower than what I expect from a business laptop. It's more comparable to MSI's Steelseries keyboard, not even the giant gaming rigs but the lightweight ones, which is satisfactory, but still very sub-par from a "business" standard. Keycap texture of backlit keyboard was one of the worst I've used, and I've tested laptops for years. Finger oil and sweat smudge all over and it's virtually impossible to type with nails, so can't recommend to any female clients. Then they went on to use the same cheap keyboard on their most expensive P series, laptops for the pros that cost over three grand, and completely ruined the experience. Frankly, I've no idea why so many reviewers praise the workstation keyboard at all, when it's not even marginally better than many business think&light. Maybe it was due to every internet forum user saying it's a magical experience, but it all turned out to be a huge bluff to me. On the other hand, T460 and T560 were surprisingly good, but travel and tactility varied heavily on keyboard vendors. Only recommendable keyboards with decent quality and QC were the X1C and Thinkpad 13, which unfortunately weren't what my clients needed. In the end, we went with the T460 and swapped out more than half of the units' keyboards with a better vendor's.

Then there's the screen and audio, albeit more personal, but are still distasteful. And many more issues, which I won't go into here.

I do acknowledge, that they don't want to make a single perfect laptop like Apple, Dell XPS, or Gigabyte Aorus. I know that since the beginning, it's been their active strategy to split the laptops into different lines and models, with crippling compromises, to target a larger audience and minimize the costs.
However, what I don't get, is why they won't offer upgrades for select users who're willing to pay the premium price, when they are perfectly capable of providing such. I'll gladly pay for those upgrades, or even better, for a single perfect laptop, with all the best, cherry-picked features from your entire series, if you create such a thing.

Point is, Lenovo has cut too much costs in areas where they absolutely shouldn't have, and charges unreasonably more for less. While Dell has actually done some great work with both their consumer and business lines. This year, more than half of the Thinkpad X,T,P series are difficult to recommend to anybody, and the only reason I do is because they regularly hold massive discounts, and because of relatively cheaper used prices. And as someone with some respect for the brand, that's seriously disappointing to say the least.

[jeremy]

Hello,
With ubuntu, wqhd is not too big resolution?
thanks

[Azerty1983]

Just receive the same laptop but without the wqhd display.

T470s 7600u 8go here.

And i am mad with the CPU issue. Exact same issue here.

I can't reach turbomax.

Does somebody I notebookvheck have found what is wrong ?

The 7600u is supposed to have 2 active core at 3.9Ghz.

And the way intel design those little beast is that they must sustain that frequency unless temp is too high (and by too high I mean 100°) or there's not enough power to draw.

So when on load, for the 7600u, I am expecting to be between 3.5 and 3.9. And that's not because I like to run that high (like dumbo wrote on reddit telling that he does not understand why people want to run at that high frequency) it's because :

- first I paid an high end CPU so give me the power my money bought. If you, lenovo, can't design something that can sustain that kind of CPU, don't offer it... period !

- it's how intel engineers design their CPU : they're meant to work at that high frequency and go back down no lower than base frequency when they reach power or temp  limit.

And when those intel CPU reach their limits, trust me, they don't wait Christmas to go back to turbo max. If for example, temp goes down 2°, they are back at it in no time !

Either lenovo engineers are cowboys, either Lenovo's marketers are doing their job like no one by being able to sell those crappy t470s to people.

Thank you lenovo ! Big thumbs up !

Lenovo marketers should talk to their engineers

[jeremy]

What about the finition between keys?
This is not the same as T450s, which looks very smooth like the x1 carbon. Which one of t470s looks rough?!

[marcin]

Nice article and review of the product. What could be also mentioned is that Lenovo is having the worst service you could possibly deal with. If you are interested in nice service go for something else. I bought T470s with NBD warranty. The model I have arrived broken, and still I am waiting more than two weeks (having NBD) to have the broken parts replaced.

[Ra]

I would like to thank you for your great work with this review, it's really good read. Purchase this laptop for £450 from ebay yesterday only with 20GB RAM difference. Can't wait to put my hands on :p