5 ms·

Interesting. I was recently looking to upgrade my personal T480s which I use for development, but didn't see anything in Lenovo lineup that were reasonably ligh

Interesting. I was recently looking to upgrade my personal T480s which I use for development, but didn't see anything in Lenovo lineup that were reasonably light/powerful/quiet/cool enough to make put in the order. I've grown so sick of laptops constantly hissing at me when I do something more complicated than browsing the web. My work issued Dell is basically unusable in a quiet room without headphones. So as an impulse buy I sidegraded to M1 Air instead just to see what the fuss is all about. Well, I'm not really wanting to go back to regular intel/amd laptops now, I have been spoiled.

Mashimo 5y ago
I got the T14 Gen1, basically the direct successor of the T480. What I notice is when I put the power profile to balanced it's very quiet. But of course does not power up all the way. Fast enough for my needs, but of course might not be a solution for everyone.
- ihateolives 5y ago
  I was looking at T14, but I'm used to having slim laptop, s variants have been slightly powerful but lighter and with slimmer profile. The thing with M1 is that the difference with 8th gen i5 in my T480s is for some workloads 2x, if not more. And difference in some Lightroom tools is easily even more. M1 is amazing. Plus, it's quiet. I didn't know I missed silence so much. It's hard to go back now.
  - Mashimo 5y ago
    If you have a T480s now, why do you want to upgrade? It's quite modern.
    - ihateolives 5y ago
      It only takes maximum of 24GB RAM. Right now I'm ok with it but I'd like to have some future proofing at some point, everybody is going crazy with containers nowadays. I've been moving my work off the desktop and while I can upgrade NVMe as I please I'm stuck with memory limit.
      - AnssiH 5y ago
        I'm pretty sure it can take 40GB RAM, see e.g. here: https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/bb1xwm/t480s_upgrade_complete_40gb_ram_1tb_970_evo_pro/ https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/bb1xwm/t480s_upgr... I also have 64GB on my work T480 (non-s) despite "max" being 32GB. The Lenovo-reported max RAM specs often do not take into account newer larger memory modules released after the laptop (or at least I believe this is the reason for the discrepancy).
        kawsper 5y ago
        There seems to be some discrepancies in this area, this is the CPU in my T480s (with 40GB RAM): https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/124967/intel-core-i58250u-processor-6m-cache-up-to-3-40-ghz/specifications.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/124967/... Even Intel says it can maximally have 32 GB of RAM.
        ungamed 5y ago
        Intel has been absolutely incorrect on this a few times. Quite often there is a conflict in ranges that the ACPI spec included in the system firmware can't deal with, but if an operating system is clever enough it can work around the problem. It may require some ACPI trickery, but it absolutely is doable. If the firmware guys are super lazy it may just work without ACPI trickery. Check out an example here: https://www.downtowndougbrown.com/2019/04/adventures-of-putting-16-gb-of-ram-in-a-motherboard-that-doesnt-support-it/ https://www.downtowndougbrown.com/2019/04/adventures-of-putt...
        kawsper 5y ago
        That link was an amazing read, thank you for sharing, I will not admit that I understand all of it, but it was a nice adventure to read through.
      - kawsper 5y ago
        I have 40GB ram in my T480s, but it is single-channel. I have also put a NVMe in the WWAN-port, I found out that the Transcend MTE452T (TS512GMTE452T) has the right M.2-port (B+M), and it is a compatible NVMe-drive and not a SATA-drive which some of the disks of that form factor is.
schipplock 5y ago
My Thinkpad E14 Gen3 is quiet most of the time. My T470p is boiling my hands and the fan is constantly whirring (I still like it :)). But I agree, Apples MacBook is of a different kind. The only time I heard the fan was when playing Metro Exodus and when I ran cinebench :). My MacBook Pro outperforms every other computer in my possession. But I'm still interested in this Thinkpad, because I'm not too happy with macOS anymore. But I assume there are too many limitations with Windows for ARM as well :). And considering the price of this Thinkpad, I'm probably just buying another MacBook, which has better battery life and better performance (and probably a better screen, Thinkpads often have terrible screens imho).
- ihateolives 5y ago
  > Thinkpads often have terrible screens imho True. I was not interested in Intel Macbooks because the pluses even with that great screen didn't win me over from of thinkpads but M1 has changed the game for me. The battery and performance improvements are just too good to ignore.
  - eertami 5y ago
    I have an M1 but never use it at home, the battery is only really useful if I need to spend a few days on the road away from power. My daily driver is an Intel 1185g7 based Laptop which I can work a whole day without charging if needed (tops out at about 10 hours), and anymore than that doesn't really add any value. If Linux support gets better on the M1 I think I would consider switching but honestly when I put them side by side I don't notice a big performance difference. The M1 just uses a lot less power to get that performance.
    - azangru 5y ago
      > My daily driver is an Intel 1185g7 based Laptop which I can work a whole day without charging Which laptop model is that?
- Maxburn 5y ago
  I've got a 6th gen X1 carbon and under windows the thing has the fan on high all the time. Switched to Linux (mint) and I went a couple months before I heard the fan, doing all the same things. I don't know what windows is doing these days but it isn't doing it for me, the end user.
skocznymroczny 5y ago
I think it's not only about arm vs x86. I have a work provided Thinkpad and work provided Macbook Pro (with Skylake CPU) and I prefer to work on the Macbook for the same reason. It's completely silent 99% of the time, whereas Thinkpad has fans blazing 99% of the time and getting very hot. When I look in task manager, it's the usual suspects - corporate bloatware disguised as data protection and antivirus software, taking 40-50% CPU time when idling. Add Chrome and few apps and you got 90-100% CPU usage most of the time.
- Mashimo 5y ago
  > hen I look in task manager, it's the usual suspects - corporate bloatware disguised as data protection and antivirus software Similar experience here. If I only had experience with ThinkPads from work I certainly would hate them. Slow, loud and shitty screen. My T14 Gen1 I run at home at balanced power mode runs quiet and fast. NVMe I could switch, ram upgraded to 32GB, fingerprint reader and windows hallow, all for ~1100 EUR
- ihateolives 5y ago
  The difference between laptop with mandatory corporate cruft and same hw without it is quite something. My personal laptop is weaker spec wise that work issued, but is so much snappier.
- goosedragons 5y ago
  Apple also sets up very different fan curves from most of the PC industry. They won't turn on the fan until it hits 95 C. This keeps it quiet but it affects performance and maybe longevity.
  - criddell 5y ago
    OTOH, Lenovo turns on the fans when the laptop is sleeping in a backpack.
  - BeefWellington 5y ago
    Also worth noting that most vendors have a way to adjust the fan curves. Sometimes right in the bios, often times through an external utility. I recall at one point there was someone doing some work getting the Legion Fan Control app working for non-Legion Lenovos, but I cannot for the life of me find the link now.
AnssiH 5y ago
FWIW, I switched from X270 to X13 Gen2 AMD (5850U, 32GB) recently and the difference has been night-and-day - even just web browsing on X270 caused audible noise, while X13G2A is practically completely silent unless I do something very demanding. So maybe look into T14s Gen2 AMD (which may be pretty similar to X13 Gen2 since they share the HW maintenance manual). But YMMV of course, and I have no experience of M1.
- hackerfromthefu 5y ago
  Be aware the screens on X13 and T14/T14s are pretty lacklustre for colour reproduction
  - ip26 5y ago
    They have some screen upgrade options, fwiw
- BeefWellington 5y ago
  Have a T14s Gen1, can confirm that compared to the T470 it replaced it's lighter and quieter under load. I wouldn't do image editing on anything in the line but for dev work the T14 has been great.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
hackerfromthefu 5y ago
I'm enjoying my new yoga slim 7 carbon with 5800u! silent most of the time with lots of open programs. Also a truly beautiful oled screen, whereas new thinkpads tend to have terrible screens. Also about 1kg, almost perfect windows laptop.
guilhermeasg 5y ago
That's curious. Browsing the web is the only thing I do that gets my work MacBook (and my personal X220) hissing at me.

Mashimo 5y ago

I got the T14 Gen1, basically the direct successor of the T480. What I notice is when I put the power profile to balanced it's very quiet. But of course does not power up all the way. Fast enough for my needs, but of course might not be a solution for everyone.

ihateolives 5y ago
I was looking at T14, but I'm used to having slim laptop, s variants have been slightly powerful but lighter and with slimmer profile. The thing with M1 is that the difference with 8th gen i5 in my T480s is for some workloads 2x, if not more. And difference in some Lightroom tools is easily even more. M1 is amazing. Plus, it's quiet. I didn't know I missed silence so much. It's hard to go back now.
- Mashimo 5y ago
  If you have a T480s now, why do you want to upgrade? It's quite modern.
  - ihateolives 5y ago
    It only takes maximum of 24GB RAM. Right now I'm ok with it but I'd like to have some future proofing at some point, everybody is going crazy with containers nowadays. I've been moving my work off the desktop and while I can upgrade NVMe as I please I'm stuck with memory limit.
    - AnssiH 5y ago
      I'm pretty sure it can take 40GB RAM, see e.g. here: https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/bb1xwm/t480s_upgrade_complete_40gb_ram_1tb_970_evo_pro/ https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/bb1xwm/t480s_upgr... I also have 64GB on my work T480 (non-s) despite "max" being 32GB. The Lenovo-reported max RAM specs often do not take into account newer larger memory modules released after the laptop (or at least I believe this is the reason for the discrepancy).
      - kawsper 5y ago
        There seems to be some discrepancies in this area, this is the CPU in my T480s (with 40GB RAM): https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/124967/intel-core-i58250u-processor-6m-cache-up-to-3-40-ghz/specifications.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/124967/... Even Intel says it can maximally have 32 GB of RAM.
        ungamed 5y ago
        Intel has been absolutely incorrect on this a few times. Quite often there is a conflict in ranges that the ACPI spec included in the system firmware can't deal with, but if an operating system is clever enough it can work around the problem. It may require some ACPI trickery, but it absolutely is doable. If the firmware guys are super lazy it may just work without ACPI trickery. Check out an example here: https://www.downtowndougbrown.com/2019/04/adventures-of-putting-16-gb-of-ram-in-a-motherboard-that-doesnt-support-it/ https://www.downtowndougbrown.com/2019/04/adventures-of-putt...
        kawsper 5y ago
        That link was an amazing read, thank you for sharing, I will not admit that I understand all of it, but it was a nice adventure to read through.
    - kawsper 5y ago
      I have 40GB ram in my T480s, but it is single-channel. I have also put a NVMe in the WWAN-port, I found out that the Transcend MTE452T (TS512GMTE452T) has the right M.2-port (B+M), and it is a compatible NVMe-drive and not a SATA-drive which some of the disks of that form factor is.

schipplock 5y ago

My Thinkpad E14 Gen3 is quiet most of the time. My T470p is boiling my hands and the fan is constantly whirring (I still like it :)). But I agree, Apples MacBook is of a different kind. The only time I heard the fan was when playing Metro Exodus and when I ran cinebench :). My MacBook Pro outperforms every other computer in my possession. But I'm still interested in this Thinkpad, because I'm not too happy with macOS anymore. But I assume there are too many limitations with Windows for ARM as well :). And considering the price of this Thinkpad, I'm probably just buying another MacBook, which has better battery life and better performance (and probably a better screen, Thinkpads often have terrible screens imho).

ihateolives 5y ago
> Thinkpads often have terrible screens imho True. I was not interested in Intel Macbooks because the pluses even with that great screen didn't win me over from of thinkpads but M1 has changed the game for me. The battery and performance improvements are just too good to ignore.
- eertami 5y ago
  I have an M1 but never use it at home, the battery is only really useful if I need to spend a few days on the road away from power. My daily driver is an Intel 1185g7 based Laptop which I can work a whole day without charging if needed (tops out at about 10 hours), and anymore than that doesn't really add any value. If Linux support gets better on the M1 I think I would consider switching but honestly when I put them side by side I don't notice a big performance difference. The M1 just uses a lot less power to get that performance.
  - azangru 5y ago
    > My daily driver is an Intel 1185g7 based Laptop which I can work a whole day without charging Which laptop model is that?
Maxburn 5y ago
I've got a 6th gen X1 carbon and under windows the thing has the fan on high all the time. Switched to Linux (mint) and I went a couple months before I heard the fan, doing all the same things. I don't know what windows is doing these days but it isn't doing it for me, the end user.

skocznymroczny 5y ago

I think it's not only about arm vs x86. I have a work provided Thinkpad and work provided Macbook Pro (with Skylake CPU) and I prefer to work on the Macbook for the same reason. It's completely silent 99% of the time, whereas Thinkpad has fans blazing 99% of the time and getting very hot. When I look in task manager, it's the usual suspects - corporate bloatware disguised as data protection and antivirus software, taking 40-50% CPU time when idling. Add Chrome and few apps and you got 90-100% CPU usage most of the time.

Mashimo 5y ago
> hen I look in task manager, it's the usual suspects - corporate bloatware disguised as data protection and antivirus software Similar experience here. If I only had experience with ThinkPads from work I certainly would hate them. Slow, loud and shitty screen. My T14 Gen1 I run at home at balanced power mode runs quiet and fast. NVMe I could switch, ram upgraded to 32GB, fingerprint reader and windows hallow, all for ~1100 EUR
ihateolives 5y ago
The difference between laptop with mandatory corporate cruft and same hw without it is quite something. My personal laptop is weaker spec wise that work issued, but is so much snappier.
goosedragons 5y ago
Apple also sets up very different fan curves from most of the PC industry. They won't turn on the fan until it hits 95 C. This keeps it quiet but it affects performance and maybe longevity.
- criddell 5y ago
  OTOH, Lenovo turns on the fans when the laptop is sleeping in a backpack.
- BeefWellington 5y ago
  Also worth noting that most vendors have a way to adjust the fan curves. Sometimes right in the bios, often times through an external utility. I recall at one point there was someone doing some work getting the Legion Fan Control app working for non-Legion Lenovos, but I cannot for the life of me find the link now.

AnssiH 5y ago

FWIW, I switched from X270 to X13 Gen2 AMD (5850U, 32GB) recently and the difference has been night-and-day - even just web browsing on X270 caused audible noise, while X13G2A is practically completely silent unless I do something very demanding. So maybe look into T14s Gen2 AMD (which may be pretty similar to X13 Gen2 since they share the HW maintenance manual). But YMMV of course, and I have no experience of M1.

hackerfromthefu 5y ago
Be aware the screens on X13 and T14/T14s are pretty lacklustre for colour reproduction
- ip26 5y ago
  They have some screen upgrade options, fwiw
BeefWellington 5y ago
Have a T14s Gen1, can confirm that compared to the T470 it replaced it's lighter and quieter under load. I wouldn't do image editing on anything in the line but for dev work the T14 has been great.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

hackerfromthefu 5y ago

I'm enjoying my new yoga slim 7 carbon with 5800u! silent most of the time with lots of open programs. Also a truly beautiful oled screen, whereas new thinkpads tend to have terrible screens. Also about 1kg, almost perfect windows laptop.

guilhermeasg 5y ago

That's curious. Browsing the web is the only thing I do that gets my work MacBook (and my personal X220) hissing at me.