Review: Lenovo ThinkBook 13s pairs solid business features with consumer-friendly touches - hallextere

Lenovo's ThinkBook 13s is a on purpose intriguing combination of a business notebook with consumer flourishes, aimed at the vaguely-defined infinite betwixt a home business and a more tralatitious consumer PC. Information technology largely succeeds.

The ThinkBook 13s (a.k.a. the ThinkBook 13s-IWL) sacrifices just a bit on the performance front for including an 8th-gen Whiskey Lake processor, simply places information technology inside a sturdy form with a same good keyboard on top. It includes a combination of legacy USB-A and onward-looking USB-C ports, an excellent audio system of rules, with decent battery life. And at a price hovering between $700 to $800, you'rhenium left with a jolly solid midrange laptop for general use.

Lenovo ThinkBook 13s back — The overvaliant stigmatisation signals that this International Relations and Security Network't purely a business laptop computer.

Lenovo ThinkBook 13s: Basic specs

Lenovo claims that the suggested retail price of the Lenovo ThinkBook 13s we tested is over $1,100, simply we couldn't find a concentrated price suggesting it was over $1,000. Online, the prices we saw at press time averaged about $800 Oregon slightly less, and should eventually fall. Otherwise, there's a healthy mix of features catering to consumers and small businesses.

Display: 13.3-inch (1920×1080) IPS anti-public eye (non-touch)
Central processing unit: Intel 1.6GHz Core i5-8265U (Whiskey Lake) (as tested); 1.8GHz Core i7-8565U
Graphics: Intel UHD 620
Memory board: 4GB-16GB DDR4 2400MHz (8GB as tested)
Storage: 128-512GB M.2 SSD PCI-E NVMe (256GB As tested)
Ports: 2 USB Type A (USB 3.1 Gen 1) 1 USB-C (Gen 2, DisplayPort), HDMI 1.4b, 3.5mm jack
Camera: 720p HD Camera (drug user-facing), fixed-focus
Battery: 45Wh, 78Wh
Radio set: 802.11ac (2×2); Bluetooth 5.0
Operating system: Windows 10 Home
Dimensions: 12.11 x 8.52 x 0.63 inches (15.9mm)
Weight unit: 2.9 pounds, 3.6 pounds with courser (measured)
People of colour: Aluminum
Additive features: Fingermark sensing element exclusive power button
Price: $1,189 MSRP (Lenovo.com) with coupon $713.49; $749 at NeweggAmazon: $754Remove non-mathematical product link. Other configurations stray from $1,049 to $1,649 MSRP on Lenovo.com.

Lenovo's ThinkBook 13s manages to exude an atmosphere of constancy while still not breakage your backbone. It's stumpy, though not overly heavy. Officially, it's successful of aluminum and magnesium metallic and sports a Inorganic Grey finish, with a zinc-alloy hinge. I couldn't discern some keyboard flex, and the display steadfastly refused to flop or so while shaking it.

While it's not a 2-in-1, the attractive IPS display folds back flat. Total luminosity is 301 nits uttermost, close to but exceeding the 250-260 nits we consider appropriate for daily use. Distinction that our review framework wasnot equipped with a touchscreen.

Lenovo ThinkBook 13s right side — A pair of USB Type A ports adorns the right side of the chassis….

A generous vent underneath the flesh helps pull air from the foreign, venting it out through the book binding of the physique via a microscopic grille lengthways along united half of the hinge's length. I did notice a flimsy fan yawp while it was running game, which can set in—though very quietly—straight-grained during mundane, innocuous tasks much as typewriting this sentence.

Officially, the ThinkBook 13s is stacked to hold up dousing with raised to 2 ounces of water, extreme temperatures, and vibrations. (We didn't test whatsoever of those claims.) The hinge has been tested for up to 25,000 open-close cycles, Lenovo says—all but 8 multiplication per twenty-four hours for 8 years.

Lenovo ThinkBook 13s left side — …while a more complex arrangement of USB-C and a HDMI port wine is mounted on the left. Note that at that place is none ethernet tar, indeed you'll have to use Wi-Fi or a dongle.

A practical issue of ports split the conflict between the consumer and business user. On the left-handed, there's a plain-jane USB-C 3.1 Gen 2 porthole, (without Bolt of lightning capabilities) a full-size HDMI 1.4b port, a phone/mic 3.5mm knave, besides as a proprietary power plug—one of the only slenderly disappointing features happening the ThinkBook 13s. Happening the right, Lenovo has include a pair of USB 3.1 Type A ports, managing the transition between the Typecast A and Type C generations. One of the Type A ports is labelled with a small electric battery, alerting you that it can equal used to charge a phone or some other device, steady while the laptop is otherwise power-driven off. Lenovo doesn't large number in whatever adapter dongles inside the ThinkBook box.

Lenovo ThinkBook 13s power plug — Lenovo includes a 73-W charger using its own plug, rather than the more and more common USB-C connector.

Lenovo is noted for its keyboards, and typewriting along the ThinkBook keyboard was comfortable enough. The keys are bouncy and springy, though without much travel—I prefer the deeper keyboards found on the ThinkPad series. Note that the function keys were designed with an heart toward privacy: There are dedicated buttons to disable the webcam and mic, as well Eastern Samoa the trackpad. Interestingly, the ThinkBook 13s also has dedicated vocation keys for Skype.

Lenovo ThinkBook 13s keyboard — The keyboard of the Lenovo ThinkBook 13s.

There's no Windows Hullo-certified webcam, but there is a certified fingermark lector hidden beneath the power push. In my experience, Huawei's fingermark readers do a great job of detecting your fingerprint and logging you in, but the ThinkBook's identification capabilities were every bit robust over the few years I spent examination the laptop.

Lenovo ThinkBook 13s fingerprint reader — A fingerprint reader hides under the power button.

As for that webcam—well, even though there's a keyboard button to turn it off, Lenovo goes the excess mile. Just above the cutout for the optical lens is atiny, almost insensible version of the ThinkShutter slider that can easily equal slid closed or available to physically reveal or conceal the lens. A tiny red dot visually signals when it's blocked, though it's so small, against the glare of the screen those of you with poorer vision may be unable to tell. Perhaps a brighter shade of paint might resolve the job? Anyway, the webcam is a unmoving-focus 720p camera, just operable enough for Skype calls.

Lenovo ThinkBook 13s ThinkShutter — When the ThinkShutter is slide shut, a tiny red battery-acid indicates that the webcam is physically unable to record you. An extremely wispy switch higher up it slides it open and blinking.

The audio experience that the Lenovo ThinkBook 13s delivers is surprisingly good. The speakers green goods a shrill, full-throated range of sound that's excellent in the midrange and non too shabby on the lower end, either. In testing the ThinkBook 13s against my normal range of streamed YouTube music and other prerecorded samples, there were several occasions that I simply leaned back and enjoyed the music. The ThinkBook 13s builds in Harman speakers that are enhanced by Ray M. Dolby Audio, off connected by default option. There aren't whatsoever presets for rock musi, down, and the wish, though the Dolby algorithm itself seems to understand and conform. This may be an inexpensive notebook aimed at small businesses, but the audio frequency was definitely designed with the consumer in mind.

Lenovo ThinkBook 13s grillework — Sizeable vents underneath the ThinkBook 13s suck in air, and so vent information technology through the hinge. Unfortunately, expect the bad abundant that supports the laptop to mule.

Lenovo can't quite get outside from the usual mix of Windows bloatware and third gear-party apps. Only one real asset is the Lenovo Advantage app, which provides comprehensive tools for updating the BIOS software package and other system apps, and powdered-tuning unusual system functions. Business concern and consumer users like will value its elaborate explanations and controls. Some of the functionality is reproduced elsewhere in the Windows 10 Settings menu, simply it's still a good start point to explore the nook and cranny of the ThinkBook 13s.

Lenovo ThinkBook 13s screws and speakers — The ThinkBook's downwards-facing speakers deliver audio that you'll actually want to listen to. Also note the drug user-serviceable screws.

It's worthy noting that while the ThinkBook 13s shipped with the Windows 10 October 2018 Update installed, Microsoft almost immediately pushed the April 2019 Update (version 1903) to the laptop as part of its daily updates. We unquestioned it, and tried the laptop using the April Update.

Lenovo ThinkBook 13s: Middling operation

Notebook computer buyers will have to step a bit gingerly though the logjam of non one simply three competing Gist processors, all shipping this holiday season and all competing for your dollars: Intel's two 10th-gen Core group chips, computer code-named Ice Lake and Comet Lake, testament be marketing alongside the Sir Thomas More established (and still worthy) Whiskey Lake 8th-gen chips. (At press fourth dimension, we didn't have any to test.)

Though the 10th-gen chips offer some performance and graphics advantages, they're really more well-rounded platforms. Nice if you can afford them, but don't discount a Whiskey Lake weapons platform like the the ThinkBook 13s because it doesn't sport the up-to-the-minute label.

It's great to lay these results into the proper perspective. Many of the notebooks we quiz are consumer PCs, some with inebriated price tags attached. We compared the Lenovo ThinkBook 13s to a variety of the consumer and occupation machines, weighted Thomas More toward the consumer market. Compensate attention to where the ThinkBook 13s places—though its results are middling overall, its utter scores aren't bad. And for the price, it English hawthorn embody worth a purchase.

Historically, PCMark 8's cortege (Work, Home, and Creative) offers a roam of applications tests, from gross office work (Holy Scripture processing and spreadsheet calculations) to VoIP calls, image handling, light gambling, and flat some video editing. PCMark 10 modernizes all of these tests, and combines them into a single general benchmark.

For simplicity's sake, we've provided the PCMark 8 Work and Creative tests below, comparing the ThinkBook 13s to extraordinary of its competitors. IT fares pretty considerably.

Lenovo ThinkBook 13s pcmark creative — PCMark 8's scores in some the Work and Ingenious tests establish the central thesis of the ThinkBook 13s: just average in terms of functioning, but the low price makes it a good value.

We experience fewer PCMark 10 scores to compare to, but here are some democratic samples to put down the ThinkBook's functioning into context. The ThinkBook 13s scored 3,752, slightly higher than the 3,737 that the well-regarded Dell XPS 13 9370, a 2018 laptop founded upon a Kaby Lake-R chip, and the 3,882 score reportable by the Samsung Notebook 9 Pro (2019). Top scores go to the HP Spectre 360 x15, at 4,691—a dear, top-end consumer laptop.

While PCMark attempts to simulate real-world tests, the Cinebench test is synthesized. Cinebench appears in two versions, each rendition a scene using Maxon's rendering locomotive. The difference between the two tests (R15 and R20) depends on the complexness of the fit, with the R20 test being the more problematical of the two. We've used the older R15 trial for our comparison.

Lenovo ThinkBook 13s cinebench — Lenovo's ThinkBook 13s again falls to the middle of the pack in this Cinebench trial run.

The open-source HandBrake joyride is a prolonged CPU tryout that transcodes a Hollywood flic into a format suitable for watching on an Android tablet. Though it's realizable that increasingly people are watching movies on their laptops, it's still a practical tax that shows how a prolonged activity stresses the CPU on the ThinkBook 13s.

Lenovo ThinkBook 13s handbrake — Intel's "Whisky Lake" architecture and the ThinkBook's robust cooling system propel IT quite highschool upfield in the Handbrake video recording-conversion run, a real-world transcoding exercise.

Get into't expect to play many quick, action-oriented games on Lenovo's business-consumer notebook computer, because of the integrated graphics. In that location's an enormous cluster of laptops which all purpose the UHD 620 chipset, which will be good for some standard, older games. Still, if you're volitional to dial down the details, you can credibly calm have good experiences on Fallout 4, for example, or Batman Arkham: Origins, neither of which are especially antediluvian.

Lenovo ThinkBook 13s 3dMark sky diver — Though the derived function between the top and bottom laptops under this 3DMark 3D performance valuation is relatively tight, the ThinkBook 13s still waterfall well down the ranks.

Finally, there's battery life, single of the more important measures of a laptop. The ThinkBook13s fares pretty well here with just over 10 hours, about enough for a day of work and then some. (To mental testing, we charter a 4K picture show and loop it over and over until the battery expires.) Both of the consumer laptops pull in much higher numbers racket, only laptop manufactures have begun taking advantage of low-force displays that extend battery life further.

Lenovo ThinkBook 13s battery life — There's enough battery life to last ThinkPad 13s users a replete days's worth of computing.

Conclusion: Satisfying value at the right price

While Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 C 6th-Gen remains the superior business notebook computer in Lenovo's stable, the MSRP is well over $1,000. (Prices connected the base models have fallen to $999, As the 7th-Gen models have begun to send on.) IT's probably worth considering picking up a whole lot on the elder X1 Carbon generation also Eastern Samoa considering the new ThinkBooks.

There's a lot to look-alike about Lenovo's consumer-business hybrid, though. Save for a lack of a dedicated ethernet port, in that respect's a business-friendly immix of connectivity options, and good battery life, with consumer-friendly multimedia options. Though the performance is relatively average, being able to purchase the ThinkBook 13s at an affordable price helps raise information technology. So ante up attention: if the price is around MSRP, look elsewhere. At prices near the $800 or so that Lenovo is currently charging, the ThinkBook 13s is a solidly advantageously-rounded notebook that we'd recommend purchasing.