Lenovo ThinkPad W510 Review!

Lenovo ThinkPad W510 Review

note: since there are quite a few comprehensive reviews available both on this forum and other respectable websites I encourage you to read them before as my review is only meant to compliment the existing ones providing some additional insights from my (biased of course) impression.

Notebookcheck Review

NBR Review

System specifications:
> 15.6" HD+ Anti-Glare display LED backlight and WWAN antenna
> Intel Core i7-720QM Processor (1.6 - 2.80GHz 6MBL3 1333MHz)
> Windows 7 Professional 64
> NVIDIA Quadro FX 880M Graphics with 1GB DDR3 memory
> 2 GB PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM 1067MHz SODIMM Memory
> UltraNav (TrackPoint and TouchPad) with Fingerprint Reader
> Camera, 2.0 MP
> 320 GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm
> Multi Recorder Optical Drive (12.7mm)
> Express Card Slot & 5 in 1 Card Reader
> 9 cell 2.8Ah Li-Ion Battery
> Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 Wireless
> Bluetooth w/ antenna

Retail Price: 1849 CAD


Build Quality and Design

The overall impression of the quality is good and a few things are worthy of mentioning as remarkable if not outstanding. Lenovo keeps up a good job in both preserving the unique line of ThinkPads (created by IBM) with its already classic style and polishing further the successful marriage of workmanship and beauty.



The hinges are very good at holding the lid without any vibrations, in fact, one needs to apply some force to be able to move the lid from any angle in its beyond 180 degrees spectrum, though one hand is enough to maneuver the lid. There's barely any twist on the lid even if the notebook is picked by the lid's edge. In general, the machine is very solid, even though its exterior shell is made solely of plastic.
There are too places, however that have a mild but annoying flex and creaking:
One is on the left edge of the palm rest above the USB 3.0 ports as can be seen from this image:



Another one is on the right bottom edge exactly below the DVD-Drive as shown here:


Attention is also drawn by the battery. Our model has a 9-cell battery which is protruding from the back of the notebook and in many cases hits the surface (eg. table) when lifting or putting down the notebook:


Screen and Speakers

Our model has a 15.6" HD+ Anti-Glare display with LED backlighting. The resolution of 1600x900 is optimal compromise for those who doesn't want to strain their eyes too much and still needs a high enough density and vertical space for crucial work (eg. programming). One can always increase DPI when using an FHD screen, but then additional tweaking is needed for web browsers and many websites do not scale perfectly to dynamically adjust to the font size changes.
The brightness of ~200 cd/m^2 appears to be quite sufficient for both indoor and outdoor usage. Together with a good contrast of ~ 550:1 and a matte (anti glare) finish the screen can be easily used in direct sunlight conditions. The viewing angles are above average for this class of notebooks.

The speakers on the other hand can't boast a supreme quality with just an average sound quality. Moreover, one can notice sound vibrations starting from the 70% of the max volume.

Keyboard and TouchPad

The keyboard is nothing short of amazing. The keys have ideal shape and size for fast typists, are 100% responsive and register with a silent and short clicking sound. There's no flex whatsoever.
The trackpoint allows very fast and precise cursor movements, the keys have a very convenient and silent clicking.
The touchpad has a rough grainy (almost a rubbery?) surface but a very little adjustment time is needed to understand how pleasant and precise is the maneuvering.
The touchpad keys are also very silent and perfectly responsive.

Performance

For the comprehensive performance and benchmarks please refer to the mentioned above reviews as they are consistent with and more extensive than our tests.
i7-720QM CPU found to be sufficient to run current applications and games, moreover, its true potential is still not fully used by current software (most applications will only utilize a single/dual core modes) therefore the processor is future proof with a potential of effectively running 8 threads (due to hyper threading).
An Nvidia Quadro FX880M is a powerful workstation class graphics card (mid-range) optimized for professional applications like CAD, DCC, etc. It's also sufficient for running most current games at medium-high details at native resolution and therefore is suitable for occasional gaming.
One thing that has to be mentioned here is the system's DPC latency. For video/sound crucial work even minor stuttering/freezing as a result of high latency could be the deal breaker. Our model with stock OS, drivers and utilities was slightly beyond the safe zone:
The spikes shown on the screenshot are not threatening and most likely will not create any sound/video skips and stuttering, however additional testing is recommended especially when using external devices connected to the system. We observed a few 100k+ spikes while transferring data from a USB stick.

Temperatures
While the surface of the notebook stays pleasantly cool both when idle and during stress tests or gaming, the temperatures on the CPU/GPU can rise significantly at load.
Here is the screenshot of the idle (the system was just turned on) temperatures:

After playing King's Bounty The Armored Princess for 5 minutes:

As you can see, even during medium gaming the temperatures stay within the safety limits.
The situation changes however when stress tests and benchmarks are run as well as more demanding games like Crysis. Both the CPU and the GPU then hit alarming 90C.
Therefore it's recommended to monitor the temperatures when running heavy applications and demanding games.
We recommend HWMonitor as a good tool to keep an eye on the system temperatures.
85-90C is considered a warning range beyond which a physical damage to the system is possible.

Battery Life

With a 9-cell battery our system achieved the following results:

Idle, minimum brightness, no web surfing - 4hr 10min

Idle, 10/15 brightness, web browsing - 3hr 25min

Light gaming, max brightness - 1hr 20min

Conclusion

W510 is a powerful 15" business notebook packing an i7 CPU and mid-range professional GPU - FX880M. The system is an excellent performer and has an overall good build quality. It has 4 DDR3 memory slots supporting up to 16GB RAM, 2 USB 3.0 ports, amazing spill-resistant keyboard and a good anti-glare HD+ LED screen. Due to the acceptably small size and weight the notebook can be both a road warrior and an office workstation.

PROS:

very good keyboard

USB 3.0 ports

4 memory slots

good screen (FHD 95% Gamut option)

excellent performance


CONS:

speakers of below average sound quality

high CPU/GPU temps during long hours of stress tests and heavy gaming

minor flex on the left palmrest edge and on the right bottom edge below the DVD-Drive.

battery life

9-cell battery design



Thank You

 

nice.................

 

Good review. I like that you hit upon areas that you might not hear about in other reviews. As I was reading it I didn't feel like I was reading a rehash of other reviews that all seem to cover the same things (in general).

 

Thank you for the feedback guys!

 

Thanks for posting. The more views the better I say.

 

I like the design of the 9-cell battery. It's a nice handle for those on the move.

 

+1, I feel the same way. Only downside for me is the extra weight.

Thanks for the review, Aikimox. I would rep, but apparently I need to spread it around a bit more

 

Pretty short battery life considering the capacity of that battery. But I guess that's what discrete graphics gets you.

 

My god, is it just me or does this make me hate 16:9 even more!!?? Holy crap, this is extremely constricting for what i'm used to, 16:10, i was fine with, 16:9, no.... Not from this picture, looks like there's only like 2-3" between the bottom icons and the start menu.

 

Thank you.

Yeah, If only they would allow switchable graphics in it...

I know what you mean, feels like you've just been robbed...

 

My view on this for the T410 vs T510 was

1440 by 900 (16:10)
1600 by 900 (16:9)

meaning the laptop was 160 pixels (and speakers) wider, and same price at the time. I have been 4:3 and 16:10 forever, and was reluctant to go 16:9. I spent more time on this choice than all the others combined.

I saw many "professional reviewers" going with the flow and switching. I chose the T510, and no regrets. The 4:3 now seems ridiculously narrow, and the 16:10 feels a little bit squished. If I had to choose again, it's an easy choice.

 

It'd be kind of funny to see the battery life this gets while playing Crysis

I really do wish the W510 had switchable graphics, though - that would give it a significant advantage over the Elitebook 8530w and Precision M4500 in terms of battery life (like the W500 over the HP and Dell equivalents).

 

I actually like the 16:9 aspect personally. But if vertical real-estate is an issue, you could try either setting your taskbar to auto-hide so it only pops up when you move your mouse pointer to pretty much the very bottom of the screen, OR, you could try docking the task bar on the left or the right side of the screen if you still want it always visible. (Actually you could combine both of these and have it auto-hide on the side as yet a 3rd option.)

 

I love the 16:9 aspect as well. I can see how it would be crappy on low res screen, but on FDH it is great. I can confortably fit word document and excel, or excel and an imaging program side by side at very workable size. Works great in my opinion, as I could not do that before on 4:3 or 16:10 panels. I remember when 16:10 panels first became mainstream I could not wait to switch to one from 4:3 for same productivity reasons. I can see, however how the new formats can be a disadvantage to people who work with 1 document at a time and value vertical space. But for the things I work on, if i had a choice between 4:3, 16:10 and 16:9 aspect ratios on a 15" high res panel, I would pick the 16:9 no questions asked. On low res panel, however, I dont think this aspect ratio works at all.

 

There seems to be a problem with it on all notebooks of the same class/hardware. Otherwise, someone would have definitely implemented this idea by now.
I'm still tempted to swap the quad for i5-520M and see if it can be done. But of course, a BIOS update is needed to include the option...

 

this could void your laptop warranty....

 

Screw the warranty, I need to know the truth!

 

This is Matt Kohut's comment regarding switchable graphics on W510, so i think it is indeed possible with some BIOS hacking.

http://lenovoblogs.com/insidethebox/?p=406

 

His comments say nothing of the sort:

He's saying that if you know how to design laptop motherboards, you could probably come up with some hardware hacks that makes it work (but only COLD switching, as in "reboot"). That's a far, FAR statement from saying there's a way to hack the BIOS.

You should not be encouraging Aikimox. He is being naive and is only going to be successful in bricking his new laptop.

 

I doubt it would brick the laptop, but see your point...
Maybe I'll just leave it as it is. 2-3hrs of battery life is enough. Consider this a mere curiosity.

 

maybe ask Middleton to have a look at it... he is pretty good with bios and stuffs.

 

great review - thank you.

Having problems deciding on the screen. At the moment FHD isn't available - and it might be a month before it is - longer with shipping times. HD+ is the alternative, still not quite sure about it... yours is the first review I found with some comment on it - thank you.

 

Great review, thank for the benchmarks!

 

I read the review, very informative actually.

But the deterring effect has gotten the better of me, the CPU/GPU temperature while using heavy applications (which i plan to do) and gaming like crysis is gonna be a turn off.. The battery life is good, and the cpu is amazing. That's my feed back, thanks for the review

 

This system isn't for running Crysis and other demanding games.
If you absolutely need the biggest gaming power - AW/Clevo.

 

yeah, but i wanted to game to..some say that the workstations can game

but why does it heat up? even with heavy computations (i.e. data analysis and scientific/engineering computation)

 

I'm pretty sure you can run crysis (with 'reasonable' resolution and quality settings).

Actually, I think I'll try it soon, after seing FC2 is a bit boring..

 

Crysis likes to heat up the card, so be careful. If you see a 90C - stop gaming. 90 on the core could easily mean 100C on the memory (and mem. dies first).
I only do some lite gaming on this system and let the card get to 80C max (already dangerous, the memory could be around 90C).

 

yeah im afraid of the heating problem? If i buy an external cooling matt, would that help? Also do you do any engineering/scientific computation? Audio/video data analysis? data manipulation? audio/video editing, etc? If you do any of them, does the temperature rise to a dangerous level

@ not.sure yeah run crysis and tell me how it is? i really don'y mind playing on mid to low settings..though high settings would be beautiful to play in

 

Hey guys i just read a post/thread on here regarding Intel's TurboBoost. Do you W510 owners have a green check mark indicating TurboBoost is active in PowerManager?

Also, supposedly, u can see an Intel TurboBoost Technology Driver in System Devices in Device Manager..

The thread is here
http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo-ibm/480518-facts-turbo-boost.html

Just wondering the thoughts of other W510 users..

 

Very good, link! Kudos to the author.
In my case turbo boost is disabled due to the balanced power plan.

 

Nice review. Thanks.

+1 Rep.

Cheers!

 

Well, can you try to put it in Performance mode and see if you get the check mark like the thread i linked?

 

Thanks!

I'm going to update this with more pictures and tests,
So if anyone wants some specific benches to be added - just let me know!

 

How many threads to you want to start/hijack with turbo boost and whether the windows driver is working?

 

do you actually know what the term hijack thread means ?? Just in case you didnt know....

- Taking over a thread on a message board by taking a part of the original posted topic then twisting it around (via urban dictionary).

I wrote 3 posts on 3 different threads and they were:-
1) Lenovo W510 Owner's Thread
2) Lenovo ThinkPad W510 Review!
3) Facts: Turbo Boost

Two of which is regarding the W510 (which to my knowledge, a poster can ask/talk about anything that has to do with that particular system since the threads do not have specific topic), and the other is TURBO Boost.

So where exactly did i "hijack"?

You joined the forums lil over 6 months ago, get over yourself please.