My T540p Review

Hello there,

As some might know I have been given a T540p with 3k display for testing. And that's exactly what I did. After days of writing, it feels like I have completed my life's work. I reviewed the T440s back in August, but did so in German, thus limiting the amount of readers. "Not this time" I told myself. So just for you guys I actually wrote my review in 2 languages. German and English. That's right, bilingual. Double the amount of work. No more complaining now.

Now go and read my review while I get some well deserved rest.

T540p ThinkPad T540p Review [CAUTION! Pictures + Videos!]!

English comments can be posted in this thread.

 

So the build quality of the t440s is far superior, right? Maybe you could link the t440s you reviewed some time ago.

Thank you for the review!

 

So, is it even worth buying over a gaming laptop?

 

Yes, the T440s is a much higher quality machine. For those who understand German, this is my T440s review: T440s ThinkPad T440s Review + Vergleich mit X1 Carbon! [ACHTUNG BILDER + VIDEOS!]!

There are definitely aspects that make the T540p more interesting than a gaming laptop. (like the docking port for example)

 

I was not able to find your "original English" review with the link you included above. My Chrome browser said this:

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I don't wanna read no stinkin' Google translation.

 

Disable automatic translation. Since my review is written in 2 languages at the same time, German and English, your browser still detects the German and tries to translate.

But I'm guessing you already knew that.

 

That's a hell of a review.

This is my first ThinkPad so I have no real comparison to make as far as build quality but I am also disappointed in the trackpad and keyboard. Expected much better. I miss the dedicated buttons of my current Dell Studio 1537 (which I am typing this on right now). I also find my Dell keyboard to be preferable but that may be due to its familiarity due to use over the past approximately 4 years. The trackpad and certain keys (particularly my TAB and nearby keys) are extremely "clacky". I use a mouse 90+% of the time though so not a major issue in my case. I also don't like the left offset keyboard but that seems to be the trend these days and it's not too big of a deal.

I got the 3k display solely for the fact that it is IPS and on the recommendation of forum user kevrock (spelling?) I'm running it at non-native 1920x1080 resolution as I don't want to deal with Windows' poor scaling. That has been working excellently for me.

I'm still not 100% sure I will be keeping this machine but I'm leaning more toward yes than no.

 

Great review and pictures, well done (and extra props for the English translation)! Good to see that the T540p has a very robust and quiet cooling system; that's probably one of my favorite parts of my T500. Disappointing that the chassis doesn't have the same solid feel as before, though. Also a bit off-putting that the body (minus the screen) is actually thicker than the T500's.

Regarding the lid arching, are you talking about the entire screen cover? If so, you can see that the lid of the T500 arches as well (peaks at the center of the screen), to provide greater load-bearing resistance. I doubt that any arching would be due to heat from the screen; it'd take a lot more heat to deform the plastic like that.

 

I'm just talking about the bottom center part. I was unsure of how to translate "wölben". I'm sure you know those metal sheets that people often use to build houses in poorer countries? That's what I meant. It's formed like waves. I have a T500 myself and you are correct, the bezel does point inward a bit, but that was designed that way. The T540p like I said has irregular waves which I used to have on my X220 as well. The latter had known problems with deforming bezels, even melting in direct sunlight. Comparing the T540p to my old X220, the symptoms look very similar.

 

600X thanks for your superb review. It is sad to see, that even with T540p I can't update from my T500. There are too many drawbacks across the whole laptop.

1. Absence of LED under screen, yet the bezel is bigger
2. Integration of volume keys to function keys
3. Poor audio (Lenovo next "best" feature after TN screens?)
4. Same thickness as 5 year old laptop? Yeah 4-Core Intel, but if you want 15" screen and reasonable performance? Couldn’t this be just case of W540?
5. GT730M in laptop with 3K display? Again one of the weakest option on the market
6. Battery making the body even thicker
7. USB 2.0 on Haswell laptop for 2000 Euro.
8. …

Overall I don't understand, what it is going on Lenovo ThinkPad division. On one hand they create some new nice features like Power Bridge or add IPS panel option, on the other hand they destroy most of the features, which made ThinkPads different from the rest of the market.
Hopefully T550 will be better…

 

Thanks for the review, maybe i will wait for next gen thinkpads to purchase a new one, but it seems as if they are done for, don't think they will change back to older style. i do hope i am wrong though.

 

Great review; thanks for sharing!

I sincerely hope Lenovo execs are paying attention to feedback. Last summer I was planning on buying a T540p to replace my aging Dell XPS running Ubuntu. As summer cooled into fall I impatiently scanned for rumors on specs, figuring the T540p was going to be a workstation without the AutoCAD-tuned video capabilities. I was primed for an industry-leading 15" ThinkPad.

Then the specs started to leak out, and they were disappointing. I understood why Lenovo might decide against including a touchscreen, given the business focus of the line and the indication that Lenovo would make Windows 7 licenses available as a factory install. But why would they ditch the best laptop keyboard in the industry? Are there not people who buy ThinkPads just to get that keyboard perfection? No more, I guess. And why ditch discrete buttons around the trackpad? How much does that change need to cut from the cost of production to make up for the lost sales?

But the coup de grace for me was the nVidia GT-730M with a single GB of DDR3 memory. That was a rude slap to the face. My old XPS could kick this thing's , and I'm ready to move *up* from that level of computing. It never occurred me that going from XPS to ThinkPad would be such a step down in performance. It also never occurred to me that a 'slim' variant (T440s) would have more total muscle than a 'performance' model. ?

And Lenovo thought it made sense to call this a T540p and not a straight T540? Hell, it looks like it would fit much better as part of the Edge series than the T-series. What a stunning loss of vision. I really hope Lenovo does some internal shuffling to put people in charge of the T-series who understand that the T-series and X-series are, by definition, the two lines of Lenovo laptop that should NOT cut corners. They're supposed to lead the rest of the pack in features, quality, and performance.

Glad I ended up buying a new XPS 15, though I really had been looking forward to returning to a ThinkPad. Meh.

 

I'm amazed you don't know what a W540 is. The 730M is almost just there in case you need to do CUDA programming, otherwise this is a laptop built for enterprise. If you need a workstation get a W, you will get a quadro...

Your glasses seem to have a rose tint, i suggest you wipe them.

 

Thank you for a candid and exceptionally thorough review.

It's sad to see that we can't have it all, once again...gorgeous screen and improved cooling which would've been so welcomed a couple of generations ago BUT combined with what appears to be a decline in overall build quality at least by the T-series standard.

Having now read your T440s review that I've been completely unaware of - need to log into the German forum more often, for a slew of reasons - I'd say that if I were a newcomer to ThinkPads I would go for T440s and not T540p based on your reviews...yes, I understand that these are apples and oranges, but the T440s seems to be a riper fruit altogether.

Now let's see how the W540 pans out...

 

Well, judging from pictures and past history, the chassis is going to be the same as the T540p's. So, all the shortcomings of the T540p's chassis will remain, although the anemic GT 730M will be replaced by a much more capable GPU. I wonder how cooling will fare, though.

Agreed that the T440s currently seems like the most attractive Thinkpad. Once the FHD screen hits the X240, that'll be a solid option as well.

 

Take the T540p, add in a Colormeter, Quadro and Thunderbolt. That's it. I'm amazed they didn't release it quicker.

@Everyone else

What about the T440p?

 

Didn't know the T540p only had 2 RAM slots. Budget cut much?

 

None of the T series ever had 4 RAM slots, it was only some of the W models...

 

What kind of RAM do I need to upgrade this system. I bought it with the minimum with intention to upgrade but not sure of the required specs and wanted to confirm.

Looks like it should be 204-pin SODIMM DDR3 PC3-12800 • CL=11 • Unbuffered • NON-ECC • DDR3-1600 • 1.35V per the memory finder at Crucial.com.

These, from Newegg seem to be compliant with those specs.

If anyone has particular recommendations, I'd appreciate it. Thanks.

 

I installed this - Crucial CT102464BF160B PC3-12800 8GB DDR3-1600 - and it seems to work fine alongside the 4gb ram that came with my t540p.

 

As for RAM, any DDR3L stick should be fine.

 

I thought it only takes low voltage memory.

HTC One Tapatalk

 

You're correct. Fixed it.