W540 vs T540p

Hi all, I could not find a direct answer to this elsewhere on the forums, but I was looking for some thoughts on the forthcoming W540 vs T540p for business use. I wanted a dockable laptop which is why these are at the top, I don't mind the off-center keyboard of the w540. Everything I have read though indicates projected 12 hr battery with T540p extended battery, and no word yet on w540 extended options (I have only seen the 6 hr quote). Or would someone suggest a different lenovo entirely? I know we will all find out in November, but I can't help being curious now! :hi2:

I am looking forward to firing up a touchscreen monitor connected through the dock.

 

no one knows yet.

 

The W540 is likely to have more powerful graphics and top-end mobile quad-core processors. Lenovo rates it at 6 hours battery life with the standard 6-cell battery. It looks like the T540p has an internal 3-cell battery and a removable 3-cell battery standard, and Lenovo rates the combination at 7 hours, which means the T540p uses less power than the W540 at idle. As the W540 has new screen options, it can be surmised that the new screen options use more power. However, a 15% difference in idle battery life is only one of the differences between the systems. We won't find out the rest until Lenovo releases the rest of the specs in November.

 

They have different port options, they have different screen options, they have different graphics options, and they don't weigh the same. My guess is that when the specs are finalized and published, one will make more sense to you than the other. I know I don't need workstation graphics (I'm more likely to play games than do heavy multimedia production), so I'm already assuming the T540p will make more sense to me based on my anticipated usage of the machine. Do you have a sense for how the laptop will need to fit into your workflow? What will it need to do?

 

The biggest difference apart from the Screen would be the GPU. The K2100m on the W540 is significantly faster than the GT730m in the T540P. Im surprised they dont just put a non Quadro equivalent in there like the GT760M in the T540p.

The GT730m is a slap on the face to the P moniker.

 

Standard on the W540:
Battery Life
Up to 6 hours with standard 6-cell removable battery
Weight
Starting at 5.45 lbs
Speakers
Stereo with Dolby® Home Theater® v4
Microphone
Dual noise-cancelling HD microphones
Ports
Thunderbolt, 2 USB 3.0, 2 USB 2.0, VGA, RJ-45, 4-in-1 card reader, express card, smart card, headphone/mic combo

ThinkPad W540 | Mobile Workstation | | Lenovo (US)

Damn, I want Thunderbolt and a new GPU on mine..

 

Me too...

I'm glad that the Express Card slot is still there as well.

 

Sorry to dig up an old thread. I'm concerned about this GPU in the T540p as well. I'm currently evaluating both of these models because I want a Thinkpad with the 15.5" 3K IPS (2880 x 1620) display and I'm wondering if the display response time in the T540p will be really slow with a 2880 x 1620 resolution display and the GeForce GT 730M GPU.

Btw, I chatted with 2 different Lenovo reps and they both told me that the W540 won't be out until January now. Lenovo is coming really late to the Haswell party meanwhile the new Apple MacBook Pros that are already out have Crystall Well processors, the succesor to Haswell.

 

The GT 730M will be more than enough to handle normal 3K display usage, and in non-graphically-intensive tasks, you shouldn't notice any difference between that and say, the Quadro 2100M in the W540. It's only in tasks like gaming and 3D modeling where you'll notice a significant difference between the two. If GPU performance is critical, go for the W540 with the Quadro 2100M. if not, stick with the T540.

 

FYI, the successor (die shrink) to the Haswell microarchitecture is Broadwell, and has not yet been released. Crystalwell refers to having additional dedicated memory on the CPU die that can be used to improve integrated graphics performance.

 

Crystalwell is not a successor to Haswell, that is Broadwell. Crystalwell is the codename of a subset of Haswell chips that have Iris Pro graphics with embedded DRAM. It references the extra graphics performance not any processor performance.

Since Lenovo is always including discrete graphics there is no reason to pay for Crystalwell chips and further complicate your thermal design. However I am also disappointed by the GK208 730M that they have chosen. It seems extremely low-end and is by all accounts slower than crystalwell and even Iris 5100 for some workloads.

This refresh has been dominated by battery life improvements (even at the cost of performance regression) across the industry including Apple. The hype of Haswell battery life improvements meant that the main standard the reviewers are looking at is battery life.

 

Other than the mobo and GPU, are the chassis the same so the W is not better built than the T?

 

They are the same. (though the W can be configured with a Colorimeter as far as I know)