Why I returned my W540

After few weeks of wait, I received my already outdated W540 with the 4800mq (i7-4810mq announced), K2100m and HiDPI screen.

Looked a bit slimmer than the W530, with a power brick that was also a bit smaller. The only reason that it is slimmer is the reduced thickness of the screen, which also made it quite flimsy. There were a lot of sharp edges of plastic around the body that felt like a cheap build. Battery still extends

Turned it on, there was light leakage from two places on the bottom of the screen close to the hinges.
Passed that and the screen resolution and color looked great and after calibration with the embedded color sensor even better. Too bad the main programs that I would use it for, Premiere, After Effects, and Photoshop do not support HiDPI screens in Windows yet.
I was not so happy with the black levels. High and very sensitive to the angle of view.

Windows came with the usual preinstalled software. Contacted both Lenovo and Microsoft and there is no official legal way of having a clean install. You have to illegally download the version of windows that you use, get a program to find your key and perform a clean install. Then if activation fails (because you used a full version instead of an OEM) you might have to also contact Microsoft to convince them to activate your windows.

Off axis keyboard was pissing me off every time I had to type. Because I usually align myself to the screen, I was constantly mistyping. It might get better with practice if you only use this machine, but I use multiple computers and I know I will never adapt to it. I had no big problem with the Chiclet keyboard as I am used to it on my x1 carbon, but it doesn't come close to the old classic.

As far as the trackpad goes, I cannot believe I would appreciate the trackpad of my x1 carbon that much. Sensitivity, smoothness, accuracy, everything is bad on this. **bleep** Lenovo? Did you really have to remove the top buttons? Off axis keyboard makes this buttonless design even worse.

I had bought this machine to install windows on the M.2 ssd and have raid 0 two 1tb ssd’s. Opening the back doors was a pain in the , I thought I would break them every single time. I am sure these will start failing very soon. I can’t think of a worse design than this, and I am surprised that any engineer would allow this. It was also sad to see the missing quick removal of the CD/HDD caddy again. That was very handy.


About the M.2. 2242 size and sata 3? There was clearly enough space for a 2280 with a different orientation so I don't understand Lenovo's insistance of underutilization of this socket. Now 128gb is the max.

Performance was good but throttling was no fun. I exported a short movie that uses both CPU and GPU, and the CPU went down to 3000MHz after few seconds, and every few seconds it was throttling to 800MHz! Temperature was around 85C so I don’t know why this happened. As I want a desktop replacement, this was not good at all. I can get an older computer to perform better than this one.

Finally I got my extra SSD to set the RAID 0 and to my surprise: NO RAID Functionality! I looked around in this forum and I found out that you have to select the RAID when ordering from Lenovo to enable it. That means that I had to pay extra for two hard drives that I wouldn’t use in order for them to allow RAID. Lame. I know there is a person here that can hack the bios for you, but I don’t want to have to hack it every time that I want to update my bios.

And that was the last straw. After that I had to return it.

I tried a zbook 15 with the 4900mq but it was throttling to 2.8 after few seconds. So I bought a HP 8770w elitbook. 3920xm, 32gb ram, k5000m and Dreamcolor display. Bulkier but a true workstation and desktop replacement. And the built quality is from another planet when compared to the W540.

Hopefully somebody might find this information useful before they buy the W540.

 

I recently bought a T440p and agree with you on the build quality and overall design. The new models just have a certain cheapness factor (for want of a better term) that was never present in Thinkpads before IMO and too many corners seem to have been cut in terms of configuration options. All in all we seem to be going backwards and the line between Lenovo's consumer and business machines seems to be blurring.

I was also infuriated by the 42mm M.2 option, especially because so many other memory and computer manufacturers are still embracing mSATA. An 80mm M.2 slot would be better, but still the SSD options would be limited compared to mSATA. The thin, flexy lid is just asking to be damaged (and no-doubt contributes to light bleed), the case design is crude-looking and the new plastic Lenovo is using is a total grease magnet -- after a few minutes, my T440p and a TP Yoga I also use look like they've had a portion of fries spilled on them

Despite losing a row and numlock/tenkey overlay, the keyboard is at least still among the best IMO. The off-axis keyboard thing seems to be a trend among manufacturers now for pretty much any machine over 15"

 

I've yet to use a Haswell thinkpad, but i will consider this if getting one.

 

What? That's strange.

Anyway: They won't nail you on it anyway.

 

As a Dell precision user i have to ask why didnt you consider m4800 or m6800/6700 as they have superb cooling systems.

Sent from my HUAWEI Y300-0100 using Tapatalk

 

Not strange, but rather misleading. For the longest time, pretty much ALL of the major OEMs will not just give you vanilla Windows install media. But if you do have install media there is absolutely no problem using it with your OEM key.

For my clean Win 8.1 install on a T440P, I extracted my key from the BIOS with RWEverything, and obtained a Windows 8.1 ISO legally using this method: Download a Windows 8.1 ISO with a Windows 8 Product Key and the install key I bought during the $40 upgrade special.

I started the clean Windows install on a new drive, using the generic keys: windows 8.1 generic keys . Then once Windows was installed, I activated Windows using the Lenovo OEM product key. Perfectly legitimate and legal clean Windows install that anybody can do - IF they can get the ISO.

 

Yeah, for Windows 7 I just downloaded an *.ISO and got the key under from the sticker under the battery.

 

Yep, and there is nothing illegal or dodgy about that at all. The issue is that none of Microsoft, Lenovo, or indeed any other computer manufacturer, will give you the clean ISO - so this part at least is a poor excuse to return a W540.

 

If reading my review gave you the impression that I returned my W540 for not providing a clean ISO then W540 might be for you.

You cannot use the key on the machine to download the Windows 8 ISO from Microsoft. And good luck spending hours to find a clean ISO at any torrent sites that will be malware free.

My point on Windows was this: OEM licence is cheaper because it is tied to the machine. Nothing else. So not being able to provide a clean install with no crapware is bad thing for anybody that actually cares of what is installed in a pc. At least they could have allowed me to buy the laptop without an OS which I would gladly buy myself as standalone licence. This is at least what they did in the past when that company still had some credibility.

I wish this was my only bad point of the W540.

These machines look very solid, and have good reviews. The problem is that I needed this machine for Photo/Video work and the color coverage is not comparable to the Lenovo or the HP Dreamcolor.

 

Sure, but this is industry-wide practice that is not exclusive to Lenovo. Did you get the option for no-OS, or clean Windows install media with your HP?

 

Yes I understand that it is industry-wide practice but that will not stop me from complaining about it. Especially since in the past you could buy a Thinkpad without a windows licence.

There are many reasons why a product will be returned. There was a list of them for the W540. Actually not being able to RAID 0 the drives, even if I wanted to pay lenovo for the RAID licence forced me to return it.

 

It would be nice if Lenovo offered OS-free option for its T and W series machines. It would be nicer still if Lenovo actually started offering Win8.1 on all its new machines instead of forcing customers to have to spend hours upgrading from Win8.0 themselves

 

Pfff.... OS-free and $20 cheaper... you really want that?

 

They did that actually for some time, called them DOS systems. Not just T and W but nearly all Thinkpads. The savings were quite significant at first, around $160, but later shrunk to $50 so most people didn't care any more. Another cool thing about these systems was that they could be freely configured with any option available from Lenovo. Very useful for price comparisons with Outlet machines.

 

As far as I know you can configure the new Thinkpads with Windows 8.1 preinstalled. My T440s ordered last week is coming with Windows 8.1.

The savings were significant if you compared them to the official list prices of the Windows-preinstalled models, but from what I remember, the DOS systems often didn't qualify for the same coupons that Lenovo always ran for the other systems... making the price difference insignificant or even nonexistent.

 

Buying a machine with preinstalled Windows does not preclude you in any way from wiping it and installing your own OS from your own 'clean' media (ie, exactly what you would do if you purchased a DOS machine).

Just spend some $$ on a copy of Win 8 Pro (with physical install media, since every Win 8 torrent out there is malware-infested) and you're good.

I assume cost is of no concern to the OP, since he was going to RAID 2 1TB SSDs...

In addition, the offset keyboard is an issue that could have been uncovered rightaway without doing any research, and just by looking at the pictures of the item you were going to buy (and, incidentally, is the exact reason why I didn't immediately spring for a W540).

It seems to me that right from the start, this wasn't the computer for the OP. I guess it's just time to move on, both for Lenovo and him.

 

The T440s has Windows 8.1 options, but the T440, T440p, T540p and W540 are stuck with Win8.0 (at least in the US), which is ridiculous IMO.

 

Hmm yeah, strange. Seems like the X1 Carbon and T440s are the only ones shipping with Windows 8.1 at the moment. Wonder what the holdup is.

 

How did you use the generic key? I can download using a genuine windows 8 serial that I have, but once the installer boots up it doesn't give me an opportunity to enter any key, just fails with the following message: "the product key entered does not match any of the windows images available for installation"

 

Are your Windows versions matching through every step?

For example: Windows 8 Pro 64 serial, downloading on a Windows 8 (or 8.1) Pro 64 machine, installing the Windows 8.1 Pro 64 ISO, using the Windows 8.1 Pro 64 Generic key, then activating with Windows 8 Pro 64 key from BIOS......

 

That might be the problem. My T440s has Windows 8 and the key that I had was for Windows 8 Pro...

When you start the installation, does it actually ask you for a key? I would've thought that it would read the key directly from bios.

 

Yes, it asks for the key. Windows 8.1 will not read a Windows 8 key from the BIOS during install, nor can you enter a Windows 8 key manually. You must use the generic key first, and it will allow you to enter your Windows 8 key later.

The only caveat is that you must make sure your keys and versions match. Otherwise it will download the wrong ISO or expect a key that you cannot supply, I'm not sure how it works...... but if you search around your problem is pretty common.

 

The 10% buydig coupon worked for them at the time I looked into it, and I was really close getting one.

 

A thread about returning the W540 has turned into a Windows thread.

 

Well, I can't speak to the other issues the OP had with the W540, and issues like the trackpad buttons, keyboard, etc. are being discussed ad nauseum elsewhere.

But the Windows complaints were quite off-base, and it is clear that there are ways around them.

 

What's your opinion on the new ultra-HD display?

 

It looked sharp with accurate colors.
I only wasn't happy with the light leakage at the borders of the frame but that was poor assembling not a screen problem.
Also the blacks seemed a bit high especially at small deviations of the angle of view. That is higher than my X1 carbon at least.
In general I was happy with it.