Lenovo ThinkBook 15 Gen 4 – Top 5 Pros and Cons
For the people who value the security and feature-packed nature of the ThinkPad series, but despise the look and feel, we present you the ThinkBook series, which takes all the good things that are on the inside of ThinkPads, but gives them a new design, which is certainly going to bring new consumers into the fold.
Quite the smart move, that’ll eat up parts of Dell and HP’s consumer base. Today we have the ThinkBook 15 Gen 4, which comes with Alder Lake U-series and P-series hardware, depending on what type of performance you need.
Today we’re presenting you with LaptopMedia’s top 5 picks about the Lenovo ThinkBook 15 Gen 4.
Lenovo ThinkBook 15 Gen 4: Full Specs / In-depth Review
3 reasons to BUY the Lenovo ThinkBook 15 Gen 4
1. Upgradeability
The laptop is on point, in terms of upgradeability, with some soldered memory, as well as one SODIMM slot for DDR4 memory. For storage, you have two M.2 slots for Gen 4 SSDs.
Here is our detailed teardown video which shows how to access both the RAM and SSD slots.
2. I/O
The port selection of the ThinkBook includes two USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 1) ports, one UBS Type-C 3.2 (Gen. 2) port, one Thunderbolt 4 port, an HDMI 2.0 port, an SD card reader, an Ethernet port, and a 3.5 mm audio jack.
3. Cooling
The cooling setup of the laptop comes with two heat pipes and one big fan.
Max CPU load
Intel Core i5-1235U (15W TDP) | 0:02 – 0:10 sec | 0:15 – 0:30 sec | 10:00 – 15:00 min |
---|---|---|---|
Lenovo ThinkBook 15 Gen 4 | 2.55 GHz @ 2.32 GHz @ 60°C @ 32W | 2.51 GHz @ 2.30 GHz @ 66°C @ 32W | 2.40 GHz @ 2.20 GHz @ 65°C @ 28W |
For a CPU with a 15W base TDP, it manages to maintain a stable load of 28W in long runs, which is great, since even if you get a configuration with a P-series processor, you will be able to maintain the base speeds. We even think there’s room for more since the CPU only went as high as 66°C.
Comfort during full load
With a hotspot of just 37°C, the position that it’s in rarely matters, as the laptop will run and feel cool. In terms of noise, the laptop can be heard, however, it’s not annoying at all.
2 reasons NOT to buy the Lenovo ThinkBook 15 Gen 4
1. Battery life
The laptop uses a 45Wh battery, which lasts for only 6 hours and 47 minutes of Web browsing, or 5 hours and 16 minutes of video playback. Now, we conduct the battery tests with the Windows Better performance setting turned on, screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits, and all other programs turned off except for the one we are testing the notebook with.
2. Build quality
The ThinkBook 15 comes with an aluminum lid, which definitely makes it feel more premium. The fact that it’s pretty durable is great as well. The base on the other hand is quite weaker. The saving grace of the laptop is the design itself, with a dual-tone finish on the lid, as well as a fingerprint reader inside the power button.
The keyboard is also decent for typing, albeit the key travel is too short for our liking. Thankfully, it’s plenty clicky. The touchpad is smooth, thanks to the Mylar cover, but the responsiveness leaves us asking for more. Accuracy, however, was good.