Lenovo ThinkPad T590 review – a versatile “corporate workhorse”

Lenovo claims that their ThinkPad T590 is a true corporate workhorse. It is a bold claim, especially, given the fact that it comes with a ULV processor and energy-efficient graphics card (which is optional). In the business world, however, some features are more important. We are talking about security, versatility and the possibility to attach the laptop to a dock, which will ease your environment.

At a starting price of around $900, expectations are getting even higher. If you want the 4K, LTE-enabled version, the price is around twice bigger. Let’s check how the laptop fairs in a world, that is currently ruled by the ThinkPad series.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/lenovo-thinkpad-t590/

Contents


Specs Sheet

Lenovo ThinkPad T590 - Specs

  • AUO B156HAN02.1
  • Color accuracy  4.4  3.7
  • HDD/SSD
  • up to 8000GB SSD
  • RAM
  • up to 40GB
  • OS
  • Windows 10 Pro, Windows 10 Home
  • Battery
  • 57Wh, 57Wh, 3-cell, 55Wh, 3-cell
  • Dimensions
  • 366 x 248 x 20 mm (14.41" x 9.76" x 0.79")
  • Weight
  • 1.75 kg (3.9 lbs)
  • Ports and connectivity
  • 1x USB Type-C
  • 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps), Thunderbolt 3, Power Delivery (PD), DisplayPort, HDMI
  • 1x USB Type-C
  • 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps), Power Delivery (PD), DisplayPort
  • 1x USB Type-A
  • 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps), Sleep and Charge
  • 1x USB Type-A
  • 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps)
  • HDMI
  • 1.4b
  • Card reader
  • microSD
  • Ethernet LAN
  • Wi-Fi
  • 802.11ac
  • Bluetooth
  • 5.0
  • Audio jack
  • combo audio / microphone jack
  • Features
  • Fingerprint reader
  • optional
  • Web camera
  • HD
  • Backlit keyboard
  • optional
  • Microphone
  • Speakers
  • 2x 2W
  • Optical drive
  • Security Lock slot

What’s in the box?

Its packaging includes only the basic stuff, though. It comes with a 65W charging brick that pumps the battery from 0-80% in just an hour.


Design and construction

This laptop is absolutely true to its name. It feels sturdy and has an already well known industrial design. Additionally, it is fairly light for a 15-inch device. Especially for a business laptop. It tops the scales at 1.75 kg and its profile is 19.1mm thin.

There is no significant bend when you push the lid in the middle. Its lid can be opened with a single hand. In addition to that, you can see an attribute, that is building more popularity lately – the “ThinkShutter” privacy cover. Or in a non-Lenovo language – a camera lens cover.

On the base of the device, you can notice a fairly large speaker grill. Beneath it, there is a spill-resistant, LED-backlit keyboard that is the typical ThinkPad one – large keys, long key travel, and clicky feedback. Of course, we couldn’t miss the frustration of the Function and Control button rocade, but people used to a ThinkPad machine would find it more comfortable.

Additionally, it still features the nipple and the dedicated mouse buttons on top of the touchpad.

As usual, ventilation happens from the bottom side of the laptop, however, the hot air is exhausted from the right side of the laptop.

Ports

Most of the ports here are situated on the left side of the device – let’s start with the USB Type-C 3.1 (Gen. 1) port that it uses for charging itself. Next, there is a Thunderbolt 3 port, that is used for the dedicated dock. After that, there is a USB Type-A 3.1 (Gen. 1) port, an HDMI connector, an audio jack, and a MicroSD card reader. Looking on the right, there is the RJ-45 connector and only one USB Type-A 3.1 (Gen. 1) port, which has an Always-On function and the optional Smartcard reader.


Display quality

Lenovo ThinkPad T590 is equipped with an IPS panel, model number AUO B156HAN02.1. Its diagonal is 15.6″ (39.62 cm), and the resolution 1920 х 1080 pixels. The screen ratio is 16:9, and we are looking at a pixel density of – 142 ppi, and a pitch of 0.18 х 0.18 mm. The screen turns into Retina when viewed at distance equal to or greater than 60cm (24″) (from this distance one’s eye stops differentiating the separate pixels, and it is normal for looking at a laptop).

Viewing angles are excellent. We offer images at 45° to evaluate image quality.

The measured maximum brightness of 243 nits in the middle of the screen and 231 nits as an average for the whole area, with a maximum deviation of 11%. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen is 6800K – slightly colder the optimal for the sRGB standard of 6500K, which is not bad. The average color temperature through the grey scale before profiling is 6600K.
In the illustration below you can see how the display performs from a uniformity perspective. In other words, the leakage of light from the light source.

Values of dE2000 over 4.0 should not occur, and this parameter is one of the first you should check if you intend to use the laptop for color-sensitive work. The contrast ratio is fine – 1260:1.

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction to the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people in HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors, etc for printing. Colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

The yellow dotted line shows Lenovo ThinkPad T590’s color gamut coverage.

Its display covers only54% of the sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976.

Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 cd/m2 luminance and sRGB gamma mode.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange, etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

Below you can compare the scores of Lenovo ThinkPad T590 with the default settings (left), and with the “Gaming and Web design” profile (right).

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle, and the surrounding light conditions.

Response time (Gaming capabilities)

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and vice versa.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 25 ms.


PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

Lenovo ThinkPad T590’s display doesn’t use PWM to adjust its brightness levels. This means it is safe for long workdays, without presenting any strain in your eyes in this aspect.

Blue light emissions

Installing our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

Conclusion

Lenovo ThinkPad T590 has an IPS panel with a Full HD resolution, comfortable viewing angles and good contrast ratio. Its backlight doesn’t flicker, however, the panel has a very narrow color coverage and not too high maximum brightness.

Buy our profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for Lenovo ThinkPad T590 configurations with 15.6″ FHD IPS AUO B156HAN02.1.

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at [email protected].

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

Health-Guard

Health-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

Get all 3 profiles with 33% discount


Sound

Lenovo ThinkPad T590’s front-firing speakers have a rather good sound quality. However, low, mid and high frequencies have some deviations.


Drivers

All of the drivers for the Lenovo ThinkPad T590 are available here: https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/us/en/products/laptops-and-netbooks/thinkpad-t-series-laptops/thinkpad-t590-type-20n4-20n5/downloads

Battery

Now, we conduct the battery tests with 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. The ThinkPad T590 is equipped with a 57Wh battery pack.

On their website, Lenovo state that it should provide you up to 15 hours of battery life. Interestingly, this is exactly how much we got from our unit both in web browsing and in video playback.

In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.


CPU options

Lenovo ThinkPad T590 comes with the latest Whiskey Lake processors from Intel. There are two major options – the Core i5 and the Core i7, and the choice is yours (or perhaps depends on the region) whether you will get the vPro version or the regular one.

Lenovo ThinkPad T590 CPU variants

Here you can see an approximate comparison between the CPUs that can be found in the Lenovo ThinkPad T590 models on the market. This way you can decide for yourself which Lenovo ThinkPad T590 model is the best bang for your buck.

Note: The chart shows the cheapest different CPU configurations so you should check what the other specifications of these laptops are by clicking on the laptop’s name / CPU.


GPU options

Apart from the obvious UHD 620, Lenovo offers you the chance to pair the laptop with the GeForce MX250, which embodies


Temperatures and comfort

Max CPU load

In this test we use 100% on the CPU cores, monitoring their frequencies and chip temperature. The first column shows a computer’s reaction to a short load (2-10 seconds), the second column simulates a serious task (between 15 and 30 seconds), and the third column is a good indicator of how good the laptop is for long loads such as video rendering.

Average core frequency (base frequency + X); CPU temp.

Intel Core i7-8565U (15W TDP)0:02 – 0:10 sec0:15 – 0:30 sec10:00 – 15:00 min
Lenovo ThinkPad T5902.73 GHz (B+52%) @ 76°C2.70 GHz (B+50%) @ 86°C2.52 GHz (B+40%) @ 88°C
Lenovo ThinkPad T4902.61 GHz (B+45%) @ 77°C2.60 GHz (B+44%) @ 86°C2.39 GHz (B+33%) @ 93°C
Lenovo ThinkPad E5902.60 GHz (B+44%) @ 65°C2.00 GHz (B+11%) @ 61°C2.02 GHz (B+12%) @ 64°C
ASUS ZenBook 15 UX5333.92 GHz (B+118%) @ 65°C3.82 GHz (B+112%) @ 79°C2.71 GHz (B+51%) @ 75°C
HP Spectre x360 15 (15-df0000)3.10 GHz (B+72%) @ 69°C1.92 GHz (B+7%) @ 61°C1.88 GHz (B+4%) @ 64°C

Lenovo ThinkPad T590 is not scared of temperatures. It brings you pretty high-performance values across a long period of time, however, expect the temps to grow a little bit higher. In fact, the maximum one we measured was 88C. This is nowhere near the ASUS ZenBook 15 UX533, although, it is still better than average.

Verdict

Let’s put it this way – Lenovo has done a very good job in building this device. It stays up to the promise of being a corporate workhorse, by the corporate workhorse standards. We imagine that they would prioritize security features and versatility on top of pure performance figures and input device perfection.

However, this is not the case here – the ThinkPad T590 is one of the few devices that offer very little – to no compromises. It has incredibly long battery life – 15 hours of web browsing and video playback. Additionally, it has a Full HD IPS panel or can be configured with a 4K HDR-enabled one.

We have actually tested the 1080p IPS display (AUO B156HAN02.1) and we were moderately happy with it. I mean, we are aware that this laptop is not one of the most expensive out there but Lenovo has decided to put a budget IPS panel on this one. It has a maximum brightness of 250 nits, and while it has comfortable viewing angles and good contrast, it covers just over half of the colors in sRGB. On the bright side, it doesn’t use PWM to adjust the screen brightness, so it is safe for long work periods.

In terms of I/O, there is everything you’ll ever need, and in addition to that, you can pick the LTE option that will let you put a SIM-card inside in order to bring your work with you basically everywhere.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a true ThinkPad if it didn’t have the docking station extension. This is made possible with the help of the Thunderbolt 3.0 port. This makes the 1.75 kg laptop, even easier to handle around since you don’t need to bring your peripherals with you.

Pros

  • Great input devices
  • Backlit keyboard
  • 15 hours of battery life
  • Security features
  • Thunderbolt support
  • Optional LTE card
  • Doesnt use PWM to adjust screen brightness (AUO B156HAN02.1)


Cons

  • Price is growing rapidly with the higher specs
  • Covers only 54 of sRGB (AUO B156HAN02.1)

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/lenovo-thinkpad-t590/

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Laptop Workstation cũ Tphcm

I very like Lenovo Thinkpad !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!