Lenovo ThinkPad T490s in review: the slim business notebook
A TEST REPORT from Kevin Özgun 
on June 21, 2019, 18:00 am | Write a comment
With the Lenovo ThinkPad T490s, Lenovo is bringing a business notebook onto the market that follows the trend of being slim and visually beautiful at the same time and not foregoing important features.
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Scope of delivery and packaging
Nothing has changed here in the T490s either. As with most other Lenovo notebooks, the customer receives a USB-C power supply with 65 watts, a few pieces of paper and the Lenovo ThinkPad T490s.
Design and display
With the T series, Lenovo stands for a robust and stylish design. Compared to its predecessor, the current model was even thinner, which also increased portability. The back of the device is removable, but only very few internal components can actually be replaced.
The display measures 14 inches diagonally, is based on IPS, does not reflect and can work with up to 400 candelas pro square meters shine. The display is bright enough for normal everyday work. Even on bright days you shouldn't be bothered with reading the content Prohave problems. If the sun shines directly on the screen, however, it can happen that you no longer recognize one or the other text.
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- If the sun shines directly on the screen, it can happen that you can no longer see anything. (Image: TechnikNews)
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- Picture: TechnikNews
If you don't see this as a negative point, you will get along well with this display.
Runs in everyday life
The Lenovo ThinkPad T490s is not a laptop that you just surf the web with, because the internal components are tough. Lenovo packed the Core i7-8565U from Intel with 16 gigabytes of RAM under the hood of the T490s. The SSD holds a terabyte of data. Graphic applications such as Photoshop cannot harm the T490s. Here you can see that the notebook is designed for performance, because stuttering almost never occurs here.
The notebook also shows no weaknesses in the 3D Cinebench benchmark. However, you quickly notice that the internal components want to be cooled, because the fan can come on pretty quickly. I even noticed a kind of fever while running the benchmark test.
The battery life could be better. According to the manufacturer, the battery should last around 10 hours with one battery charge. However, this result can only rarely be achieved. Because the i7 from Intel and the large 16 gigabytes of RAM consume a lot of power to deliver their performance. Surfing, coding in Visual Studio, streaming YouTube or similar things worked Properish quickly. For me, after around 6 hours of intensive use, the lights of the T490s went out and the computer had to be plugged in again. You have to keep in mind that this device is designed for performance and portability, not durability to get you through the day.
That brings us to the next point.
Connection options hardly shrunk despite the thinner housing
Manufacturers such as Apple mercilessly remove the ports on their notebooks without flinching. Lenovo sees it differently and only removes the Ethernet port. That is sure to come in handy for many. The manufacturer installs a USB-C port, a Thunderbolt 3 port, HDMI, a jack socket, two USB-A ports and a network adapter. And that, although the case, as already mentioned, has become much thinner.
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- Picture: TechnikNews
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- Numerous connection options are offered despite the thin housing (picture: TechnikNews)
Lenovo ThinkPad T490s in everyday life
Lenovo's keyboard is a real treat. Texts can be typed comfortably and gently. In addition, an optical fingerprint sensor is installed to save the password when logging in. This actually works very, very well. With the 16 gigabytes of RAM and the i7 you work with Windows 10 Pro, which is pre-installed, in one go. The notebook works perfectly with the operating system, there is nothing to complain about here.
Compliments to the T490s
In conclusion, it can be said that the Lenovo ThinkPad T490s is a real workhorse, even if you can unfortunately hear the built-in fans quite often and the battery life is not really good. If you want to use it as a pure work machine and don't want to surf or watch films as much, you've come to the right place. It is slim, light and a good companion for demanding tasks. For me it is a clear purchase recommendation for business users and graphic designers. Apropos: The ThinkPad T490s starts at 1.400 euros (RRP).
