Lenovo IdeaPad S540: AMD is now the obvious choice

With the Ryzen 5 3550H, AMD has an APU on offer that while identical in construction to the Ryzen 5 3500U, is able to maintain its performance level for longer thanks to a higher TDP. Since the clock rates remain unchanged, both CPUs achieve the same initial results in a Cinebench R15 run. However, the performance of the Ryzen 5 3550H degrades much less over time, resulting in a better long-term performance.

Since Lenovo has made it a habit to fine-tune its own laptops to the installed CPUs, the IdeaPad S540-13API performs great. The cooling solution is more than capable of ensuring that the Ryzen 5 3550H maintains stable clock rates. Under moderate stress, a consistent clock speed of 2.6 GHz is feasible.

Aside from the raw CPU performance, the IdeaPad S540 can take full advantage of the integrated graphics unit AMD Radeon RX Vega 8 thanks to 16 GB of dual-channel RAM. This configuration is not only sufficient for image and simple video editing but also for some games.

Our criticisms relate to the exterior and particularly the glossy screen and the poor port selection. Since charging the 13-inch laptop further reduces the amount of available USB Type-C ports, users do not have a whole lot of ports left. We also would have liked to see a card reader.

In conclusion, Lenovo has made exactly the right choice with the AMD Ryzen 5 3550H, which outperforms many competing laptops.