Lenovo ThinkPad E480 (i5-8250U, UHD 620, SSD) Laptop Review

The E480 is offered with a choice of two different displays: a cheaper HD panel (1366x768) based on TN technology and an IPS FHD panel (1920x1080), which should always be your first choice. Both panels are matte, neither of which is available with touch input support. Our review unit was equipped with a panel made by Innolux, and we determined its maximum average brightness at 262 nits. Aside from the Schenker Slim 14, the ThinkPad E480 is in good company overall. Its contrast ratio of 1379:1 was exceptionally high for its price point, and despite a subpar brightness distribution of just 83% we did not notice any shadowing. Clouding, which can only be noticed in particularly dark scenes, was also negligible by and large. We found PWM flickering at a very high and thus harmless 25000 Hz. Compared to its predecessor, the ThinkPad E470, Lenovo has managed to improve upon almost every single aspect of the display.

Intel’s Core i5-8250U is an energy-efficient quad-core processor based on the Kaby Lake architecture with a TDP of 15 W and four physical cores capable of working on up to eight threads simultaneously. Its base frequency of 1.6 GHz can boost up to 3.4 GHz dynamically. Our benchmark scores reveal that our review unit’s Core i5-8250U is about as fast as similarly equipped devices. The biggest differences can be found in the multi-thread results due to the CPU’s dependence on temperature - the better the cooling system the better overall performance. Still, compared to the Core i5-7200U-based ThinkPad E470 performance has been drastically improved.

All things considered, the ThinkPad E480 was pleasantly quiet. Only the Schenker Slim 14 was even less obtrusive, but the differences were so minuscule that both devices have to share first place. The fan was completely off most of the time when the device was idle, which means that the notebook was completely silent. Under average load, our equipment measured a sound pressure level of 31.8 dB(A), and no more than 33.8 dB(A) under full load. Thus, the E480 was anything but annoying. Compared with the recently released E480 with a dedicated GPU, today’s review model did much better.

With a maximum of 42.8 °C (~109 °F) under load, surface temperatures were inconspicuous overall. As such, they are on a par with last year’s model. With a maximum of 71.6 °C (~161 °F), the ThinkPad E480 with dedicated GPU single-handedly managed to break the record. Fortunately, the E480 without a dedicated RX 550 GPU did not suffer from this. Temperatures during our stress test remained inconspicuous once again: 76 °C (~169 °F) at the CPU, and no more than 60 °C (~140 °F) at the GPU. The SoC’s power target got in the way of higher CPU clock frequencies during periods of simultaneous CPU and GPU load. The CPU was never throttled due to thermal restrictions, and neither was the GPU.

The ThinkPad E480 turned out to be fairly energy efficient. While idling, it consumed no more than 3.5-6.1 W, and just 30 W under average load. Maximum power consumption was measured at 42.3 W, which means that the 65 W USB-C power supply is amply dimensioned. In this category, our review unit bested every single one of its competitors.

Our review unit’s battery life was surprisingly long and almost on a par with last year’s ThinkPad E470. While battery capacity has remained unchanged at 45 Wh, the E480 offers much more performance than last year’s model. In our real-world Wi-Fi test at a normalized display brightness if 150 nits (or 74% in our review unit’s case), the E480 ran for almost 8 hours, easily outlasting its Schenker, Asus, and Acer competitors. 3D performance did not suffer from any degradation on battery.