Lenovo ThinkPad E570 (Core i5, GTX 950M) Notebook Review

The ThinkPads come in a love it or leave it design - it is a classic in any case. Black as far as the eye can see still defines today's ThinkPad design. Lenovo was and is venturous with colors: The previous E generation was available in "Graphite Black", a lighter black shade. Earlier generations of the Edge lineup were even sold with red or blue display lids. Lenovo does a bit of experimenting with the E570, but not with our review sample. The devices that Lenovo offers normal customers on its website all have a silver wrist rest. Otherwise, the E570 follows the design line of former Edge E models, which means that it has rounded corners rather than the classic ThinkPad box shape.

The entire casing is made from plastic as is typical for a low-cost laptop. The base unit, display bezel, and wrist rest are made of a roughened plastic without a special finish; the buyer feels that the device is retailed at a low price. The display's plastic bezel conveys a somewhat higher-quality material impression thanks to its exterior coating. The lid feels velvety-soft in the hands.

However, this "soft" impression not only applies to the feel but also unfortunately to the stability. The thin lid cannot defy our twisting attempts very successfully. The base unit is slightly more stable, but not very stiff, either. It looks better when pinpoint pressure is applied to the wrist rest; it does not dent anywhere, and the keyboard is also very rigid. In return, pressure on the display lid is passed on to the screen almost immediately.

Unfortunately, the E570's build is not absolutely impeccable. The transition on the display lid, i.e. between the lid's back and display bezel, is a problem as the back protrudes marginally and leads to a palpable edge that is also a bit sharp in some places. Manufacturing has not been monitored quite as fastidiously as in the smaller E470 that did not present any weaknesses in build.

The hinges are also a downgrade compared with other ThinkPads. The silver plastic coverings do not make the same high-quality impression as the metal covers in more expensive models. Furthermore, the hinges ThinkPad-untypically only allow opening to 130 °. At least the hinges have a fairly good grip on the lid; it only rocks marginally in unsteady environments.

The E570 only does a mediocre job in the SD-card benchmark that we perform with a Toshiba Exceria Pro SDXC 64 GB UHS-II reference memory card. It is roughly on par with HP's rival but far from very fast SD-card readers as, for example, in Dell's XPS 13. However, the SD-card reader in Dell's Latitude 3570 is much slower.

The Atheros QCA6174 that Lenovo also calls Qualcomm 344A-AC is a 2x2 AC Wi-Fi card with integrated Bluetooth 4.2. Lenovo offers two other Wi-Fi modules besides this Wi-Fi card: Intel's 8265AC as another 2x2 card and Qualcomm's 435-AC. The latter is a cheaper 1x1 card. The buyer should make sure that a 2x2 card is installed when purchasing the device. The best choice is probably Intel's card. The Qualcomm/Atheros 2x2 card also does a relatively good job, though. Irregularities were not observed in everyday use, and it had a clear lead on the Qualcomm/Atheros 1x1 card in Acer's Spin 5. In addition to the Wi-Fi module, a Gigabit Ethernet port that functions reliably is also installed.

The typical setup for laptops is found in webcam and microphones: The webcam is inferior and the microphones are satisfactory. The webcam's photos are blurry and low-contrast; the microphones record voices loudly and clearly.

Keyboard

Lenovo installs a six-row keyboard with numpad and the typical, lightly concave chiclet keys into the ThinkPad E570. Lenovo calls this keyboard "Precision Keyboard". Almost all keys are standard sized, and only the arrow keys are somewhat smaller, which is not as adverse here as is the case with many other manufacturers. Lenovo has modified the layout for the first time since 2013 this year, although it is only a minor modification. It concerns the function keys F10 to F12. Generic Windows functions that came from the Windows 8 era were mapped on these keys in the former generation. In the new generation, F10 disables Bluetooth, and F11 and F12 are interlinked: F12 displays a star symbol, and it is a configurable special key that can be mapped with different functions. These settings can be performed in the preloaded Lenovo settings app that is opened via F11. Otherwise, the print key that now opens Windows' Snipping Tool when pressed simultaneously with FN has to be mentioned here.

ThinkPad keyboards are famous for their good typing feel, and the E570 is not an exception. However, it must be said that the keyboards in the more expensive ThinkPad lineups are even slightly better. In comparison, the keyboard feels a bit spongier and the drop is marginally shorter. The pressure point is not as well-defined and the stroke noise is rather muffled. Nevertheless, the keyboard is a relief compared with many other laptops in the E570's price range.

The keys have a somewhat rough feel to them. This is likely because the E570, like all E models, does not have a backlit keyboard, and this is not optionally available, either. The backlit keyboards in the more expensive ThinkPads often have relatively sleek surfaces by comparison.

Lenovo offers two different display options for the E570. Both are matte and non-touch: firstly, a 15.6-inch LCD with HD resolution (1366x768 pixels) based on TN technology. This option is intended for the cheapest E570 models. Secondly, a 15.6-inch screen with a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels (Full HD) based on IPS. Fortunately, the second version is installed into our review sample. Lenovo uses three different FHD panels from different manufacturers; ours is the model number B156HAN04.4 and comes from AUO.

According to Lenovo, the screen should achieve a brightness of 250 cd/m². In fact, it reaches and even surpasses this with a maximum of 289 cd/m². However, the screen only achieves an illumination of 75% which drops slightly toward the lower edge, but which is fortunately not visible during use. The screen achieves an average brightness of 244 cd/m², which is quite acceptable for the price range. PWM was not observed in the screen, and backlight bleeding was only very lightly visible at the lower edge (a bit exaggerated in the screenshot).

Compared with the competition, the screen in the E570 scores well. The devices by Acer, HP, and Dell are furnished with TN screens that generally are poorer in quality. The E570 is slightly superior to its predecessor that was also equipped with an FHD IPS panel.

System Noise

The fan is permanently inactive in idle mode as it should be. On the other hand, the fan speeds up audibly without reaching a very annoying noise level during load. The fan noise is not high-pitched, and we did not observe pulsing or the like in our review sample.

The other potential noise source, i.e. the HDD, is not present in our device. Owners of an E570 with an HDD will likely have to live with permanent noise even in idle mode.

The device is not only quiet but is also cool when it is not loaded. The CPU is relatively energy-saving and does not produce much heat compared with stronger quad-core processors. Furthermore, the GeForce GPU as another heat source remains disabled in idle mode. This naturally changes during load where the temperature increases strongly, with up to almost 50 °C in some places on the underside.

The stress test with FurMark and Prime95 also proves that the cooling system is not able to cope with simultaneous processor and GPU load. The CPU initially clocks at its Turbo speed of 3.1 GHz. It drops to 2.8 GHz after a few minutes, which is still over the base clock. However, this changes after about 15 minutes: The processor reaches 91 °C, which is the maximum temperature that is reached in the stress test. At this point, the CPU immediately reduces its clock and temperature-related throttling sets in. The CPU drops to 1.4 GHz where it remains until the processor gradually cools down again. After reaching around 65 °C, the CPU suddenly increases its clock to 3.1 GHz only to drop to 1.4 GHz as soon as 91 °C is reached. This recurrently happened during the one-hour stress test. The GPU also throttles. It drops to about 700 MHz from 915 MHz shortly after initiating the test.

A Cinebench test performed directly after finishing the stress test resulted in the normal score.

The E570, in fact, has many qualities that speak for the first 15.6-inch Kaby Lake ThinkPad on the market: The decent input devices are a main argument. Lenovo does not make any major mistakes with the screen; the limited color space can be excused in a low-cost device when the screen scores well otherwise (and it does). Maintaining the E570 is quite easy, the good speakers, and the comparatively strong graphics card add multimedia qualities to the device. Furthermore, we discovered that the device is always cool and quiet in idle and during low load.

Unfortunately, Lenovo makes some mistakes: The port positioning is anything but ideal although it would have been quite possible to distribute the interfaces differently despite the DVD drive. The CPU and GPU throttle massively during load, which points to a too weak cooling system. Finally, we have to criticize the casing: In particular, the display housing does not convince in either build or stability.

Too bad that Lenovo makes such mistakes in terms of build. The E570 is actually a very interesting device primarily for students - however, the smaller E470 might just be even more attractive.

Nevertheless, a purchase recommendation can be given for the E570 in total due to the good price-performance ratio. It could be interesting mainly for students and private users who want a laptop with good input devices. However, the price-performance ratio is not as good for non-students: The fixed configurations start at 750 Euros (~$798) and do not offer an SSD but only the 1-TB HDD, and they do not have a dedicated GPU. At least the weaker 940MX is installed when ordering directly from Lenovo. HP's ProBook 450 G4 starts at an overall lower price but also comes with an inferior TN screen.