Would you buy a Lenovo ThinkBook ?

[ihrsetrdr]

I'm 99% ready to buy a Lenovo ThinkBook 13s-IWL 20R9005TUS.

The price is in my range, been wanting a 13 inch laptop without resorting to buying a Mac. Strictly business, no gaming, will be live streaming FB, YT, Zoom. Years ago I heard some allegation that Lenovo was adding some kind of back door, is this(was this ever) a concern?

Thoughts? Alternatives?

 

[Tír na nÓg]

Not a fan of Asus, but this one looks good.

https://www.newegg.com/icicle-silver-asus-zenbook-um433da-dh75-mainstream/p/N82E16834235302

Those 3700u are beast, and it is easy to tweak them if you want some extra juice.

It is a 14", but with ultra slim bezel. So, no much of a difference with the 13" plus a little extra comfort.
.

Plus real good integrated graphics.

The Lenovo doesn't seem a bad choice in any way though.

 

[CJustin]

The Lenovo ThinkPad you intend to buy is the right choice. No, Lenovo never made a backdoor to any of its offerings.
It is Intel that made a backdoor to its processors.
And yes, every Intel-powered Laptop that you buy has a backdoor. It is not limited to Lenovo.
Those backdoors have been common for almost a decade now.
Intel sells it as a unique feature.

 

[EarthDog]

The Lenovo ThinkPad you intend to buy is the right choice. No, Lenovo never made a backdoor to any of its offerings.
It is Intel that made a backdoor to its processors.
And yes, every Intel-powered Laptop that you buy has a backdoor. It is not limited to Lenovo.
Those backdoors have been common for almost a decade now.
Intel sells it as a unique feature.

Can you elaborate on this, please?

 

[bmwbaxter]

Likely talking about spectre and meltdown?

 

[EarthDog]

That's what I think he was getting at....and in the end, since the OP isn't in a data center, the attack vectors aren't really open for a home user. Performance is performance...so I don't get it.

 

[bmwbaxter]

@op I am looking at a Lenovo IdeaPad 5 with Ryzen4500U just waiting for it to come back in stock. I can't think of anything wrong with Lenovo as a brand.

 

[David]

I'm on my third Lenovo laptop (W510 -> P40 Yoga -> P43s) with very few complaints. The current one is a bit of a pain when attempting to run any sort of game because the heatpipes are shared between CPU and GPU and the P520 seems to run really hot, but a quick bit of work with Throttlestop and TPFanControl sorts it out.

(EDIT: I guess gaming performance is obviously not going to be an issue for you ...)

 

[Zerileous]

I've had a few lenovo laptops over the years as have some of my family members. The newest is about 5 years old now however and still doing fine. My Dad got one a few years ago that has been a bit problematic however, so not sure if quality has decreased or just the difference between line quality.

 

[ihrsetrdr]

Super great info everyone, I pulled the trigger , tracking says be delivered this Friday!

 

[ihrsetrdr]

Received the Thinkbook yesterday, I really like this machine. Nice keyboard, feels peppy, handles well . I installed VMware and setup a Linux VM , which runs smoothly using 1/2 the laptop's hardware resources(# of CPUs, RAM).

 

[BugFreak]

Looks like a nice clean design. How much junk usually installed on pre-built machines is on it? The last time I used a Lenovo was through work and it lasted a good long time and was completely abused the whole time.

 

[ihrsetrdr]

Looks like a nice clean design. How much junk usually installed on pre-built machines is on it?

Surprisingly little bloatware, just some Lenovo 'whatever' software I haven't even looked at, plus McAfee AV Trial version, which I went ahead and uninstalled.

 

[habbajabba]

The backdoor with intel is "Intel® Management Engine Firmware (Intel® ME FW) uses built-in platform capabilities and management and security applications to remotely manage networked computing assets out-of-band."
It's only a backdoor if you install and use it. Duhh.
The lenovo has a 1.8ghz processor? Considering they both are win10 I would have gone asus for the same price and gotten the better processor.
My roomate's pc has a 1.8ghz cpu too. Works fine for basic stuff just like my tablet I'm typing on with it's intel 4610Y upto 2.9ghz processor (dual core).
Just curious but why did you choose the slower pc?

 

[bmwbaxter]

The backdoor with intel is "Intel® Management Engine Firmware (Intel® ME FW) uses built-in platform capabilities and management and security applications to remotely manage networked computing assets out-of-band."
It's only a backdoor if you install and use it. Duhh.
The lenovo has a 1.8ghz processor? Considering they both are win10 I would have gone asus for the same price and gotten the better processor.
My roomate's pc has a 1.8ghz cpu too. Works fine for basic stuff just like my tablet I'm typing on with it's intel 4610Y upto 2.9ghz processor (dual core).
Just curious but why did you choose the slower pc?

the i&-8565U has a max turbo of 4.6Ghz compared to the 3700U of 4Ghz max turbo. So for daily tasks the intel system will likely be snappier.

 

[freakdiablo]

Surprisingly little bloatware, just some Lenovo 'whatever' software I haven't even looked at, plus McAfee AV Trial version, which I went ahead and uninstalled.

I'd recommend keeping at least some of the Lenovo software. I use a T-series for work and it's useful for updating BIOS/system firmware.

But yeah, that's one of the reasons why I stick to their phones. There isn't much junk on them from the factory.