Lenovo ThinkPad W500 - mini review
Video
The W500 I received has the “switchable graphics.” What this really means is that is contains two video chipsets and you can swtich back and forth between them. The W500 I tested has the ATI™ Mobility FireGL™ V5700 and the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD video chipsets. The Intel chipset is used for battery consumption. The ATI chipset is used for high performance graphics.
Screen
The W500 I looked at came with the 15.4" (391mm) WUXGA (1920x1200) color, anti-glare, CCFL backlit, 175 nits, 16:10 aspect ratio, 500:1 contrast ratio LCD screen. This particular screen is slightly dimmer than the WSXGA+ T61p’s I have but frankly I end up turning the brightness down on them anyway.
Making a choice between a screen with a native resolution of 1920x1200 and one with a native res of 1680x1050 is a really personal subjective decision. I’m a firm believer that most people would pick the brighter 1680x1050 screen, but you really need to see them side-by-side and make the decision on your own. The screen on the W500 I received also has an integrated webcam (although I did not test it).
Memory
The W500 uses DDR3 memory and came configured with two 2GB memory sticks for a total of 4GB. For those of you wanting to upgrade the amount to 8GB, keep in mind that means upgrading the OS to 64bit and finding some 4GB PC3-8500 1066MHz DDR3 204 pin memory sticks. Good luck with that. The good news is that those are the same sticks used by the ThinkPad W700. That’s also the bad news because the allocation of those sticks are going to the W700 Quad bad boys right now.
Ports
Lenovo moved the ports around on the machine (as compared to the T61p). A DisplayPort is new for the W500 and like the T61p it includes three USB ports, IEEE 1394, Ethernet, VGA connector, and modem. Oddly, the modem port is now where the T61p USB jacks were. Does anyone still use analog modem? I don’t really get that. I guess if you need a fax it’s there but I can’t remember the last time I used dial-up.
All of the USB ports were moved to the left side of the machine and are now vertical instead of horizontal. This could present some problems for those of you that are using fat USB sticks or cell cards. I am now carrying a USB extender cable for this very reason.
CPU
Back to the meat of the machine. The proc is a Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor T9600 1066MHz system bus 6MB L2 cache processor. In short, it’s fast. Much faster than my lowly T61p T7500. It’ll be interesting to see if Lenovo decides to add one of the mobile Quad Core CPU’s later. I have no idea if they will but considering how well engineered the ThinkPad cooling is you would think they would want to compete in the 15.4” space. For now, if you want a Quad, you’ll have to step up to the big brother W700.
Case, Keyboard and Power
The W500 case construction is rock solid like the T61p and as usual, the keyboard rocks. For those of you that want the CTRL key where the FN key is, sorry, Lenovo is still doing their lone wolf thing. As I understand it, this mostly affects developers that use the CTRL key a lot. As you might expect, the W500 weighs about the same as the T61p. All of my T61p’s have the 9 cell bateries but considering how little I use battery power, I’ll probably replace them with 6 cells and reduce the weight some.
A lot of emphasis has been placed on green computing with this machine and there are all sorts of power management profiles and “battery stretch” capabilities. I haven’t really had a chance to test how long I could really run on battery power but they advertise 9 hours with the 9 cell battery. If that’s true, you could fly from Dallas to Hawaii on battery power. Now I’m guessing that life doesn’t include DVD playback, but it sounds like you’ll have plenty of email checking juice when using the proper profiles.
OS Checks
As expected, the machine arrived with Windows Vista Business x86. I created the factory disk set and tested that the disks would put the machine back to factory shipped specs. You should be aware that the factory config will partition your drive into three partitions for recovery and rollback purposes.
I flattened the machine and tested that Windows Server 2008 x64 would install and run Hyper-V. It does. I had a bit of an issue getting the Ethernet driver to load for Windows Server 2008, but I managed to force it. I reported this to Lenovo and asked our internal team to look at it and see if they can improve that a bit.
I also flattened it again and installed Windows Vista Enterprise x64 with all of the drivers and software. The goal was to install Vista from scratch and install the drivers and software to see if there were any gotchas. I didn’t see any but my testing was pretty brief. I was mostly interested in making sure the networking worked, video switching worked, power management worked, etc. Like I said, I didn’t spot any glaring issues on the core stuff but I didn’t test over a long term.
I did not test Windows XP or any Linux variants like Novel SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop. Sorry, I just didn’t have the time for this round of testing and I need to get this machine in the hands of some other folks.
Summary
If you are looking for a new machine and were worried about the replacement for the T61p, there’s no need to worry. As expected the Lenovo ThinkPad W500 is a rock solid machine and will be a contender in the corporate laptop market. It comes with an impressive set of credentials and I’m sure you’ll enjoy the W500 for several years. Buy with confidence.
Comments
Anonymous
September 30, 2008
The comment has been removedAnonymous
September 30, 2008
The comment has been removedAnonymous
September 30, 2008
The comment has been removedAnonymous
October 01, 2008
You mention forcing the Ethernet driver, what you mean by that?Anonymous
October 01, 2008
Regarding the ethernet driver install on Windows Server 2008, I had to grapple with downloading the drivers from intel.com and exploring the .inf files for the family the chipset is in to find one that mostly closely resembled it and install it. It wasn't easy. Windows Server 2008 would not install the Windows Vista ethernet driver from the lenovo download area. Lenovo has been informed so I would imagine we'll see this fixed.Anonymous
October 06, 2008
I'm a developer and trying to decide between w500 or t500 or some other rugged laptop. Two things that are important to me are the keyboard quality and the battery life. I heard the new Lenovo's shaved off some of the metal plating on the back of the keyboard, and they're now noticably worse than before. And what kind of battery life does the W500 have? I heard the T500 is around 6 hrs in power save mode, which is plenty for me.Anonymous
October 08, 2008
The W500 keyboard on the eval unit I have seems identical to the T61p's I have. Solid.Anonymous
October 11, 2008
Do you know the max screen refresh rate W500 offers? Someone I know recenly ordered X300 Thinkpad tablet PC but after arrival its screen refresh rate turned out to be 50Hz which is extremelly bad for eyes.Anonymous
October 11, 2008
The Maximum resolution is mentioned in the tabook.pdf reference ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/pc/pcinstitute/psref/tabook.pdf but I don't see refresh rates listed. If you have a concern you should probably contact Lenovo sales for your region.Anonymous
October 21, 2008
Apple sells a displayport to dual-link dvi adapter for the new MacBook Pros. Do you have a way to test your W500 to see if it will output to a dual-link 2560x1600 monitor? Cheers, ChrisAnonymous
October 21, 2008
No sorry Chris. I do not.Anonymous
October 23, 2008
is the lenovo500 has a built-in recorder on what were the activities done the few days back?Anonymous
October 23, 2008
I have no idea on the recorder question. Not that I am aware of.Anonymous
October 23, 2008
October 23, 2008 @ 12:05 PM MST Question ( not a comment ): I am on the verge of purchasing a new lap top and I am seriously considering the W 500( fully configured ) and if not that, then the T 500 ( fully configured ). Apart from cost, is there a reason or reasons to purchase one over the other ? Thanks.
Joseph S. Caudill jscaudill@qwest.net
Anonymous
October 28, 2008
Thanks You have probably the best written reviews that I have seen with more of the potential uses covered than other sites. Cheers, ChrisAnonymous
October 28, 2008
Thanks Chris. I try hard so hopefully it shows. If you want some more depth on this generation of the ThinkPad laptops, take a look at the T400 review I did. I spent more time on a few areas like power management. Love the T400. It's a hard choice because I like 15.4 screens, too.Anonymous
November 04, 2008
Hi - and thanks for the review Unfortunately I saw the review a bit to late :( I've just purchased a brand new DELL Precision 4400 - and - thought WS2008 here I come. But then I got the same problem you described related to the Ethernet driver. I know your review is about the Lenovo Thinkpad W500, but do you have any advice to a frustrated/tired Dell owner, that might point me in the right direction with my ethernet issue. Other drivers installed nicely (used x64 Vista drivers) Cheers, FrodeAnonymous
November 25, 2008
Keith, We just bought recently the ThinkPad W500 and are having getting the network drivers to work with w2k8 x64. It would be great if you can let us know the steps you followed to force the network installation going.Anonymous
November 25, 2008
Kannan, See the instructions at http://blogs.technet.com/keithcombs/archive/2008/10/18/installing-windows-server-2008-x64-on-the-lenovo-thinkpad-t400.aspx The T400 and W500 are nearly identical so you'll find the ethernet driver instructions written there work nicely.Anonymous
November 25, 2008
Thanks Keith, I did try the trick you had mentioned in the other article, but unfortunately that didn't work. After selecting "Intel ® 82567LM-2 Gigabit Network Connection", the installation went through fine, but I did not see any network connection. Is there anything else I can try. Regards, KannanAnonymous
November 25, 2008
Keith, I don't what was the issue, but is now working :-). Many thanks. Regards, KannanAnonymous
November 30, 2008
Hi, Appreciate your review. I'm just about to purchase the W500 elite, but needed to know if it comes with a secuity cable ability. (I saw something on the back side, on the left.) Do you know if the W500 offers a connection for this?Anonymous
December 06, 2008
Hi, I was wondering if you could test SolidWorks with the FireGL graphics card. I heard people are having problems with this card not performing as well as should and other saying its great. Is there anyway you could do some tests with this program or another 3D CAD and comment on how the W500 performs? Thanks, JaysonAnonymous
December 06, 2008
Sorry Jayson, my eval unit has been returned.Anonymous
December 08, 2008
Keith - Thanks for the incredibly through review. I have been a loyal IBM user for four years, even with joys and pains of the repair process. My question is one of comparison - I have been somewhat frustrated with IBM/lenovo's designs since they feel like they have changed for DVD/multimedia watching, instead of roadwarrioring. I love my T42 15" (true) screen, and find myself frustrated with the 15.4" screens. I did try with the T61p and found it too bulky and flimsy (which surprised me). 14" is too small for working - any suggestions on the way to go?Anonymous
December 08, 2008
The comment has been removedAnonymous
December 23, 2008
Well, a large monitor is a benefit when working at a desk. However, that only holds true if you need large (low dpi) images, or if the monitor has more resolution. In the case of a WUXGA W500, the resolution is the same as a 24" monitor. Unless you need the physical size, there is no benefit (pixel-wise).