Which laptop is best to buy – Lenovo Thinkpad T480 vs T480s. If you are confused about which one is for you, then this article is for you.
Specifications
| Thinkpad T480 | Thinkpad T480s | |
|---|---|---|
| Storage | 512 GB SSD | 512 GB SSD |
| Processor | Intel Core i7 (8th Gen) Processor | Intel Core i5 (8th Gen) Processor |
| Display | 14″ (35.56 cm) display, 1920 x 1080 px | 14″ (35.56 cm) display, 1920 x 1080 px |
| Ram | 8 GB DDR4 RAM | 16 GB DDR4 RAM |
| Speakers | Stereo Speakers | Stereo Speakers |
| Webcam | Yes | Yes |
| Clockspeed | 1.8 GHz | 1.6 GHz |
| Graphic Processor | Intel UHD 620 | NVIDIA GeForce MX150 |
| Display Type | LED | LED |
| Keyboard | Standard Notebook Keyboard | Standard Notebook Keyboard |
| Weight | 1.6 Kg | 1.3 Kg |
| Wireless Lan | 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac | 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac |
| Bluetooth | 4.1 | 4.1 |
| Battery | Li-Po | Li-Po |
| Buy Links | Buy Here | Buy Here |
Design and Build
Lenovo Thinkpad T480:
When you take the T480 out of the box, it is instantly recognizable with this trademark tough no-nonsense exterior. It’s easy to hold with the rubberized surface on the lid. However, this makes a laptop very susceptible to smudges. Everything is well put together with no flex and the entire thing has undergone military standard durability testing.
The stereo speakers situated below the palm rest. They are average overall with moderate volume and almost no bass reproduction. Mids and highs aren’t too bad and the speakers should be sufficient for the typical phone call voice conferencing session.
Lenovo Thinkpad T480s:
There is not too much difference in the design as compared to T480. It is just smaller and thinner than T480. It is all made up with the rubber-like black look, which is why the T480s is so easy to hold. The base is made of sturdy plastic, so it’s very hard, and the keyboard area doesn’t show much flexibility. There is no problem with the hinge, it can stop at any angle you want, and supports 180 ° opening and closing. The sound from the internal speaker is very poor and harsh.
Display
Lenovo Thinkpad T480:
The 14 inch full HD 1920 X 1080 IPS panel has a matte finish anti-glare coating that keeps reflections at bay. The display produces sharp images and solid viewing angles. The brightness at 215 nits is average and lacks vividness, suggesting poor color coverage. This turns out to be true at 60% sRGB in faliure against the competition suggests in the T480s purely aimed at business use and not for photo or video editing creatives. There’s also some screen bleeding that lets the T480 down.
The webcam is a 720p HD camera with microphone. Pictures are okay to use with Skype conference calls.
Lenovo Thinkpad T480s:
It comes with a beautiful 14.0 Full HD where for resolution of 1920 by 1080 display. I have the antiglare with the 250 nits. If you spend a little bit more money you could get one with the resolution of 2560 by 1440 that one would give you 300 Nits, which is pretty good. There was minimal screen flex.
Weight and Dimensions
Lenovo Thinkpad T480:
The weight of the laptop is 1.6kg and when you add a charger, the weight raises to 1.7kg. The weight is too light for traveling. The Dimensions of the laptop are 13.25 x 9.15 x 0.78 inches.
Lenovo Thinkpad T480s:
The weight of this laptop is 1.3Kg, it is slightly lighter than T480. And when you add charger, the weight raises to 1.45Kg. T480s does need a reasonably sized bag, but it’s nice and thin, measuring 13.03 x 8.93 x 0.73 inches (although it tapers towards the front).
Ports
Lenovo Thinkpad T480:
On the left side of the laptop, there is a power socket USB-C, docking port, and smartcard reader.
On the right side, you have a headphone microphone combo jack, USB 3.0 Type-A, HDMI 1.4B, USB 3.0 Type-A, RJ45 Ethernet, 4 in 1 SD card reader, and a Kensington lock.
The T480 has a mechanical docking port on the side to connect to the Novo ultra dock. This port combines two USB type-c ports with the additional proprietary port. This is necessary because USB-C thundervolt does carrying native Ethernet, a problem for the admins of big companies who depend on network management features like PXE boot.
Lenovo Thinkpad T480s:
The ThinkPad T480s offers a good array of ports and connectors, including USB-C and Thunderbolt 3, a pair of USB 3.0 ports, full-size HDMI and RJ-45 Ethernet. To fit into the thin base, the latter has a small pop-out section. There’s also a 3.5mm headset jack and a 4-in-1 MicroSD card reader (SD, MMC, SDHC, and SDXC).
Keyboard and Touchpad
Lenovo Thinkpad T480:
The ThinkPad T480 keyboard is outstanding, there’s plenty of key travel at 1.7 millimeters, three levels of the backlight, and the cup keys are a joy to touch. They make a satisfying click when typing but they’re soft when you bottom out like other thinkpads. The laptop also comes with a fingerprint reader. It uses match on-chip technology to make hacking less likely.
T480 is both a track point pointing stick for diehards and a buttonless touchpad. The precision touchpad is relatively large allowing plenty of room for Windows 10 gestures.
Lenovo Thinkpad T480s:
Thinkpad almost really even since the 90s. They’ve been known for their excellence in keyboard and this one again does not disappoint in terms of keyboard performance. All-day typing, no problem, there’s no fatigue gives you plenty of feedback plenty of travel for you to just sit there and just type away.
The trackpad is about the good size, it does a great job with the precision in terms of tracking.
Performance
Lenovo Thinkpad T480:
My unit is pretty basic with an 8th gen Core i5-8250U CPU, 256GB SSD, 8GB of RAM and no discrete graphics. I used the ThinkPad T480 for about a week and didn’t come across any outstanding performance issues. It powered through the tasks I gave it like word processing, spreadsheets, heavy web browsing, and YouTube watching without a problem even 1080p editing and encoding on Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2019 were good. In any case, this model kept quiet and cool when under pressure.
Lenovo Thinkpad T480s:
It is aspect with the Intel eighth-generation i5, base clock 1.9 gigahertz, turbo boosts up to 3.9 gigahertz, and onboard it has 8 gigabytes of ddr4 ram. Under the bottom cover, however, there is a single RAM slot available for you to be able to put in up to 16 gigabytes bringing the total memory size off to 24gb if you choose to do so.
The game performance is not that good, but if you are buying for the business thing than you should buy this. The thermals are very good. When running heavy applications, the laptop is very nice and quiet. And you can’t run AAA games on it.
Which to Buy?
ThinkPad T480 has a lot of positive advantages, such as: bright and contrasting screen, excellent input devices, many security features, practical external battery, and excellent performance. If you’re looking for a high-quality laptop with a lot of security features, you can’t miss the T480. A variety of hardware plus discrete graphics makes the T480 suitable for almost all modern needs.
The Lenovo ThinkPad T480s succeeds, not because of its slim chassis, but because of its long battery life and a camera cover that will soothe the souls of the privacy-conscious. But the display is dim and bland, and the keyboard, which is good, just doesn’t feel as great as the legendary ThinkPad keyboards that we’re used to.
