Lenovo thinkpad l480 core i5 8th gen 8gb256gb ssd

Lenovo ThinkPad L480 Core i5 8th Gen (8GB/256GB SSD)

Although the Lenovo ThinkPad L480 functions well as a business laptop, nothing unique about it makes it stand out.

Pros

• Decent battery life

• Well-designed keyboard

Cons

• Subpar display

• Bad audio

• Mediocre value

Lenovo Thinkpad L480 i5 8th Gen 8GB Ram Price

New Laptop Price –  Rs 1,03,800 (in Indian Rupees)

Refurbished Lenovo Thinkpad L480 Laptop Price – Rs 25,499

Specifications

Buy Refurbished Lenovo Laptops

Reviews

If you're willing to compromise, the Lenovo ThinkPad L480 (INR 57,750 as reviewed, customizable via Lenovo.com) might work for regular business needs. This laptop is built to last and has a well-designed keyboard and a respectable Intel Core i5 processor, but it falls short of the competition due to its subpar speakers and display. The ThinkPad L480 can handle the essentials, but consider your options before committing.

Design

The ThinkPad L480 has a plastic, all-black, functionally dull design. It weighs 3.9 pounds and is 13.2 x 9.3 x 0.9 inches, so it's sizable but not too large. The L480 is not the most portable device, given its thickness and weight, but it will do the job. The Dell Latitude 5490, its closest rival, measures 13.1 x 9 x 0.8 inches and weighs 3.8 pounds.

Durability And Security

The ThinkPad L480 has passed MIL-SPEC testing, which means it can withstand sand damage, mechanical shock, high vibration, high altitudes, solar radiation, fungus, and humidity.

You can find additional specifications for each test category on Lenovo's website. The L480 has a secure lock slot and a Match-in-Sensor fingerprint reader for security purposes.

Ports

A Type-C mechanical docking port and a USB Type-C port are located on the left side of the ThinkPad L480. Additionally, there is a microSD card reader, a USB 3.1 connector, an Ethernet port, and an HDMI 1.4 port. A headphone/microphone combo jack, a second USB 3.1 port, and a secure lock slot are all on the right side.

Display

The 14-inch, 1920 x 1080 display of the ThinkPad L480 is unimpressive. The colors in the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 teasers weren't as vivid as they could have been. The glowing-orange environment of the trailer's opening sequence and the giant squid monster's tentacles lacked the same vivid pink hue I saw on my monitor (an NEC MultiSync PA271W). The shadows on the same squid monster also obscured details and hid the monster's fainter gross, gushy characteristics under a veil of darkness due to L480's dim display.

The ThinkPad L480's poor sRGB color gamut score, which explains the panel's mediocre hues, was 66.3 percent (the average is 112 percent). Even worse, the Dell Latitude 5490 only received 65 percent. The ThinkPad L480's brightness reading of 208 nits on our light meter is significantly less than the average of 306 nits. It outperformed the Latitude 5490's 178 nits, though.

Keyboard, Touchpad, And Pointing Stick

The keyboard on the ThinkPad L480 is reliable; keys have a 1.5-millimeter travel distance and require 70 grams of force to actuate, so key presses are satisfying and prompt. I was able to complete the 10fastfingers.com typing test at a speed of 94 words per minute with a 99.9. curacy rate thanks to the well-engineered travel and actuation. That's much faster than the 85-wpm accuracy rate I typically achieve.

The 3.9 x 2.7-inch touchpad is usually good, although it struggles to respond to two-finger inputs. The touchpad would occasionally become stuck and fail to capture the text I was trying to select for copying and pasting, requiring me to use a single finger to get it to cooperate. Single-digit inputs were also somewhat erratic because they could occasionally not be recognized if they were made right after a two-finger motion.

The laptop's red, nubby pointing stick responds to pressure proportionally, so you must exert much force to get the cursor moving quickly. This can be a bit of a hassle, so I often chose the touchpad despite its limitations with two-finger commands.

Audio

The bottom-mounted speakers on the ThinkPad L480 are not loud enough. The audio couldn't even fill the small conference room at total volume. The chimes in Sarah Schachner's "Winds of Cyrene" sounded like they were being played through several wind socks when the book was turned up to its maximum because of how the sound distorted. Similar problems also affected "Dystopia" by Hi-Finesse, which experienced milder but still audible distortion during some more intense electronic segments.

Performance

The Intel Core i5-8250U processor, 8GB of RAM, 256GB PCIe SSD, and Intel HD Graphics 620 integrated GPU are all featured in the Lenovo ThinkPad L480. As anticipated, it handled a sizable number of Chrome tabs without complaining. The L480 performed better than the mainstream average of 10,782 on the Geekbench 4 test, which gauges overall performance, scoring 11,405 points. However, neither of those figures compares favorably to the staggering 14,838 for the Dell Latitude 5490. For comparison, the Latitude 5490's processor is an Intel Core i7-8650U.

The ThinkPad L480 finished the Excel Lookup test in 1 minute and 13 seconds, faster than the 1:36 average but slower than the Latitude 5490's 59 seconds. The L480 copied a 4.97GB mixed-media file in 23 seconds during the file transfer test, giving a transfer rate of 212 megabytes per second. That is less than the average of 281 MBps and the Latitude 5490's 267 MBps (256GB M.2 PCIe NVME SSD). The HandBrake test, which gauges how long it takes to convert a 4K movie to a 1080p file, took the ThinkPad L480 18 minutes and 38 seconds. Although slower than the category average of 22:12, that is faster than the Latitude 5490's 16:00.

The ThinkPad L480's integrated GPU played Dirt 3 at 50 frames per second, which is acceptable but falls short of the competition. With a better 69 frames per second on its own Intel 620 GPU, the Dell Latitude 5490 won. We consider anything over 30 fps to be playable, averaging 71 fps. The ThinkPad L480 scored 68,857 on the 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited synthetic graphics test, significantly less than the 86,493 average. Latitude 5490 performed substantially better, earning 89,735.

Battery Life

The ThinkPad L480 ran for 7 hours and 56 minutes in the Laptop Mag Battery Test (constant web browsing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness), which is less than the 8:18 average duration for mainstream laptops and 2 hours less than the Dell Latitude 5490's runtime of 9:54. While battery statistics will vary somewhat depending on how heavily a computer is used, this gives you a reasonable sense of how long each computer will last before needing a charger.

Webcam

The ThinkPad L480's 720p camera isn't perfect. The relatively faint, yellow lighting from the ceiling made the selfies I shot in the workplace appear blown out at the top. Fortunately, the webcam preserved every other hue, including the striking contrast between the reds and blues of my plaid button-down shirt. My hair appeared to be a low-resolution watercolor collage in my test photographs due to a lack of detail. Even so, the camera is adequate for most Skype calls.

Heat

During our heat test, the laptop reached 102 degrees Fahrenheit on its underbelly, which involved playing a full-screen HD film for 15 minutes. This is several degrees over our 95-degree comfort threshold. With temperatures of 91 degrees on the keyboard and 82 degrees on the touchpad, respectively, they fell within the permitted limit. However, the space directly to the touchpad's right is always somewhat warm. Although our test won't assess it, this area will make your right palm slightly heated, so take care.

Software And Warranty

The ThinkPad L480 features some bloatware because it is a business notebook, but not much. With Windows 10, Microsoft bundled many pointless apps, such as Bubble Witch 3 Saga, Candy Crush Soda Saga, and March of Empires.

On the other hand, Lenovo used a relatively light hand, merely incorporating their Vantage software, a helpful tool for customizing your ThinkPad experience. (It lets you play with screen settings, camera settings, and most other things you wish to fiddle with.) There is no additional Lenovo bloatware included with the L480 besides that helpful app. The warranty offered by Lenovo is a one-year depot repair service. Check out Lenovo's performance in our Best and Worst Brands list and Tech Support Showdown.

Configurations

I examined the Lenovo ThinkPad L480 that TigerDirect offers for INR 57,750. A 256GB PCIe SSD, an Intel HD 620 GPU, and an Intel Core i5-8250U processor running at 1.6 GHz are all included in one device. The base model, which lists an Intel Core i3-8130U processor, 4GB of RAM, a 500GB, 7,200-rpm hard drive, and an Intel HD Graphics 620 GPU for INR 61,757, is available on Lenovo's website. A backlit keyboard, a fingerprint reader, and a 512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD are included in the high-end model. On Lenovo's website, there are two customizable systems.

Bottom Line

The Lenovo ThinkPad L480, which costs ₹1,03,800 (in Indian Rupees), is a good laptop, but you may get something better for a little bit more money. It's a competent multitasker with solid durability. Still, it falls short of its rivals, notably the INR 65,500 Dell Latitude 5490, which offers superior performance for a comparable price and has a longer battery life. The ThinkPad L480 is worth considering if you're looking for a usable business laptop at a fair price, but we advise saving your money for something with a little more punch.