Lenovo ThinkPad T450s Pro Reviews

The Thinkpad T450s isn’t all that different from most recent predecessors, but it does bring some welcome updates to the series, namely Broadwell, a redesigned clickpad, 3 x USB ports and a smaller footprint. Additionally, it carries over many great features from previous generations like a CFP lid, IPS screen, durable 3.5 pound design and amazing keyboard. It is very difficult to come up with anything negative to say about the T450s. It does so many things well.

The Lenovo ThinkPad T450s is the latest, refined version of the quintessential business laptop, with a hot-swappable battery, a full set of connectivity options, and a chassis that can take a licking.

At the end of the day, the Lenovo ThinkPad T450s isn't just one of the best business laptops available—it's one of the best we've ever used, period. It offers a handsome full HD touch screen, loud and rich audio, a best-in-class keyboard, and adequate battery life (plus the option to hot-swap batteries if you're running out of juice), packaged in a durable carbon-fiber frame. The screen could be a bit brighter, but that's literally picking nits. Only the laptop's $1,592 price gave us pause. Ultimately, the T450s is an excellent choice for business users and consumers alike. Whether you plan on using your laptop for watching movies, listening to music, or pounding away at the keyboard for hours at a time, this ThinkPad should be on your short list.

The ThinkPad T450s is a machine designed around compromises. Once you begin configuring the laptop with larger SSDs, more RAM, a touchscreen and better processor, the price quickly climbs. At its highest configuration, the T450s encroaches on territory reserved for mobile workstations with dedicated graphics chips and higher resolution displays. Given that there is little price difference at the high end between the T450s configuration and the Lenovo W550s, there is little reason to recommend the T series over the W series. That is, unless you need a smaller 14.1-inch footprint rather than a 15.6-inch workstation. But if that's the case, you could easily find lighter, more portable and sleeker Ultrabook alternatives. Just keep in mind those systems lack the spill-resistant keyboard, swappable battery, fingerprint scanner and dual cursor input methods of the ThinkPad. Aside from battery life, the ThinkPad T450s struggles to meet the needs of number-crunching, mobile business folks and those that need the raw, portable power of a workstation, landing somewhere in the middle. If Lenovo's signature features don't appeal to you, you may not find the tradeoffs made in the ThinkPad T450s design to be worth it.