T495

So I bought a Lenovo T495 few weeks ago and received it on 2020-03-05 afternoon, as when you order from Lenovo you can customize it, here are my specs:

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 Pro 3500U
• OS: Windows 10 Familly 64 (EN/FR/DE/NL/IT)
• Integrated RAM(soldered): 8 Go @ 2 666 MHz
• Selected RAM: 8 Go @ 2 666 MHz SoDIMM
• Storage: 256 Go, M.2 2280, NVMe
• Screen: 14.0” (1920×1080) IPS anti-glare, 250 nits, FreeSync
• Keyboard: Black, English (UK)
• Webcam: HD 720p with microphone
• TPM: discrete compatible TPM2.0
• Battery: Internal Li-Poly 3-cells 50Wh
• Charger: USB-C 65W
• WLAN: Intel Wireless 9260 AC 2.2, Bluetooth 5.0
• LTE: Antennas and slot without card
• Smartcard reader: none
• Fingerprint reader: none

So far it has been a great laptop (will probably update this article later-on if this changes). I ran into some issues with AMDGPU when installing gentoo on it but I probably failed somewhere in the kernel config (sys-kernel/gentoo-sources, which reuses archlinux config as a base works fine, uses the same kernel version).

On the neat/great side of things:

• It's a thinkpad so: There is a Hardware Maintainance Manual and some parts are replaceable by yourself; The keyboard feel is good and there is a good TrackPoint; The camera can be nicely shut
• It is light (1.5 Kg vs 3 Kg for my previous one) and sturdy (I had previous laptop where the keyboard part could bend a bit when put on uneven surfaces, not this one)
• The quality of the screen seems great to me (but not a graphist/photographer so no idea for the colors)
• it works out of the box in Arch/Ubuntu
• seems to have a great battery life (but laptops are 80% battery these days)

On the meh/nitpicks side of things:

• Wtf is PrintScreen doing where Menu belongs? (I'm remapping this one of course) Fn/Ctrl should also be physically swappable (but whatever, caps is ctrl for me)
• I wish it would have 2 slots for the SSD or a 2.5” SATA slot but maybe I can repurpose the WWAN PCIe slot
• I had to buy a Windows license with it, will try to get it reinbursed or whatever. I think lenovo could put a no-OS or something like Ubuntu as an option
• The speakers are quite good for a Thinkpad but could probably still get better

Fediverse post for comments, published on 2020-03-07T07:30:00Z, last updated on 2020-03-07T07:36:00Z