Just in: new-to-me T480
Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 12:53 am
Since stumbling across the article describing the possibility of transplanting the T25 keyboard and top cover onto a T480, I've been mulling over the possibility of picking up such a machine to try it on. Last year I filed a warranty claim for a replacement keyboard for my T25 because the left trackpoing button sometimes didn't respond, and they sent me a new keyboard but didn't ask for the return of the old one. So aside from the T480 itself, all I need is the top cover and some buttons and such to try the mod.
Around last Thanksgiving I started looking at specs and details of the T480 to see what configs were available, and what I would want configured. The availability of the WQHD display and quad core i7 in the 14" chassis was very appealing so I did some research and settled on 20L5000XUS with the dedicated GPU and fastest available 8th gen mobile i7 since those can't be upgraded later. New units are still available but just recently a pair of "refurbished" machines came up for roughly half the cost of new, so I received approval from the wife to acquire one and it arrived today.
It looks virtually new, and is in warranty for another 17 months. No OS was present, so I pulled the factory recovery using my serial number and let it do its thing this evening. I must say, the display with no DPI scaling offers very generous real-estate which will be very nice to work from once I get it set up the way I want. I initially didn't have a huge aversion to the feel of the 6-row chiclet keyboard (key response is similar to the T25) but after a few moments I started to get annoyed with the immobile plastic "bars" between keys, which makes it very uncomfortable to press two adjacent keys with one finger (e.g. ctrl+shift+esc for task manager). I also miss the dedicated buttons for mute/volume etc. and some of the other function key mappings. I also much prefer the finish of the T25's palm rest over the T480's textured plastic. It's not quite as finely grained, if you will, as my X/T/W *20 machines and feels... well, cheap.
Aside from my aversion to the keyboard, I am disappointed that there is no USB-A port on the left. There's the two on the right, along with the Thunderbolt 3 type-C port on the left, but that just means an adapter or a somewhat awkward cabling arrangement if the need ever arises to connect something on the left of the machine. This is also my first machine which can clock higher than 4 GHz, so there's a bit of a rush anytime I see it peak out at 4.2 GHz during CPU intensive tasks, which surprisingly happens rather often (more often than my others peak out at their max. turbo, relatively speaking anyway).
Once I sort out getting the T25 keyboard and palm rest on it, I can see that I will be quite pleased with this unit. More to come on that later, as I gather the remaining parts and have a co-worker 3D print up the necessary additional pieces parts!
Around last Thanksgiving I started looking at specs and details of the T480 to see what configs were available, and what I would want configured. The availability of the WQHD display and quad core i7 in the 14" chassis was very appealing so I did some research and settled on 20L5000XUS with the dedicated GPU and fastest available 8th gen mobile i7 since those can't be upgraded later. New units are still available but just recently a pair of "refurbished" machines came up for roughly half the cost of new, so I received approval from the wife to acquire one and it arrived today.
It looks virtually new, and is in warranty for another 17 months. No OS was present, so I pulled the factory recovery using my serial number and let it do its thing this evening. I must say, the display with no DPI scaling offers very generous real-estate which will be very nice to work from once I get it set up the way I want. I initially didn't have a huge aversion to the feel of the 6-row chiclet keyboard (key response is similar to the T25) but after a few moments I started to get annoyed with the immobile plastic "bars" between keys, which makes it very uncomfortable to press two adjacent keys with one finger (e.g. ctrl+shift+esc for task manager). I also miss the dedicated buttons for mute/volume etc. and some of the other function key mappings. I also much prefer the finish of the T25's palm rest over the T480's textured plastic. It's not quite as finely grained, if you will, as my X/T/W *20 machines and feels... well, cheap.
Aside from my aversion to the keyboard, I am disappointed that there is no USB-A port on the left. There's the two on the right, along with the Thunderbolt 3 type-C port on the left, but that just means an adapter or a somewhat awkward cabling arrangement if the need ever arises to connect something on the left of the machine. This is also my first machine which can clock higher than 4 GHz, so there's a bit of a rush anytime I see it peak out at 4.2 GHz during CPU intensive tasks, which surprisingly happens rather often (more often than my others peak out at their max. turbo, relatively speaking anyway).
Once I sort out getting the T25 keyboard and palm rest on it, I can see that I will be quite pleased with this unit. More to come on that later, as I gather the remaining parts and have a co-worker 3D print up the necessary additional pieces parts!
But I hate Lenovo much more. 