Wednesday, March 22, 2023

Lenovo T490/T495 Review

This laptop is not available to purchase now at Lenovo.com but I wanted to give you my personal insight on what I think of this device using it for almost 4 years.  Why?  Because many reviews are only when they are new and out of the box with very low usage.  So why did I go with this and not another computer? 

At work I decided to switch over about four years ago from a fifteen inch 2015 MacBook Pro to a Lenovo T495.  One of the main reasons why I switched was because of the keyboards they had during that time plus some I would not need a virtual machine with a Windows operating system to run IT related applications.  Currently the new Apple laptop keyboards are better but I still would not go back to a MacBook just yet because of the limited ports.  If you are on the fence on getting a MacBook Air or Pro versus a Windows computer this post may help with you just that.  In this post I will provide some features and benefits of the Lenovo T490 series laptop. 

The Lenovo T495 is my daily work computer and overall enjoy the laptops performance.  There are many reasons why I like the laptop and as mentioned the keyboard of the Lenovo ThinkPad is by far of the best keyboards on the market.  

If you are a college student, teacher or professor, business manager or director the Lenovo T490 laptops are a great buy for the price.  The newer version of the laptop is the Lenovo T14 models.  They look and feel the same as the T490 series except the Lenovo T14 model has some internal updates but the biggest notice to me, when I setup the computers at work, is the new glass like trackpad and ports.  

If you are use to using the Lenovo ThinkPads their trackpads were one of the worst on the market.  The clicking was horrible and the trackpad design was not great.  They have come very far from a few years ago and that is one big improvement they have done to the T14 model.  The laptop I use is still not bad and much better than the ones they have a few years ago. 

Another great feature and benefit I love about this laptop are the multiple ports already with the computer.  They include two USB A ports, one Thunderbolt port, and HDMI.  Of course they also include the headphone/microphone jack to connect your headphones to and a micro sd card slot on the sight.  Oh and I forgot about the ethernet port as well on the side. (RJ45) This alone helps one not have to worry about carrying a multiport adapter when needing to plug it to an external monitor or projector when presenting.  Now the one thing that I still have not used much of is the Red center trackpoint stick.  I remember my dad having an IBM and long ago I had to use that or a mouse but I guess its okay to have instead of using the trackpad.  Again I dont use it much because most of the time my laptop is connected on the docking station at work and use a wireless mouse and keyboard. Despite the multiple ports available on the laptop it is not that bulky. 

One thing I noticed with the new Apple MacBook Pros are the difference in size.  They are designed nice but they are heavier devices to carry around.  If I were to puchase a MacBook I may go with the MacBook Air but again this Lenovo T495 does just right.  The design is professional and sleak looking.  The durability of the case is great and one great feature about the keyboard is that it is spill resistant.  

Regarding performance I upgraded my memory to 24GB and