Lenovo ThinkPad 13
- See more at: http://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/lenovo-thinkpad-13#sthash.yYQ3u6TV.dpuf
Tests notebook graphics performance.
0
140
280
420
560
700
840
A near-perfect choice for small businesses, students or anyone who needs to be productive without breaking the bank, the Lenovo ThinkPad 13 offers high-end features and long endurance for a budget price. For a starting price of $611 ($641 as tested), the lightweight laptop comes with a full-HD screen, a solid-state drive, a durable MIL-SPEC-tested chassis and one of the best keyboards we've ever tested. Add in a USB Type-C port -- the first on a ThinkPad laptop -- and a pair of color options, and you have a laptop that's among our favorites.
article continued below
Design
The ThinkPad 13 is one of the only ThinkPads ever to come in a choice of colors: traditional black (like all ThinkPads) or silver. We reviewed a model with the matte-silver finish, which looks professional and attractive but not particularly snazzy. The silver lid has real aluminum on it, but the rest of the body is made from ABS plastic, which doesn't pop out but feels quite sturdy. The color scheme carries over to the base, side deck and touchpad, but the bezel and keys are black.
At 12.68 x 8.78 x 0.78 inches and 3.14 pounds, the ThinkPad 13 is extremely light and easy to carry; I didn't even feel it in my backpack. In comparison, the 12.5-inch Lenovo ThinkPad X260has a similar weight and thickness (3.18 pounds, 0.8 inches thick), while both the Asus ZenBook UX305 (2.6 pounds, 0.5 inches) and the Dell XPS 13 (2.6 pounds, 0.66 inches) are a bit svelter.
The black version of the ThinkPad 13 is made entirely from polycarbonate and ABS plastic, with no premium metals. Its dimensions and weight also differ from those of the silver version by a few hundredths of an inch and a few hundredths of a pound (12.69 x 8.77 x 0.78 inches, 3.17 pounds).
Durability
Though it starts at just $611, the ThinkPad 13 provides the same kind of durability you'll find in its more expensive siblings. The hinges, which bend back 180 degrees, feel extremely sturdy and tight. When I held the laptop by one corner and shook it with its lid open, the screen didn't shimmy at all.
The laptop has passed MIL-SPEC 810G durability tests for extreme temperatures, altitudes, vibrations and humidity. Like other ThinkPads, it has also passed an eight-corner drop test and aggressive bump tests. The keyboard can also resist spills.
Security
Depending on how you configure it, the Lenovo ThinkPad 13 has the key features that enterprise IT departments require. The laptop comes standard with TPM encryption, and if you buy it with a Core i5-6300U CPU, it also has Intel vPro remote management capability. The black model is available with a fingerprint reader for an extra $10, but you can't get it on the silver unit.
Display
The ThinkPad 13's full-HD display offers sharp images, solid viewing angles and colors that are mostly accurate, though not particularly rich. When I watched a 1080p trailer for Captain America: Civil War on the 13.3-inch, 1920 x 1080 display, fine details, such as the wrinkles in Steve Rogers' forehead and the battle damage on Iron Man's helmet, stood out. The dark blue in Captain America's mask and the red in Iron Man's armor seemed a little dark and dull, but not too far removed from reality.
According to our colorimeter, the ThinkPad 13's screen can reproduce a modest 64 percent of the sRGB color gamut, which is quite a bit less than the ultraportable-laptop category average (86 percent) and the color range on the Asus ZenBook UX305CA (105 percent) but about on a par with the ThinkPad X260 with its base screen (67 percent) and the Toshiba Tecra C40 (68 percent).
Typing on the Lenovo ThinkPad 13 made me feel like Billy Joel tickling the ivories on a grand piano.
The display achieved a strong Delta-E color accuracy score of 0.7 (0 is perfect), which is much better than the category average (3.7), the ThinkPad X260 (3.8) and the Tecra C40 (5.1). The ZenBook UX305C (0.9) had a nearly identical score. Colors stayed true as I moved up to 45 degrees to the left and right, but washed out slightly at wider viewing angles.
The ThinkPad 13's display reached a solid 241 nits on our light meter. That's quite a bit brighter than the ThinkPad X260 (184) and the Tecra C40 (205) but dimmer than both the ZenBook UX305C (319) and the category average (305).
Audio
The bottom-mounted speakers output very loud sound that's good enough for listening to music and viewing videos, but a bit tinny. When I played DNCE's "Cake by the Ocean," I noticed a clear separation of sound, with vocal and synths coming from the right and some of the slightly distorted percussion coming from the left.
At maximum volume, AC/DC's "Back in Black" filled the entire first floor of my house, but the guitar and drums were a little harsh. The preloaded Dolby Audio software allowed me to choose from Music, Movies, Voice or Game sound profiles. I found that the Dynamic mode, which automatically adjusts audio levels based on content, worked best.
Keyboard and Touchpad
Typing on the Lenovo ThinkPad 13 made me feel like Billy Joel tickling the ivories on a grand piano. Lenovo's laptop has one of the five best keyboards I've ever tested on a laptop, with strong feedback, a deep 1.94 millimeters of travel (1.5 to 2 mm is typical) and large, well-spaced keys. When I fired up the 10fastfingers typing test, I reached 107 words per minute with only two errors, which is a new high score for me. (My typical scores are 95 wpm and a 2 to 3 percent error rate.)
The ThinkPad 13's spill-resistant keyboard even stands out among those on other ThinkPads, providing noticeably deeper travel than the keys on the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (1.8 mm) and the ThinkPad X260 (1.6 mm), and snappier feedback than the ThinkPad T460 and theT460s. Unfortunately for hunt-and-peck typists who have trouble finding letters in the dark, the keyboard doesn't have a backlight.
Like most other Lenovo business notebooks, the ThinkPad 13 has a TrackPoint pointing stick between its G and H keys. This little red nub provides extremely accurate navigation around the desktop and makes it easy to target smaller icons, highlight text or crop images. I particularly appreciated being able to move the pointer without lifting my hands off of the home row.
Users who don't like pointing sticks will find the 3.5 x 2.1-inch touchpad usable but not great. In our tests, it performed a variety of multitouch gestures flawlessly, including pinch to zoom, two-finger scroll, three-finger swipe (for switching between apps and minimizing) and four-finger tap (for bringing up the Action Center). However, the Elan-branded, buttonless pad was sometimes a little jumpy, moving the pointer when I tried to double-click icons on the desktop or close a window. In addition, the process of highlighting text on a web page wasn't as smooth as I would have liked.
Ports and Webcam
The ThinkPad 13 packs in plenty of full-size ports, including a USB Type-C connector that you can use for data, video output or charging. Though the laptop comes with a proprietary Lenovo power brick and connector, we successfully used it with an Innergie PowerGear USB-C charger. So, if you own another USB Type-C-powered device -- such as a 12-inch MacBook, Dell XPS 13 orGoogle Pixel C tablet -- you could share a charger with the ThinkPad. The ThinkPad 13 will also work with an upcoming generation of USB Type-C universal docks, including the Plugable USB-C Triple Display Dock, which charges your laptop and outputs to three screens over a single wire.
In addition to the Type-C port, the right side of the ThinkPad 13 houses an SD card slot, an audio jack, a full-size HDMI connector, a lock slot and two USB 3.0 ports.
The left side contains the proprietary power connector, another USB 3.0 port and a port for Lenovo's Onelink+ docking station ($179), which outputs at 4K or with up to three displays and charges your laptop at the same time.
No comments:
Post a Comment