Lenovo ThinkPad W510 Review!

Lenovo ThinkPad W510 Review

note: since there are quite a few comprehensive reviews available both on this forum and other respectable websites I encourage you to read them before as my review is only meant to compliment the existing ones providing some additional insights from my (biased of course) impression.

Notebookcheck Review

NBR Review

System specifications:
> 15.6" HD+ Anti-Glare display LED backlight and WWAN antenna
> Intel Core i7-720QM Processor (1.6 - 2.80GHz 6MBL3 1333MHz)
> Windows 7 Professional 64
> NVIDIA Quadro FX 880M Graphics with 1GB DDR3 memory
> 2 GB PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM 1067MHz SODIMM Memory
> UltraNav (TrackPoint and TouchPad) with Fingerprint Reader
> Camera, 2.0 MP
> 320 GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm
> Multi Recorder Optical Drive (12.7mm)
> Express Card Slot & 5 in 1 Card Reader
> 9 cell 2.8Ah Li-Ion Battery
> Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 Wireless
> Bluetooth w/ antenna

Retail Price: 1849 CAD


Build Quality and Design

The overall impression of the quality is good and a few things are worthy of mentioning as remarkable if not outstanding. Lenovo keeps up a good job in both preserving the unique line of ThinkPads (created by IBM) with its already classic style and polishing further the successful marriage of workmanship and beauty.



The hinges are very good at holding the lid without any vibrations, in fact, one needs to apply some force to be able to move the lid from any angle in its beyond 180 degrees spectrum, though one hand is enough to maneuver the lid. There's barely any twist on the lid even if the notebook is picked by the lid's edge. In general, the machine is very solid, even though its exterior shell is made solely of plastic.
There are too places, however that have a mild but annoying flex and creaking:
One is on the left edge of the palm rest above the USB 3.0 ports as can be seen from this image:



Another one is on the right bottom edge exactly below the DVD-Drive as shown here:


Attention is also drawn by the battery. Our model has a 9-cell battery which is protruding from the back of the notebook and in many cases hits the surface (eg. table) when lifting or putting down the notebook:


Screen and Speakers

Our model has a 15.6" HD+ Anti-Glare display with LED backlighting. The resolution of 1600x900 is optimal compromise for those who doesn't want to strain their eyes too much and still needs a high enough density and vertical space for crucial work (eg. programming). One can always increase DPI when using an FHD screen, but then additional tweaking is needed for web browsers and many websites do not scale perfectly to dynamically adjust to the font size changes.
The brightness of ~200 cd/m^2 appears to be quite sufficient for both indoor and outdoor usage. Together with a good contrast of ~ 550:1 and a matte (anti glare) finish the screen can be easily used in direct sunlight conditions. The viewing angles are above average for this class of notebooks.

The speakers on the other hand can't boast a supreme quality with just an average sound quality. Moreover, one can notice sound vibrations starting from the 70% of the max volume.

Keyboard and TouchPad

The keyboard is nothing short of amazing. The keys have ideal shape and size for fast typists, are 100% responsive and register with a silent and short clicking sound. There's no flex whatsoever.
The trackpoint allows very fast and precise cursor movements, the keys have a very convenient and silent clicking.
The touchpad has a rough grainy (almost a rubbery?) surface but a very little adjustment time is needed to understand how pleasant and precise is the maneuvering.
The touchpad keys are also very silent and perfectly responsive.

Performance

For the comprehensive performance and benchmarks please refer to the mentioned above reviews as they are consistent with and more extensive than our tests.
i7-720QM CPU found to be sufficient to run current applications and games, moreover, its true potential is still not fully used by current software (most applications will only utilize a single/dual core modes) therefore the processor is future proof with a potential of effectively running 8 threads (due to hyper threading).
An Nvidia Quadro FX880M is a powerful workstation class graphics card (mid-range) optimized for professional applications like CAD, DCC, etc. It's also sufficient for running most current games at medium-high details at native resolution and therefore is suitable for occasional gaming.
One thing that has to be mentioned here is the system's DPC latency. For video/sound crucial work even minor stuttering/freezing as a result of high latency could be the deal breaker. Our model with stock OS, drivers and utilities was slightly beyond the safe zone:
The spikes shown on the screenshot are not threatening and most likely will not create any sound/video skips and stuttering, however additional testing is recommended especially when using external devices connected to the system. We observed a few 100k+ spikes while transferring data from a USB stick.

Temperatures
While the surface of the notebook stays pleasantly cool both when idle and during stress tests or gaming, the temperatures on the CPU/GPU can rise significantly at load.
Here is the screenshot of the idle (the system was just turned on) temperatures:

After playing King's Bounty The Armored Princess for 5 minutes:

As you can see, even during medium gaming the temperatures stay within the safety limits.
The situation changes however when stress tests and benchmarks are run as well as more demanding games like Crysis. Both the CPU and the GPU then hit alarming 90C.
Therefore it's recommended to monitor the temperatures when running heavy applications and demanding games.
We recommend HWMonitor as a good tool to keep an eye on the system temperatures.
85-90C is considered a warning range beyond which a physical damage to the system is possible.

Battery Life

With a 9-cell battery our system achieved the following results:

Idle, minimum brightness, no web surfing - 4hr 10min

Idle, 10/15 brightness, web browsing - 3hr 25min

Light gaming, max brightness - 1hr 20min

Conclusion

W510 is a powerful 15" business notebook packing an i7 CPU and mid-range professional GPU - FX880M. The system is an excellent performer and has an overall good build quality. It has 4 DDR3 memory slots supporting up to 16GB RAM, 2 USB 3.0 ports, amazing spill-resistant keyboard and a good anti-glare HD+ LED screen. Due to the acceptably small size and weight the notebook can be both a road warrior and an office workstation.

PROS:

very good keyboard

USB 3.0 ports

4 memory slots

good screen (FHD 95% Gamut option)

excellent performance


CONS:

speakers of below average sound quality

high CPU/GPU temps during long hours of stress tests and heavy gaming

minor flex on the left palmrest edge and on the right bottom edge below the DVD-Drive.

battery life

9-cell battery design



Thank You

 

nice.................

 

Good review. I like that you hit upon areas that you might not hear about in other reviews. As I was reading it I didn't feel like I was reading a rehash of other reviews that all seem to cover the same things (in general).

 

Thank you for the feedback guys!

 

Thanks for posting. The more views the better I say.

 

I like the design of the 9-cell battery. It's a nice handle for those on the move.

 

+1, I feel the same way. Only downside for me is the extra weight.

Thanks for the review, Aikimox. I would rep, but apparently I need to spread it around a bit more

 

Pretty short battery life considering the capacity of that battery. But I guess that's what discrete graphics gets you.

 

My god, is it just me or does this make me hate 16:9 even more!!?? Holy crap, this is extremely constricting for what i'm used to, 16:10, i was fine with, 16:9, no.... Not from this picture, looks like there's only like 2-3" between the bottom icons and the start menu.

 

Thank you.

Yeah, If only they would allow switchable graphics in it...

I know what you mean, feels like you've just been robbed...