Lenovo ThinkPad W520 Review

The Thinkpad W520 is Lenovo’s current offering in the mobile workstation market, competing against the Dell Precision and HP Elitebook lineups. While Lenovo use to offer a 17” workstation (W701), they have since dropped that display size and the W520 stands as Lenovo’s most powerful laptop today, with a starting price of $1,299. Like other ThinkPads, the W520 is all about business, sporting a strong build quality with an internal roll cage, sturdy metal hinges, an optional 1080p 95% color gamut display, optional built-in color calibrator (useful for photographers, graph designers, and the like), standard fingerprint scanner, and optional SmartCard reader. Of course, the W520 also sports the legendary Thinkpad keyboard many know and love. While not the flashiest laptop on sale, this Thinkpad emphasizes function over form, something I preferred in a laptop.

Reasons for Choosing

I chose the W520 over other laptops on the market due to the combination of serious computing power, good gaming capability, conservative styling, long battery life, and the Thinkpad keyboard (I dislike the new island-style keyboards with a passion). I wanted a laptop that would allow me to play my games at high detail and would not cause strange looks at important meetings (imagine a businessperson bringing a flashy Alienware to the office). As a computer engineering student, I also plan on running CAD software and other industry software that can take advantage of the drivers offered in a professional GPU. My particular W520 under review was purchased for $1,665 (before tax) using the Barnes and Noble discount, email promotion discount, and haggling over the phone with a Lenovo sales agent, with the following specs:

• Processor: Intel Core i7-2720QM (2.2GHz, Quad-Core/8 Threads, 6MB L3 Cache)
• Memory: 4GB DDR3, 1333MHz, 1DIMM (upgraded to 12GB of RAM after receiving the laptop)
• Storage: 500GB, 7200RPM Seagate Momentus 7200.4 (replaced with an Intel 320 160GB SSD)
• Screen: 15.6” FHD (1920*1080) matte display, 95% color gamut
• Battery: 9-cell Li-Ion Battery
• Wireless: Intel 6300 (802.1 b/g/n/BT3.0)
• Graphics: Intel HD 3000 + nVidia Quadro 2000M (Optimus GPU switching)
• Optical Drive: DVD Burner
• Ports: Ethernet (RJ45), VGA, DisplayPort, Powered USB2.0 (x1), USB3.0 (x2), AC adapter connector, combination headphone/microphone jack, ExpressCard slot (34mm), SDHC reader, eSATA/USB 2.0, 1394
• Built-in 720p webcam and microphone
• Weight: 5.75lbs
• Warranty: 3yr ThinkPad Protection + Onsite service

When ordering, I followed this piece of advice to reduce the price of my configuration from $2,167 to $1,665, a savings of a little over $500 or about 23.2% off retail. Considering the high-end hardware I ordered (especially the Quadro 2000M and 1080p display) and my above average experience with ordering over the phone with a Lenovo sales agent, I feel that I got a great deal on my W520 and I’m certainly happy with the purchase.

Delivery and Packaging

I ordered the W520 on June 6^th, 2011 and the estimated arrival date was on the 16^th. This custom configuration W520 actually arrived at my door on the 15^th, so expect a CTO model Thinkpad to take about a week and a half to arrive from China. UPS Ground was the shipping method used, and the box suffered no damage while in transport. Within the package, the W520 was protected with two plastic braces to distance the laptop from the walls of the cardboard box. Along with the W520 itself, Lenovo also shipped the AC adapter and cord, battery, and a manual.

Build and Design

Upon seeing the W520 a friend of mine asked, “Is that an old laptop?” The design of the W520 (and all ThinkPad’s) has been pretty much the same ever since the 90s, with the only major change being the removal of the IBM logo and replacement with the Lenovo logo when the ThinkPad line was transferred to the Chinese company in 2005. The conservative, business design of the laptop is what some may call boring and dull, and indeed it is. But this laptop wasn’t designed to compete based on fashion; the W520 is a work horse, not much of a show horse, per se.

Being a business laptop, the Thinkpad W520 is designed to allow the user to be as productive as possible and also designed to protect user data in the event of physical damage or a security breach. The outside shell of the laptop is made of ABS plastic, known for its impact resistance and toughness, it comes in a matte finish instead of the glossy plastic finish most consumer laptops come in. Underneath the shell is an internal roll cage that protects the electronics from damage in case of a drop or other accident. Another unique feature are the drainage holes that funnel spilled liquids away from the internals and out of the laptop via two channels that empty out at the bottom of the laptop. The metal hinges prevent the display from moving out of place, though it is still easy to adjust with only one hand. Twisting the screen from either the bottom or top of the display only distorts it a few millimeters, and it immediately goes back into place when pressure is removed. I believe that Lenovo has thought of just about everything, since when I replaced the stock HDD I noticed that it came with rubber rails instead of the standard metal casing, probably to protect the drive from shock.

The build quality of the W520 is certainly above average, and compared to my previous laptop (a Toshiba Satellite L505), the difference is night and day. The only flex points I could notice after owning this laptop for seven months (and counting) were the area just under the optical disk drive and the area between the two hinges, at the bottom of the display. Otherwise, this laptop is as solid as a rock. After dropping it twice, I have noticed no problems in the operation of the computer. The first time I dropped it was from chest height (~5.5ft) to a carpet floor after tripping over my cat in the middle of the night, while the computer was turned on. The only issue was that one of the RAM modules became unseated, but after sliding it back into place the W520 continued operation as if nothing had happened. The second drop was onto a concrete floor after my messenger bag’s strap broke. No problems once I picked it up and booted into Windows. While some of this could be attributed to the ruggedness of solid-state drives, the rest of the laptop also stood up well to the forces of an accidental drop.

I am not a kind person to the W520. I rarely use a laptop case or bag to protect it. Instead, I typically throw it in my bookbag along with my textbooks and binders, and when it’s warmer I’ll bike to and from classes, usually taking shortcuts by riding off-road and jumping curbs rough ground, and sometimes even short flights of stairs. After a semester of college, my W520 has experienced no structural damage, and only minor cosmetic damage (a small part of the vent grill broke off, and one of the locking hooks is missing).

Below are pictures of the cosmetic damage incurred after a couple of hard drops the W520 experienced

Keyboard, Trackpoint, and Touchpad

The W520 (and other ThinkPads) is one of the few current laptops that have not moved on to the island-style keyboard layout that is popular today. I’ve used traditional style keyboards my whole life and the W520’s keyboard so far has been the best keyboard I’ve ever used in a laptop. The scissor action of the keys, the lack of island-style spacing between keys, key travel, and the six row ThinkPad layout combine to make for a comfortable typing experience. The only con to the keyboard I can think of is that it’s the only part of the system, aside from the mouse keys, that tends to soak up skin oil after use.  That said, cleaning with a paper towel and rubbing alcohol removes this.

Like other Thinkpads, there are two options presented to the user for mouse input: the touchpad or the Trackpoint (the red nub in the middle of the keyboard). Even though I’ve never used a Trackpoint before buying the W520, I quickly picked up on it and love using it now. It’s an accurate, precise way of controlling mouse input that is only surpassed by attaching an external mouse to the system. The advantage to this is that a user doesn’t have to reposition their finger to travel from one side of the screen to another, though this comes with the possible downside of having a sore finger if used too long.  Using less pressure to use the Trackpoint helps alleviate that problem.

Relative to other laptops, the touchpad on the W520 is small. It measures three inches horizontally by 2.66 inches vertically. Lenovo implemented finger gestures in their touchpad a la MacBook touchpad, though their version isn’t as smooth as I would like. The only gesture that works well in my opinion is the two-finger scroll, though only after modifying some settings. I rarely use the touchpad and instead use the Trackpoint and its three mouse buttons under the space bar whenever I don’t have a mouse plugged in.

Display

I was amazed at the display quality when I first received my W520 back in June. Today, I still am. Before using the W520’s 1080p display, I’ve never used a high-res display in any of the computers I’ve used. My old laptop had a 768p display which served my needs well enough, and the family desktop has a resolution of 1440 by 900 pixels (on a 21” display). The pixel density of the 1080p display allows for a user to pack plenty of data onto the desktop at once, as demonstrated below (click on images for larger view):

The colors on this 95% color gamut display pop out well, despite the matte finish. No colors are washed out, pictures and video look great, and using the screen daily is a pleasure, especially since there is little glare from lights and the sun. The only con is that the blacks aren’t as dark as they can be, but yet again this is the strength of glossy displays. For example, the figure in my wallpaper, while supposed to be pitch black, still has hints of red throughout.

As far as TN panels go, the W520’s 1080p display looks great from any angle. Colors only reverse when the screen is tilted 180 degrees back; otherwise, red is still red no matter the angle a person views the display. In a dark room, information displayed on the W520 is easy to see thanks to the brightness (set at 15, the highest setting), which is somewhere around 230 cd/m².

Instead of a backlit keyboard, which would compromise the typing quality of the keyboard, Lenovo opted to use a Thinklight as a solution for typing in the dark. Basically, the Thinklight is a small LED next to the webcam that shines down onto the keyboard (after pressing the Fn + PgUP combination). It’s even bright enough to see some objects around the laptop.

Speakers

The speakers (Conexant 20672 SmartAudio HD), like in most business-class laptops, are a major disappointment in the Thinkpad W520. However, considering that this is a business laptop and not meant to be a home entertainment laptop, this is to be expected. While the speakers can get loud, other laptops can get louder (from personal experience, the Dell XPS 15’s speakers can get very, very loud); it’s not advisable to use the built-in speakers in a loud room or if you want to share a video with friends, even at max volume. The range of sounds is limited; higher-pitched sounds are not pleasant to hear with these speakers, and there is an obvious lack of bass in this system. However, plugging in a pair of headphones solves all these problems. Deep bass and other sound qualities can be restored by using your favorite headphones, with my testing using three different headphones (JVC Gummies, Sony MDR-NC7, and Turtle Beach EarForce X12).

Software

Unlike the laptops people buy in retail stores, business laptops come with little or no bloatware, and the W520 is no exception. Aside from a Windows 7 Professional license, Lenovo also includes the ThinkVantage Toolbox (a Thinkpad-branded PC Doctor), Thinkpad Power Manager 3 (which is great for managing performance settings; I use this instead of Windows Power Manager), and Microsoft Office 2010 Starter. Nothing else is installed. No bloatware (though ThinkVantage Toolbox isn’t very useful to me). Nada. Doing a fresh install of Windows is not necessary, since there’s nothing that’s slowing down the laptop. Lenovo has done a great job in preventing bloatware in their laptops, and hopefully they will continue to do so in future models.

Warranty and Support

First thing to mention: Lenovo doesn’t actually handle Thinkpad warranties and support issues. This is still the job of IBM. Therefore, Thinkpad users can expect top-notch support for their machines if something does go wrong. Just recently, my original battery stopped working properly, as one day it refused to charge beyond 37% capacity even with the AC adapter plugged in. Since I take my laptop everywhere with me on campus, this could have been a major issue for me (thankfully, it failed during finals week, so I didn’t need my laptop in class). I called Lenovo, and then I was promptly redirected to IBM support in Atlanta, GA to speak with an agent. I gave my information and a description of the problem. A few minutes and a remote desktop check later, the agent confirmed my battery problem and informed me that they will send me a free replacement battery within two business days (it actually arrived less than 24 hours later). I didn’t have to hop through different levels of tech support, I didn’t have to argue, and I didn’t have to go through a bunch of simple steps to confirm the problem (such as, “Are you sure the AC adapter is plugged into the outlet?”). It was a simple, enjoyable experience with IBM business support, something I can’t say with tech support for consumer-class laptops from retail stores.

Lenovo offers a one year depot warranty as default, though this can be upgraded to four years. In addition to that, a buyer can also upgrade to an accidental damage warranty, referred to as ThinkPad Protection (or TPP), which covers “falls, screen damage, electrical surges, or other standard use damage that may occur”.

Performance and Battery Life

Being a workstation laptop, the Thinkpad W520 is all about performance. Equipped with the second-generation i7-2720QM and Quadro 2000M GPU, the W520 can handle just about everything a user can through at it, except for ultra-high-end gaming (the 2000M is comparable to the GeForce 555M or 540M, a mid-range gaming GPU). Even though I’ve installed a total of 12GB of RAM in my laptop, most users will be fine with 4 to 8GB for daily usage, multimedia, and gaming. Having more memory is useful if running multiple virtual machines at once, editing high-res images in Photoshop, editing high-res video, running CAD software, etc.

The Thinkpad W520 allows a user to choose between the integrated Intel HD 3000 graphics and the nVidia Quadro GPU using either nVidia Optimus technology or manual switching via the BIOS. Optimus, in my opinion, is still a developing technology and it’s not perfect (it fails to use the Quadro GPU for certain applications, such as World in Conflict: Soviet Assault), so I have used manual BIOS switching for most of the time I’ve owned this laptop. Using the Intel GPU, screen brightness set to 5, and light usage (Office and/or internet), the 9-cell battery will last for 7-8 hours; using the Quadro GPU, same brightness, and same usage will result in a nearly 4 hour battery life.

The newest game that I own is Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and using the Quadro 2000M, I can play it at 1080p and high detail settings without noticeable lag (30+ fps). However, most of my games are older (CnC Generals: ZH w/Shockwave mod, CivIV, Portal, Axis and Allies 2004), so I am not aware of the full gaming capability of the Quadro 2000M personally.

The only con I can think of is that the CPU clocks down to 800MHz while “idle”. This is fine when running off the battery, but this even happens on AC power as of the 1.26 BIOS update. Most of the programs I typically run, including CPU-intensive RTS games, won’t break this 800MHz barrier. Several W520 owners I talk to also experience this problem, so it’s not just an individual fluke in my laptop. The only programs I have that can force the processor higher than 800MHz for an extended period of time are Stanford’s Folding@Home and, oddly enough, Minecraft. However, upgrading to BIOS version 1.34 and disabling CPU Power Management in the BIOS keeps the CPU pegged at 2.99GHz, even at idle.

User Upgradability

Lenovo made it easy for an end user to upgrade, clean, or otherwise mess around with the system internals. After receiving the system and aftermarket parts (Intel 320 series SSD, Mushkin RAM), installing them only took a few minutes, with the longest wait coming from installing Windows on the new system drive.

Benchmarks

Below are some benchmarks to give you an idea of the overall performance of the W520 system, a quick refresh of the important specs:

• Processor: Intel Core i7-2720QM (2.2GHz, Quad-Core/8 Threads, 6MB L3 Cache)
• Memory: 4GB DDR3, 1333MHz, 1DIMM (upgraded to 12GB of RAM after receiving the laptop)
• Storage: 500GB, 7200RPM Seagate Momentus 7200.4 (replaced with an Intel 320 160GB SSD)
• Battery: 9-cell Li-Ion Battery
• Graphics: Intel HD 3000 + nVidia Quadro 2000M (Optimus GPU switching)

Bootup Time:

It takes 27 seconds to get to the login screen and 41 seconds for the desktop to be up and running, this speed comes thanks to the SSD.

PCMark Vantage Score Comparison

Laptop	PCMark Vantage Score
Lenovo ThinkPad W520 – Intel Core i7 2720QM, 4GB RAM, Nvidia Quadro 2000, Intel 320 SSD	14,193
HP Envy 17 3D – Intel Core i7-2670QM, AMD 6850M 1GB, 8GB RAM, 7200RPM HD	9,340 PCMarks
SONY VAIO SA – Intel Core i5-2430M, AMD 6750M, 6GB RAM, 7200RPM HD	7,007 PCMarks
Lenovo IdeaPad Y470 – Intel Core i7-2630qm, Nvidia 550M 1GB, 8GB RAM, Intel SSD	12,160 PCMarks
Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E420 – Intel Core i5-2410m 2.30GHz, 4GB RAM	6,056 PCMarks
Dell Vostro 3450 – Intel Core i5-2410m 2.30Ghz, 4GB RAM	5,901 PCMarks
Dell Inspiron N411z – Intel Core i3-2330m 2.30GHz, 4GB RAM	5,285 PCMarks
Lenovo ThinkPad T420 – Intel Core i3-2310m 2.1GHz, 2GB RAM	3,204 PCMarks

PCMark 7 Score Comparison

Laptop	PCMark 7 Score
Lenovo ThinkPad W520 – Intel Core i7 2720QM, 4GB RAM, Nvidia Quadro 2000, Intel 320 SSD	4,299 PCMarks
HP Envy 17 3D – Intel Core i7-2670QM, AMD 6850M 1GB, 8GB RAM, 7200RPM HD	2,592 PCMarks
SONY VAIO SA – Intel Core i5-2430M, AMD 6750M, 6GB RAM, 7200RPM HD	2,022 PCMarks
Lenovo IdeaPad U400 – Intel Core i5-2430M, AMD Radeon 6470M, 6GB RAM, 5400RPM HD	2,287 PCMarks
Dell XPS 15z – Intel Core i7-2620M, Nvidia GT 525M, 8GB RAM, SSD	3,604 PCMarks

3DMark 11 Score Comparison 

Laptop	3DMark11
Lenovo ThinkPad W520 – Intel Core i7 2720QM, 4GB RAM, Nvidia Quadro 2000, Intel 320 SSD	1,438
Dell XPS 14z – Intel Core i5-2430m 2.40GHz, 8GB RAM, Nvidia GT 520M, 7200RPM HD	639
Alienware m14x  – Intel Core i7-2630QM, 8GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GT 555, 7200RPM	1,331

Windows Experience Index Score (WEI) – 5.9 Overall

Conclusion

The Lenovo Thinkpad W520 is a powerful workstation laptop that packs a lot of punch in a seemingly boring, utilitarian package. Haggling over the price allows a buyer to grab a good deal on this system with a powerful quad-core processor, a 500GB 7200RPM hard drive, 4GB of RAM, and a powerful GPU. The combination of tough ABS plastic and a metal substructure inspire confidence in the laptop’s ability to survive whatever is thrown at it. Combining the powerful hardware and durability with long battery life and (relatively) light weight, the W520 offers a great mix of work performance and personal pleasure to use. At 5.75lbs, this is also the lightest workstation you can buy. Even though gaming performance might not be the best (the AMD FirePro GPUs offered in the Dell and HP workstation models are better for workstation gaming), if you need CUDA support the W520 is the only way to go. The legendary ThinkPad keyboard should be enough of a reason to buy a ThinkPad. As an engineering student, I have had nothing but a good experience with my W520.

Pros:

• Durability
• Matte, 95% color gamut 1080p display
• mSATA and Ultrabay drive options, allowing for up to two HDD/SSD and mSATA drives
• Thinkpad keyboard
• Portable for a 15” system
• 7+ hour battery life
• Decent price
• Great support

Cons:

• The touchpad isn’t so good
• Sound can only be described as “okay”