Do you ever feel like upgrading to a heavy-duty business laptop but at the same time don’t want to let go of the consumer laptop feel of your current laptop? A lot of small businesses are facing the same issue. They want the design, ease and user-friendliness of a consumer laptop but the core features of a business machine. Lenovo ThinkBook 15 Gen 2 is the ideal machine for this purpose.
Body and Design
The ThinkBook 15 is a fairly attractive machine. It has a dual-tone mineral gray aluminum top. Around 75% of the top is a relatively darker grey while the rest of the quarter is a lighter tone with the sub brand’s name, ThinkBook, stamped on it. The duality in shades keeps things interesting and the design unique. The underside of the laptop hosts average-sized vents, as opposed to the enormous thermals on the Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3i Laptop. There are two speaker grilles on each side.
Upon lifting the lid, which takes a considerable amount of effort, you come across a large display with thinned-out bezels, especially on the sides that host bezels of almost negligible width. The ThinkBook 15 is a hefty machine. Its 1.7kg body isn’t exactly what I would call lightweight and easily portable.
Display
The ThinkBook 15 features a 15.6’” FHD display. It has a 1920×1080 resolution and an 88% screen-to-body ratio. Its colors pop with a certain kind of radiance you don’t see in most laptops. The graphics are vibrant and lively and sharp. Usually, graphics lose their sharpness when manufacturers attempt to make them as vibrant as possible. The ThinkBook 15’s IPS display makes sure that display is crisp from all angles. Its 300-nit brightness may sound less as compared to the 400-nit displays Chromebooks host these days. However, it’s not underwhelming at all. I used the laptop right next to my window that brings in quite a bit of natural light. With its power-saving mode switched off, I didn’t even have to max the brightness all the way up to enjoy a pleasant experience.
Keys and Ports
A feature that specifically stood out to me in the ThinkBook 15 was its unified communication keys. The F9 key hosts a shortcut to Lenovo’s customer support, the F10 acts as a dedicated key for answering calls and the F10 key is for ending calls. This brilliant machine by Lenovo is the first I’ve come across to host communication keys. The rest of the keyboard hosts well-sized keys offering great travel. Except for the up and down arrows, no other keys have been trimmed down. The six-row keyboard is spill resistant as well.
The trackpad is highly sensitive and responds pretty fast to fairly light clicks. It is generously-sized and provides enough space for a larger-than-average hand size as well. It is buttonless and supports multi-touch. Another interesting feature of the ThinkBook 15 is its smart power touch key. The key is located on the top right of the laptop and has an integrated fingerprint scanner in it. It serves as a convenient shortcut power button.
The ThinkBook 15 hosts a whopping total of nine ports on its sides. These include 3 USB-C 3.2 ports, a USB 4 port, an HDMI port, a headphone port, a card reader, an ethernet port and a lock slot.
Performance
The ThinkBook 15 comes with an 11th Gen Intel Core i5 processor. I ran some heavy content creative applications on it, including free spins on registration no deposit to test how well Intel Iris Xe graphics perform, both in terms of speed and display crispness. It took seconds for the Adobe programs to load and the laptop didn’t suffer a single stutter. ThinkBook 15 hosts a 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD ROM.
Battery, Speakers and Camera
The ThinkBook 15 comes with a 45Wh battery which charges up to 50% in just around 45 minutes. With the power-saving mode turned off, its battery decreased by just 10% in two hours. While with the mode on, the time was halved. In total, it took around 10 hours before I had to reach for the charger. Battery wise, I was thoroughly impressed.
The Dolby stereo speakers on each side of the bottom of the laptop do a great job at delivering loud and clear sound. The audio doesn’t really have a stereo affect to it, but it’s exceptionally loud and focused sound possessing both clarity and depth.
The camera is not bad at all for a laptop. Of course, you can’t rely on it for HD pictures but it does a great job during video conferencing. Overall, the ThinkBook 15 is a solid machine.
Is It Hardcore?
For sure.
A solid machine, the ThinkBook 15 possesses a crisp display, highly unique keys and a great battery life. The machine may be a little pricey, but Lenovo is always worth it.