Thinkpad t480 (t480s if you need at any cost something as slim as possible) or t580. Bonus part: nothing is soldered so you can replace any minor part without problems (yes I hate any notebook which has not easily replaceable ram or ssd or, worse, battery)
To be honest it is not doing its best, I mean not everything works at its best out of the box.
What is broken:
1) There is some bug in intel firmware out of the box.
You will never get your peak CPU freq @ turbo boost mode.
Check dmesg and see some fake errors like:
```[35678.237593] CPU0: Core temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 123)
[35678.237593] CPU4: Core temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 123)
[35678.237595] CPU4: Package temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 179)
[35678.237597] CPU0: Package temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 179)
[35678.237637] CPU5: Package temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 179)
[35678.237638] CPU1: Package temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 179)
[35678.237639] CPU6: Package temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 179)
[35678.237640] CPU3: Package temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 179)
[35678.237640] CPU2: Package temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 179)
[35678.237641] CPU7: Package temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 179)```
It's well known problem, just google "Lenovo throttling fix".
I am sitting on 4.20.16 and still I've to apply some workarounds, such as undervolting CPU and so on.
2) Huge power consumption.
I spent weekend to lower it up to 4-6 wh in idle from 14 wh in idle (sic!)
You have to turn everything unneeded off in BIOS (smartcard reader, card reader, ...?). Changing Thunderbolt Assist Mode to Enabled is a must. But be aware of some nasty bug, when after turning assist mode on you will get a brick instead of working device. To avoid it you have to upgrade BIOS, thanks I get BIOS updates in Gnome Software Center (Fedora). Of course take care and install tlp and so on.
3) There is bug in ACPI, when you enter into S3 mode (by design only CPU0 should be online) all of cores will wake up immediately after entering sleep mode. This leads to increased power consumption in sleep mode (approx 10-15% during all night).
There are some other little quirks that I don't remember at the moment. However overall it's a great laptop.
Comments
Thinkpad t480 (t480s if you need at any cost something as slim as possible) or t580. Bonus part: nothing is soldered so you can replace any minor part without problems (yes I hate any notebook which has not easily replaceable ram or ssd or, worse, battery)
T480 (Intel Core i7-8650U, 32GB RAM) owner here.
To be honest it is not doing its best, I mean not everything works at its best out of the box.
What is broken:
1) There is some bug in intel firmware out of the box. You will never get your peak CPU freq @ turbo boost mode. Check dmesg and see some fake errors like:
```[35678.237593] CPU0: Core temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 123) [35678.237593] CPU4: Core temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 123) [35678.237595] CPU4: Package temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 179) [35678.237597] CPU0: Package temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 179) [35678.237637] CPU5: Package temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 179) [35678.237638] CPU1: Package temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 179) [35678.237639] CPU6: Package temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 179) [35678.237640] CPU3: Package temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 179) [35678.237640] CPU2: Package temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 179) [35678.237641] CPU7: Package temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 179)```
It's well known problem, just google "Lenovo throttling fix".
I am sitting on 4.20.16 and still I've to apply some workarounds, such as undervolting CPU and so on.
2) Huge power consumption.
I spent weekend to lower it up to 4-6 wh in idle from 14 wh in idle (sic!)
You have to turn everything unneeded off in BIOS (smartcard reader, card reader, ...?). Changing Thunderbolt Assist Mode to Enabled is a must. But be aware of some nasty bug, when after turning assist mode on you will get a brick instead of working device. To avoid it you have to upgrade BIOS, thanks I get BIOS updates in Gnome Software Center (Fedora). Of course take care and install tlp and so on.
3) There is bug in ACPI, when you enter into S3 mode (by design only CPU0 should be online) all of cores will wake up immediately after entering sleep mode. This leads to increased power consumption in sleep mode (approx 10-15% during all night).
There are some other little quirks that I don't remember at the moment. However overall it's a great laptop.
I am running Fedora 29 and pretty happy.