I ordered on Sunday with October delivery date. It's now arriving Thursday so not sure where they found another pile of these but excited as it should be a nice upgrade to what I have now.
I specified both the 4700U - 16Gb- 512GB version (Costco) for my neighbour's eldest who was about to start college and the 4500U - 16Gb -256GB version ( with the $100 buck credit for signing up for a new gift card) for his younger ones & remote school so was able to look at both versions before the kiddos took them away.
Straight away - while the USB-C cannot be used to output video - it's not thunderbolt (that's currently Intel chipset territory) but despite the (incorrect) documentation I can confirm that both versions are able to output 60Hz at 4k to my Sony 930D TV NO ISSUE - I didn't push it much but I didn't feel any heat or hear fans come on.
Some other observations:
The construction is plastic yes, but it's solid - reminds me of the old Latitude 6500 - so somewhat hefty but solid.
14" screen is usable - I currently use a 13" macbook pro and for my purposes it's just too small - I'm an Engineer by trade so need screen real estate AND a bigger screen for my old eyes. 14" I think here is a good balance point between mobility and usability. I wouldn't specify it for myself (15/16/17") but for kids at school and college it's a great size.
Would have been nice to have video over USB-C so you could use a single cable to both charge and output video from a PD capable monitor.
The one issue with this model (both 4500U and 4700U) is the display - it's definitely subdued / dimmer than I'm used to - macbooks / macbook pros and iMacs and those are so much brighter and more colorful. However, the power in this thing is fantastic, so besides its mobile nature, this Lenovo may well also a fantastic home PC solution connected semi permanently to a monitor. If your intention is to use this semi-permanently with a monitor it's a no brainer. If you're going to be walking around outside I would have caution here - the screen will be hard to see.
Whatever you do - get the 16GB version - RAM is not upgradeable on this model (soldered on).
update to my last - turns out the camera on the 4700U version sourced from Costco never worked. I then discovered that Lenovo support is not so good - it may be a pandemic or a home vs enterprise support thing but there's been a distinct lack of responsiveness and initiative from Lenovo - finally it's off via post to get fixed so we'll see how it goes.
Just an FYI - as with any system you buy - test it all out as soon as you get it.
Comments & Reviews (6)
...Mine arrives tomorrow.
That processor is a hell of a value - per-buck and per-watt. Not many intel chips that can compete with that right now, in a laptop.
Straight away - while the USB-C cannot be used to output video - it's not thunderbolt (that's currently Intel chipset territory) but despite the (incorrect) documentation I can confirm that both versions are able to output 60Hz at 4k to my Sony 930D TV NO ISSUE - I didn't push it much but I didn't feel any heat or hear fans come on.
Some other observations:
The construction is plastic yes, but it's solid - reminds me of the old Latitude 6500 - so somewhat hefty but solid.
14" screen is usable - I currently use a 13" macbook pro and for my purposes it's just too small - I'm an Engineer by trade so need screen real estate AND a bigger screen for my old eyes. 14" I think here is a good balance point between mobility and usability. I wouldn't specify it for myself (15/16/17") but for kids at school and college it's a great size.
Would have been nice to have video over USB-C so you could use a single cable to both charge and output video from a PD capable monitor.
The one issue with this model (both 4500U and 4700U) is the display - it's definitely subdued / dimmer than I'm used to - macbooks / macbook pros and iMacs and those are so much brighter and more colorful. However, the power in this thing is fantastic, so besides its mobile nature, this Lenovo may well also a fantastic home PC solution connected semi permanently to a monitor. If your intention is to use this semi-permanently with a monitor it's a no brainer. If you're going to be walking around outside I would have caution here - the screen will be hard to see.
Whatever you do - get the 16GB version - RAM is not upgradeable on this model (soldered on).
hth
Dingo
Just an FYI - as with any system you buy - test it all out as soon as you get it.
Thank you!