Thinkpad E590: At First Glance
Lenovo added to the league of notebooks to choose from in its release of the ThinkPad E590. This is a laptop with multiple configuration options to suit your needs and your budget.
Notably, this new ThinkPad model has almost no specification differences from its predecessor – the E580. The only difference between the two laptops is their prices.
Specifically, while ThinkPad E590 sells for $699.99 (accurate as of September 2021 when I published this article), its predecessor ( E580) was available for about half this amount.
All these then keep you wondering if there’s any need to go for the new model with a higher price or just go for the older model. Well, this review will answer this question and more!
Thinkpad E590: Design, Dimensions & Weight
As I earlier stated, Lenovo didn’t make many innovations to the new product over the E580 – and the design is no exception. The outer framework of the ThinkPad E590 is made up of an aluminum and plastic chassis.
Its lid has an aluminum smooth lid chassis while the laptop’s base is made with solid plastic chassis. The combination of both material types gives the laptop a rugged feel.
The matte finish and rugged feel of this laptop will survive a bumpy road trip. Also, you can get this smooth and durable laptop in black or silver color variants.
For a 15-inch business notebook, you expect this to be a lightweight laptop, well, this laptop doesn’t break the backbone with its weight. The Lenovo ThinkPad E590 weighs 2100g and has a dimension of 369 x 252.5 x 19.9 mm.
The ASUS VivoBook S15 S533 I reviewed some time ago is a much lighter notebook with its weight of 1800g and dimension of 359.8 x 233.8 x 16.1 mm. Dell Precision E5530 weighs similar to the ASUS with its weight of 1780g and 357 x 235 x 16.8 mm as its dimension.
The size and dimension of this ThinkPad model are the exact same measurement as its predecessor. In addition to its weight and dimension, the ThinkPad E590 is 0.8 inches thick which makes it a fairly thin laptop.
We can’t talk about design and forget the manufacturer’s branding which is an aspect of design that lets you know the product just at a glance.
To start with, there’s the “ThinkPad” text logo inscribed in aluminum at the top left edge of the laptop’s lid. Speaking of the lid – it has to be open with both hands, one holding the lid and the other pushing down the keyboard.
The hinges, by the way, can take the lid all the way back to 180°. On opening the lid, you’ll see the same “ThinkPad” logo on the laptop’s deck below the keyboard layout.
There’s a subtle “Lenovo” text logo at the left corner of the lower bezel. I called it subtle because it’s in dark grey and you won’t even know it’s there.
Also on branding, the model’s name – E590 is also at the lower bezel but on the far right corner.
Under the laptop’s lid, you have the display, keyboard, and touchpad. Starting with the display, this is a 15.6-inch display and Lenovo also offers two display panel options to choose from.
You can get the display of HD (1366 x 768) TN display or Full HD (1920 x 1080) IPS display. The major difference between the TN and IPS display panel is the viewing angles and color reproduction they provide.
More specifically, the IPS display panel provides better viewing angles and is able to reproduce colors more accurately than the TN display.
In terms of brightness, the Full HD display has 270 nits which is how much screen brightness this display has. The HD display option, on the other hand, has 240 nits of brightness.
Both display options offer just an average amount of brightness so don’t expect too much. Notably, our review unit is the Full HD model.
With that being said, you should go for the display with more brightness (the Full HD in this instance). This is important if you’re concerned about seeing the right colors on the display and enjoying the laptop outdoors.
Speaking of outdoors, both displays have the anti-glare feature which means the screen has an additional layer of coating. This layer allows you to be able to use the laptop in bright light settings, like the outdoors, without any noticeable reflection.
Away from the display, let’s talk about the keyboard deck area. The ThinkPad E590 has a spacious keyboard compare to the cramped-up stuff we get on most 15-inch laptops.
To start with, there’s a dedicated number pad accompanied by a backlit keyboard. The keys are very comfortable to type on and don’t get loud while punching those keys.
If you’re familiar with the ThinkPad series, you should know about the usual red TrackPoint. Well, Lenovo didn’t omit the TrackPoint on this device which is similar to what we see in the Dell Latitude series.
The TrackPoint is located somewhere in the middle of the keyboard between the “G”, “H”, and “B” keys. This red button-like feature functions for scrolling through documents, web pages, or magnifying the display.
Below the keyboard is the very responsive, multi-touch touchpad.
Still on the deck, the power button is at the top right corner of the laptop’s deck above the keyboard layout.
For security, the ThinkPad E590 also offers an optional fingerprint scanner. It being optional means you’ll have to add some extra cash if you want your model to have a fingerprint scanner.
Notably, our review unit has the fingerprint scanner which is located a little above the text logo on the lower part of the laptop’s deck. There are also two speakers on both the right and left side curves under the laptop.
These speakers are able to produce good sound quality thanks to the little bump under the laptop. That is because the little bump doesn’t make the laptop completely flat when on a surface.
Moving to the side of the deck, the ThinkPad E590 features a number of ports. Starting with the right side, there’s a micro SD card slot, a USB Type-A port, an Ethernet port, and a Kensington lock.
On the left are the USB Type-C port for charging, the HDMI port, two USB Type-A ports, and a headphone jack.
In brief, the design features of the ThinkPad E590 make it work-friendly and portable. For that reason, I will be rating this laptop a nine out of ten in this design review section.
Thinkpad E590: Processor (CPU) Performance
The processor that powers the Lenovo ThinkPad E590 is the Intel Core i7-8565U. This is a quad-core processor with an 8 MB cache.
When it comes to processing speed, this processor has a 1.80 GHz base frequency and 4.60 GHz boost frequency. These specs mean nothing if you don’t know exactly how they perform.
To help me access the laptop’s processor performance, I used Cinebench tool. The Cinebench is a benchmark test tool that measures the capacity of a computer’s processor simulating various workloads.
After carrying out this test, the ThinkPad E590 scored 1614 points. This is a better score than that of the E580 (its predecessor) which had 1082 points on the same test.
Surprisingly the HP ProBook 450 and Acer Aspire A515 with Intel Core i5 8265U scored slightly higher than ThinkPad E590. Both HP and Acer both scored 1629 points each.
Despite being outperformed by a smaller processor with 15 points, the processing power of the ThinkPad E590 is still proficient.
For that reason, the CPU performance section of this ThinkPad E590 review deserves a rating of eight.
Thinkpad E590: Memory (RAM) Performance
The standard memory capacity of the ThinkPad E590 is 8 GB DDR4-2400 MHz RAM. Furthermore, it has a 32 GB RAM maximum capacity.
Achieving the 32 GB maximum capacity is possible thanks to the extra RAM slot Lenovo included in this laptop. This means that asides from the 8 GB RAM that comes with the device, you can add up to 24 GB RAM on the second empty slot.
I wanted to know the performance capacity of this 8 GB memory and I was able to achieve that with PC Mark. The PC Mark is a benchmark test tool that analyses how well the memory of a laptop can handle productivity tasks without breaking a sweat.
This is particularly important because this is a business notebook that is targeted at business users. This PC Mark test will tell us how well this laptop is capable of handling your daily business tasks simultaneously.
After putting this ThinkPad E590 to test, it scored 4597 points. This score is higher than the average PC Mark score which is 4291.
Furthermore, the ThinkPad E590 did better than its predecessor – the E580 which scored 3757. Asides from its kind, the E590 also did better than ASUS and HP notebooks.
The ASUS VivoBook S15 S533 scored 3769 while the HP ProBook 450 scored 3668. Apparently, the ThinkPad E590 outperformed its close competing business notebooks.
To further test the memory, I did some tasks simultaneously to test its multitasking ability. This laptop didn’t slow down with 22 browser tabs open on Microsoft Edge, with one of these web tabs streaming YouTube.
In addition to that, I was doing some data entry on MS Excel. Even with all these tasks happening simultaneously, this laptop didn’t slow down.
Without a doubt, the ThinkPad E590 is a great multitasker and is definitely capable of handling whatever you throw at it.
Based on all these, I believe that a rating of nine is befitting for ThinkPad E590 in this memory performance review section.
Thinkpad E590: Storage Options & Performance
Lenovo features three storage options to choose from on the ThinkPad E590. The first option is the 2 TB 5400 RPM 2.5 SATA HDD
Another option is the 500 GB 7200 RPM SATA HDD and the third is the 512 GB PCIe M.2 SSD storage drive. Furthermore, this laptop has only one storage slot.
I would have preferred if the laptop has two storage slots – one for HDD, and another for SSD. This would have allowed for an ideal storage configuration with an HDD/SSD combination.
Unfortunately, this is not the case and you have to either choose to buy the laptop with an HDD or SSD storage.
On a brighter note, Lenovo included a microSD card reader for more storage options. With this, you can expand the storage on this laptop via the microSD card reader.
As it’s a standard at www.itechguides.com, we like to make you understand the performance of the specs made available. To measure the storage performance of this laptop, I ran a Crystaldiskmark test.
Crystaldiskmark is a benchmark test tool that analyses the read and write speed of any storage drive. In simple terms, this read and write speed explains how fast or slow the storage drive is.
This means that the higher the test score, the better. Before proceeding to the test score, please note that our review unit comes with 512 GB SSD storage.
After running the benchmark test, the ThinkPad E590 presented a read speed of 1526MB/s while its write speed resulted in 788MB/s.
Impressively, the storage of the ThinkPad E590 is almost three times faster than the Acer TravelMate! More precisely, the TravelMate has a read and write speed of 559MB/s and 265MB/s respectively.
However, the HP ProBook 450 performed two times better than the ThinkPad E590. The HP ProBook 450 had a read and write speed of 3368MB/s and 1979MB/s respectively.
Despite not performing as remarkably as its biggest competition, the ThinkPad E590 has a fast storage drive. In addition to its drive, its multiple options are another reason to love it.
With all that said, I will be rating this storage option and performance section of the ThinkPad E590 review a nine.
Thinkpad E590: Graphics Card Performance
Like its predecessor, the ThinkPad E590 comes with two graphics card options to choose from. Specifically, this laptop offers the choice of an integrated or dedicated graphics card.
First, there’s the Intel UHD Graphics which is an integrated graphics card. Furthermore, this graphics card has a base frequency of 300 MHz and 1150 MHz as its boost frequency.
Secondly, is the AMD Radeon RX 550X with 2 GB GDDR5 dedicated VRAM. This graphics card also has an 1100 MHz base frequency and a 1287 MHz boost frequency.
For clarity, an integrated graphics card shares memory with the CPU while carrying out its graphics tasks. A dedicated graphics card, on the other hand, has a VRAM which is the independent memory that handles graphics tasks without relying on the CPU.
Apparently, Lenovo offered her consumers the choice of going for a graphics card that’s ideal for their computing needs. Before proceeding, it’s important to note that our review unit has the AMD Radeon RX 550X graphics card.
As I often say, specification means nothing without understanding its performance, and for this section, the 3D Mark comes in handy. The 3D Mark is a benchmark test tool that analysis a graphic card and how it renders 3D graphics.
The result of the 3D Mark test, in turn, explains the gaming and overall graphics performance of a graphics card. With that said, I carried out a 3D Mark test on the ThinkPad E590 and the test resulted in a score of 5332 points.
This is an impressive score mostly because it’s just 13 points less than the average score of a typical AMD Radeon RX GPU laptop. Typically, a laptop with the AMD Radeon RX scores 5345 points.
When compared with its predecessor, the E590 also outperformed the E580 which scored 4446 points. The HP ProBook G6 also didn’t meet up with its score of 2908 points.
Even though this is not a gaming laptop, I wanted to know what our dedicated graphics card was capable of; so I played some games. To start with, GTA V was playable at 94fps on low settings of 720p.
Another game that was playable on this laptop is the Witcher 3 which played at 61fps on low settings. More importantly, I played both games on low settings in other not to further stretch the GPU – after all, it’s not designed for gaming.
In brief, this is an impressive graphics performance for a business-focused laptop. For this reason, I will be rating the GPU performance of this ThinkPad E590 review a nine.
Thinkpad E590: Battery Life & Performance
The Lenovo ThinkPad E590 is powered by a 45 Wh, Li-Polymer battery. According to Lenovo, this laptop is said to have a battery life of 12 hours and 40 minutes.
To verify just how exact or exaggerated Lenovo’s claim is, I put the battery through a real-life battery test. Before starting the test, the battery was fully charged, with 100% volume, and 50% brightness, and Wi-Fi turned on.
I first did a video playback test on YouTube which involves playing a video series continuously till the battery goes off. The ThinkPad E590 lasted 8 hours and 20 minutes on this video playback test.
When compared with its competitors, the HP ProBook 450 lasted only 10 minutes more than the E590. The ASUS VivoBook S533 on the other hand lasted an hour more than the E590 on the same test.
Additionally, the ThinkPad E590 lasted 10 hours 12 minutes solely on web browsing. On the web browsing test, the ThinkPad performed an hour more than the HP ProBook 450 which lasted 9 hours 10 minutes.
In a nutshell, the ThinkPad E590 has a good battery life for all-day use which is ideally what you need in a business notebook. For this battery life and performance section of this review, I will be rating it a nine.
Frequently Asked Questions
At the time of writing this review in September 2021, the ThinkPad E590 had a starting price of $699.99
Yes. This durable notebook has an optional backlit keyboard for comfortable typing in low-light situations.
Yes. Lenovo offers an optional fingerprint reader, depending on the model you purchase.
No. The SSD Storage drive option on this laptop is not soldered to the motherboard which means it can be upgraded.
For a business notebook that it’s created for, it is definitely a good laptop.
Conclusion
One disappointing thing about the ThinkPad E590 is that it’s almost not different from its previous model. This is really disappointing because a new model is meant to have something to look forward to over the previous model.
Regardless, some sections of this review, as you must have read, proved that the E590 offers a higher performance than its predecessor.
In conclusion, the ThinkPad E590 is worth considering if you need a durable business laptop that can survive a bumpy road trip. In addition to that, it’s also ideal for business-oriented individuals with a battery life that lasts all day.
However, if you already have the ThinkPad E580 and it’s working well for you, then you have no reason to opt for this new model.
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