AMD7
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TL;DR Lenovo is clearing out the Ryzen Mobile 2000 series Thinkpad 15.6" E series & ShopBack AU doing 14% cashback rate on Lenovo purchases [EDIT 06/05: ShopBack's special rate finished at the end of Sunday 05/05. But CashRewards' 10% cashback rate (https://www.cashrewards.com.au/lenovo) is continuing until 11:59PM AEST May 7.] [EDIT 07/05: Lenovo is extending the $779 price until end of May 9.][EDIT 07/05 PM: looks like Lenovo has pulled the plug, E585 no more as they move further over to the E495 and E595.]
Thinkpad E585 (https://www.lenovo.com/au/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-edge/…)
15.6" IPS FHD, Ryzen 5 2500U, 8GB 2400 MHz DDR4, 256GB NVMe$779, or
$679.86 after 14% CashBack (of GST-excluded price) from ShopBack AU
$708.18 after 10% CashBack (of GST-excluded price) from CashRewards
(+ approx.$87.27$90.91 (after cashback consideration) to upgrade to Ryzen 7 2700U)Wireless mouse and bag can be added to cart for $1 each at check-out (Thanks to balluji)
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Lenovo is likely trying to clear out any existing stocks of the E585 as the newer E495 (with $1299 base price) and E595 (with $1399 base price) with Ryzen Mobile 3000 series APU are now available.
The E585 is a now "previous" gen product, however, as long as you are aware of the devices' capabilities and shortcomings, it is at a great value proposition at the sale price.
The main improvements of new Ryzen Mobile 3000 series are expected to be on efficiency rather than raw performance. It is expected to be ~5-10% better performing than the 2000 series (but not much in GPU), while addressing the "higher than competition" power draw at idle states. So it is expected the E495 and E595 will have improved battery life. Also, by purely looking at the spec sheet, the new E495 and E595 now have a 2x2 WiFi card (Realtek), so on paper it will have better wifi performance and experience than the E585. However, as the newer devices are new, I have found no reviews to date to see if those expectations are met. Going by historic trends, the newer E495 and E595 are more likely to be in the range of $1-1.25k with discounts of seasonal occurrence.
So with such estimation, on the performance front, the E585 gives you ~5-10% less performance, worse (~15-25% guesstimate) battery life, largely the same graphics performance, at ~30% (or better) lesser cost than the newer E495/595. (Hard to comment on the physical hardware experience, e.g. keyboard, chasis, screen etc, due to no reviews, even though they look largely the same).
If you are looking for an all-rounder device (i.e. need better graphics than intel's integrated options) in the 14-15" size range with a low budget (<$900), doesn't mind the 3-6 hours (usage dependent) battery life, proximate access to WiFi access points, this is a very good consideration. See previous posts (eg this one) for user reviews and comments.
Notes on memory upgrades (see previous deals for more detailed comments), in general, you need dual channel (i.e. two sticks of) memory to enable maximum performance:
If 8GB is sufficient for you —> get 4GBx2 config (included in price)
But if you want/will use more —> get 8GBx1 config (included in price), then buy a RAM stick separately (Lenovo's prices are exorbitant)
If 8GB is sufficient at the moment, but want to upgrade later/when needed, and happy with lower performance in the meanwhile (enough for general office, browsing and media usage, but not gaming) —> get 8GBx1 config and get RAM when you need it.
Newegg's 8GB DDR4 2400MHz SODIMM RAM single stick prices: https://www.newegg.com/global/au-en/Product/ProductList.aspx… (remember to sort by Lowest Price)
Notes on software updates:
It is recommended that you update the Chipset, and especially the Graphics drivers DIRECTLY from AMD rather than (the painfully slow) OEMs, as this fixes a lot of earlier software, driver and stability/incompatibility issues. AMD has now (since end of Feb 2019) taken over the responsibility of updating and releasing the graphics drivers from the OEMs.
Chipset: https://www.amd.com/en/support/chipsets/socket-fp5-mobile/am…
Graphics: https://www.amd.com/en/support/apu/amd-ryzen-processors/amd-…
Brief Specs:
Thinkpad E585
- AMD Ryzen™ 5 2500U Quad-Core (4 Cores 8 Threads, 2 GHz base frequency, 3.6 GHz boost) (+$100 to upgrade to Ryzen 7 2700U, 4C/8T, 2.2 GHz base 3.8 GHz boost, Integrated Vega 10 graphics)
- Integrated AMD Radeon™ Vega 8 Graphics
- 15.6" FHD IPS (1920x1080) AntiGlare Display
- 8GB DDR4 2400MHz Memory
- 256GB Solid State Drive PCIe OPAL2.0 M.2 2242
- Windows 10 Home 64-bit
- WiFi Qualcomm QCNFA435AC, 1x1 + Bluetooth 4.1
- Internal 2.5" bay (7mm) available for storage expansion. (See this comment here for a video link that shows how to access the internal 2.5 SATA3 bay)
- 2 x USB 3.1 (1 x AlwaysOn), 1 x USB 2.0, 1 x USB 3.1 Type-C, 1x HDMI, Ethernet (RJ45), MicroSD, Combo audio/mic jack
- Dimensions (W x D x H) 369 x 252 x 19.95 mm
- Starting at 2.1 kg
- 45W 3-pin USB-C AC Power Adaptor
@op: Please note deal title guidelines: price should NOT include any referral discounts or cashback (commission refunds) - include that in the deal description instead
Now that's a suprise for a <$800 laptop.
Also, some more user reviews (I know OP did a great job summarising all aspects of the laptop):-
This one's fairly detailed
A Reddit user giving some numbers
A Linux user on some forum
Great deal OP! (Also, I wish I could give you an extra +1 for that suggestion of picking dual channel over single channel if the user is sticking to 8GB)