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ThinkPad E595 / 15.6" FHD / AMD Ryzen 5 3500U / 256GB SSD / 8GB RAM / $722 Shipped @ Lenovo

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TA-SPICY595
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The popular E595 is back. Great user experience & summary here by member ShipShapeRC for those interested. Feel free to customise at an additional cost. Apply eCoupon TA-SPICY595 at checkout for the discount. Call Lenovo's telesales number on 1300 557 073 (until 5:30PM weekdays) with any questions. Ends 11:59PM AEDT 06/02/20, unless sold out or withdrawn prior. Enjoy :)

The E495 is still available here for $707 (offer extended to 06/02/20).

  • AMD Ryzen 5 3500U CPU
  • 15.6" FHD IPS (1920 x 1080)
  • 256GB SSD M.2 PCIe
  • 8.0GB DDR4 SODIMM 2400MHz
  • 369mm x 252mm x 19.9mm (2.1kg)

Use Cashrewards for 3% cashback on ThinkPad E Series. Ensure last click before purchase is from this link.

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closed Comments

  • +4

    Sweet Laptop, Great performance for the price, good business-grade laptop, recommended

    • Dell G3 3950 $899 kills this.

  • Customise and upgrade to Ryzen 7 for $922.00

    • +6

      Not really worth it considering all get is a bump of a few Mhz and a few extra graphics cores that are memory starved to begin with. The U series is TDP constrained also.

      You'll get better sustained performance out of a laptop with a thicker chassis and a CPU with a H suffix.

    • +10

      Doesn't really seem worth spending $200 for the same number of cores and slightly higher frequencies.

    • +5

      Spend that money on extra RAM imo. It will give a big boost to performance running dual channel memory

  • No fingerprint reader and no win10 pro otherwise OK deal.

    • -4

      Tere's a free upgrade to Win10 posted here a few days ago…

      • +5

        Not to 10 Pro

        • what is the difference between pro and home?

          • @bailbondsh: Allows for more control over updates, allows for binding to domain.

  • How long will it take for them to dispatch given the current situation in China?

    • +27

      Two weeks quarantine in Christmas Island.

      • +5

        Install norton antivirus

    • If they have local stock its quick. If you change the spec it's a custom build and will take up to 10 business days to ship. However, its not Lenovo you need to be worried about, its DHL that will delay your delivery once it hits local shores. They have history of screwing it up and not caring about it.

  • +3

    1 x USB-C (USB 3 .1/DP/PD)

    DP nice. Good for a portable monitor :)

    • I'm new to this…
      What is DP and PD plse ?

      • +4

        I think it mean it supports DisplayPort passed through USB-C so you can add extra displays, and also Power Delivery protocols so it can be charged/charge other devices properly.

        • +3

          whoa USB c indeed is the future

          • +2

            @capslock janitor: At my work there's a USB-C cable sitting on the desks. Plug it into our laptops and it charges them and runs a 4K display all through one cable. Pretty cool.

      • +2

        DisplayPort for display output and USB Power Delivery for charging.

  • Anyone knows how Ryzen compare Intel CPU on battery consumption?

    • +2

      Hasn't ryzen surpassed performance to power ratio of Intel recently?

    • +4

      The Intel version of this laptop without a dedicated GPU gets 22% better battery life according to notebookcheck. Compared to the Intel chip with the GPU the Ryzen gets 6% better battery life.

      • Thanks for that.

  • +9

    Bloody love think pads, everything else breaks on me

    • +4

      I'm amazed they sell any new ones since the old ones never die. Just upgraded the RAM in my X230, still a solid machine.

      • +1

        yeah, at least you know what i'm talking abut, everything else physically breaks on me, don't know if it's just me or…

        • +2

          Have a Pentium III IBM era ThinkPad still kicking. Although my E585 did come with some noticeable coil wine,
          a quick phone call saw to them replacing that.

        • +1

          Not all series are the same in terms of quality though. Definitely stay with at least T/A series or above X/X1/P series.

          • @rookie317: So no to the E series?

            • +1

              @bailbondsh: Yeah unfortunately the E series is the cheapest series (even L series is slightly better).
              For eg, E series is made of hard plastic (T/A is made of glass reinforced plastic), and doesnt have features like metal roll cage, drain holes or mil spec testing. Not to mention useful features like dual battery, ThinkShutter or back lit keyboard.
              Don't get me wrong, this deal is terrific for the specs you get. But with ThinkPad, you do get what you pay for.

              • +4

                @rookie317: The plastic in the E series is pretty sturdy.
                None of the Thinkpads really have metal roll cages anymore besides the P series.
                Dual battery is gone since last year for all new Thinkpads.
                The E series have the spill resistant keyboard and mil spec testing.

                For twice the price of an E series the T series gives you:
                A magnesium alloy chassis
                LESS performance (because of STAPM)
                A different hinge design
                'Pro' series processors which give you some extra security certifications which don't matter to regular users
                The OPTION of backlit keyboard (for an extra $50)
                The OPTION of a 50nit brighter screen (for an extra $125 dollars)
                Blutooth 5 rather than 4.2 and a slightly nicer wifi card out of the box (the card on the E series is totally adequate and can be upgraded anyway)
                Slightly larger (by 5Whr) batteries

                This isn't the E series of 2011. These are solid ThinkPads.

                I'd say nowadays for most people it's the T series that are a no go unless you're really happy to pay a premium and have money to burn.
                The T series are expensive laptops, they start at $1600, over twice the price of these. For that much more money most people would expect a radically better laptop. The T series are better, but the E series are great laptops too, and they're amazing value. The T series are poor value in comparison. There's a good reason these skyrocket to the front page when they're on sale and other laptops don't

        • Thought I was careful at looking after laptops with 3 lasting me 8 yrs and able to pass/sell

          two of them on still in good nic. But in last 1 1/2 years had faults with 3 different

          laptops from screens to hinge failures lol.

          Last year I got a small Lenovo Thinkpad 11e 5th Gen refurbished from Graysonline-aust ebay and agree that although bit heavy it is build really tough and feels like it will last.

  • Any ideapad deals plz

  • The only problem with my current thinkpad is that about a month ago it started not turning on, eventually after about a 100 bootups is finally got to past blue screen errors and it's been working fine ever since - very strange. If any one could enlighten me on what the hell might have happened would be appreciated? Tempted to buy this comp for uni so I don't have to worry about this freezing on me
    during an important assignment.

    • +1

      If it's a software issue try running Display Driver Uninstaller or uninstalling and reinstalling other suspect drivers. If that doesn't work try backing up your important files and doing a fresh install of Windows. Or try updating your BIOS.

      If it's a software issue.

      Put your ear to your charger, if hear you a buzz or unusual static sound (if possible) try a friends working charger or buy another. Try also disconnecting the battery; may need a screwdriver if internal, some ThinkPads have an internal and external battery. If you have two sticks of ram or extra lying around, play with different configurations (how many sticks are inserted? Could you try a different slot?) and try to run MEMTEST for errors. Try booting from a spare working hard drive or SSD, your boot drive could be corrupt.

      • Interesting. It could be the charger. It's a cheap Chinese replacement one….

        • +1

          Or you could just sell it to me for parts, not working for $50

          • @TeddyBear: it's working right now, but i'm worried that it will stop working.

        • +1

          Someone I messaged on eBay told me problems with my current shitbox experimental laptop is that the replacement charger is llkely the culprit if it can’t put out the exact power the device requires so double check with online specs/manual

          • @DemocracyManifest: I wouldn't trust generic eBay adapters for a bar of soap.

            They do have their place for LED strips and the like, but the rectification and efficiency just doesn't seem good enough for charging and using a laptop.

            • @TeddyBear: I got a huntkey one from MSY, it was fine for other laptops but unsure whether the charger is the culprit or it’s just the laptop

            • @TeddyBear: Could have the problem been the charger when it was having trouble with blue screens and turning on even just with battery…?

              • @bailbondsh: Yes, if you charged the battery with a faulty charger, you'd have to drain it and charge it with a working one to be stable.

  • +7

    I got myself one of these last year for a little over $800, and am VERY happy with it, asides from three things, which I strongly suggest to anyone considering purchasing this.

    1. Replace the Realtek wifi/BT with an Intel 9260 Wireless-AC 9260 2230 2x2 AC. The wireless adapter it comes with is absolute garbage and keeps disconnecting, even after following the advice from Lenovo regarding this problem. Replacing it with the Intel 9260, which cost me $25.00 and a little time to swap them over, has totally removed any problems with connecting to my home Wifi.

    2. Get another 8GB RAM stick, so it has 16GB in 2x 8GB, as it will perform much better and the 2GB of RAM that gets dedicated to graphics won't leave you with only 6GB of usable RAM.

    3. Install Lenovo vantage: https://vantage.lenovo.com/ and use it at least once a week to check for updates. Lenovo frequently push out updates via Lenovo Vantage which improve battery life, performance, stability and so forth. Mine has not been unstable at all, in face I don't think it's ever crashed or hung, but I got all the updates available for it as soon as I got it, and have kept it updated since.

    Other than these two things, I couldn't be happier with it. Battery life depends on what you're doing, but I usually get anywhere between 3 and 7 hours out of a charge, with it using it faster if I'm doing video editing, watching video or playing games.

    • +2

      I agree with all this advice except for installing Lenovo vantage. This type of software is usually poorly bloatware and is often exploited like this ASUS driver tool.

      Windows update will often do similar job automatically or go directly to the source.

      • Normally I'd agree, but you don't want to miss out on firmware updates for things like the USB-C, the UEFI and so forth. This makes it easy and it doesn't install anything that isn't necessary. Also, you can pick and choose what it adds, and you can check your warranty with it too. Lenovo vantage isn't bloatware, nor does it install bloatware.

        • Fair point, but if one is diligent in manually installing new driver and firmware updates, the tool remains unnecessary.

          • +1

            @TeddyBear: Fair point, but if someone is going to watch Lenovos site for updates on a regular basis, I doubt they'd use Lenovo Vantage. For the rest of us, I'd strongly suggest using it. I know someone else who got one after I got mine, because they were so impressed, but they didn't install Vantage, nor did they install any updates from Lenovo and apparently it was really unstable for them. They didn't mention this to me for ages, and when they did, I discovered they hadn't installed it or installed any updates, and as soon as they installed vantage and installed all the updates it suggested, the machine performed much better and was no longer unstable.

            • @FriendlyTassieTiger:

              nor did they install any updates from Lenovo and apparently it was really unstable for them.

              Could've been before the graphics drivers changed hands from Lenovo to AMD. This was a known issue with a lot of Ryzen laptops until AMD took responsibility for distributing the Vega GPU drivers. Not sure if this was the specific issue with your friend's laptop though.

              Generally, new products or part SKU's earliest drivers (the drivers released earliest into their product life cycle) have the least stable drivers. This product is well past the earliest part of its product life cycle. The drivers you install on day one will the be the newest ones. So the drivers you install now should be reasonably stable (but you are at the mercy of AMD, and Navi's drivers have had beta level stability for a while now).

              The fact is neither of us have looked at the source code and, therefore, cannot be sure of how stable and secure it is. Although, this is Lenovo we're talking about. A company that did pre-install Chinese spyware on their laptops. Although this did exclude ThinkPads, it should set a precedent for how they would act in the event they aren't caught. The drivers are generally provided by third parties like Intel and Realtek, although Lenovo-provided update software could contain backdoors by the Chinese government. But backdoors like these should be the least of your concern, since they're built into the hardware of almost every laptop on the market (Intel's ME and AMD's PSP).

              Motherboard manufacturers and companies like Lenovo have little financial incentive to provide secure, stable and perfectly functioning non-essential software like an automatic updater. Especially to a customer that isn't providing a monthly payment of some sort or paying through the nose for licensing fees.

    • Generally curious. You say to add another 8gb ram stick to bulk it up to 16gb. When looking at the customise options I see an option to upgrade the pre-installed 8gb to a 16gb stick.

      Is it better to run 2x 8gb ram sticks (filling both slots) rather than 1x16gb (with one slot free)?

      • +2

        Is it better to run 2x 8gb ram sticks

        Yes, dual channel > single channel

        • +1

          Even more so with Ryzen Infinity fabric

      • +1

        Yes, it's better to use both ram slots, because then they can both be accessed at the same time by the Ryzen APU, which doubles the speed it can read and write to RAM. This improves performance significantly, particularly when it comes to graphics. If you only have one of the 2 RAM slots occupied, you're not getting the full performance it's capable of.

      • +1

        One caveat to all the replies: 2 x 8gb is better than 1 x 16gb, except if you're ever going to expand it even further to 32gb - with 1 x 16gb, you can pop in another 16bg stick.

        • Yes, that's a good point. Heck, even 2x 4GB would be better than 1x 8GB, but yes, if you plan on using 32GB of RAM, best to get a 16GB upgrade from the factory, unless you're happy to sell the 8GB stick it comes with…

    • Was it a long process to change wifi cards?

      • +2

        Not really, but it was more difficult than I expected to plug the tiny little connectors for the wifi and bluetooth antennas in - they required far more force than I expected and felt comfortable with. If you don't feel comfortable with it, I strongly recommend getting a friend or even a computer shop to change it for you.

        • +1

          Thanks for the info

  • +2

    Lenovo and Asus will be releasing models with the Ryzen 4000 series CPU/APU in less than a month.
    Though I assume they'll be a little more expensive than this when they are released. The 3000 series will probably be on clearance bargain sale.

    • I anticipated this when the 3000 mobile series came out, alas there was no clearance price lower than TA's.

      Hopefully Lenovo's inventory management isn't so efficient this time around.

    • One or two consumer laptops yeah, but Thinkpads take forever to update to new processors. Probably wouldn't expect the Ryzen 4000 versions of these till close to the end of the year.

      That said, those chips will be a big upgrade (but maybe more-so on the higher end more expensive chips) and might be worth waiting for if you don't need a laptop right away.

      • +1

        hmm I remember these being one of the first to market with Ryzen 3000 refreshes? butto be fair, barely anyone made Ryzen 2000 laptops.

      • I'm pretty sure that Thinkpads E series has always been one of the first to update CPUs.

  • Does either E495 or E595 have the touch screen option?

  • +6

    I'm going to give an unpopular opinion here, I wouldn't recommend this laptop to anyone.

    I've been using it for a month.

    Battery life is 3.5 to 4 hours.

    About 30% of the time the screen doesn't turn back on when you open it up from sleep mode. If have to hard reset it when it happens.

    The WiFi disconnects 2-5 times a day, I have to right click on the WiFi icon and select "troubleshoot" to reconnect. I've read a few people having this issue also, so it's not isolated to me only.

    I'm going to make a warranty claim.

    • If you're looking for a laptop with excellent battery life, buy an Intel laptop with a large battery. AMD's power gating and boost algorithm on Ryzen currently just isn't aggressive enough nor quick enough. So idle power consumption is a lot higher with AMD.

      Also, Intel has dedicated video decoders for a lot of major video formats that AMD simply doesn't have, so power consumption while viewing and streaming videos is a lot higher.

      I do own a Ryzen laptop, so I have firsthand experience of this.

      • +1

        Also doesn't help when the laptop specifications state up to 10.3 hr battery life, where in reality it's not even half of it

        • Almost every laptop manufacturer has touted impossibly long battery life figures in a ideal scenarios none of us will ever have. Best way to check is to look at the laptop battery's Wh rating and the amount of cells it has.

    • Have you installed all the updates from Lenovo, either by getting them directly from their web site, or by installing Lenovo Vantage and using that to install all the updates, particularly for UEFI and so forth? And yes, the Wifi is garbage, I replaced with with a $25 Intel Wireless-AC 9260 and that solved that problem.

    • may I ask what brand/model of wireless router do you have the dropouts with? or is it any of them where it drops out?

      • +1

        Asus dsl-ac68u
        My house has three other laptops and one computer that have no issues.

        • Thank you!

  • Oh, to add to what I said earlier, while this machine does come with a camera, it's only usable for something like skype if the quality of the video is unimportant. This thing really looks like you've used a potato as a camera. I'll take a photo and share it in a response to this to show what I mean.

    • +6

      Here's a picture I just took with the camera: Picture

      • +2

        nobody buys a lappy for the inbuilt 720p camera…probably near the bottom of checklist

        Also, potato-head confirmed ;)

        • Oh absolutely, it wasn't important to me at all, but it may be for some and so I thought it was important to let people know. Heck, the web cam on my poor old netbook was better, hahaha

    • +1

      Holy hell thats shocking my piece of crap satellite a300 has a better camera

  • I got an E470 for what I think is better value in 2017 from this deal: https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/320868
    Lenovo's deals have stagnated since then. RAM and graphics cards are way cheaper now yet price margins are the same. The past deal had an extra 8 GB RAM, a graphics card and only ~$100 more.

    • +3

      To be fair, the CPU performance in this has like doubled and the integrated GPU in this is faster than the graphics card than that. Plus the build quality in the E series got better too. RAM is like $50 for a 8GB stick, so you get a much faster CPU with a slightly better chasis for $70 less.

      • Is it cheaper to upgrade the RAM while purchasing or DIY ? I am worried about any warranty issues.

        • +1

          Much cheaper to DIY a RAM upgrade, and that doesn't affect warranty. It's also not difficult to do. All the screws holding the bottom cover on are small captive Phillips heads, so you don't need to worry about losing them. Once they're all undone, a spudger or guitar pick between the plastic bottom cover and the metal top cover to separate the two halves along both sides and along the bottom and it comes off relatively easily. Once the bottom over is off, the RAM is easily accessable, as is the NVMe drive and the 2.5" SATA drive bay.

          Here's a picture of inside mine, with extra RAM added and a Seagate Barracuda SSD (which I do not recommend, as this isn't compatible with the E595 at this time): Inside my E595

  • Is there a noticeable performance difference if I upgrade to Ryzen 7 with 16gb RAM ? Thinking I could use it to edit videos,such as those from a gopro.

    • +2

      My understanding is that the main differences between the Ryzen 5 3500u and the Ryzen 7 3700u is that the clock speeds are slightly higher on the Ryzen 7 (2.1 vs 2.3 GHz base, 3.7 vs 4 GHz boost), and the graphics portion has more compute units (Vega 8 vs Vega 10) and a slight clock speed advantage.

      But both run on the same speed RAM, so while on paper there are advantages to the R7 3700u, in the real world there doesn't prove to be a big advantage. Anywhere from 2% to 10%, depending on the task, but with reduced battery life and increased heat output.

      Personally, I don't think the extra $200 Lenovo want for the 3700u over the 3500u is worthwhile, if it was a $50 upgrade than sure, but not at 4x that much.

      I use my E595 to edit videos for YouTube, and I got the R5 3500u and it works quite well for that task.

      • +1

        Thanks mate.

  • Any chance of a E590 deal coming soon? This is a no-brainer at this price for an E595 but would prefer the E590 with backlit keyboard, fingerprint scanner. Any reasons (apart from price in this deal) why I would choose a 595 over a 590?

    • +1

      Never mind, just bought two of these to replace old Asus K53e i5 and my partners laptop (i3) which were both around 9 years old. Both excited to be upgrading! Thanks TA.

  • +1

    Great laptop, bought on similar deal previously and am very happy with it.

    • +1

      have you had any wireless disconnect issues? others have reported this and wondered if it related to the router being connected to possibly….

      • I've had no issues and I use mine daily.

  • Anyone know how these go with Linux? The E495/E485 (I own the E485) had huge issues with it, and some problems still persist.

  • Which one is a better value if the following can be purchased using the salary sacrifice option…

    https://www.harveynorman.com.au/lenovo-ideapad-s340-15-6-inc…

    • The Intel will have far better battery life, and slightly better CPU performance. That laptop you linked to also has a larger SSD and a backlit keyboard.

      The E595 has an extra USB port, user up-gradable RAM and I don't think the S340 you linked to has provision for a 2.5" SATA drive.

      Personally, I'd go for the E595, as I don't like machines with soldered RAM - whatever it has when you get it will be the most it can ever have, but if battery life is more important to you than I'd look for a Intel machine. Personally, I don't think that deal from Harvey Norman is very good at all, and there are far better options available directly from Lenovo.

      • +1

        Thanks. From Harvey Norman I can salary sacrifice and the cost would be ~$840 after tax.

        I will try to find something at HN, if not then I'll buy E595

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