This laptop has a speedy solid-state drive (SSD), Intel Core i7 processor, and discrete Nvidia Quadro K2100M graphics. It also has something unique: a self-calibrating 3K screen, which is important for artists who need to make sure that the colors of the images they see on their screen are accurate. The screen and underlying technology is enough to leapfrog the ThinkPad W540 into the top spot as our Editors' Choice for mobile workstations.The Lenovo ThinkPad W540 ($2,171.99, as tested) is a mobile workstation for high-end graphics arts users.
Design and Features
The design of the W540 it that of a typical ThinkPad. It's a dark-gray clamshell laptop, measuring 10 by 15 by 1.1 inches (HWD) and weighing 5.67 pounds. Since it has so much space to work with, the system sports a backlit keyboard with full numeric keypad, a TrackPoint pointing stick, and a one-piece floating trackpad similar to the one we've seen on current ThinkPads, like the Lenovo ThinkPad T440s. The trackpad is large, which almost makes up for the fact that it feels different from the traditional Lenovo trackpad that has separate mouse buttons. It has some problems with palm rejection and will take some getting accustomed to if you've been using ThinkPads for a decade or more. The keyboard is solid, with gently scalloped keys that aid typing feel. A biometric fingerprint reader on the palm rest lets you log into your company's network resources with a single swipe (if your IT department has that setup, of course).
The In-Plane Swtiching (IPS) screen is the centerpiece. It measures 15.6 inches and has a WQHD (2,880-by-1,620) resolution, which qualifies as 3K. This display is identical in resolution to that of the MSI GS60 Ghost Pro 3K. That's technically lower than the 3,200-by-1,800 resolution QHD+ touch screen on the Dell Precision M3800, but the Lenovo workstation shows its mettle in other ways. The screen rates at 300 nits, which means that you can work in a sunlit room and still have no worries viewing the project you're working on.
That brings us to the W540's unique Lenovo ThinkPad W540
feature: It comes with an integrated X-Rite Pantone color calibrator. The color calibrator uses a camera built into the palm rest to view and adjust the color balance on the system's screen. This is a huge plus if you need constant calibration in your projects, since you won't have to carry an external calibrator around with you like the Datacolor Spyder4 PRO. We recommend calibrating the screen right when you take it out of the box, and the X-Rite utility can prompt you to re-calibrate the screen regularly. This may not seem important to the layperson, but color accuracy is vital for repeatable graphics, like company branding, or if your work will be displayed outdoors or in a print publication.
Calibrating the screen is easy. You just launch the utility from the Start menu, close the lid (which lets the screen cycle through its tests without ambient light affecting the results), and wait for the beeps to end. An icon on the lid lights up when it's complete. The calibration process takes only a few seconds to run, and once you're done you'll know that the screen will display accurate colors using the Pantone standard.
The W540 doesn't have a touch-screen option, but it does have an anti-glare coating on the display's surface. The ensuing matte finish on the screen tends to make images appear dull, but the color calibrator compensates for it. The screen is as nice or nicer than the one on the Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch Retina Display (2014), even though the Mac has a glossy screen, and it compares well to the brilliant display on the current Editors' Choice for mobile workstations, the HP ZBook 14.
You'll need a screwdriver to get into the W540, including popping out the ultrabay DVD drive for something else, like an additional hard drive or battery. That's notable because ultrabay drives on other ThinkPad laptops easily pop out with a simple flick of a switch. Internal access is even easier on the HP ZBook 14, since it has a tool-less back panel.
Under a large access door you'll find three free DIMM slots to supplement the 8GB standard memory (up to 32GB maximum). There's also a 2.5-inch, 256GB solid-state boot drive, which is kind of a small capacity if you work with large data sets or 4K video. You can always add extra storage by adding an internal M.2 SSD, swapping the 2.5-inch SSD with a larger-capacity SSD or hard drive, swapping the DVD drive with an ultrabay hard drive, or plugging in an external Thunderbolt or USB 3.0 drive. Those are much more flexible options than on any laptop we've seen before.
Thunderbolt is built in, a rarity among Windows laptops. The last one we saw with a Thunderbolt port is the HP ZBook 15, which we'd consider a prime competitor, due to its configuration, pricing, and its HP DreamColor display. The W540 also comes with an Ethernet port, an ExpressCard reader, a headset jack, an SD card reader, two USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, and a VGA port. There's a docking port on the bottom for connecting to a docking station, and Bluetooth and 802.11ac Wi-Fi for wireless connectivity. A SIM card slot under the 99.9-watt removable battery connects to the included Sierra Wireless 7355-Gobi 5000 4G LTE WWAN card. You'll have to provide your own SIM card (with its data plan) separately. The system comes with a three-year warranty, including pick-up and return service.
Performance
Lenovo ThinkPad W540 The W540 is equipped with an Intel Core i7-4800MQ processor with internal Intel HD Graphics 4600, plus an ISV-certified 2GB Nvidia Quadro K2100M graphics card. These helped the system score an excellent 3,105 points on the PCMark 8 Work Conventional benchmark test, which is better than the Panasonic Toughpad 4K Performance (UT-MA6) and the Toshiba Satellite P50T-BST2N01. The Dell Precision M2800 (3,181) just edged out the W540 in a statistical dead heat. Though not a gaming-oriented system, the W540 placed near to or at the top of the results board on our 3D tests, including 3DMark, Heaven, and Valley.
Related Story See How We Test Laptops
The results are similar on the Handbrake video encoder test. The W540's time of 1 minute 20 seconds is only a couple of seconds behind the Dell Precision M2800 and the Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch Retina Display (2014). The system led this same group at the CineBench R15 test (637 points), as well as the Adobe Photoshop CS6 test, with a short 3:18 time on the test script. That's half the time it took the HP ZBook 14 to complete the same test (6:28). To wit, the W540 is a multimedia creation powerhouse.
Battery life is also excellent, at 6 hours 13 minutes on our battery rundown test. That's within 10 minutes of the Dell Precision M3800 and the HP ZBook 14, two hours better than the Dell Precision M2800, two-and-a-half hours better than the HP ZBook 15, and more than four hours better than the semi-portable
Panasonic
Toughpad 4K Performance (UT-MA6). The only competitor that outlasts the field is the MacBook Pro, which endured on almost nine hours. Clearly, the W540's battery life is better than acceptable, plus its removable battery is easier to swap out than the hidden one on the HP ZBook 14 or the sealed battery in the Dell M3800.
The Lenovo ThinkPad W540 has both beauty in its self-color-calibrating screen and brawn in its top-notch benchmark performance. Its battery life and performance exceed the expectations of most mobile workstation users, and aside from a quirky trackpad, the system looks and feels like a traditional Lenovo ThinkPad laptop. All of those traits, plus a slightly less-expensive price tag, are enough to help the ThinkPad W540 leapfrog over the HP ZBook 14 as our Editors' Choice for mobile workstations.
Design and Features
The design of the W540 it that of a typical ThinkPad. It's a dark-gray clamshell laptop, measuring 10 by 15 by 1.1 inches (HWD) and weighing 5.67 pounds. Since it has so much space to work with, the system sports a backlit keyboard with full numeric keypad, a TrackPoint pointing stick, and a one-piece floating trackpad similar to the one we've seen on current ThinkPads, like the Lenovo ThinkPad T440s. The trackpad is large, which almost makes up for the fact that it feels different from the traditional Lenovo trackpad that has separate mouse buttons. It has some problems with palm rejection and will take some getting accustomed to if you've been using ThinkPads for a decade or more. The keyboard is solid, with gently scalloped keys that aid typing feel. A biometric fingerprint reader on the palm rest lets you log into your company's network resources with a single swipe (if your IT department has that setup, of course).
The In-Plane Swtiching (IPS) screen is the centerpiece. It measures 15.6 inches and has a WQHD (2,880-by-1,620) resolution, which qualifies as 3K. This display is identical in resolution to that of the MSI GS60 Ghost Pro 3K. That's technically lower than the 3,200-by-1,800 resolution QHD+ touch screen on the Dell Precision M3800, but the Lenovo workstation shows its mettle in other ways. The screen rates at 300 nits, which means that you can work in a sunlit room and still have no worries viewing the project you're working on.
That brings us to the W540's unique Lenovo ThinkPad W540
feature: It comes with an integrated X-Rite Pantone color calibrator. The color calibrator uses a camera built into the palm rest to view and adjust the color balance on the system's screen. This is a huge plus if you need constant calibration in your projects, since you won't have to carry an external calibrator around with you like the Datacolor Spyder4 PRO. We recommend calibrating the screen right when you take it out of the box, and the X-Rite utility can prompt you to re-calibrate the screen regularly. This may not seem important to the layperson, but color accuracy is vital for repeatable graphics, like company branding, or if your work will be displayed outdoors or in a print publication.
Calibrating the screen is easy. You just launch the utility from the Start menu, close the lid (which lets the screen cycle through its tests without ambient light affecting the results), and wait for the beeps to end. An icon on the lid lights up when it's complete. The calibration process takes only a few seconds to run, and once you're done you'll know that the screen will display accurate colors using the Pantone standard.
The W540 doesn't have a touch-screen option, but it does have an anti-glare coating on the display's surface. The ensuing matte finish on the screen tends to make images appear dull, but the color calibrator compensates for it. The screen is as nice or nicer than the one on the Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch Retina Display (2014), even though the Mac has a glossy screen, and it compares well to the brilliant display on the current Editors' Choice for mobile workstations, the HP ZBook 14.
You'll need a screwdriver to get into the W540, including popping out the ultrabay DVD drive for something else, like an additional hard drive or battery. That's notable because ultrabay drives on other ThinkPad laptops easily pop out with a simple flick of a switch. Internal access is even easier on the HP ZBook 14, since it has a tool-less back panel.
Under a large access door you'll find three free DIMM slots to supplement the 8GB standard memory (up to 32GB maximum). There's also a 2.5-inch, 256GB solid-state boot drive, which is kind of a small capacity if you work with large data sets or 4K video. You can always add extra storage by adding an internal M.2 SSD, swapping the 2.5-inch SSD with a larger-capacity SSD or hard drive, swapping the DVD drive with an ultrabay hard drive, or plugging in an external Thunderbolt or USB 3.0 drive. Those are much more flexible options than on any laptop we've seen before.
Thunderbolt is built in, a rarity among Windows laptops. The last one we saw with a Thunderbolt port is the HP ZBook 15, which we'd consider a prime competitor, due to its configuration, pricing, and its HP DreamColor display. The W540 also comes with an Ethernet port, an ExpressCard reader, a headset jack, an SD card reader, two USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, and a VGA port. There's a docking port on the bottom for connecting to a docking station, and Bluetooth and 802.11ac Wi-Fi for wireless connectivity. A SIM card slot under the 99.9-watt removable battery connects to the included Sierra Wireless 7355-Gobi 5000 4G LTE WWAN card. You'll have to provide your own SIM card (with its data plan) separately. The system comes with a three-year warranty, including pick-up and return service.
Performance
Lenovo ThinkPad W540 The W540 is equipped with an Intel Core i7-4800MQ processor with internal Intel HD Graphics 4600, plus an ISV-certified 2GB Nvidia Quadro K2100M graphics card. These helped the system score an excellent 3,105 points on the PCMark 8 Work Conventional benchmark test, which is better than the Panasonic Toughpad 4K Performance (UT-MA6) and the Toshiba Satellite P50T-BST2N01. The Dell Precision M2800 (3,181) just edged out the W540 in a statistical dead heat. Though not a gaming-oriented system, the W540 placed near to or at the top of the results board on our 3D tests, including 3DMark, Heaven, and Valley.
Related Story See How We Test Laptops
The results are similar on the Handbrake video encoder test. The W540's time of 1 minute 20 seconds is only a couple of seconds behind the Dell Precision M2800 and the Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch Retina Display (2014). The system led this same group at the CineBench R15 test (637 points), as well as the Adobe Photoshop CS6 test, with a short 3:18 time on the test script. That's half the time it took the HP ZBook 14 to complete the same test (6:28). To wit, the W540 is a multimedia creation powerhouse.
Battery life is also excellent, at 6 hours 13 minutes on our battery rundown test. That's within 10 minutes of the Dell Precision M3800 and the HP ZBook 14, two hours better than the Dell Precision M2800, two-and-a-half hours better than the HP ZBook 15, and more than four hours better than the semi-portable
Panasonic
Toughpad 4K Performance (UT-MA6). The only competitor that outlasts the field is the MacBook Pro, which endured on almost nine hours. Clearly, the W540's battery life is better than acceptable, plus its removable battery is easier to swap out than the hidden one on the HP ZBook 14 or the sealed battery in the Dell M3800.
The Lenovo ThinkPad W540 has both beauty in its self-color-calibrating screen and brawn in its top-notch benchmark performance. Its battery life and performance exceed the expectations of most mobile workstation users, and aside from a quirky trackpad, the system looks and feels like a traditional Lenovo ThinkPad laptop. All of those traits, plus a slightly less-expensive price tag, are enough to help the ThinkPad W540 leapfrog over the HP ZBook 14 as our Editors' Choice for mobile workstations.
Spec Data: Lenovo ThinkPad W540
3DMark - Fire Strike Extreme:821
Battery Rundown - Standard Battery: 6:13 hrs:min
CineBench R15: 637
Graphics Card: Nvidia Quadro K2100M
Graphics Memory: 2048
Handbrake 0.9.9: 1:20 min:sec
Heaven 4.0 - Medium Quality - 1366 x 768 - Off: 30
Heaven 4.0 - Ultra Quality - Native - 4X: 5
Native Resolution: 2880 x 1620
Networking Options: 802.11ac (2.4+5.0 GHz Dual-band)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional
PCMark 8 - Work Conventional: 3105
Photoshop CS6 Multimedia Tests: 3:18 min:sec
Processor Name: Intel Core i7-4800MQ
Processor Speed: 2.7 GHz
RAM: 8 GB
Rotation Speed: SSD
Screen Size: 15.6 inches
Screen Type: Widescreen
Storage Capacity (as Tested): 256 GB
Storage Type: SSD
Type: Business, Desktop Replacement
Weight: 5.67 lb
Benchmarks
3DMark - Cloud Gate 10049.0
3DMark - Fire Strike Extrem 821.0
Battery Rundown - Standard Battery: None
PCMark 8 - Work Conventional 3105.0
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