Lenovo ThinkPad 14" T490 Black 2020

The T490's Core i7-8565U is in the 9th percentile of our CPU database, making it one of the slowest laptop processors you can buy right now. It's a portable, well-built machine with a great keyboard, but the performance is a serious drag. Only consider it if you find one for around $500 and your workload is very light.

The Core i7-8565U is the bottleneck here, and it's not close. In our database, this chip is in the 9th percentile, making it one of the slowest laptop CPUs we track. For basic tasks like email, web browsing, and Office apps, it'll chug along fine, especially with 16GB of RAM backing it up. But throw a large spreadsheet or a Zoom call with a dozen browser tabs at it, and you'll feel the stutter. The integrated UHD 620 graphics are even more limiting, landing in the 35th percentile. You can forget about any modern gaming or GPU-accelerated creative work.

The 512GB NVMe SSD is a saving grace, sitting right around the middle of the pack for storage speed. Boot times and app launches will feel snappy. The 16GB of DDR4 RAM is also adequate, though its 26th percentile ranking shows that many competitors now ship with faster or more memory. The 50Wh battery paired with a 1080p screen should get you through a good chunk of a workday, but don't expect all-day stamina under heavy use.

Stacked against the Apple MacBook Air M4, the T490 looks like a relic. The M4's CPU performance is in a different universe, and its fanless design is even more portable. The MSI Prestige and ASUS Zenbook Duo offer modern Intel or AMD chips with vastly superior integrated graphics and better screens. Even the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7th Edition, with its ARM-based chip, will run circles around the T490 in both performance and battery life. The T490's only real win against these competitors is its port selection, specifically the built-in Ethernet jack, which most modern ultrabooks have dropped. If you need that, it's a niche advantage. Otherwise, you're trading a massive amount of performance for a lower price, and only if you find it at the very bottom of its price range.

Pricing for the T490 is all over the map, with a wild spread from $491 to $2892 across vendors. At the low end, around that $491 mark, you're getting a durable, portable laptop for basic office work, and that's a fair deal. But if you're looking at configurations pushing anywhere near the $1000+ range, you're getting into dangerous territory. For that money, you can get a modern laptop with a processor that isn't in the bottom 10% of our database. The value proposition collapses quickly above the entry-level price point.

The Lenovo ThinkPad T490 is a business laptop that leans hard on its build quality and portability, but the numbers tell a story of aging internals. Its CPU lands in the 9th percentile of our database, which means it's one of the slowest processors we see in modern laptops. You're getting a 4-core 8th Gen Intel chip that can boost to 4.6GHz, but it's going to feel its age with demanding multitasking. The 16GB of RAM and 512GB NVMe SSD are solid for office work, but the integrated Intel UHD 620 graphics are a real weak spot, sitting in the 35th percentile and making the gaming score a dismal 12.9 out of 100.

What the T490 does have going for it is that classic ThinkPad DNA. It's compact and well-built, with our reliability score putting it in the 80th percentile. The 14-inch 1080p IPS display is fine for spreadsheets, though its 42nd percentile screen ranking means it's nothing special for color or brightness. At 1.47kg, it's easy to carry, and the port selection is a highlight, including Thunderbolt 3, Ethernet, and HDMI. But you're also stuck with Wi-Fi 5, which feels dated next to newer machines.

Anyone who does more than basic office work should look elsewhere. The CPU's 9th percentile ranking means it will choke on photo editing, large data sets, software development, or heavy multitasking. If you need a laptop for creative work, gaming, or anything that requires a modern GPU, this is a non-starter. Even students running specialized software for engineering or design will find the performance unacceptable. You'd be much better served by a modern laptop with an integrated GPU that isn't in the bottom third of our database.

The ThinkPad T490 is a well-built machine with a CPU that's past its prime. We can only recommend it if you find a heavily discounted model near the $500 mark and your needs are strictly limited to basic office tasks, email, and web browsing. The keyboard and build quality are genuinely great, but the processor is a constant bottleneck you'll feel every day. For most people, saving up a bit more for a laptop with a modern chip will be a dramatically better experience that lasts years longer.