13.3 inch QHD screen 2560*1600 at 300 nits, 100% sRGB
16GB of ram
512GB SSD
weight 1.2kg
56Wh battery
Ryzen 7 4800U
Just an FYI it wont let you order through this but if you contact support through chat they are honoring the price and setting up a new account.
Means on final page, they won't let you make a payment and then you need to talk to chat agent ?
Sorry just saw the notifications, yes so out what you want in a cart and provide them with the cart number (on right of screen when checking out) they will then create an account. (I told them I don't have a edu email but my daughter starts school next year and they didn't questions it)
@xpaw Agent paid on your behalf via phone or you were able convert the quote to order yourself ?
They made a sales order to my own email address and then asked for my payment receipt (direct transfer). It was a very easy process with them.
@Xpaw: Ahan … i thought maybe i can stack shopback but shopback Dont says that education store is not allowed, so its fine. They called me and asked card details and made payment. I am happy because i told straight away that i ain't a student but they still processed the order. Otherwise, i would hav to live with a guilt.
yes please, and thank you :)
also, can we use Amex offer for another 180 saving?
It all depends on when it gets shipped - AMEX deal states the laptop has to be shipped by 1 December from memory. You can take a punt and add a ~$60 item to your purchase to get to $1199 minimum spend, and hope that the item is shipped earlier than the quoted 8 week timeframe. I think this is a great deal.
true
Hi doweyy, I PM'd you. Thank you
Doesn't seem like they have the S540 14" currently in the AMD configuration. It's listed but says there is no configurations currently available for purchase.
Thanks doweyy - very helpful of you! It's a great deal, and I bought one.
hi @doweyy i want to buy the S540 for my school going daughter but dont have an edu email id. Unfortunately 2 tech support agents responded, asking for edu email id to redeem this offer. can you please help buy one..
Good laptop if you want one with almost no ports! I guess It's great for the minimalists :)
I have this laptop with a small USB C Hub for Display Port etc. No issues throwing it into my slim laptop bag. Much prefer the QHD display and the Ryzen 8 core CPU that is much faster than the current Intel 10th and 11th gen CPUs a a lot of workloads.
shellshocked
I have ordered the below charger but looking for a cable which supports 65w and 5gbps as per Usb C 3.2 Gen 1 specs of USB Port on laptop. I mostly found 60w cables with 480mbps data rate.
Wow, seems really solid
Looks like you're gonna have to be patient: "Ships in more than 8 weeks"
ive recently bought 2 of these for my kids in preparation for school next year. Despite quoting the more than 8 week lead time mine came in 3 weeks. This is the best price to date and very happy with the performance. The laptop performs really well when gaming (rocket league and Valorant) and stays cool.
If it comes in 3 weeks,might be able to stack it with Amex credit offer. I thought 8 weeks time would make it ineligible.
I have my eye on this and also have the amex offer but there are too many laptops in the house at the moment with WFH and all that.
I dont need yet another laptop.
Sorry what do you mean?
Won't Lenovo charge the Credit Card (AMEX) if I order now?
Or they will only charge when the product is ready?
The AMEX Lenovo offer is valid for another 14 days I think
I am not too sure but apparently it seems like Lenovo only charge your card after they ship it, so you need to make sure that all items can be shipped by 01/12/2020.
@techno2000: Firstly, does AMEX need to see the full $1199 or higher, charge to the card to be eligible? If so, with this offer, your card is only being charged $1142.10 so right off the bat not qualifying for the AMEX offer.
Here's a link to the brief T&C from my AMEX card
https://ibb.co/8jz0XS8
@matt0: Well obviously you need to add something like accessories etc to make it $1199 or above. But it would be a ripper price if you could get the amex credit.
Also the price is a bit too low to qualify for the cashback. What useful stuff have you people found to add to the order worth about $60 to bring the total to over $1199?
Answering my own question; the two year onsite warranty would fit the bill nicely. And if the lesser Lenovo netbooks are anything to go by with regards to their quality, there will be need for the warranty.
@jakentta: I bought it on my Amex essential card which gives 1 year of extra warranty anyway.So i just added some accessories like usb c cable,type c to hdmi adapter and type c to ethernet adapter. I also upgraded the 1 year warranty to onsite for around $10
Cash back doesnt work with edu store purchases sadly.
I pulled the trigger and purchased today using my AMEX. Added a laptop case and wireless mouse to get above $1199 and received an email from AMEX saying my Lenovo offer had been triggered. Also used shopack and looks like $73 is coming back via that. Note I purchased via the Lenovo main website (not Student Beans site) … I called the 13 number to speak to a customer service person who gave me the school discount promotion using my personal email address as a login.
So 13 number guy created a quote (instead of asking you card details and making payment himself) and you were able to convert it to quote lateron ?
@giddyup Can't send you pm … your pm is not active … they are asking me to give reference order no and then only they can give that price. strange.
@ChipsChicky: Hi, yes i called the 13 number and explained the laptop was for my son (currently grade 6 and transitioning to high school next year). Mentioned that i would prefer to use my private email rather than his school .EDU email because #1 i want it to be a surprise for him and #2 his primary school is likely to shut off his email account in the next 6 or so weeks. That seemed fine with the customer service person on the phone, and so she used my email address to firstly set me up a Lenovo account (how this is different to me doing that on the main website i don't know) and then she asked which laptop i was interested in, which i told her the IdeaPad S540, and so she then prepared a quote for me using the student discount pricing that i referenced, and so the quote was for $1142, which i saw in my account details when i logged in. I added a mouse and laptop case to get it above $1199, and all i needed to do was Convert Quote to Order and paid via my AMEX.
Edit: The customer service person added the laptop case and the mouse as part of the one quote (total cost $1208), which i then converted from Quote to Order. I didn't add the mouse and laptop case later/separately.
@ChipsChicky: We did it all over the phone when i was picking the laptop. The Lenovo customer service person was being very patient with me and waited while i picked out some accessories so i could get the overall total above $1199, and then she arranged the quote for me.
@ChipsChicky: Yes the quote came through in a minute or two. It happened while i was on the phone, and then we waited while it got authorised by the customer service person's manager, but that was done within a couple of mins. All happened pretty quickly. I have her email address as she messaged afterwards to ensure everything was ok, so I can PM you that and maybe she can go down the same path for you that she did for me.
@GiddyUp: Thanks man … i finally got the quote after few hours … now looking for someone with amex to sweeten the deal 😁
I've been looking for reviews but they all seem to be of older or intel models.
Can you comment on the screen? Is it washed out? Dim? Also is the fan noisy? How's the keyboard?
Thanks!
I have this exact laptop. The screen is great. Its alot faster than anything Intel has at the moment in this form factor. Fan is silent. There is actually a passive cooling option at a lower TDP in BIOS. If you need a review please see below:
https://next.lab501.ro/notebook/english-lenovo-ideapad-s540-…
just out of interest.
What year are your kids in? Did school ask for a laptop to be purchased and brought to school for school work?
My olest is starting Year 5 next year. Talking to work colleagues, some of their kids were required to bring a laptop to school starting Year 5. But they were given a list of recommended laptops, not sure if this is a good pick.
This would far surpass the requirements/specs of anything required for school. Unless a touch screen is required but I haven't heard of any school that requires that.
This way too powerful for a basic kids laptop. It's great for 4k video and music production on the go with good battery life.
constant fan usage for me whenever playing rocket league, but going to do a thermal re-paste myself.
Hi Doweyy , can I please have login . I have created new account and hence cannot send private message
The price and spec is awesome but the weight is a bit heavier and it is glossy! (won't be great for daily office works)
You think 1.2kg is heavy for a laptop???
Can you suggest any laptop that's below 1.2kg please, happy to know
Lenovo 720s 13 inch @1.14kg.
Also a few of the X series carbons… but not really designed for kids IMO.
I've been running 1.0kg or less touch screen laptops since 2013 :) Honestly it makes a big difference as I could tote it everywhere around the house, heft it in one hand easily etc .. it's a difference that makes a difference, to how many situations in life you can use it in!
The one from 2012 was sony vaio pro 13 running haswell, current one is Asus Zenbook ux370ua https://www.amazon.com.au/ASUS-ZenBook-Flip-Blasted-UX370UA-…
Checkout lg gram!
In general below 1Kg for good specs are very expensive. The new Lenovo Slim 7 Carbon is $3.4k….
@euk: Absolutely. though this sale here has a 50% discount, with a 50% discount #3.4k comes to $1.7k which is totally within my budget. However I'm after an AMD chip as I will actually use the 8 cores for programming.
I'm tempted by the yoga slim 7 pro when that gets released!
@euk: Yes sorry I was speaking generally, for someone who can wait to get the laptop they want, at a bargain price :)
I don't buy laptops at full price! That's not the ozbargain spirit hahaha
@ChipsChicky: Yup it is so far, but hopefully releasing in the new year. One day there will surely be high end renoir laptops .. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
I wish there was a slim 7 carbon AMD that might be suitable also!
In any case I have decided to wait till I find a laptop that truly suits my requirements as what I have is working for now. Maybe a surface laptop 4 will be released and finally remove the excess bezels ;)
@bono: i was so keen to wait for yoga slim 7 pro … but couldn't resist this deal as my current laptop vaio flip is super fancy from outside but a crap from inside … if they released yoga slim 7 pro carbon, i can sell this and jump onto that hopefully, based on reviews.
Samsung Galaxy Book S or the LG Gram
I am happy to help if anyone needs one.
If you are in western suburbs of Melbourne, can i get a feel of this ? I am really concerned if i shall order it without getting a touch/feeling of it. Bit old schooled.
Lot of videos on YouTube.the keyboard is pretty mushy that's probably the only con.
Already pulled the trigger … especially when they accepted me as a student 🤣🤣🤣
Does this have an integrated or dedicated graphics card?
IGP, but the best IGP there is.
The just released 11xx intel ones have a massively upgraded igpu that is about nearly ~35% better than this AMD one in framerates, but are still much slower than AMD for cpu. For normal non gaming use get this AMD one for sure.
https://www.hardwaretimes.com/amd-ryzen-7-4800u-only-20-25-s…
https://www.techpowerup.com/269453/intel-core-i7-1165g7-tige…
And AMD one is better battery life.
The links you posted are synthetic benchmarks of an Intel engineering sample without any TDP constraints, hence battery life is not counted. Tiger Lake (Intel 11xx) Xe graphics performs worse in laptops you and I can actually buy which are constrained to a 15W TDP, to have decent battery life. Watch UFD techs review of the 11th Gen Dell XPS 13. It actually stutters in Fortnite at 720p around the minute 5:50 mark where the AMD Ryzen 4500U actually plays smoothly according to the reviewer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoCDLZgRggM
There are also other reviews out there for the Dell laptop and ones from other manufacturers with similar issues. The Intel marketing hype on the 11th gen CPU does not deliver.
Out of curiosity ,anyone know if this still turns on if you remove the battery but left it plugged to power supply?
I think the battery cannot be removed. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Yea it's kinda integrated and not too easy to remove, but not too hard either.
Seems like official website even has a guide for battery removal video here: https://support.lenovo.com/sa/en/solutions/ht508545
So it'd be nice if thing still runs without battery for future repurpose after the battery is dead.
good to know it can be replaced.. Wonder if we will be able to find an after market battery for under $50 in a few years if the battery dies.
@Phoebus: It might be better to pay the extra $25 for the 2 year battery warranty at checkout and you will have 3 years worth of battery protection.
@jad10: where did you see that option ? after entering the card details on last page or the on 1st page where it asks for Deport Support, Onsite Support etc ?
This is turning into a bit of a joke :(. I have the 4600u model with 8gb ram and paid same price for it a month and a half ago. Which got chopped in price to 980 or something a few weeks later.
Not sure what the deal is, why they're trying to shed it for so cheap.
there was a huge demand for laptops and monitors when Covid first hit. So a lot of purchases were brought forward. Therefore demand is probably dropped off more than usual for this time of year, just as the supply side has totally recovered. Expect better deals than usual between now and Easter.
Fair point but also this laptop wasn't announced til June/July 2020, so maybe just running flash deals so that stock moves.
I think this is a great laptop for the price, very powerful and lightweight with long battery, and a screen that's quite nice which is rare on lenovo AMD computers.
However there's a few drawbacks I've discovered from checking reviews etc, just posting for information for others.
However it's a great laptop, especially for the price! I was seriously considering purchasing but as I do a lot of web conferencing the webcam and speakers issue tipped it over the edge for me to wait for a higher grade laptop, which will almost certainly come in significantly more expensive than this excellent deal price.
Also you may want to reinstall windows and check the SSL certificates trusted on this, because lenovo consumer lines (this is consumer line) shipped with preinstalled spyware called 'superfish' in the past, google 'superfish' for details
Hi, i have this laptop and don't experience the issues you mentioned. Have used it for vid conferences with Teams, Zoom, WebEx. Battery life is abou 9 to 10hrs for Office and about 6 to 8 hrs for more CPU intensive workloads at 60% brightness when edit videos.
Thanks!
I was looking for reviews of this exact model with the 4x00u but the reviews were other s540s such as intel or older AMD.
Can you tell me a bit about it?
How is the volume on it?
How is the screen sharpness, colour balance, and contrast?
Is the webcam really clear?
there might be issues with it if you get a bad batch, like i suspect i've gotten. mine always goes to sleep after two minutes no matter what - troubleshooted myself, with Lenovo over the phone etc, to no avail. just means that i can't leave the laptop running overnight to download files in Chrome or whatever.
thing is, looking online there seems to be a lot of sleep issues with AMD Ryzen processors, and also issues with Lenovo laptops compared to other brands. whether that's because there is a bigger forums for Lenovo computers or not, is hard to tell. but something to be aware of, and also issues with lenovo support under warranty etc.
Just something to be aware of in your purchasing decision, although dud laptops / poor service from brands can happen with any laptop.
for me, i have the 4600u version with 8gb of RAM and it's too much of a beast to give up. i can live with the crappy sleep issue.
i get about 6hrs of battery usage with constant Chrome usage at around 60% brightness.
Below is probably the most thorough review I have seen so far with a comparison of the AMD Renoir version vs the Intel 10th Gen version.
https://next.lab501.ro/notebook/english-lenovo-ideapad-s540-…
To me the volume is fine for laptop speakers. Though I do use the laptop with studio headphones and a DAC most of the time.
To me the screen is great. I have had it side by side with a colleagues HP ProBook x360 G7 (400 nits, FHD, IPS, 72% NTSC). The HP is slightly brighter but the Lenovo is sharper due to the QHD 16:10 resolution. The HP was calibrated but the Lenovo seemed pretty close in terms colour balance and contrast.
The 720p IR webcam is fine for my conferencing needs. I think the HP ProBook x360 G7 webcam with IR is slightly better, but to me it is definitely not grainy on the Lenovo.
@bono: Seems fine to me compared to the ProBook, the Yoga and ThinkPad I had before. I do alternate between the laptop's keyboard and a full sized one when not on the road.
I have been researching this further after shellshocked indicated the webcam and speakers are acceptable.
Here's a bit more information for those considering
general video review - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Px1DGN_ohdw
external monitors - but note not 4k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIr-b3TGdm8
It's possible to plug a 4k monitor in, but read on for considerations .. I think that only 30Hz will be supported for 4k due to the usb c ports being minimal spec.
The 2 usb-c ports are usb 3.1 gen 1 - which is the lowest usb c, and will run into limits if you want to hook up multiple high res monitors such as 4k 60hz displays. There's only 2 ports and you might/will need 1 for power. So you have only 1 port left, but being only a 5Gbs port it won't be able to daisy chain a high res display + many other ports.
The limits come from the amount of bandwidth, gen 1 offers 5 Gbs and gen 2 offers 10 Gbs, and gen2x2 offers 20Gbs. Thunderbolt/usb 4 offers 40Gbs.
See https://www.howtogeek.com/406199/what-are-usb-gen-1-gen-2-an…
So, it is not going to achieve my ideal of one cable to charge, dock to all your peripherals, and display to 2 high res (~4k) monitors at proper 60hz. In fact it's likely not even possible to achieve this using both usb-c ports.
However that will not be an issue for many people and it should adequately support 1 4k monitor at only 30hz plus a charging hub to peripherals and another low res monitor.
Just a correction to what you said above and what I achieve with my laptop. I can run a 4k monitor at 60hz via a USB-C to HDMI adaptor with no issues. I only use a HUB for USB peripherals. I also have a displayport adapter which is able to display 4k 60hz without issues. There is a little confusion with Lenovo's datasheet, because the Ryzen 4000 SOC supports USB 3.2 gen 2 on die without the need for any additional controllers.
"Display support for the CPUs allows for two 4K monitors through DisplayPort over Type-C, an additional 4K monitor if Thunderbolt is used, and a fourth monitor if USB 4.0 used. AMD has designed Renoir to not need additional chips to detect which way a Type-C is connected – that is all handled on die. With the display and USB support, the processor allows for concurrent USB 3.2 and DisplayPort use, with the peak DP v1.4 8.1G HBR3 standard in play using display stream compression (DSC)."
If you look at the block diagram, you can see Ryzen 4000 SOC support a lot of connectivity via USB C.
https://hothardware.com/photo-gallery/NewsItem/52312?image=b…
What items are upgradeable ??? ssd can be upgraded to 1tb ?
SSD upgradeable, ram is not
Just bought one. Thanks!
Combined with cashwrewards 4% off the Ideapad line.
FYI Lenovo charged my credit card immediately.
no cashback on education store i believe.
Purchases made through Lenovo's student store, staff discounts, corporate deals, and negotiated offers (phone/email/chat) are ineligible for cashback.
Just got an email, cashreward was approved
I already bought it without cash rewards.Oh well.Hoping for amex credit.
If anyone needs access, please PM me and I can send through details to get into the store (no edu email required).