Along with Dell’s Inspiron line, the famous ThinkPad is one of the longest-running laptop brands in existence. Today’s ThinkPad lineup offers a number of great modern designs like the X1 Carbon and 2-in-1 convertibles, but Lenovo has kept the classic T-series going strong. If you’re shopping for a ThinkPad, now’s a good time, with numerous retailers running summer sales to compete with Amazon’s Prime Day, and Lenovo’s “Black Friday in July” event has the ThinkPad T480 marked down at a discount of 25%.
Built for professionals and others who prefer old-school clamshell designs, T-series laptops like the 14-inch ThinkPad T480 ditch fancy bells and whistles like touchscreens in favor of solid, traditional construction quality. Modern ThinkPads may lack some of the older touches that we loved about the line (the tactile mechanical keyboards might be the biggest thing we miss), but they remain popular for good reason: They’re built to last and they simply work well.
Another nice thing about the T-series models, including the ThinkPad T480, is that they come packing a lot of the same great hardware as the X-series without the steep price tags (which have frequently been our main contention with certain models like the aforementioned X1 Carbon). For fans of traditional laptops, performance takes priority over bleeding-edge features that many find unnecessary, and the standard ThinkPad T480 configuration runs on a 7th-generation Intel Core i5-7200 CPU, 8GB of DDR4 RAM, and an integrated Intel HD Graphics 620 GPU. For storage, you get a nicely sized 500GB 7,200rpm HDD (which is considerably faster than older 5,400 rpm hard drives).
The entry-level configuration of the Thinkpad T480 goes for $999 from the Lenovo online store, but for the duration of the Black Friday in July sale, you can grab one for just $749 after a tidy $250 discount. This model comes with a 7th-gen Intel Core i5 CPU, but the ThinkPad T480 with the newer 8th-gen i5 also on sale for a little more at $787. You’ve also got some other picks to choose from if you want upgrades like more RAM or an SSD.
Looking for Prime Day laptop deals? We’ve found laptop deals, Chromebook deals, Macbook deals and more ahead of Prime Day 2019.
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