Review of the Lenovo T490s with Ubuntu Linux 22.04 LTS

Context

This review is written after having used the Lenovo Thinkpad T490s with Ubuntu 22.04 LTS for two full years. Work use is as home computer and as a wringting computer.

Conclusion

To jump to the conclusion: The computer is a great computer. It is quick, responsive, albeit not with too much muscle power. This however, does only show when I am compiling large LaTeX documents.It is very well suited for Ubuntu Linux and probably for Linux in general.

Grade: 4.5/5.0. - With this impression, Lenovo and Linux forever, and nothing else!!

Main specs

Intel i5, 4-core/8-thread
32 GB RAM
1920x1080 pixel resolution

Pros

The compter specs are suitable for common home and office tasks.
The keyboard is great. Smooth, large keys, with a nice going
The look is good! Underplayed black - nice!
The computer is very light. People are impressed
The computer is extremely Linux hardware compatible! Everything, even suspend works very well! Even the fingerprint sensor was installed and working flawlessly from the start.
The battery time is quite good, 4 hours minimum while working.

Cons

Sorted by severty:

The computer could have had a bit more power and a larger harddrive (it had 256 GB). I installed a new harddrive (1 TB), raw-copied the disk, repartionend, and it booted like nothing had happened.

Setups and Workarounds

Workarounds

None! - No workarounds at all neeeded!

Setup

I installed some KDE tools: Dolphin, Kate, Kompare. They installed well, but they look terrible.

Install qt5 and use it to choose "Adwaita" under the "Appearance" tab, and "Noto Sans 12" and "Monospace 12" under Fonts, and "Ubuntu-Mono-Light" under the "Icon Theme" tab. Click apply and restart dolphin and kate. I have had some luck with deleting (or renaming) the .local/share/dolphin .local/share/kate folder folders and then reapplying the qt5 settings, if it did not work the first time. This also work with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.

An other review is here: PC perspective focusing more on the hardware side of the PC.