Lenovo ThinkPad L390 Yoga: More than you Think

[@marquis281v8]

it runs 2x 32gb ddr4 2400mhz ram modules just fine

[@LaptopRetrospective]

Just checking in, have you confirmed this first hand?

[@marquis281v8]

@@LaptopRetrospective I'm typing this on the 64GB ram equipped L390 yoga!

[@ayaka5314]

@@marquis281v8crazy

[@LaptopRetrospective]

Cool! Pinning this thread so people don't miss it.

[@Mil-Keeway]

Same on the previous L380 Yoga, got firsthand experience with multiple models there too, my company got some 32GB sticks to replace one of the stock 8GB sticks for 32+8 or 40GB, and later 2x32 for 64GB

[@ted-b]

Quality presentation as usual, not a bad little machine!

[@LaptopRetrospective]

Thanks Ted! It's a surprisingly nice piece of gear.

[@undersc0r]

Wow I was just planning on buying one off of ebay. Now everyones gonna be looking for one

[@LaptopRetrospective]

Haha, I don't know about everyone. These are super well known and my channel's reach isn't such you need to worry about availability and prices. 😉

[@shehrozemughal4668]

I bought the refurbished L390 yoga recently and i really like this and its even faster from my last laptop, laptop is in good shape

[@LaptopRetrospective]

Excellent! What do you use it for?

[@shehrozemughal4668]

I use it for project management mostly day to day task and sometimes doing the CAD design @@LaptopRetrospective

[@thelostmigratorybird-ru2du]

thinking of buying one refurbished. just have to know about its battery life, and how it does with external monitor + some python programming. it will be helpful if you can fill me in on this thank you

[@shehrozemughal4668]

@@thelostmigratorybird-ru2du its solid the display is IPS with HDR support and the battery life with good performance is around 3 hours and on saving mode its 6 hour I love the machine, I think for python it will be good It comes in different configuration I have Core i5 with quad-core processor

[@LaptopRetrospective]

External monitor support is outlined in the PSREF. As for battery life, buying used means the battery could be at different states of wear and require replacement.

[@CatBacon-qc5ot]

I bought one of these in black a couple of weeks ago for $165 all in off of ebay. I swapped the 256gb SSD for a 1TB, replaced the 8gb RAM with two 16gb for a total of 32gb, I then replaced the cracked palmrest, I informed the seller of a faulty USBC port and shipped me a spare motherboard for free! So I replaced that too, added fresh Noctua thermal paste. Also replaced the keyboard with a backlit T480 board. I love this thing.

[@LaptopRetrospective]

That's an awesome set of upgrades. Thanks for sharing.

[@LaptopRetrospective]

Cheers, I'm trying to post more so people know I exist. 😉

[@CatBacon-qc5ot]

@@LaptopRetrospective I just made a post of the whole swap, not a tutorial exactly, but it's something.

[@LaptopRetrospective]

I'll have to check it out!

[@thegeekykitten4689]

Hey sorry for asking this after a few months but was the T480 keyboard a drop-in replacement? Most of the L390's I find and not in my prefered layout and T480 keyboards are easier to come by.

[@chaslinux]

Another great video! This looks like a sweet little machine. Did I miss mention of a storage upgrade?

[@LaptopRetrospective]

Storage wise a M.2 2280 NVMe 1TB is listed as the max in the PSREF.

[@SonicZR1]

I've got L390 Yoga in this exact specification back when it was new, and it is serving me faithfully to this day. Thankfully I have managed to keep mine in a more pristine shape, although I'm happy to know that it should be able to survive a harsh drop. This was the laptop that got me disappointed with both Intel and component modularity in our day and age: sure, I have really been happy to be able to buy an off-the-shelf model (since configuring it on Lenovo's site was not an option for me) and add some RAM to it, but aside from a single SSD (which just should always remain a separate part), that's about it - I'm stuck with the laptop's i5; and even if I wanted to upgrade, the only _real_ difference between the i5 and the i7 is i7 having a bit more cache, and that is it. What I find especially upsetting in this situation is that I ended up being stuck with an iGPU I do not like because there were neither Ryzen models of this laptop, nor even models with Iris Plus iGPUs - which I could have been able to use if there would have been some kind of a socket on the motherboard I could insert the new CPU into. But hey, it has RAM slots, that's such a MoDuLaR dEsIgN. Blegh. Modularity died with CPU sockets, and I will not budge on this opinion. And as much as I love my L390 Yoga, its CPU is my least favorite part of it, and it especially stings because what I've got is almost top-of-the-line for it, as i7 would not be noticeably better with its 0.2 GHz frequency bump and slightly larger cache. I've ended up buying neo 14 AMD just to satisfy my need for a graphically more capable laptop, although I admittedly went full ham with it; sure, it only offered 16 GB of RAM soldered (32 GB soldered on Intel models, but fuck Intel, they somehow managed to get even worse since the Kaby Lake refresh days), but L390 Yoga reassured me that this would be enough for my needs, so I just decided to buy the spec I would need to begin with rather than count on upgrades. Regarding the body material: PSREF calls it GFRP, which stands for "Glass Fiber Reinforced Plastic". It does feel like a sturdier plastic, and yeah, those are indeed black parts that are just painted silver.

[@LaptopRetrospective]

Yes, this one has seen some hard times, no question. I'm guessing its previous owner got a lot of use out of it in a variety of situations. I too hope that one day we make our way back to more modular designs, but it would need to be adopted large scale by businesses to truly take off.

[@ahmadganteng7435]

I am just buy a second laptop of this model. Thanks for show me the disassembly

[@LaptopRetrospective]

You're welcome!

[@mr.spokomaro]

Awesome video! However I have few questions. What exact type of ethernet port is it as I'm trying to buy corect adapter. Is it mini rj45 or something else. Also is it possible to swap keyboard without back-light with keyboard with back-light? Can you have 32gb of ram on i5 model or i7 only?

[@LaptopRetrospective]

RAM isn't limited by CPU, yes you can swap in a backlit keyboard. As for the Ethernet port, it should say in the PSREF.

[@mr.spokomaro]

@@LaptopRetrospective thanks for the reply. When I had yoga 260, the ram was limited by cpu. I5 could have only 8GB and i7 16GB. That's the only reason I've asked as I want to get L390 yoga and upgrade it to 32GB but there isn't many i7 models around in decent shape.

[@DonzLockz]

Any idea to unlock the bios without a chip and programmer?

[@LaptopRetrospective]

Not my area of expertise. There used to be old tricks to short out the chip but they don't work anymore. Some just desolder the original and put on a new one.

[@MrWillypanda88]

I got the L380 Yoga, comes with i7-8550u, it has very bad case of overheating. I wish there's a way to add more heatsink, the current one is thin like a wafer.

[@LaptopRetrospective]

An i7 is a lot of computer for devices this thin. Certainly a struggle.

[@MrWillypanda88]

@@LaptopRetrospective yeah, when I bought it, the seller actually had an i5 and i7 model, stupid of me to go for i7 😥

[@LaptopRetrospective]

Nah, not stupid. Every machine is built differently and some handle their hardware configurations better than others.

[@michalmason5490]

well, I have a used x250 with i7-5600u processor and can say it is a small heater. I replaced the heatsink (Toshiba) for Sunon which dissipates the heat more effectively. Moreover, one thing I've noticed is that in x250 with i7 processor the fan kicks in when CPU's temp goes above 38C whereas in my x270 i5 or previously owned x260 i5 the fan kicks in when CPU's temp goes above 50C. Probably sth to do with Bios settings. I'd be curious about running some heatsink test against i7 in x270 or i5 in x250 to compare against my findings. Anyways, in Win10 one can use a Thinkpad dedicated software for temp management and on Linux it is possible to change the line of code in registry file to override the default temp settings.

[@MrWillypanda88]

@@michalmason5490 at the moment I've been using Throttlestop to undervolt, setting more aggressive speedshift and stuff. I also use NotebookFanControl to manage the fan speed. It is bearable, but yeah, the thing can act as a good toaster. I tried to look for better fan, but so far I hear nothing about better fan for my series. I also planned to glued in additional heatpipes for better thermal dissipation, but since the laptop is really thin, the chassis didn't allow any additional stack of heatpipes without some major modification to the bottom cover.

[@xayroMS]

Hey can i know the Pen Model for L390 yoga? SD60M..... ?

[@LaptopRetrospective]

It is listed in the PSREF and the specific part will be in the hardware maintenance manual.

[@vissnuudevan7713]

Okay for gaming

[@LaptopRetrospective]

This isn't a gaming laptop. So temper your expectations.

[@handcannon9814]

In 2023 this series got any replacement model? Or just discontinued?

[@LaptopRetrospective]

Modern version would be the ThinkPad L13 Yoga.

[@tempeleng]

Checking the psref, all the modern models from gen 1 to 4, intel and amd, don't come with sodimm slots. This is the last small Yoga with upgradeable ram. Or do you know of any I missed?

[@LaptopRetrospective]

@tempeleng the PSREFS would be my first stop as well.

[@herrfaust2020]

Really weird that Lenovo would put some kind of finishing on the aluminum case. Seen the same on a silver X1 Yoga. I thought one of the points of aluminum is not having a finish that can wear off. Otherwise, it's like socks with sandals :-) .

[@LaptopRetrospective]

The bottom case I believe is some kind of polymer. The lid is for sure aluminum.

[@herrfaust2020]

My T14s Gen 2 (whatever the "near black" is called) is showing some fading on the bottom lid, around the air vents, and even the screw hole on that side(!). Pretty sad to see that the finish of these things can't take the heat (AMD).

[@LaptopRetrospective]

Do you think it's heat related? 🤔 Or a combination of factors?

[@herrfaust2020]

I'm pretty sure it's heat. It's primarily centred around the vent on the bottom. I bought this used, but it was a year old and the rest of it is pretty minty. No worn keys, and no marks after I peeled off the palmrest stickers :-D . I still have over a year of warranty, although I'm not sure if this is something that would be covered.

[@LaptopRetrospective]

Interesting. Must have been some problem with the material, paint and/or application process.

[@GabrieleTroscia]

A new LR video out = ebay prices goes up skyrocket!!!! :D

[@LaptopRetrospective]

That's kind of you to think I have that level of influence on prices. 😂

[@mistrotech8894]

I had the L13 Yoga. It lasted a few months and had to spend over $100 on just parts to fix it since the pen kept breaking. It's also important to note that its entire chassis flexes like a cheap Chromebook. It overheated and had very loud fan noise, along with typically less than two hours of battery life new. Build quality is pretty awful. Now, it's screen broke since the plastic housing separated and I snapped it back in place...shattered the panel. I got a $17 HP Elitebook instead and I've head a much better experience with it...that L13 Yoga Gen 2 was $600.

[@LaptopRetrospective]

Sucks to hear you had to fix as much as you did. I didn't find the build quality that bad in the one I had. Perhaps my example had an easier life.

[@mistrotech8894]

@@LaptopRetrospective Mine definitely didn't have an easy life, mostly from carrying it in my backpack at school. Still, it's life want particularly hard either 🧐

[@LaptopRetrospective]

Interesting. Thanks for sharing your experience with it.

[@othmaneff7907]

can i start with it unreall engine 5 ?????

[@LaptopRetrospective]

No dedicated GPU so I'm guessing not.

[@oraz.]

If it had a matte display it would be very good.

[@LaptopRetrospective]

A regular L390 would probably do the trick then. Touch panels aren't often matte.

[@Lann91]

Screen looks kinda shit, the colors