Lenovo ThinkPad E490 review

A business ThinkPad with a real entry GPU of its era

The ThinkPad E490 (2018) at $243 is one of the few machines in the business class that actually carries a discrete card: a Radeon RX 550X. That shows in the measurements — a graphics score of 24.27 against a category median of 3.84, a light-tier result more than five times the class norm. The offset is a reliability index of 26 versus a median of 42.5, the sheet's flagged weak spot, with the CPU (36.42) also trailing its median by about a third.

What the RX 550X clears — and what it doesn't

The capability checks set the honest envelope. Overwatch and Grand Theft Auto V pass their minimum bars, but Far Cry 5 misses its own bar by a wide margin. That is the classic profile of a 2018 entry dGPU: competitive eSports and older titles at reduced settings yes, modern heavy AAA no. Photoshop-grade light creative work is comfortably inside its reach; a 2019-plus game library largely is not.

The reliability asterisk

A reliability score in the low band is the real cost of the cheap dGPU: this is a budget-chassis machine whose long-term odds the measurements rate below half the class. At $243 the risk is priced in, but it belongs in the buying decision.

Slow, mature decay

From a $1,300 anchor the machine has settled to $243, declining about 8% per year, with a two-year projection of $206 — a further 15%. This is the shallow end of the depreciation curve, where the remaining downside is small in absolute dollars.

Against its neighbors

HP's ProBook 445 G8 costs about $13 more with newer silicon but no discrete card; stepping down, HP's EliteBook 840 G6 at $225 and ProBook 450 G6 at $217 are cheaper plain-office alternatives. The E490 is the only one in this row with a measured graphics story.

Bottom line

For light gaming and media work on a ThinkPad budget, this is the pick of its price row — an honest "worth the asking price" backed by passing minimum bars rather than a flattering score. Buy it for the GPU, tolerate the CPU, and go in with eyes open about the reliability floor.