ThinkPad T580
The T480’s larger sibling: same generation, same disassembly, a bigger screen and a numeric keypad. Added to Libreboot in 26.01.
Why this one instead of the T480
For the screen and the keypad, and little else. The panel is 15.6" against 14.0", about 24 per cent more area at a shared 16:9 — a figure we derived, not one Lenovo publishes. The footprint grows 29.2 mm across and 20.3 mm deep, and thickness is the same within a quarter of a millimetre. On starting weights the T580 is 0.37 kg heavier. A configuration-matched comparison does not exist: Lenovo published a four-by-two weight matrix for the T480 and a single figure for the T580.
Battery life is not a reason to choose it. On Lenovo’s own MobileMark figures the T480 with its 24 plus 72 Wh pairing rates 29.0 hours, against 26.1 hours for the T580 with 32 plus 72 Wh. The larger cell is feeding a larger screen.
The keypad, and how to tell the two apart
The keypad claims the right-hand third of the deck, and everything else shifts left. You can see it in the two marks on this site. The T480’s TrackPoint dot sits dead centre of its canvas; the T580’s sits 53 units left of centre, with the trackpad shifted 59.6 units left. A four-by-five grid of keypad keys fills the space that opens up. That offset is the fastest way to tell the machines apart in a photograph.
If you spend your day in a spreadsheet or a ledger, that block of keys is the whole argument. If you do not, the T480 is the same machine in a smaller box.
The newest port in the range
The T580 arrived in Libreboot 26.01, which makes it the least-travelled of our three machines. It shares the T480’s disassembly, and the flash chip sits in roughly the same place. The clip is the fiddly part: the pads are tighter than the T480’s, so the first flash takes more patience. We do it before the machine ships.
The project rates it Complex, the same as the T480. If you want the version of this that is genuinely easy to flash yourself, that is the OptiPlex.
Intel graphics only, and the same Thunderbolt caveat
As with the T480, we sell Intel-graphics units: upstream marks the display as non-working on MX150 boards except under SeaBIOS. Thunderbolt 3 works for USB devices, DisplayPort output and charging. Thunderbolt device support was added in 26.01 RC1 and removed before the final release, because it broke resume from S3.
What is still not free
The boot firmware is replaced with code you can read. A small amount of vendor code remains — hardware initialisation, processor microcode, a neutralised Intel ME, and the embedded controller. We are not going to pretend otherwise.
What you should know before you buy
- HyperThreading is disabled by default. Run lscpu on the machine you receive and you will see half the threads you may have expected.
- The TPM is disabled, because SeaBIOS hangs on buggy TPM drivers. If your workflow depends on a TPM, this is not the machine for it.
- Vendor code remains in flash: hardware initialisation, processor microcode, a neutralised Intel ME, and the embedded controller.
- The first flash needs an external SPI programmer, and the pads are tighter than the T480’s.
- We sell Intel-graphics units only. Upstream marks the display as non-working on MX150 boards except under SeaBIOS.
- Thunderbolt device support was removed before the final 26.01 because it broke S3 resume. USB, DisplayPort and charging over the port are unaffected.
- Storage is one 2.5" drive or one M.2 2280, not both. This is the same arrangement as the T480 and is not a reason to prefer either machine.
- Memory tops out at 32 GB. The 64 GB the Libreboot project reports on the T480 has not been verified on this chassis, so do not plan around it.
- Battery life is shorter than the T480’s on Lenovo’s own figures, at 26.1 hours against 29.0 hours for comparable batteries.
- This is the newest port in the range. It has had less time in front of users than the T480 or the OptiPlex.
- Windows is not officially supported, and the Libreboot project recommends you avoid it.