Lenovo ThinkPad L14 G3 AMD laptop review: Long battery life plus AMD power

[Redaktion]

Lenovo has improved its budget ThinkPad L14 by giving it longer battery life and a slimmer design. The laptop's advantages over the ThinkPad T14 include having two RAM slots and lower emissions. And the AMD CPU inside is brimming with performance. In this review, we'll also examine any shortcomings the device may have.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-L14-G3-AMD-laptop-review-Long-battery-life-plus-AMD-power.662866.0.html

[NikoB]

Much more interesting is the 15.6" model, because there the case volume is larger and you can expect a quieter CO, plus a full-fledged keyboard and a 15.6 screen, which is minimally sufficient for full-fledged work.

Actually lack - absolutely lousy screens (800:1) with a shameful color rendition. And M.2 2242 (there is no full-fledged 2280 or is there? in psref it is clearly written that there is NO place for 2280), which sharply limits the capacity upgrade, plus there is no second M.2, which is simply nonsense for 15.6 ".

And of course there is no TB3.0+, because. on board obsolete SoC Zen3.

Finding M.2 2242 for 2TB in retail for it will be an almost unrealistic task. Replacing the screen with 72% NTSC is another $100-110.

If you successfully sell an 8GB chip (that's Lenova's greed at a penny price of memory!), Then 32GB will cost +$100-120.

In total we get ~1250$ euros for a really working config of 2022 with a decent screen in terms of color reproduction (so that at least the pictures uploaded from a smartphone do not look shameful compared to the smartphone screen)

And now the question of the day - why do you need this "miracle" for such total price, if now you can buy L5Pro for $1100 at retail in the West countries with 5800+3060 and a luxurious (by garbage standards here) 2.5K 16" 165Hz 500 nit screen with G-Sync and HDR400/DV support?

14" is suitable only as a cheap system unit, quite quiet and with great autonomy (true, it is not clear - what is the meaning of this autonomy, since the strength of the case is incomparable with the T series, i.e. often dragging such a laptop around the streets (and not almost stationary use with a power supply unit) is obviously a bad idea). This is probably its strength, because it is unlikely that anyone will sit at a ridiculous 14" all day long, as well as at a wretched keyboard without a numpad.

I would even take 14 "as a "system unit", but without hemorrhoids with a replacement immediately for 32GB and so that the kit immediately has a 2TB SSD, no less. And all together for $900 no more. But again, sometimes I need to buy an HDD, and here there is no eSATA to test capacious HDDs immediately upon purchase in HDAT2. And this is also a problem...

[LL]

in psref it is clearly written that there is NO place for 2280

That is serious and enough as a motive for exclusion.

[Ulad]

notebookcheck gives 87% rate for the model with 250 nits, 45% NTSC, IPS display and quirky keyboard??? okay...hope lenovo didn't pay for this article.

[Aindriú]

Nearly better off with the T14 if it wasn't for the soldered RAM

[Marvin Gollor]

notebookcheck gives 87% rate for the model with 250 nits, 45% NTSC, IPS display and quirky keyboard??? okay...hope lenovo didn't pay for this article.

For an office notebook the screen is not weighted as much as say for multimedia or gaming notebooks. For office use the screen is good enough but the screen itself we gave a much worse rating as say we'd give Low-Power display. For the keyboard: This may be due to the keyboard manufacturer for which there are different ones. Nevertheless, the keyboard is much better than almost every keyboard out there. But we rated it down several percentages.

It is not the most reasonable thing to assume we get paid by a company ^^ People claim this ALL the time with almost every company out there. We assure you it is not the case ^^

Nearly better off with the T14 if it wasn't for the soldered RAM

I disagree. Besides the socketed RAM and WiFi module I prefer the design of the L14, the absent of overheating and the much lower price tag while getting basically everything the T14 offers. But since I want a 16:10 screen I look after an L13 G3 AMD instead.

[Opengears]

I am trying to figure out if a 2280 NMVe drive could fit into this unit – when I take a closer look at the photos of the internals, it certainly looks like it. Does anyone know what the black metal part is, on the right side next to the NVMe? Is this for cooling? Or could a SSD be mounted there?

[zeus]

I am having the same issue with my L14G3 where the CPU gets stuck at 5 watts after waking up from sleep.

Even worse than this performance reduction though is the fact that the fans never come on in this mode, even if the CPU gets dangerously hot with HWMONITOR recording a temperature over 98C they remain silent instead of cooling the machine. Did the same happen with the test machine?

[zeus]

I am having the same issue with my L14G3 where the CPU gets stuck at 5 watts after waking up from sleep.

Even worse than this performance reduction though is the fact that the fans never come on in this mode, even if the CPU gets dangerously hot with HWMONITOR recording a temperature over 98C they remain silent instead of cooling the machine. Did the same happen with the test machine?

Lenovo just released an update that fixed this issue with BIOS 1.15

[buscon]

hi,

I do not understand how you measured the fan noise.
I am trying out the same computer you reviewed and the fan is on most of the time while I am doing normal tasks, the fan is very good to hear, it occasionally reduces to a barely hearable level.
Did you use any specific settings?

Thanks

[NikoB]

hi,

I do not understand how you measured the fan noise.
I am trying out the same computer you reviewed and the fan is on most of the time while I am doing normal tasks, the fan is very good to hear, it occasionally reduces to a barely hearable level.
Did you use any specific settings?

This is a pure matter of faith (do you believe in the numbers, i.e. how do they fit with reality) to both reviews and private reviews. You can check all these statements only by testing each laptop personally for at least 1-2 days. At the same time, everyone has different sense organs, the nervous system is also different, the level of education and critical thinking is different. So is the consumer experience.

Except for bored billionaires and their heirs (and state laboratories for checking the "quality" of goods and services, with the money of taxpayers, as in some countries), no one is available due to lack of money (and sometimes access to very specific equipment). And that is why, on average, rich people have a much better consumption experience and much better (of course, with a good education, outlook and critical thinking) understand the quality of goods and services...

[ton]

wishful thinking tells me the insane temperature when GPU stressing is due to the high tdp state of 25w, which under normal circumstanses should only be active for short periods of time. There is a chance furmark makes the processor behave abnormally (there has been GPU overheating issues with furmark in the past).

The game tested should have had high temperatures too if the problem was global and not application specific.