Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Review: Business laptop is better with AMD

[Dmitry]

>>An M.2-2242 SSD in the WWAN slot was not recognized.
You used TS120GMTS420S. But it's SATA model.
Try NVMe ))

[Sones]

So you didn't test the audio speakers but you review it as 63% ?

[Daneel]

Does anyone know why the WWAN option must be selected at an additional cost of $200 as soon as you change the screen away from the 1366x768 250nit option? It makes no sense at all to me and makes this laptop about $250 more expensive than a X13 with the same spec.

[JeffNotReserved]

There is no point reviewing the display if you have no idea whether or not that panel is delivered to the customer. If the manufacturer has said that one of four panels will be delivered there is an overwhelming incentive to ship the cheapest one, and I am sure that is the one that they do ship because its money.
Notebook check should push back on this. Clearly you have been given a unit that is unobtainable to the average retail customer anyway.

I would suggest that you simply skip the display review for those manufacturers that cannot commit to delivery of a recommended screen.

[Marko Maric]

T14s is not available anymore with Ryzen 7 in Lenovo online shop.
Anybody knows what may be the reason? I wanted to customize it, and maybe I was overthinking for too long..

[ChinaGlobalBully]

Where is the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme or at least T15p with AMD Ryzen 9 5900HS (35Watt) and RTX 3060 Max-Q?

There's plenty of room in these chassis, and the Asus G14 showed it works with decent thermals.

The Legion 5/7's keyboards are trash compared to a ThinkPad if you need to type all day.

[vertigo]

I bought this recently and have been using it quite extensively for the past couple weeks, so here's an initial review based on that. I'd rate it a 7/10 overall, good but certainly not great. The build is excellent, it's a good size (though could be a bit smaller) and weight, and using it is great, though compared to what I had before even the $250 Ideapad I got for temporary use was a hue improvement. There are some fairly big issues, though nothing critical, and a bunch of small things, and they all add up to make what could have been a really terrific computer rather disappointing. Don't get me wrong, I still like it, but it bugs me how many little things here and there could have been better with a bit more thought and care.

BIOS:
  - Brightness is at full and can't be adjusted (also applies to non-OS live-boot environments, so it's blindingly bright (and white, they could have at least made it dark themed) and drains the battery more
  - Scrolling with TrackPoint doesn't work
  - About 80% of the time, clicking on arrows to expand/collapse descriptions double-clicks them, so you have to click something half a dozen times to get it to open/close and stay open/closed

Case Design, Ports, & Display:
  + Nice, balanced weight
  + Nice feel
  + Good hinge stiffness balance, easy to open (barely opens one-handed) but very stable in use, though could probably be a bit less stiff (might happen over time)
  + Red light on dot of Thinkpad "i" on cover is neat, though it would be nice if it could use different colors to represent different states and/or battery levels, and I'm not real fond of it being on all the time, during normal use and wonder how much extra battery it's using (likely an insignificant amount, but still)
  + Display looks very nice with good brightness (typically use step 2, sometimes 3, out of 11 in moderate lighting, step 1 in the dark, though I wish it could go lower and that there wasn't such a big change between steps 1 and 2), colors, and matte finish (not overly picky and not a professional, so just a layman's opinion)
  + Camera shutter (and manual, which I prefer)
  - Front edge of wrist rest is uncomfortable and should be rounded instead of a sharp corner
  - USB-C both on one side, should be at least one on right side, especially considering the next point
  - No barrel plug port, which is understandable and they can't be faulted for, but it's nice to have the option so a right-angle plug can be used, whereas the USB-C chargers stick straight out and risk damage to both the charger (which, of course, would mean replacement of the expensive brick since the fragile USB cord is permanently attached) and the port
  - MicroSD reader position isn't ideal, but is fine, but the requirement of a tool to remove it is not
  - Fairly large bezels, which could be reduced to further shrink the computer
  - Could be easier to open
  - Supposedly an M.2 NVMe drive can be used in the WWAN slot, but trying to move the one that came with the laptop over to that slot, it wouldn't even physically fit, as the "key" is slightly off from where it needs to be to match up with the SSD's slot
  - Display lottery means others may not be so lucky with getting a nice display
  - Ryzen sticker corners keep snagging shirt sleeve, so I had to remove it, which of course was a pain due to the adhesive, and it should have been placed elsewhere or, better yet, included separately for the user to decide whether and where to stick it to the computer

Keyboard/TrackPoint/Trackpad:
  + Nice tactile feel
  + Nice typing feel with good spring and quiet (spacebar is a bit "loud" but still pretty quiet)
  + Good layout: Function key grouping; Individual Home/End/PgUp/PgDn keys; Large delete key in proper place (unlike some, including some IdeapPads, that put the power button there)
  + Hardware FnLock (can switch with key como vs having to use Vantage)
  + TrackPoint seems to have less drift than previous ones used, but it's definitely still there
  - Trackpad not as physically smooth as many other computers, including $250 IdeaPad, and not as sensitive either
  - Stupid placement of Fn and left Ctrl keys, which can at least be swapped via software but that still makes them problematic to use as the now Ctrl key (hardware Fn key) is much smaller, affecting its use in touch-typing, and the swapped labels affects their use in visual typing
  - Would be nice if there was more consistency of function keys between different models, as after using an IdeaPad for a couple weeks, I've grown used to the display brightness keys being on different keys, though this is minor
  - Backlight bleeds a lot under keys, making me wish it was red instead of bright white due to the resulting excess brightness, not to mention it can be distracting and can overwhelm the actual letters, etc, plus the lower brightness is still much brighter than it needs to be, making it oftentimes too bright and an excessive battery drain (the light for the mic status is actually ideal, and shows that they could have done the rest of the keys like that, and it's a real disappointment they didn't)
  - Backlight often turns itself off right after turning it on, so it has to be turned on again, and sometimes turns on at full brightness thereby requiring you to turn it off and back on again to get it to low brightness
  - Light on mic function key is on when mic is off and off when mic is on, which is backwards and annoying since I keep the mic off 99.9% of the time, and this can't be switched in software (one of the issues with Vantage)
  - Fingerprint reader doesn't work very well despite registering fingers multiple times, and it should be lit as it's hard to find in the dark
  - Middle trackpad button can no longer be used for both scrolling and middle-clicking, which is a major downgrade for no apparent reason, and TPmiddle, which apparently returns said functionality, doesn't work on the new Elantech versions (HUGE issue, considering the TrackPoint is the only reason I will even buy a Lenovo), though w10wheel seems to work pretty well, but such an important feature shouldn't depend on 3rd-party software
  - Like pretty much every other Fn key, this one works at the hardware level, which means programs can't register its input, thereby preventing it from being used for additional shortcuts, and this could easily be fixed if they would just have it send a keypress to the OS
  = Arrow keys are a plus and minus, since they're better than most laptops, with their cramped keys, but the left/down/right keys are still smaller, and I find myself hitting the wrong keys, especially PgUp/PgDn instead of left/right

Installed software:
  + Minimal bloat, even less than Microsoft's own Win10 image (no Candy Crush, etc)
  + Vantage has some nice features
  - Vantage is far from perfect, needing some improvements, and is adware
  - There seems to be an on-screen display for everything except caps lock, so the only indicator is the light on the key, which is good that's there (no keyboard should not have this), but an on-screen indicator is still useful since you're typically looking at the screen and not the keyboard, and it seems silly to not include one when there's even one for the keyboard backlight, which is far less useful considering the backlight is significantly more noticeable when looking at the screen

Performance, Audio, Noise, Cooling, & Battery Life:
  + I haven't done much heavy lifting with it so far, but it's been very snappy for the most part so far and doesn't slow down with quite a bit going on, though it does occasionally get pretty laggy (not sure if that's the computer or Windows) and I tested the graphics performance by running Borderlands 1 maxed out and it was very smooth, though possibly with some mild screen tearing
  - While fairly quiet overall, and even when the fans get going it's more the sound of air rushing than the fans themselves, it emits various strange and somewhat annoying sounds, especially when the fans run at low speeds, e.g. a scratchy sound similar to HDD heads moving, a chirping sound, what sounds like bad fan bearings (like a quiet version of a card in bike spokes), etc
  - Cooling seems like a bit of a mixed bag, though overall decent, as it's often in the low- to mid-40s with no fan but fairly regularly gets up to the 60s and 70s causing the fan to spin up even when I'm not really doing much, yet only got to the high 60s during a Prim95 stress test on the same (balanced) power mode and 80 on max performance (which oddly suddenly throttled and dropped to ~60 after a while for a few minutes before ramping back up and going back to ~80, and throttles every time, and only when, I pick it up), and it hasn't become hot to the touch (just slightly warm on the right side of the keyboard and center-back of the bottom), so it seems the cooling system works very well but could be tuned better, the quality of the fan may not be great, and there's something very strange going on with the throttling when picked up
  - Battery life is also a bit mixed, as the first time I used it, with very minimal use, it was looking like 12+, and possibly 14+, hours per charge, but as I use it, and I'm using it more (though still nothing real heavy for the most part), it's looking more like 9 hours, give or take a bit

Purchasing Process
  - I won't go into all the detail on how terrible the nightmare that ordering from Lenovo is, as that would be longer than the rest of this review. Suffice it to say, they're easily one of the worst companies I've dealt with and I wasted HOURS trying to get a laptop from them. I made THREE attempts Black Friday weekend of 2019, all of which were canceled within hours, and of course the reps were completely useless. I made multiple attempts during fall of 2020, first for the T14 around early September then for this Black Friday weekend, but it kept declining payment, and when I checked with the bank they said Lenovo wasn't even attempting to process it. After spending hours on chat and on the phone trying for the T14, again with reps who were useless, and one that was downright unprofessional, I finally gave up, and decided to give it one more try for this on BF due to the prices (I ended up getting it for less than I was going to pay for the T14, and I definitely prefer this over the T14, so there's that at least), and still ran into the payment declined problem. I finally tried disabling my VPN and then it magically worked, though it shouldn't have made a difference and it would have been nice if their system or reps had been able to tell me that. And searching about the issue, I found it's a fairly common one, yet they are too incompetent and/or don't care enough to fix it. The only good thing about the whole process was that it arrive sooner than expected. When I placed the order, it said 6+ weeks, and there are reports of them continuing to extend this repeatedly and taking far longer. But after a while it showed an estimated delivery of mid-January, which fluctuated a bit, and ultimately it came about a week earlier than the original estimated date (possibly due to using ShopRunner). Bottom line, and I've said this many times before, the absolute ONLY reason I even consider Lenovo is due to the TrackPoint and, to a lesser extent, the superior keyboard. If not for those, I wouldn't even look at them (which makes it unbelievable they've gimped the Trackpoint middle button). Because of that, and since many people don't appreciate the TrackPoint, and many even actively dislike it, and because the trackpad is mediocre, I'd actually recommend that most people avoid it. For those that don't specifically want a TrackPoint and/or that the trackpad is important to them, I'd suggest getting something else.

[vertigo]

Forgot to mention the speakers:

+ Speakers are very good for a laptop, especially such a small one, and while they're nowhere near the performance of dedicated speakers, they are plenty loud and clear (I can listen to music upstairs with the computer downstairs or vice-versa, including around corners and down hallways) with no noticeable distortion

[vertigo]

A few more thoughts, including an update on battery life:

- The mouse (TrackPoint and trackpad) often become *extremely* laggy, causing it to jump around, for a while after waking the computer and the only thing that makes it go away is moving the mouse around a lot for a while. I've also had them randomly completely stop working until I locked and unlocked the computer, and multiple times one day it would just stop moving until I let off then started moving it again. So apparently not only are the new drivers less functional, removing the ability to use the middle mouse button for both middle-click and scrolling, but they're cleary very buggy as well. So that makes buggy TrackPoint/touchpad drivers (when the TrackPoint is one of the main selling points), a buggy keyboard backlight driver, and a crappy fingerprint sensor, among all the other issues.
- The keyboard backlight turns off when locking the computer, and it would be nice if it would turn back on when unlocking if within a certain timeframe or during certain hours
- The ports are all close together, and while not close enough to have plugs block neighboring ports, it can be difficult to unplug items, which is a very minor issue but worth mentioning nonetheless
- This goes for any laptop, but the ports can be a bit difficult to find when trying to plug something in without looking along the side, and while it's easy enough to just lean over and look, it would be nice if they would place silk-screen printed markings along the edge of the keyboard deck above each port showing where and what they are
- Again, this applies to all laptops, but they should have a BIOS option to show a custom message when booting before the computer is unlocked, to include a name and/or phone number for someone to contact if they find it (of course, this would require a password on boot, but I've yet to figure out how to do that properly on Lenovo's BIOS, which is very confusing and doesn't seem to allow you to use a fingerprint for this or, better yet, a fingerprint and short password in place of a longer password) as well as a card that slides into the chassis that can have this info written on it (could be very thin and therefore would barely require any space and therefore wouldn't likely require any increase in the laptop's size; in fact, the slot for the optional card reader would be a perfect place for this)
- Another thing I would like to see common in laptops is some sort of luminescence of the Fn and backlight key (or in the case of the T14s, just the Fn key would be enough, since the spacebar is easy to find even in the dark, though when the Ctrl and Fn keys are switched--to make them like every other keyboard out there--the wrong key would glow)

- Battery update: Battery life is very disappointing, to the point of being unacceptable. It typically loses ~10%/40min pretty consistently, even with very minimal load (doing nothing more than tying in Notepad++ with generally 10-20% CPU usage, 70% RAM usage, and the display brightness on one of the lower two steps, which extrapolates to ~6.5 hours total, probably a hair more once battery savings kick in. Oddly, there was little to no difference when tested in airplane mode or with the display brightness turned up a few more steps, which doesn't really make sense, and seems to indicate that the radios and display are an insignificant portion of the power draw, but I don't know what else would be draining it so quickly. I've been spending a lot of time on it over the past few weeks, several hours a day, and while I leave it plugged in as much as possible, I'm often using it on the battery, and when I am, I typically have to plug it in a couple times a day (drain, charge, drain, charge), though I only charge it to 79% (set to 80, but it stops at 79) and try not to discharge past 10-20%. Still, that means that I can *easily* go through the 125% of the battery life in a day, and that's only for the time I'm *not* using it while it charges back up. I'm reminded of my last ThinkPad, which also got nowhere near its rated life, even with an extra battery slice. The only saving grace is that it charges pretty quickly. It's not terrible, and it's far better than my SP3 was, but it's really disappointing and I don't feel like I can leave home without the charger, even for a day.

This computer feels both very refined and well-built and half-baked at the same time. As I've said before, the only thing it has over others, and the only reason to consider it over others (or at all) is the keyboard and TrackPoint, and even those are poorly implemented here. I knew Lenovo was getting worse, but this computer shows me just how much.

[Jakob P]

Now that Gen 2 AMD machines are coming out, it's worth noting that Lenovo hasn't managed to fix the abysmal power consumption for T14/P14s devices in sleep state - 1.26 W for Windows ("S0ix" sleep) and 1.7 W for Linux ("S3" sleep, supposed to be deeper sleep) as per the long-running forum thread: forums.lenovo.com/topic/findpost/27/5037674/5360771

This seems to affect also T14s and X13 devices, and is kind of a deal-breaker given that one would not expect laptops to die in sleep mode in less than two days. When you're testing Gen 2 devices, please pay special attention to this issue as it's kind of a deal-breaker for many people. Especially since Lenovo's Intel devices or HP's AMD devices both manage power consumption below 500 mW.

[vertigo]

Anyone considering the Gen 2 devices should take heed to the fact that there are still many issues with the first gen ones. Even after a clean reinstall, after a few weeks I once again started experiencing many of the same glitches/bugs mentioned in my earlier post. Also, I use my laptop at work most days on an intermittent basis, which generally involves use for a few minutes here and there and occasionally for around half an hour to an hour, and in between it sits with the lid closed, sometimes idling, sometimes I put it to sleep. So a good mix of use, but ultimately extremely light and for limited amounts of time, yet it's not uncommon to have to plug it in partway through the day. In other words, it'll drop 50-60% in a matter of ~5-8 hours off the charger, where it's only being actively used for maybe a few hours and the rest of the time it's ~50/50 between idling and sleeping. Just completely unacceptable.

Another issue I've been having is that when I go to use it, sometimes just opening the lid is enough to wake it, sometimes I have to press the power button, and sometimes even then it just flashes the power button light, which I assume is its way of saying I need to press the power button to wake it. The problem with that is two-fold: one, it clearly is awake enough to register that I'm trying to use it and recognizes that fact, but instead of just waking and letting me use it, it stubbornly insists I press the power button first, as if just to be difficult; and two, it will often take multiple presses of the power button before it will actually wake up, which is just another glitch that fits right in with all the rest. I really hate this laptop and look forward to replacing it with one that actually works properly. If only I could find one that does without having a keyboard designed by somebody who apparently never types.

[gailthesnail]

Anyone considering the Gen 2 devices should take heed to the fact that there are still many issues with the first gen ones. Even after a clean reinstall, after a few weeks I once again started experiencing many of the same glitches/bugs mentioned in my earlier post. Also, I use my laptop at work most days on an intermittent basis, which generally involves use for a few minutes here and there and occasionally for around half an hour to an hour, and in between it sits with the lid closed, sometimes idling, sometimes I put it to sleep. So a good mix of use, but ultimately extremely light and for limited amounts of time, yet it's not uncommon to have to plug it in partway through the day. In other words, it'll drop 50-60% in a matter of ~5-8 hours off the charger, where it's only being actively used for maybe a few hours and the rest of the time it's ~50/50 between idling and sleeping. Just completely unacceptable.

Another issue I've been having is that when I go to use it, sometimes just opening the lid is enough to wake it, sometimes I have to press the power button, and sometimes even then it just flashes the power button light, which I assume is its way of saying I need to press the power button to wake it. The problem with that is two-fold: one, it clearly is awake enough to register that I'm trying to use it and recognizes that fact, but instead of just waking and letting me use it, it stubbornly insists I press the power button first, as if just to be difficult; and two, it will often take multiple presses of the power button before it will actually wake up, which is just another glitch that fits right in with all the rest. I really hate this laptop and look forward to replacing it with one that actually works properly. If only I could find one that does without having a keyboard designed by somebody who apparently never types.

yeah i agree with all of this. Some other things I would add are inconsistent USB performance and mine just restarts every time i wake it from sleep. lenovo has never cared to fix this as far as i know. performance in virtualbox also wasnt great since VMs seem to work better on intel. but overall the performance is great and a huge step up for AMD.

[jasor]

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[NikoB]

All the shortcomings you described have long been known to Thinkpad owners.

By the way, the keyboards of the current Thinkpad series tactilely suck compared to the keyboards of models 12-13 years ago, and this is an indisputable fact.

Brightness control in BIOS worked in Thinkpad 2010,

As for the backlighting of the keys - compare how it is perfectly done in the Dell G5 5587 - the keyboard backlighting is configured in the BIOS with any timer (in time) to turn off. How the screen brightness is controlled in the BIOS. When waking up from sleep, the backlight remembers its brightness, whether it is on or not, and the sleep timer.
You can turn on the backlight when the touchpad is OFF by touching the touchpad in the dark! This is ideal for turning on the backlight without touching the keyboard itself. In addition, the backlight itself shines perfectly - there is practically no light from under the keys. But all this is negated by the terrible quality of the Dell G series keyboard itself - terrible tactile response and long-term reliability.

What is stopping Lenovo from doing the same to control the backlight in the BIOS and in the OS application? Apparently there is a lack of qualified designers in the company. Those designers who currently work in the company clearly have low qualifications in workplace ergonomics. Yes, in fact, in the location of the ports, the quality of the keyboard and everything else. This actually creates the status of the company for those who buy equipment.

I personally no longer feel the desire to buy a Thinkpad T series, although I have had plenty of options to buy them in recent years. But nevertheless, Lenovo still remains close to the top of sales, which means there are those who should buy them. How long? Time will tell...

[Amine]

All the shortcomings you described have long been known to Thinkpad owners.

By the way, the keyboards of the current Thinkpad series tactilely suck compared to the keyboards of models 12-13 years ago, and this is an indisputable fact.

Brightness control in BIOS worked in Thinkpad 2010,

As for the backlighting of the keys - compare how it is perfectly done in the Dell G5 5587 - the keyboard backlighting is configured in the BIOS with any timer (in time) to turn off. How the screen brightness is controlled in the BIOS. When waking up from sleep, the backlight remembers its brightness, whether it is on or not, and the sleep timer.
You can turn on the backlight when the touchpad is OFF by touching the touchpad in the dark! This is ideal for turning on the backlight without touching the keyboard itself. In addition, the backlight itself shines perfectly - there is practically no light from under the keys. But all this is negated by the terrible quality of the Dell G series keyboard itself - terrible tactile response and long-term reliability.

What is stopping Lenovo from doing the same to control the backlight in the BIOS and in the OS application? Apparently there is a lack of qualified designers in the company. Those designers who currently work in the company clearly have low qualifications in workplace ergonomics. Yes, in fact, in the location of the ports, the quality of the keyboard and everything else. This actually creates the status of the company for those who buy equipment.

I personally no longer feel the desire to buy a Thinkpad T series, although I have had plenty of options to buy them in recent years. But nevertheless, Lenovo still remains close to the top of sales, which means there are those who should buy them. How long? Time will tell...

Hi NikoB,
I see you commenting in almost every laptop I consider,
Can you please suggest some models for me,
I need a budget laptop for programming and some light gaming so i prefer rayzen with a good keyboard and at least 14" screen, and portable too as I'm a student.
I'm considering thinkpad E14 gen 3 ryzen 5 5500u with 16gb ram. What do you think?
Thanks in advance.