Lenovo ThinkPad T14 review – the Zen 2 PRO processors are making it a tempting purchase

So, we’ve already reviewed the ThinkPad T14’s bigger brother – the T15, and it wasn’t as much of a “new” model as we’ve wanted it to be. However, the unit we’re reviewing today has something in its pocket that might just make the difference. What is it? AMD Ryzen Pro CPUs.

In addition to being the monstrous 6 and 8-core powerhouses, they have their own security features which will come in handy with the business nature of the product.

Indeed, this laptop comes also with a handful of Intel CPU options, but in terms of performance, we are pretty confident that the Ryzen 5 Pro 4650U and the Ryzen 7 Pro 4750U will blow them away without breaking a sweat.

However, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, because this laptop offers a little bit more than just power.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/lenovo-thinkpad-t14-gen-1-amd/

Contents


Specs Sheet

Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 1 (AMD) - Espec

  • AUO B140HAN05.7
  • Precisión del color  5.4  1.2
  • HDD/SSD
  • hasta 8000GB SSD
  • Ranura M.2
  • 1x 2280 PCIe NVMe 3.0 x4  Ver foto
  • RAM
  • up to 48GB
  • OS
  • Windows 10 Pro, Windows 11 Pro, Windows 10 Home, Windows 11 Home
  • Batería
  • 50Wh, 3-cell
  • Material del cuerpo
  • Plastic / Polycarbonate, Aluminum, Glass Fiber, Magnesium alloy
  • Dimensiones
  • 329 x 227 x 17.9 mm (12.95" x 8.94" x 0.70")
  • Peso
  • 1.46 kg (3.2 lbs)
  • Puertos y conectividad
  • 2x USB Type-A
  • 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps)
  • 2x USB Type-C
  • 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps)
  • HDMI
  • 2.0
  • Lector de tarjetas
  • MicroSD
  • Ethernet LAN
  • 10, 100, 1000 Mbit/s
  • Wi-Fi
  • 802.11ax
  • Bluetooth
  • 5.1
  • Conector de audio
  • 3.5 mm combo
  • Features
  • Lector de huellas dactilares
  • optional
  • Cámara web
  • HD and IR
  • Teclado retroiluminado
  • optional
  • Micrófono
  • 2x Far Field Microphones
  • Altavoces
  • Dolby Atmos Speakers
  • Unidad óptica

Todo Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 1 (AMD) configuraciones

#CommissionsEarned

What’s in the box?

This notebook comes with the mandatory paper manuals and a 65W USB Type-C charger.


Design and construction

Design-wise, the ThinkPad T14 is hardly any different from the ThinkPad T490 – its spiritual predecessor. However, the interesting choice of build materials makes the laptop significantly more premium than it looks. We are talking about a plastic/glass fiber infusion for the lid and the base, and magnesium alloy for the base. Additionally, the weight ranges from 1.46 kg to 1.55 kg, depending on the model, and its profile stands at 17.9mm.

Sadly, the lid on our unit was impossible to open with a single hand. However, we are impressed by what we saw underneath. Even though the top bezel is pretty thick, it houses an HD camera with an optional IR face recognition system and a ThinkShutter.

Next, let’s take a look at the base. From top to bottom, we see the speaker grill and the Power button. Then, there is the spill-resistant, backlit keyboard, which by the way is excellent for typing with its long key travel and clicky feedback.

Lastly, there is the touchpad, which shares a set of buttons with the “Nipple”. In terms of comfortability, the touchpad itself is fine, but the gliding could have been better. Additionally, there is a fingerprint reader, which is pretty nimble and accurate.

Switch the laptop upside down, and you’ll see only the ventilation grill. As the laptop draws cool air through the bottom panel, it exhausts the hot air through the right side.

Ports

On the left side of the notebook, you’ll see a USB Type-C 3.2 (Gen. 2) port, used for charging and DisplayPort 1.4 output, as well as a docking connector and another USB Type-C 3.2 (Gen. 2) port, that has the same functionality as the first one.


Disassembly, upgrade options and maintenance

So, this device has only 6 Phillips-head screws holding its bottom panel into place. But even though you’ve undone them, you are not quite ready to pry the panel off. Instead, you would want to unplug the SIM card tray. After that, carefully work your way around the laptop with a plastic tool. Still, on the left side, there is a USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 1) port, an HDMI 2.0 connector, an audio jack, and a MicroSD card reader. Then, on the right, you will see an RJ-45 connector, followed by another USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 2) port and a Smart card reader. Let’s not forget that there is a SIM card tray on the back of the machine.

Inside, we see a cooling solution that comprises two heat pipes and a medium-sized fan.

How about memory? Well, it has 8 or 16GB of memory soldered to the motherboard, and there is a single SODIMM slot for memory expansion up to 32GB in total. Its frequency is 3200MHz. In terms of storage, there is one M.2 PCIe x4 drive slot.

Lastly, the battery capacity is 50Wh.


Display quality

Lenovo ThinkPad T14 has a Full HD display, model number AUO B140HAN05.7 (LEN40A9). Its diagonal is 14″ (35.56 cm), and the resolution – 1920 х 1080. Additionally, the screen ratio is 16:9, the pixel density – 157 ppi, their pitch – 0.161 x 0.161 mm. The screen can be considered Retina when viewed from at least 56 cm (from this distance, the average human eye can’t see the individual pixels).

Its viewing angles are great. We have provided images at 45 degrees to evaluate quality.

The maximum measured brightness is 380 nits (cd/m2) in the middle of the screen and 384 nits (cd/m2) average across the surface with a maximum deviation of 9%. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen and at maximum brightness is 7070K (average) – colder than the 6500K optimum for sRGB.
In the illustration below you can see how the display performs from a uniformity perspective.
Values of dE2000 over 4.0 should not occur, and this parameter is one of the first you should check if you intend to use the laptop for color-sensitive work (a maximum tolerance of 2.0 ). The contrast ratio is very good – 1690:1.

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction to the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people in HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors, etc for printing. Colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is an essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

The yellow dotted line shows Lenovo ThinkPad T14’s color gamut coverage.

Its display covers 95% of the sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976.

Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 cd/m2 luminance and sRGB gamma mode.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange, etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

Below you can compare the scores of Lenovo ThinkPad T14 with the default settings (left), and with the “Gaming and Web design” profile (right).

The next figure shows how well the display can reproduce dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle, and the surrounding light conditions.

Response time (Gaming capabilities)

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and vice versa.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 29 ms


Health impact – PWM / Blue Light

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

Lenovo ThinkPad T14’s display doesn’t flicker at any brightness level. This makes it comfortable for use during long work periods, without harming your eyes in the process in this aspect.

Blue light emissions

Installing our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin, and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

Conclusions

Lenovo ThinkPad T14’s display has an IPS panel with a Full HD resolution, good contrast ratio, and comfortable viewing angles. Not only that, but it covers 95% of the sRGB color gamut, and with the help of our Gaming and Web design, the laptop can be used for color-sensitive work, thanks to the Average dE value of <2.0. And thankfully, the panel doesn’t flicker at any brightness level, rendering it safe for use.

Buy our profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for Lenovo ThinkPad T14 configurations with 14.0″ AUO B140HAN05.7 (LEN40A9) (FHD, 1920 × 1080) IPS panel.

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at [email protected].

Read more about the profiles HERE.

Además de recibir perfiles eficientes y respetuosos con la salud, al comprar los productos de LaptopMedia también apoyas el desarrollo de nuestros laboratorios, donde probamos los dispositivos para elaborar las reseñas más objetivas posibles.

Trabajo de oficina

El perfil Trabajo de Oficina debería ser utilizado sobre todo por usuarios que pasan la mayor parte del tiempo mirando trozos de texto, tablas o simplemente navegando. Este perfil pretende ofrecer una mayor nitidez y claridad manteniendo una curva de gamma plana (2,20), una temperatura de color nativa y colores perceptualmente precisos.

Diseño y juego

Este perfil está dirigido a los diseñadores que trabajan con los colores de forma profesional, y también para juegos y películas. Design and Gaming lleva a los paneles de visualización a sus límites, haciéndolos tan precisos como sea posible en el estándar sRGB IEC61966-2-1 para Web y HDTV, en el punto blanco D65.

Salud-Guardia

Salud-Guardia elimina la perjudicial Modulación de Ancho de Pulso (PWM) y reduce la luz azul negativa que afecta a nuestros ojos y a nuestro cuerpo. Al estar adaptado a cada panel, consigue mantener los colores perceptivamente precisos. Salud-Guardia simula el papel, por lo que la presión sobre los ojos se reduce considerablemente.

Consigue los 3 perfiles con un 33% de descuento


Sound

Lenovo ThinkPad T14’s speakers produce a decent, crisp sound. Moreover, its low, mid, and high tones are clear of deviations.


Drivers

All of the drivers and utilities can be downloaded from here: https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/us/en/products/laptops-and-netbooks/thinkpad-t-series-laptops/thinkpad-t14-type-20ud-20ue/downloads/driver-list

Battery

Now, we conduct the battery tests with Windows Better performance setting turned on, screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits, and all other programs turned off except for the one we are testing the notebook with. Lenovo ThinkPad T14’s 50Wh battery was able to last for 11 hours and 40 minutes of Web browsing and 12 hours and 47 minutes of video playback.

Para simular las condiciones de la vida real, utilizamos nuestro propio script de navegación automática por más de 70 sitios web.


CPU options

This notebook comes with the AMD Ryzen Pro series processors. This includes the Ryzen 5 4650U (6c/12t) and the Ryzen 7 4750U (8c/16t).


GPU options

And in terms of graphics, there are the surprisingly powerful Radeon RX Vega 6 and RX Vega 7.


Gaming tests

cs-go-benchmarks

CS:GOHD 1080p, Low (Check settings)HD 1080p, Medium (Check settings)HD 1080p, MAX (Check settings)
Average FPS52 fps36 fps24 fps

DOTA 2HD 1080p, Low (Check settings)HD 1080p, Normal (Check settings)HD 1080p, High (Check settings)
Average FPS68 fps37 fps21 fps

Temperatures and comfort

Max CPU load

In this test we use 100% on the CPU cores, monitoring their frequencies and chip temperature. The first column shows a computer’s reaction to a short load (2-10 seconds), the second column simulates a serious task (between 15 and 30 seconds), and the third column is a good indicator of how good the laptop is for long loads such as video rendering.

Average core frequency (base frequency + X); CPU temp.

AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 4650U (15W TDP)0:02 – 0:10 sec0:15 – 0:30 sec10:00 – 15:00 min
Lenovo ThinkPad T142.84 GHz (B+35%) @ 62°C2.73 GHz (B+30%) @ 72°C2.68 GHz (B+28%) @ 92°C

Although the laptop finishes at a very high temperature, it is able to maintain a reasonably high clock speed, which is pretty good for a ULV processor. Ultimately, it worked at 25W initially and dropped to 23W for the remainder of the torture test.

Comfort during full load

Although the notebook remains relatively quiet under heavy load, its keyboard deck heats up to around 49C in its middle part, which is deep into warm territories.


Verdict

Now that the new Zen 2 PRO CPUs have been released, there is a huge deal of hardware security sewn into the pure performance. We are talking about features like the AMD Memory Guard and the AMD Secure Processor, both of which greatly reduce the vulnerabilities of data leaks, by encrypting the memory, as well as providing additional security in terms of storage and processing.

If you combine all of this with the optional fingerprint scanner and IR face recognition, and all of Lenovo’s proprietary security features and its own Vantage system, you get a very solid business notebook. Not only that, but it can hold up to 32GB of DDR4 memory in total, as well as superfast M.2 PCIe x4 drives, and it has a docking connector, Wi-Fi 6 support, and an Ethernet port for wired connections.

Lenovo ThinkPad T14’s display has an IPS panel (AUO B140HAN05.7) with a Full HD resolution, good contrast ratio, and comfortable viewing angles. Not only that, but it covers 95% of the sRGB color gamut, and with the help of our Gaming and Web design, the laptop can be used for color-sensitive work, thanks to the Average dE value of <2.0. And thankfully, the panel doesn’t flicker at any brightness level, rendering it safe for use.

Additionally, you get a great performance out of the Ryzen 5 4650U and its bigger brother – the Ryzen 7 4750U, with the latter outperforming the Core i7-10750H in some productivity tasks.

And all of that, comes with great efficiency, with the laptop delivering around 11 hours and a half of Web browsing and one hour more of HD video playback. If we have to be honest, we can write all day about the great features of this notebook, including the premium materials of build, great keyboard, and so on, but some things were a bit frustrating. For instance, there is the lack of Thunderbolt support. Although it happens to have two USB Type-C 3.2 (Gen. 2) ports, there is just no Thunderbolt capability, and in our opinion, the main reason for that is… Intel. By the way, the GPU performance of this notebook happened to be a little bit underwhelming, given the fact that we know the capabilities of the Radeon RX Vega 6.

Also, the laptop gets pretty warm under heavy load, but frankly, if you are not pushing it to its limits all the time, the ThinkPad T14 will remain rather cool and very quiet. So yes, this notebook is definitely a purchase worth being considered.

Pros

  • Magnesium and glass fiber are all part of the build
  • Covers 95% of sRGB colors (AUO B140HAN05.7)
  • Very high color accuracy when Gaming and Web design profile is installed (AUO B140HAN05.7)
  • 12 hours of battery
  • The spill-resistant keyboard that is great for typing
  • Wi-Fi 6 and LTE support plus optional fingerprint reader and IR face recognition systems
  • Superfast AMD Ryzen PRO CPUs, and is able to maintain a relatively high clock speed under heavy load.
  • Well-populated I/O
  • PWM-free for all brightness levels (AUO B140HAN05.7)


Cons

  • Lacks a Thunderbolt 3 port
  • Unsatisfactory iGPU performance
  • The high frequencies in the long torture test resulted in quite hot CPU and warm externals

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/lenovo-thinkpad-t14-gen-1-amd/

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Donald Carr
Donald Carr
3 años hace

Great review, got one of these in the mail

Josh
Josh
3 años hace

Are these photos from the 4650u or 4750u? Can’t seem to find any photos of the internals of the Ryzen 5 model, and wondering if it has 2 heatpipes like the 7.

Aleksandar Marinov
Aleksandar Marinov
3 años hace

Guys, does anyone else notice the weak lid cover? Mine is very flexible and the display cracked from very little pressure. Definitely needs at least some thin metal sheet between the display and the lid cover to protect from accidental pressure.

Martin
Martin
3 años hace

The low iGPU performance is probably due to single-channel RAM. To reach full dual-channel potential a second SO-DIMM (16GB DDR4-3200) needs to be installed. This has been confirmed by many reviewers and users.